This blog is Pastor Jay's weekly musings about God's Word, God's world, and God's call to our culture. We hope they encourage, challenge, and inform you. Sign up to recieve them in your email.
Some books seem to come a couple of decades too late. This is one of those book for me. What a help this would have been to me when I was a teenager. And I wasn't even a particularly rebellious teen. Yet, the areas and issues that this book covers are so common for every teen, there will be loads of help for all. But to be honest, anger is not just a teen problem. It is ...
Keep ReadingI was encouraged to listen to a podcast the other day. The title of the episode was You Need More Than God. Provocative, to say the least. What made this challenging was that these speakers were making a biblical case for this argument. The argument was thought-provoking and caused me to wrestle with the premise for weeks. Let me frame up the case they were making. The ...
Keep ReadingHebrews chapter 11 is one of the most famous and treasured portions of Scripture. While there is so much that can be mined from this chapter, I want to give you a few of the major features that will get you well-situated for diving into it yourself. First, chapter eleven is not about faithin general. It is about a certain feature of faith. Chapter eleven is about the fa...
Keep ReadingSometimes when we are really feeling righteous, there are certain statements that roll off our tongue and smash down on those whom we are confronting about sin. One of those statements is that God is more interested in our holiness than our happiness. We poke them in the eye with this statement, hoping to make them see that if they are going to know and follow God, then ...
Keep ReadingThere is a special literary device in Hebrew scripture that you find occasionally, especially in the poetry passages. This device is called a Chiasm. Since the writers didn't have a way to put things in bold or italics, this was a devise to highlight and emphasize. To understand how this devise works, think of it as a literary pyramid. You have several statements or word...
Keep ReadingLast Sunday I preached through the Ephesians 6 passage detailing the relationship between children and parents. The commands are clear. Children are to obey and honor. Parents are to discipline and instruct. These were things that were filled out in the sermon. However, there is one point I did not fill out properly. I would like to correct that in this blog. It has to ...
Keep ReadingLast month I posted a blog about the surprising depth of foolishness there is in being wise in one's own eyes. We saw this in an astonishing way in Proverbs 26. In that chapter, Solomon relentlessly rubs our nose in the foolishness of the fool. Could there be anything worse than being a fool or even being around a fool? Verse 12 was the shocking answer. Yes, there is som...
Keep ReadingJust asking this question is almost blasphemous in our culture. Today's culture says that dreams are what empower you, animate you, and are the reason to get out of bed in the morning. Not having dreams for your life is considered the only real problem. Since the church is notorious at absorbing current culture, but with a 5-10 year delay, it therefore says the same thin...
Keep ReadingPop quiz: If you could have anything you want right now, what would it be? Don't think about it. Answer immediately with whatever is your most responsive desire. Do you have it mind? Now let's test how worldly you are. I want to try to lay out some categories of possible answers. First, the materialistic answer. If you are wanting things and stuff then you are shot thro...
Keep ReadingUnintended consequences. That is what you call those events which, after certain choices, come like a bolt from the blue. You don't expect them, because the consequence seems unrelated to the original action. Slap a Gorilla, and you will get torn into like a bag of Doritos. That is not an unintended consequence because you can basically see that coming. But if you get ...
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