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 Apr 9, 2014 | 1 comment
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post The book of Judges established the pattern of sin-judgment-repentance-forgiveness, but the fact that it was a pattern showed that it wasn’t effective in turning the hearts of Israel permanently to the Lord. God abandoned this pattern with the Babylonian Exile by refusing to withhold judgment even if Israel repented. The old model of repentance leading to forgiveness...
There’s Sinners and ...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Apr 8, 2014 | 0 comments
If everybody truly believes the misleading saying, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” why is there so much hating of sinners going around? It seems to be popular among some these days to divide sinners into two categories, those who are eligible to worship God and fellowship with us, and those who aren’t. Those who are eligible we gladly welcome into our worshiping fellowship. “Hi! How are you! Have a seat...
Forgiveness and Repentance...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Mar 27, 2014 | 0 comments
About fifteen years ago, in response to several requests, I decided to lead a study on the book of Revelation for my Wednesday night Pastor’s Bible Study. It’s a formidable task, as you might imagine. There is perhaps no other book in the Bible that confounds people more than the Apocalypse of John, as it is also known. This is not just because it is of the type of ancient literature called apocalyptic,...
Reading Scripture in One S...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Mar 20, 2014 | 1 comment
One of the hallmarks of Western civilization and the Enlightenment worldview is individualism, the recognition that each individual is a person of value and worth and “has certain inalienable rights.” Individualism actually has its roots in Christianity; that God numbers the hairs on our heads, that he leaves the ninety-nine sheep to search for the lone lost one, that he doesn’t want any to perish but all...
Individualism and the Curs...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Mar 13, 2014 | 1 comment
Waiting for the Lord, as Isaiah 40:31 tells us to do, is difficult because the Lord doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Consider that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years before the Lord sent a deliverer (Moses), and that the conditions of the Exile lasted over 500 years before he sent the Messiah, and that Christians have been waiting over 2,000 years for the return of Christ and...
Impatience and Idolatry
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Mar 7, 2014 | 0 comments
Nobody—not children, not adults, nobody—likes to be told to wait. “Wait” means there is something you want, and you want it now, but you aren’t going to get it now. You never have to be told to wait for something you don’t want or need. “I’m going to question your integrity and impugn your character, but not right now; you are just going to have to wait.” No, there is usually an element of...
Waiting for the Lord Requi...
Posted by Larry Eubanks on Feb 25, 2014 | 0 comments
In the gospel of John, Jesus is portrayed as the Lamb of God, a sacrifice offered up by God to deliver his people from slavery to sin. According to Hebrews, this was the last sacrifice needed, for this Lamb’s death purified and sanctified once and for all. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God,’ and since then has been waiting ‘until...
The Last Lamb
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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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