THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

    Do you love Angels?  Apparently, you're not the only one! The writer of Hebrews takes a whole chapter to dismantle, for the Gospel's sake, the worship of Angels. As one man famously quoted, "the more things change they more they remain the same." Here we are, a couple of thousand years later, still having to deal with this issue, of worshiping Angels, in the church.  We love Angels, they're beautiful (not sure how we know this?), they have wings, they fly and best of all, they don't judge. God, he's the boss, the mean guy! Angels, just help and do good. People who have a love affair with Angels, often are not that knowledgeable of the Bible. Angels may be beautiful and only there to help, but if you read Revelations, they judge (by God's decree) and kill worse than any villain in Hollywood. The Catholics like to worship Mary and Saints, Christians like to worship Angels. Each religion has their own demi-gods that they set up for themselves, rather ...

The scripture in Lamentations today makes me think of how ironic it is, that we so desperately want to know our future, but then again, we give no thought to our future, it's a complete contradiction of who we are. And this is who we are, as people, we constantly contradict ourselves. We say "this is what I want" but then turn around and do actions that are in complete contrast to what we said the previous day.... .  She defiled herself with immorality and gave no thought to her future. Now she lies in the gutter with no one to lift her out.   She gave NO THOUGHT to her future. All we think about is our future, but this text says, "she gave no thought to her future", so which is it? Do we think about our future or do we not think about our future. It's both! All we think about is our future "in our thoughts" but we never think about the future "in our decisions/actions"; our decisions, contradict our thoughts. If we are so concerned about...

   It's very interesting, Isaiah predicts the rise of Babylon when they are insignificant nobodies, it is hardly believable that Babylon is ever going to rise to any stage of great prominence, never mind, defeat Israel and take them all in captive to be their slaves. Yet that's exactly what happened. Now we have Jeremiah, when Babylon IS the greatest force on  the earth predicting that they will be reduced to nothing, they will be something to be laughed at and mocked, this is also hardly believable, especially as he predicts this while they are great. Yet, approx 65-70 years later, the Medes and Persians come in and completely destroy Babylon, the Great. Isaiah predicts their greatness when they are nothing and he (Jeremiah) predicts their fall when they are great. The boldness of these predictions......these prophecies will either prove him to be true a Prophet or a false prophet! History (don't even have to use the Bible) proves both these Prophecies to be 100% accurat...

    Paul in our text is breaking down Christian and ethical behavior in 4 categories. He's breaking it down for Men, Women & Children & Servants. There is variation in what he writes to all 4, but one common virtue Paul brings up in all 4 scenarios, the "only" virtue he brings up to all 4 parties is that of "Self Control". I think it is easier to understand that word if you say it backwards... Control Self , or even more specifically,  Control yourself ! Is this such a big issue with us? Do we not control ourselves? I know I control my bladder, it would be severely embarrassing to me to be with friends and have an "accident". I don't think they would look at me with much empathy but they probably would look at me with much sympathy, sympathy for what a sorry sucker I am that I cannot control my own bladder at my age. There are other areas that I am not so flawless at exercising self control. I have never, not once had a bladder accident, no...

    The heading in most Bibles for Ephesians 4 "Christian Living".  Ephesians 4 & 5 are the basic manuals for Christian etiquette. The antagonist of the Church, ironically enough, is not necessarily the Devil, though he is one, but it is also you and I.  We by nature try to drag the church down to are level, rather than rise up to the standard Christ has set before us. This constant tension between what our flesh craves for and what the Holy Spirit desires. Any Pastor on any given Sunday could preach on this text and have the altars full. "Don't be bitter, don't fight, stop lusting, stop lying, let go of the anger, don't grieve the Holy Spirit" We can so easily be reduced to our base instinct, our base nature. So often we hear Christians say, "oh, they are so lucky I'm a Christian, or I would....." This only confirms that for many of us, as Voltaire, the French philosopher and acclaimed atheist wrote, "scratch the service of a Chri...

  I would much prefer not to talk about this, I would much rather not have to deal with this, this is messy stuff. If I wanted to be involved in politics and messy stuff, then I would get involved in that. I stay clear of politics, I stay clear of conflict, I just want to be a Christian, go to church and be happy. Paul today is writing about rebuking people, setting them straight, confronting supposed Christians, challenging people who are teaching false doctrine, people rejecting the truth and coming up with lies, I just want to ask Paul, "are you trying to discourage me from The Church or encourage me?". Reading about this discourages me, reading about this reminds me of when people say, 'the reason I don't go to church is because of all the problems in the church". There really is an ugly side of ministry, isn't there?! It's been like this since the beginning of the church, apparently. So what do we do then? What we do is keep going to church, keep ser...