A Modern Parable

Just saw this headline from Foxnews.com. Here's the byline:

Bangladesh police say a crocodile killed and ate a 25-year-old after he waded into a pond next to a shrine in an attempt to receive the animal’s blessing, news.com.au reported Friday.

So it is with false religion. What happened physically to this man happens spiritually to all who seek the blessing of false gods -- whether in Bangladesh or Salt Lake City. Tragic.

Why Expository Preaching?

Just read a great post on a touching new blog. Why is expository preaching important? Check out one pastor's story here.

Worth Your Time

This is a lengthy video, but well worth your time. Evan Sayet has some very insightful comments in this Heritage Foundation speech.

A Probing Statement

James White made a statement here that caused me to stop everything else and reflect on his challenge: many Christians today have fallen into paganism. Much of Christianity today is paganism. Why? Because the essence of paganism is worshipping a God you do not know or understand.

An excellent challenge. I think further evidence would be the way Bible verses are used as magical incantations -- words designed to have metaphysical impact, yet whose meaning is stripped away by the words being ripped from their context.

What a terrifying, yet inescapable, thought.

Love, American Style

Here is a great interview with Pastor Mark Gungor on the subject of marriage. He has a lot of great insights into the subject, and isn't afraid to say what's on his mind. Not saying I agree with 100% of what he says in his lectures, but he has a LOT to offer--not the least of which is challenging the way many churches seem to have bought into the world's way of doing this.

For more from Mark, check out the video here, as well as Mark's site.

Pineapple Trees

As I watched the YouTube clips of Todd Bentley's hijinks I was reminded of pineapple trees. As a young boy growing up in Hawaii I used to love to sneak into the neighbors' yard and pick beautiful, ripe pineapples from the low-hanging branches of the trees.

Wait a minute, you say, there's something wrong with your claim: pineapples don't grow on trees!

Ah, but what if I were to take you to a man's back yard and show you a pineapple tree? Would that change your belief? Would you suddenly say, "Oh, well I guess pineapples do grow on trees!" OR would you (I hope) say, "Something unnatural is going on here--pineapples don't grow on trees naturally."

What if I then sought to convince you by showing you an orchard of pineapple trees? How many pineapple trees would it take to convince you that the nature of pineapples had changed?

I would hope the answer is obvious to you: NO number of "pineapple trees" is sufficient, because pineapples don't spontaneously change their essential nature. Pineapples don't grow on trees, and a pineapple orchard is just a sham on a larger scale. In fact, if you examine those "pineapple trees" closely, you would spot the duct tape pretty quickly.

So with the Holy Spirit. The Bible clearly describes the fruit of the Spirit; and Scripture does not include loss of control, gibberish and noise, chaos, violence, or human self-aggrandizement in the catalog. In fact, those characteristics are present in other descriptions--those of the demon-possessed.

So many, so tragically many Christians today are drunk on a cocktail of equal parts Biblical illiteracy, gullibility, and 100-proof tolerance that they can't recognize a fraud as obvious as the Lakeland "pineapple trees". What's worse is that those aren't pineapples taped to that tree; pineapples aren't deadly.

15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

- Matthew 7:15-23 (NASB)

Begging the Question

Okay, time to squeeze in a post:


As I mentioned earlier, every argument has to stand on two legs: it must be true and it must be valid. The Gospel is already a foolishness in the eyes of the unsaved (as foolish as, say, spending 120 years building a landlocked boat?); we don't ever want our inept handling of It to be an excuse for the lost to reject it.


One prominent example of really bad reasoning -- in fact, a prevalent one -- is the fallacy of begging the question. This happens when we assume our conclusion in our premises. I'm going to give an example that I encountered recently, but as I do so please remember the difference between TRUE and VALID. I am pointing out that the argument is INVALID, that the author is begging the question. I am not saying his argument is untrue--that is a separate issue entirely.


Here is the substance of the argument: the modern translations of the Bible are to be rejected because they (or, in some forms of the argument, their underlying texts) contain deletions or changes from the correct text.


Do you see how this is begging the question? How do we know the King James Version (or its underlying texts) is "the" Word of God for English-speaking people today? Because it does not contain deletions or changes. How do we know that the more-modern translations do contain deletions or changes? Because they do not contain words found in the King James, or they contain different words. It's begging the question; it's arguing in a circle. The fact is, modern translations contain differences. Whether or not they are deletions is a factual question that cannot be answered by arbitrary declarations.


Slipshod arguments such as these do nothing but swell one's ranks with the gullible. And it is unfortunate, since this opens a grand masterpiece of the translators' art to ridicule when it is not the King James Version that is ridiculous -- it is the sloppy thinking of a (thankfully) few.

I Can't Wait

It looks like the people who gave us "Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants" have done it again! Check out the trailer for Fireproof.

That Time of Year Again . . .

As homeschoolers my wife and I are gearing up now for next year -- evaluating curricula, compiling booklists for each child, and, most importantly . . . hitting you-know-where for deals!

Maybe It's Our Approach

My brother-in-law sent me this vintage Prohibition poster. Now I'm not one for changing how we do church. I'm not by any means a fan of the seeker-sensitive group. But just maaaaaybe the way we've approached the world is not the wisest, most winsome approach at times.

Back to Back to Basics

Picking up where I left off earlier, one of the most needed areas in Christianity is a tune-up in our thinking skills. This became apparent once again as I read several Christian non-fiction books recently.

A thorough introduction (is that an oxymoron?) to principles of logic would help preachers avoid some of the interpretive fallacies into which they are oft prone to fall. It would strengthen the apologetics skills of the men and women who go into the frontlines of the secular workplace every day. And it would put a much-needed end to some of the wacky non-issues that burn up so much pulpit time. A great little primer on the subject is Norman Geisler's Come Let Us Reason.

I think a good place to start is by recognizing that every argument must stand on two legs: it must be both true and valid. Absent one of those two legs it does not stand. Let's start with a standard argument (syllogism) as an illustration:

If it is raining, the street outside is wet. (major premise)
It is raining. (minor premise)
Therefore, the street outside is wet. (conclusion)

It must be true. That is, the premises must conform to reality. For example, if I claim that it is raining outside and it is not, in fact, raining outside, then the argument fails.
It must also be valid. That is, the premises must be free of fallacies, of errors in the way we have reasoned. For example, let's re-cast the illustration this way:

If it is raining, the street outside is wet.
The street outside is wet.
Therefore, it is raining.

This argument doesn't stand. Why not? Isn't it saying the same thing as the first illustration? No -- there are a lot of reasons that the street could be wet. Perhaps someone's sprinklers are running; perhaps I've just chased my sons around with my Super Soaker. This is a fallacy called "affirming the consequent". We've switched the "if" and the "then" and twisted the argument out of shape. And once again the argument fails.

This isn't hair-splitting. This is a fallacy that popped up a number of times in the arguments of several Christian books I recently read. And when you are witnessing or defending the faith in the workplace or preaching a sermon, that is the WORST time for the sloppy thinking that too often discredits the Truth by presenting it as an irrational thing.

Tighten up your thinking, Ambassador.

So Much for Appearances

So I'm typing my notes for Sunday morning's sermon and listening to my new Paul Potts CD in the background. If you're not familiar with that name, check out the video below. THIS is why you don't judge people by their outward appearance!