This is part 2 of the old covenant Q&A asked via text messages following my March 1st sermon: (You can read Part 1 here) Q: Why did the Council at Jerusalem (in Acts 15) choose a few commands from the law that Gentile believers had to follow? Do those laws still apply to us & […]
Part 1 Q&A on how we are to understand the laws of the Old Testament
This past Sunday, my sermon was about the old covenant the Israelites made with God in Exodus 19-24. I asked for people to text in questions they had throughout the sermon and I attempted to answer them at the end of the teaching. Due to time restraints, we only got through two questions, so I […]
Richard Dawkins: God commanding Wars, Genocides, Infant Killing???
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion […]
11/1 Creationism Origin Summit @MSU: Christians wrong in so many ways
Some Christian friends of mine are PhD students in one of Michigan State University’s science departments. They recently told me about the stir the November 1st Origin Summit is causing among their colleagues and about their tension in how to respond. The Origin Summit is a one day conference being held at MSU arguing for […]
2 Unexpected Ways Believing in Hell has Reinvigorated my Faith
I grew up in a church tradition that really emphasized hell as a motivation for accepting Christ’s forgiveness of our sins. In fact, my own salvation decision as a young child was highly motivated by this. I no longer see overemphasis on hell (often an exclusive emphasis) as biblical or effective in bringing true heart […]
What to do with Jeremiah 29:11 and the rest of the Old Testament
My post yesterday about how Jeremiah 29:11 is not a promise to us and needs to understood within its original context raised some good questions relating to the Old Testament and how we are to navigate which promises in the Bible are for us, and what to do with the ones that aren’t. I went […]