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 Jun 8, 2016 | 0 comments
Why is the book of Chronicles in the Bible? It was written after the book of Kings and covers much of the same material, from the end of Saul’s reign until the final destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. Chronicles tacks on at the very end that Cyrus the Great of Persia allowed the exiles to return to Jerusalem, but for the most part the two books cover the exact same period in Israel’s history....
The Surprising Reason Chro...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Jun 2, 2016 | 0 comments
There is an official chronicle of the Civil War called “The Official Records of the American Civil War.” It contains formal officer reports , prisoner lists, written orders, maps, diagrams, and correspondence, from both sides, as well as first-hand accounts. Some of it is interesting to read, and a lot of it is interesting in it’s own way (I love a good map—is that weird? Maybe I should have kept that to...
It’s Not History Wit...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on May 31, 2016 | 0 comments
Message given May 29, 2016 by Larry L. Eubanks “All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for “the earth and its fullness are the...
We Need a New (Testament) ...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on May 24, 2016 | 0 comments
I recently did an exercise with my Wednesday Bible class in which I gave them a few dozens verses of Scripture and asked them to mark each one according to whether it is applicable for us today as written, applicable but with some modification according to the underlying principle, or no longer applicable for us today. Here are just a few of the verses: You shall not let your animals breed with a...
How Do You Decide Which Bi...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on May 23, 2016 | 0 comments
1st in the series, “ChurchWorks.” Delivered May 22, 2016, First Baptist Church of Frederick, Maryland A Wedding Homily I’m going to let you in on a little trade secret: very few pastors write new messages for every wedding they do. They just reuse basically the same one over and over again. You’ve probably realized this if you’ve heard the same pastor do multiple weddings. They may modify it a bit for...
The Only Thing That Matter...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on May 17, 2016 | 1 comment
One of the basic laws of physics is that if you dress a child up for a special occasion—a wedding, a funeral, Easter Sunday, the opera, that kind of thing—as soon as you aren’t looking their clothes will no longer be clean. Dirt, slime, peanut butter, pizza grease, dog poop—all manner of nasty things will immediately attach themselves to their frilly dress or white shirt. (Why do they even bother making...
Transferring Clean
Posted by Larry Eubanks on May 16, 2016 | 0 comments
A message delivered on May 15, 2016 Comedian Louis C.K. who is known for his biting, acerbic and sarcastic humor, had a bit that he did on Conan O’Brien that in 2011 went viral on the internet and had over 4 million views. This is the funny part of the message, so you’re allowed to laugh. Everything’s amazing right now, but nobody’s happy. In my lifetime the changes in the world have been...
Everything is Amazing But ...
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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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