Posts

Welcome to my little corner of the web!

JESUS. PERIOD.

Image
There is something I want us to look at very carefully, because sometimes we read the words of an apostle and automatically place them beside the words of Jesus as though they carry exactly the same authority. But I don't do that. My standard is Jesus. Period. So when I read what Paul says about women, I have to look at what Paul says, and then I have to look at Jesus. Not what the church says Jesus meant. Not what tradition says Paul meant. Jesus. Period. Paul has quite a bit to say about what women are supposed to do and how women are supposed to conduct themselves. That was his pharisaic training. He never really left it behind when he was converted. In 1 Corinthians 11, he tells women that when they pray or prophesy, they are to have their heads covered. He reasons from the order of creation, saying that the man is the head of the woman and that the woman is the glory of the man. He then argues that a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Magnitude of Salvation (600th teaching!)

Image
This is my 600 th teaching! Praise God!!! The Magnitude of Salvation There are times in our lives when we can look back and know that things could have gone very differently. We may remember a danger we escaped, a situation that could have ended badly, or a moment when we know God made a way for us.  There are also things God has protected us from that we never even knew were coming.  We cannot possibly know how many times His hand has been upon our lives, keeping us, guiding us, and giving us another day. When we stop and think about that, we have more than an immense amount to be grateful for. David understood where his security really had to be.  He said, Trust in God at all times, pour out your hearts before Him, because God is our refuge.  People, whether they seem important or not, are only a breath, and when they are weighed together, they amount to nothing, Psalm 62:8-9.   David was not saying that people have no value.  He was reminding us tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Understanding Paul: The Man Behind the Difficult Passages

Image
There are two things about Paul that can cause people to struggle with him. One is what he wrote concerning women, especially the passages that seem to place restrictions on what women can do in the assembly. The other is the way Paul sometimes speaks about his apostleship and about having seen Yeshua. When those passages are read by themselves, it can be easy to come away with an opinion about Paul without taking the time to look at the whole man, his background, his former life, the circumstances he was dealing with, and everything else he wrote. That does not mean we should explain away difficult Scriptures. It means we should read them carefully. There is also something else that is important when we read Scripture. Sometimes a thought naturally comes into our minds while we are reading. That thought may not be wrong simply because we had it. The problem comes when we quietly take that thought and turn it into something Scripture actually said. We need to be willing to ask ourselv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Conviction Can Be Healthy

Image
Conviction is not God telling us that there is no hope. Conviction is often God showing us exactly where we need His help . It is like the light coming on in a dark room. When the light comes on, it does not create the things that are already there. It simply allows us to see what was there all along. God's Word does the same thing. It can bring something into the light that we did not see before, or something we may have seen but did not want to acknowledge. Sometimes God's Word comforts us. Sometimes it encourages us. Sometimes it strengthens us when we are weak. And sometimes it corrects us when we are wrong. We cannot decide that the Word is good only when it tells us something we want to hear. If we believe God's Word is truth, then we have to allow it to tell us the truth about us too. There is no shame in discovering that something in us needs to change. Every one of us has things that God has had to correct. The shame would be in knowing that God has shown u...
Post a Comment
Read more