A Prayer to Prepare for Easter
This is a guest post from my good friend and colleague Dr. Randy Millwood, Church Services Consultant for the Maryland/Delaware Baptist Convention, FBC Frederick member, and best Real-Beard Santa Claus in the world. He wrote it as an email to the ministers of BCMD for Maundy Thursday, but it speaks to our situation on this Holy Weekend and so I offer it to you, with the necessary alterations, to help you in your preparation for Resurrection Day. In the Christian calendar, the Thursday of Holy Week is...
A Maundy Thursday Prayer (Psalm 88)
Despair is difficult when the Resurrection hovers nearby. For two millennia the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection have been told and retold, celebrated and feted. Everyone knows how the story ends. It doesn’t end with “It is finished.” Rather, with “”Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but has been raised.” It’s difficult, therefore, to read the Passion–the betrayal, the arrest, the beating, the mocking, the...
The Relevant Temptation
The other day our son Austin asked Pam and me if we had ever gone through anything like the COVID-19 pandemic before. The answer, of course, was no. These are unprecedented times. People are fearful, anxious. Angry. Some are complacent. Some are in denial. We are isolating ourselves from each other. If ever we needed a word from God, it is now. As one who weekly speaks to people about God, on behalf of God, and maybe, every once in awhile, delivers a word from God, I feel the weight of that need to hear...
You Don’t Learn Wisdom From a Book Like Proverbs
Let’s talk about the Book of Proverbs. Hey, wait, where are you going? Get back here! Sheesh, hear me out for a second. I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but hang on, I’m gonna bring on the excitement in a minute. Well, no, probably not, but hang with me for a second anyway. The Book of Proverbs has been called “God’s Instruction Book for Life,” which sounds awesome. Not content with that pithy title, another person said, “Proverbs is actually a book of instructions on how to live a life pleasing...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Sep 13, 2016 | 5 comments
My dad was pretty hard on me growing up. No matter what I did, he wanted me to do it better, especially in school. If I got a B on a test, he wanted me to get an A, and told me so. If I brought home an A, he wanted an A+. If I answered 49 out of 50 questions correctly and got an A+, he’d want to know why I missed that one question. And if I got a 100, that was just proof that I could do it and he’d expect...
A Perfect Brutality
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Sep 7, 2016 | 0 comments
“Nature abhors a vacuum.” Or so we’ve been told. I read somewhere recently—I honestly can’t remember where—that some physicists or astronomists or quantum theorists or some other kind of -ists are questioning the foundation of that very firm law of the universe. But I don’t understand much of what I read by those people. I understand this though: nature sure seems to abhor sameness. Think about it: back...
Why God Hates Sameness
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 31, 2016 | 0 comments
In a previous post, “The Serpent Didn’t Lie About Death,” I asserted that the true consequence of The Fall in Genesis 3 was not dying, which is actually a very natural part of life, but something much worse—the loss of our humanity. If this is so—and I really believe it is—then it has major ramifications for our understanding of the Gospel. It alters our entire understanding of sin and its consequences,...
Death Isn’t Always A...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 22, 2016 | 0 comments
Message by Larry L. Eubanks, First Baptist Church of Frederick, Maryland. August 21, 2016 Last week we saw the power of water down in Baton Rouge. I watched a video of a woman and her dog being rescued from her car. Did you see it? She’s trapped in a convertible with the top up and rescuers in a boat are trying to break the windows before the car sinks, but they can’t. One of them is able to get an...
Death By Baptism
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 18, 2016 | 4 comments
Humans have a natural fear of death, but that fear has caused us to miss the true lie of the serpent in Genesis 3. In the story Adam and Eve are told that they can eat of any tree in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen. 2:17) The serpent comes to Eve and tells her, “You will not die.” That’s not the lie. I’ve...
The Serpent Didn’t L...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 15, 2016 | 0 comments
Message given by Larry Eubanks, August 14,2016, First Baptist Church of Frederick, Maryland While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured...
What Is Communion All Abou...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 11, 2016 | 0 comments
Yes, you can do the opposite of what Jesus says and claim to be perfectly biblical, quoting chapter and verse, and do so without violating the integrity of the passage you are quoting. That’s because in the Old Testament, there is an argument going on. In ancient Israelite religion, there are two paths that people could go by. One path seeks to re-establish the good old days. This path says that better...
How to Not Follow Jesus an...
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I am a lifelong student of the Bible, and have been a pastor for over twenty-five years. My desire through this blog is to help people see things in the intersection of Scripture and real life that they might have missed. The careless handling of the Bible is causing a lot of problems in our churches and our culture--and is literally turning people away from the church, and, sometimes, God. I hope to treat Scripture with the respect it deserves, and, even if you don't agree with what I say, give you some insight.
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