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Showing posts from December, 2013

That Disappointing Gift

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While the world and its Christians are clamoring over the controversy du jour*, I've decided to take a break, and a different tack. This will probably come as a disappointment to those who would rather spend their time engaging in culture wars.  But that's okay, because it's almost Christmas, and that feels like the perfect time to talk about disappointment. Christmas is a time for gifts, for giving and receiving them. This is as it should be. We do this in rememberance of the great gift that God gave to humanity on the night that Jesus Christ was born, or at least that was the original intent. Two thousand years later, the gift-giving has taken on a life of its own as part of our commercial culture and has left its roots in the dust. Which, I think, is a macro-reflection of our disappointment with God's gift to us. Think of all the effort and resources you have invested this Christmas season into making or purchasing just the right gift for the ones you love most

Experiencing God Meets Sola Scriptura*

 * " Sola Scriptura  (Latin ablative, 'by Scripture alone') is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness." -  Wikipedia “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” Luke 8:5-8 In my nearly 50 years of life, there has never been a time when I haven't identified in some way as a Christian: first as the nominal Lutheran I was brought up to be, then as a word-of-faith charismatic, then as a "regular" charismatic (during which time I attended an Assemblies of God college), then as a "backslider", then as a Calvary Chapel person, then as a "backslider" again. It wasn&#

Sola Scriptura or Sola Commentarium?

Sola Scriptura "is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness." -  Wikipedia    All of my life I have identified in one form or another as a Protestant.  During most of the years following my conversion at age 40, I identified myself as "reformed".  It was during those years that I first heard (or first remember hearing) the term Sola Scriptura .  It is one of five "Solas" that the youngish reformed folks are so fond of having tattooed on their wrists and arms and ankles. I don't need tattoos to identify myself with the Solas.  They are etched into my heart.  But, it was not always so.  Though I was never a fan of body ink, in my days of being Reformed™, the solas became a bit like tattoos to me - a superficial form of branding, a way of identifying with a certain group in distinction from other groups. For all of my lofty vaunting of  Sola Scriptura , I actually spent far, far less time reading and