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 Aug 9, 2016 | 0 comments
I am strongly considering teaching the book of Revelation in the Fall in my Wednesday night Bible study. There’s a big part of me that wants to do it because I know that people have difficulty reading and understanding that admittedly strange book. Once you get past the seven letters to the seven churches, things get…weird. So people tend to stop reading it. Then they either never think about...
Reading Apocalyptic Withou...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 4, 2016 | 0 comments
While some Christians are advocating the persecution of Muslims, something notable occurred in May in Indonesia: Muslims coming to the defense of persecuted Christians. As reported in Christianity Today and CNN, 300 hundred Islamic leaders from 30 countries came together to denounce religious extremism within Islam which has led not only to violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims but also to the...
When Muslims Defend Christ...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Aug 2, 2016 | 0 comments
There is a bizarre story in the Old Testament—which is saying something, because there are a lot of bizarre stories in the Old Testament. Bizarre to us anyway. They probably made perfect sense to the people of the day. In Numbers 21 the people of Israel are in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, and they complain against Moses and God because there is no water. And no real food. There’s only...
Worshiping the Dragons of ...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jul 28, 2016 | 2 comments
Between Egypt and the Promised Land there was wilderness, and the direct route between them was also the shortest route. This northern route near the Mediterranean Sea was also the route to take if you needed to eat off the land and have fresh water to drink. But that’s not the route God led the Israelites to take. Instead, he had them take a right turn and head south toward a dry, mountainous region that...
How to Pass the Wilderness...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jul 26, 2016 | 0 comments
A new law took effect on July 3 in Virginia which made it illegal for a 13-year-old girl to get married. It applied to 13-year-old boys as well, but the reasons that the law was needed was mainly because of the exploitation of girls. According to a Washington Post report, from 2004 to 2013 more than 4,000 adolescents under 18 were married in Virginia, 90% of them girls, many of whom were married to men at...
Closing Loopholes to Prote...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jul 18, 2016 | 0 comments
1st in the series, “Religion, Rites & Rituals” First Baptist Church, Frederick, Maryland, July 17, 2016 “I’m interested in God, but not religion.” It’s a phrase we hear over and over again, but what does it even mean? Is religion simply something we created? A tool for controlling and dividing? Some believe so. Some even take it as far as to suggest that Jesus was against religion. They even propose...
What Makes Something Sacre...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jul 11, 2016 | 0 comments
Jesus summarized the entire Law in two statements: Love God with your entire being, and love others as if they were part of your entire being. Israel put the most effort into showing their love for God. That commandment came first, and it formed the core of their religious practice. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all...
The 1 Thing You Can do to ...
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Welcome!
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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