Let me summarize the points made in my previous posts. One of Luke’s purposes in writing Luke and Acts was to show how the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were fulfillment of promises God had made to Israel through the prophets. Those promises included the outpouring of the…
In my last post, we looked at how Luke presents the outpouring of the Spirit and the offer of forgiveness as a second chance for the Jews in Jerusalem to enter God’s promised time of refreshing. Luke hinted that Israel would get a second chance when he included in his gospel…
In my previous post, I talked about several components of God’s promise to Israel regarding the outpouring of His Spirit. Because of that outpouring . . . He would write His law on their hearts, Israel would experience an internal renewal of their heart and spirit, and This renewal (or refreshing) would bring…
Communication always involves transferring an idea from the mind of one person to the mind of another (or others) through the medium either of speech or written text. The Bible is no different. As readers of the Bible, our goal is not to create our own meaning (what this means…
Scanning the literature on the topic of the Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, two interpretations rise to the surface as the most prevalant. Attributing to the Devil the Work of God’s Spirit One view is that “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has to do with accusing Jesus Christ of being…
Have you ever felt like you may have gone too far and there was no coming back from the disaster you yourself created? That’s a horrific and dark place to be. Wonderful Grace of Jesus One of the most wonderful things about the Gospel is the news that in Christ…
We live in a pluralistic society. This is a good thing. The alternative would be for one group to impose its view of the world on everyone else. That leads to tyranny, even if the ones doing the imposing are Christians. At the core, the idea of a pluralistic society…
Generally we don’t write about politics on this site, but the other day, in one of the Facebook groups to which I belong, I came across some comments that were absolute gold. The comments are about the current uproar over immigration policies, especially related to the children. Lori Nij brings…
“Certainty and routine breed complacency.” So wrote James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their celebrated book, “The Leadership Challenge.” If this is true, then we are in trouble, because churches love their routines. In this post, I want to explore the concept of open-minded thinking and how it might help…
Brian Herbert, son of science fiction author Frank Herbert and a prolific author of science fiction himself, once said: “The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” This is not only true for individuals but also for…
