Episode Overview Bob Crittenden of Faith Broadcasting pelts me with questions about how to properly receive Jesus Christ and why the story of Jesus in Bethany is so critical for Christians today. Christian Book Distributors (CBD) discusses with me how the message of God’s Favorite Place on Earth changed my life. Listen to the Episode Click here to listen to it on your computer or smart phone. Click here to listen to it on RSS Feed. Read more

With few exceptions, the story that Christians tell others and themselves begins with Genesis 3 rather than Genesis 1. Our starting point is the fall of humanity. The result: Everything is framed around God’s redemptive mission. It’s all about saving a lost world. Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that evangelical Christians have built their theology mostly on Romans and Galatians. And many nonevangelical Christians have built it on the Gospels (particularly the Synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke). And for… Read more

I received the following email on 11/27/12: The reason I’m writing has to do with the subject of the swearing Christian. It has become quite evident that a large portion of professing saints have little to no objections for the use of vulgarity. In my research, I’ve found men lauding the right as a Christian to swear and professing the approval of Christ. Does anybody see a problem here? It appears that in attempts to “win the world” the favored… Read more

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” ~ Matthew 6:10 As long as I’ve been a Christian, I’ve noted two things that believers routinely get riled up about. One is the role of the Spirit vs. the role of the Scriptures. Christians seem to fall off one side of the horse or the other on this issue. Over the years, I’ve watched countless fruitless Word vs. Spirit debates that descended into noise. They… Read more

“Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel.” ~ Isaiah 45:15 The question of God’s existence has plagued philosophers and theologians for thousands of years. For that reason, I don’t have any canned answers on the question and I’m not about to solve the problem.  But I do have some thoughts that may cause you to rethink your position and help you reach your own conclusions. In a recent (and very controversial post) entitled… Read more

I never knew that becoming a professional blogger was possible, but it is. In a future post, I’ll talk about some steps you can take to becoming a professional blogger (for those of you who are interested). But in this post, I want to sketch out how to start a blog in less than 10 minutes. Just follow each step and you’ll have a brand new blog by which to reach the world. I suggest you open up this post… Read more

Several new studies have revealed that Facebook makes countless people feel bad about themselves, leading to anger and hate against other people. Why? Because of envy and jealousy. Shine recently published the findings of the research. And it’s not pretty. Here’s an excerpt: “More than a third of the respondents reported feeling negative, but it had nothing to do with Facebook’s ever-changing privacy policies and advertisements—most of those bad vibes were rooted in jealousy . . . We were surprised by… Read more

This first one is oxymoronic, no? But I like the satire. This second one is just dead wrong. Can you tell why? Look at the last statement — “the family has requested that everyone TRY TO LIVE as Jesus did.” Puhhlleease . . . do so and you will sink like Peter did. The New Testament doesn’t call us to an “imitation of Christ” = trying to copy His life. It instead calls us to a “participation in His life.”… Read more

If you haven’t received it yet, get my new eBook co-authored with 20 other leaders – Where’s God? What to do when God doesn’t have your back. Also check out THE CHRIST IS ALL podcast below. Read more

“The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion…. The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance;… Read more