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 have heard it time and time again. People say, "I don't want to spank because I don't want to teach my child to hit." When people say this, it indicates that they have a fundamental misunderstanding about biblical corporal punishment. Therefore, I would like to use this article to define the differences between "discipline" and "hitting." To begin with, I think an ana...
Keep ReadingFirst of all, many will be pleased to know that this isn't even a book, but a booklet, totaling only 16 pages. Those 16 pages focus on one message: God's love is not well represented by such a vague, weak word that is weighed down with unbiblical notions, and instead should be tied to biblical language that makes it the glorious thing it is. The author, David Powlison, ...
Keep ReadingEvangelism is something we are always trying to grow in. Sometimes it is good to review the reality that God really does call each and every one of His children to verbally bring the gospel to spiritually dead people. Below are 8 key biblical reasons why you are called to evangelize. The first and second great commandments are the main heartbeat for evangelism. A person...
Keep ReadingSo, you have just asked your atheist friend the three questions from last week's post. But then the inevitable happens. He asks you the same questions back. Are you ready? This is one of the instances where scripture calls us to be ready to give a defense of our hope (1 Pet. 3:15). While the context for that verse is suffering, it doesn't have to be limited to that. You ...
Keep ReadingHaving a conversation with an Atheist is usually hard and usually scary. Talking with anybody who is totally committed to the opposite of what your life is built upon will be like that. It is especially so when they are looking at you like you are a two year old trying to play chess. In light of these realities, I want to give you some very helpful questions. Questions a...
Keep ReadingWe are supposed to pray. We all know that, and yet we still struggle to pray. We remind ourselves of all the promises, all the commands, all the encouragements in scriptures regarding prayer. But alas, we are bent toward self-sufficiency. Let me give you one more weapon to put in your arsenal against self-sufficiency so you can be the earthen vessel through which God's p...
Keep ReadingSin complicates everything. It creates situations where there will be pain in every decision. Sometimes, you don't walk into that kind of mess, you are carried into it by a cultural groundswell. Such is the place that every parent finds themselves today. The sexualization of our culture is growing every day and simple avoidance is becoming more and more difficult. Not on...
Keep ReadingPeople are really good at making the Bible say what they want it to say. There are lots of factors that contribute to this. Not the least of which is a widespread and growing ignorance of what is actually in the Bible. People simply haven't read enough of the Bible to know that what they think it says is absent from and/or refuted by scripture. One area that seems to fi...
Keep ReadingThe right tool for the right job; that's the professional's mode of operation. Even in the area of demolition, If you are going to do it effectively, you need the right tools. So today I am asking, what would be a good tool for dismantling someone's effectiveness for Christ. There are plenty of options, but one less noticed is self-esteem. Your self-esteem is killing you...
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 ...
Keep Reading