Not long ago I wrote a post about how holiness doctrine is much more about what He is able to accomplish than what we are able to accomplish. I wrote that in Jesus’ command (and we find the command elsewhere in scripture as well) to “be...
My personal faith and philosophy of Higher Christian Education
Liturgy and public prayer is a huge part of modern day Judaism. Of all the formulas and prayers that are recited each day, the Shema is recited the most. The Shema is from Deuteronomy 6:4, which says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God the...
At first blush, the Synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, and Luke) are so different from the gospel according to John. Two of the three Synoptics start with the genealogy of Jesus (Matt and Luke). Mark jumps right into the story with John’s ministry...
Dr. Brent Sleasman preached a great message in EBS chapel today. He talked about how Jesus turned human culture on its head by challenging the social protocol of reciprocity. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus not only changes the Mosaic law (as the...
The placement of Isaiah 6 is a tough nut to crack. Why is the call of the prophet not in chapter 1 but in chapter 6? The question is whether this is chronological placement or thematic placement. That is, does the call of Isaiah come after the...
When visiting churches in the US I notice that lots of pastors and preachers have exchanged the eternal truth of the Gospel for mere psychology and sociology. Rather recently I visited a large protestant evangelical church of a denomination for...
I had an interesting discipleship opportunity that came up yesterday here at EBS in Haiti. To make a long story short (by the way, discipleship opportunities often time come out of complex circumstances), there was a miscommunication between...
Why did God let Pharaoh think that he was in control? This is one of those parts of the Exodus account that intrigues me. Certainly God could have freed Israel in one fell swoop. Are all those plagues really necessary? If it was the death of the...
God meets our needs to prepare us for greater things. Often times we make the mistake of thinking that God meets our needs for our purposes. He certainly meets our needs because he love us, but his meeting of human needs is never the end game...