Naboth’s Vineyard

I haven’t written a Bible post in a while. I came across a thought this morning that seemed worth writing about. When people tell me “the Bible is boring”, I question how much of it they’ve read. Sure, some portions can be VERY tedious to read. Genealogies, for instance, are hard to read just to [...]

Judging and Condemning

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time. I doubt it’s going to become the long essay I originally wanted to write. We’ve all heard people make comments like “Don’t judge me” or “You shouldn’t judge people”. Why? The ironic thing is that these statements are often followed by some very judgmental [...]

The Ugly Side of Acts 6

It’s been a while since I’ve written a Bible or church related post. I don’t count my spiritual work post because it was about general spirituality. The church we’d been going to the last 8 years appointed deacons two or three times in that period. As the church identified the need for new deacons and [...]

Where Do We Get The Idea That People Engaged in “Spiritual Work” Are On Another Plane?

On Saturday, Seth Godin posted an entry on his blog titled “Phoning It In.” First, I want to state that I agree with his conclusion that we need passion in our work. We shouldn’t be, as they say in show business, “Phoning our lines in”. I want to address the start of the post: I [...]

Patience: Can You Pray For It, Or Just Do It?

I was having a talk with some friends from church recently, and the subject of patience came up. The subject came up along with the old line “I’ve been praying for patience.” I’ve done that plenty of times myself. I started to change my perspective on patience recently though. I was studying the Proverbs. I [...]

Tim Challies- Don’t Take Your iPod to Church

Last Friday, Tim Challies posted "Don't Take Your iPod to Church" to his blog. (UPDATE: Today he posted a 1.5 update as he continues to develop his argument.) I normally enjoy Tim's posts, and I read through this one. I didn't agree with it, and since nobody else had commented, I left the first comment. [...]

Nehemiah As an Example of Male Leadership

My church is going to start a new men’s group. It’s proven to be a real challenge as we are a “freeway church”, that is, our membership is pretty well spread out. We’re not a community church where our membership generally lives nearby. My house is currently about 10 miles from the church, and if [...]

2009 Goal Update: Books

I figure I’ll be transparent about this one. I set a goal to read 100 books this year. I haven’t picked them out yet. So far, according to my records in Evernote, I’ve read 8. Why 100? No particular reason, except that it sounds ambitious. I’m hoping over the course of achieving this goal, I [...]

Children and Scripture Memorization

Starting this past September, we’ve been taking our boys to an AWANA program at the Berean Baptist Church in Magnolia, NJ. My wife grew up in AWANA and thought it would be good for the kids. As part of AWANA, they have to listen to a story and memorize a Bible verse every week. That’s [...]

The Chronological Study Bible- Review

After starting a trial program with The Faith of Barack Obama and Through the Storm, Thomas Nelson has decided to formalize a program of allowing bloggers to receive free copies of books in exchange for a minimum 200 word review. TN does not require positive or negative; only that the book be read through and [...]