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.
I want to attempt what feels like the near impossible with this post. We were talking about the freedom of the will in Sunday school and it became clear again that this is a sticky subject. There are multiple reasons for this, but I want to deal with the most problematic feature of it: confusing words. We know that communication is hard. It is even harder when there are t...
Keep ReadingOur theology breakfast book reading has been tackling the difficult issue of election and the various doctrines of grace. One of the issues that arises during these kinds of discussions is the matter of God's justice. How it is just for God to choose some and not others? How it is just for God to create so many people only to send most of them to Hell? How is it just for G...
Keep ReadingAs finite creatures made by an infinite Creator, paradoxes are something we have to come to grips with. Being an infinite God means you do thingsdifferently. In what way? I have no idea. Being finite excludes the possibility that I can understand what it is like to be infinite. It is like asking a Dixie cup what it feels like to hold the ocean. Therefore, we are told t...
Keep ReadingOne of those doctrines that is often debated among Christians is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. This doctrine states that those who are truly born again will have a faith that endures to the end. There is a reason that this doctrine is debated. That reason is we all know people who used to zealously profess faith in Christ, but then fell away completely,...
Keep ReadingI am typing this on a borrowed computer. Why? Because I think my work computer just got stolen. I am still hoping this is just some bad trick or that I set it down in some place so random that I still haven't found it. But with each passing minute and every memory of the morning, my hope is crashing like a virus-filled computer program. I really liked that computer. It w...
Keep ReadingI have a guaranteed way to gather a crowd. String up a wire between two buildings, and people will gather to watch you walk across. Easy enough. Staying on the wirethat is another matter. Add some wind, and a few rocks thrown by spectators, and you have a truly difficult task. Balance is not just for tightrope walkers. It is topic of discussion in many areas of life. Ba...
Keep ReadingSome things were just meant to be together: Captain Kirk and Spock, meat and barbeque sauce, government and taxes. Some things, however, must be together by necessity. There is nothing about chocolate that requires peanut butter to exist. But men must have women and women must have men. We have heard it lamented before, "can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em." With...
Keep ReadingThere are areas of agreement that evangelicals have with Roman Catholics. But there are also massive areas of total disagreement that set the two in opposition. One of the primary areas of disagreement, the one that drives all the rest, is ultimate authority. In every significant discussion on spiritual matters, there will have to be an accepted base of authority. Until ...
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