Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, is subsidizing a five-day retreat for kids that is intended to provide an alternative to faith-based summer camps normally run by the Scouts and Christian groups. I find the rationale of Dawkins’ “neutrality” interesting:

I’m very keen on not indoctrinating them with religion or creeds. I would rather equip them with the tools to learn how to think, not what to think.

Would not a camp for kids who are atheists betray this sentiment? Isn’t his goal to further this belief since it is a belief he shares and wants to promote?

One more reason to understand that a worldview is not neutral. It is either advancing …

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Have you ever been told that those who struggle with homosexuality cannot change, it’s just the way they were born. Therefore, it is not a choice, but a genetic disposition that we must accept (and not even question) or we are guilty of being bigoted or even prejudice. Functionally, this argument has even been used to begin to distinguish homosexuals as a type of people-group that should have all the rights as any other people-group (e.g. the right to marry and be accepted legally with the same standing and rights as a heterosexual couple). Well, new research indicates that homosexuality, like any other behavior that is harmful to a person or society in general, should not …

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Have you ever been given bad advice? When bad advice or personal insight masquerades as biblical teaching it can actual obscure our understanding of God. This will, in turn, change the way we relate to Him. This leads to a fabrication of God, which is a fancy way of saying “idolatry.” When this happens, we all lose. This is precisely why we need to listen to what James says in James 3:17-18 about what true wisdom looks like and what wisdom produces. MP3 download.

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In Part I, we considered the establishment of the Old Covenant within the ceremony between God and the people of Israel as outlined in Exodus 24. It is vital to notice that within the story of God rescuing Israel, it is God’s choice that is the dominant feature. God’s saving activity was to deliver the people from Egypt. While it is true that a sense of obligation on Israel’s behalf would naturally flow out being rescued; there is no reason to believe that the Covenant of Exodus 24 is the motivation for God’s acting.

God’s motivation was simple; He had made a promise (Gen. 12:1-3; Judges 2:1) to do something great through the people He had chosen …

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Maybe you have heard the phrase, “Christ is at the center of all the Bible.” Or, “the whole of Scripture points to Jesus Christ.” How about, “The Bible is a love-story of God chasing His creation.” Did you know that Jesus is the one who started this type of Jesus-centric thinking? It’s true. We actually see Jesus making this point the very day of his resurrection in his discussion with two men on the road to Emmaus:

“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:26-27).

Someone will …

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As we get ready to launch the first of our mission trips this Sunday, I want to remind all of an encouraging word I was introduced to by Desiring God ministries. It has as its focus the cultivation of cultivate a desire to spread God’s fame in missions within our families.

1. Pray for missionaries as a family. We keep a stack of prayer cards on the dinner table and rotate through them during mealtime prayers.

2. Read missionary biographies to your children. The stories of Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson, William Carey, Gladys Aylward, and other missionary pioneers are captivating ways to orient a child’s heart on the most important things in life.

3. Draw the whole family into supporting …

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Do you know what the most dangerous thing in the entire world is? Could it be a force of nature like a hurricane or a tsunami? Maybe it is a latent virus ready to engulf the world (e.g. the “swine flu”). Maybe it is an out-of-control dictator like North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il or the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While both of these men possess an ideology that poses a threat to the world through the development of nuclear weapons; can they be branded with the label of being the most dangerous thing in the entire world? Today, you will find out what this “thing” is and consider what steps we need to take in order to disarm it. James …

 

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I was first introduced to Malcolm Muggeridge through the teaching of Ravi Zacharias. Malcolm had a way of expressing the complication of culture in succinct and creative ways. The following is Malcolm’s caricature of the West’s ever-increasing nihilism and stands as a stark picture of a culture in a blind-hurry to become extinct:

…[I]t has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created

    his own boredom out of his own affluence,
    his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
    his own vulnerability out of his own strength;

himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city

…

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In 998, a ruthless Viking army raided the Dorset countryside in southwest England near the rural Cernel monastery. Forty-something-year-old Aelfric, a monk at Cernel, responded to this national—and, to him, universal—crisis by creating three homiletic collections (about 120 sermons), the first English translations of passages from several Old Testament books, pastoral letters and other literary works. Aelfric explained his purpose in writing and preaching:

“People especially need good teaching at this time, which is the ending of this world.”

In 1005, Aelfric moved 85 miles northeast to Eynsham, where he served as abbot until his death around 1014. When Viking invaders burned neighboring Oxford in 1009, Aelfric may have even stood in the monastery yard and witnessed Oxford’s smoke.

So …

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I am sure you have heard or seen advertisements for the movie, Angels and Demons. Angels and Demons took-in 48 million in its opening weekend ejecting Star-Trek to second place. I won’t spoil the premise of the movie for you, but suffice it to say that it involves a spiritual component that followers of Christ need to be aware of in order to not be shaken in their faith and to point people to Jesus.

It is to this end that Westminster Theological Seminary has sponsored a website outlining the claims made in the movie. The website is a fantastic tool and we encourage you to use it to equip your family and engage people in your …

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