Real (Not Ideal) Church

Thirty-three years ago, Pam and I were newly engaged and getting ready for our June wedding when the warnings started coming in. Warnings about marriage. The warnings were disguised as wisdom from those who had successfully navigated the matrimonial waters for many, many years, but they were warnings...

The Grace of Remembering No More

When there’s a fuss over what to name a baby, something is going on. In Matthew 1, while Zechariah was serving his priestly rotation at the Temple, the angel Gabriel appears and announces that, in spite of their advanced years, they will have a baby boy, and Gabriel is very clear about his name. “You will...

Selective Repentance

“You can’t just pick and choose which things the Bible calls sin. You either accept what the Bible calls sin or you don’t; you don’t get to pick and choose.” I seem to be reading this a lot, usually in “discussions” about homosexuality. Now let me state up front that this really isn’t intended to be an...

There’s Sinners and There’s SINNERS.

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...

Forgiveness and Repentance: Which Leads to Which?

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....

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