Despising self-help books, I am always skeptical of any non-fiction book advertised to guide me into helping myself make myself feel better, live better, do anything better for my mental and emotional health. Most of them out there are written by jack wagons. Ironically, it is the fixation on the self itself that make such a genre as “self help” complete malarkey.
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Tag Archives: Jesus
The “5 Step Plan” and the Gospel: Part 5—The Scheme of Redemption
Part 5: The Scheme of Redemption
and the Ministry of Regeneration [see previous post]
Growing up as many people did in Churches of Christ, I heard countless sermons that ended with a call to baptism, including a quick rehashing of the five steps leading up to baptism, the opportunity for which all were given as an “invitation” song was sung. It was communicated that if your heart was right and the sermon had stirred you, then you had heard and believed the word, and the next step was to repent and confess before being baptized. This has helped lead me and countless others to the Gospel.
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic , Part 11—Transmitting the Jesus of Testimony
Testimony invites trust.
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic, Part 2—History, Jesus, and The Holocaust
What is the difference between what the Bible says about Jesus (testimony carried on), and what history can tell us (history outside of the Bible)? It is claimed that when true scholars subject the Gospels to objective scrutiny, much doubt is cast on their storytelling. It seems legit that we believe what we see in the Bible not because it said so, but because “the historian has independently verified it.” To an extent, this is understandable, but when we refuse to treat the Gospels as historical documents themselves, we rob them of their legitimacy as witness reporting. In our study with our skeptic friend, we began to talk about why the Bible is mistrusted as a source of history.
Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic Friend Begins
Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic Friend
Part 1—The Study Begins
This past year I had the chance to do a long study with a who has lost their faith, but was willing to study. They had let many doubts pile up over the years, and chief among those doubts was in the reliability of scripture.
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The Imagery of “Have You Seen Jesus My Lord?”
I’ll always remember that first time at church camp when I learned the John Fisher spiritual song, “Have You Seen Jesus My Lord?” I was about nine. I would sometimes picture the songs we would sing. (For example, I would picture the line “to you alone does my spirit yield” in “As the deer” as (for some reason) a chalky cartoon version of me meeting Christ on a road and letting him pass ahead of me, leading me.) Then I learned to sing “Have you seen Jesus my Lord? He’s here in plain view.”
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Book Review: A Farewell to Mars
Brian Zahnd remembers when he, a pastor, threw a huge party for the beginning of the Gulf War—when he, a Christian leader, celebrated the invasion of a country and the use of the sword. Since, he has repented. He even says it was the worst sin he ever committed. A Farewell to Mars is part confession, part instruction, a book about why he left the effective worship of war and chose to worship only God alone.
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Is Christianity a Western Religion? Concluding Thoughts
Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”
-Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”
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Is Christianity Is a Western Religion?—Introducing new post series
Is Christianity a Western religion? 
That may not strike us as a significant question, may not register as something necessary to establish as true or false. But there are two reasons why it is important to dispel the illusion that Christianity is a “Western” religion.
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What is a Christian T-Shirt?
What is a Christian T-Shirt?
It’s a question the answer to which helps us see how notions of how to show Christ to the world has changed and is still changing. How do I represent Christ, and how to I behave like him? Clothing, gear, things purchased—this is as much of the conversation as it was in the first century. Can the answers people give tell us a lot about how they prioritize the morality of Christian behavior?
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CALEB COY 