Grace Blogs

We had a recent graceTALK question…

I recently visited another church with a friend who wanted to start going to church again. They (husband and wife) wanted a church that was big so that they could “ease” into the whole church thing. So, I went along to encourage them. We went to a “mega” church in the area and I was blown away. It was like a rock concert! The message was good (in a creative sense) but seemed very shallow. I didn’t even need to use my Bible. So, now I am in a pickle. I want my friend to go to church, but I fear that they will see Christianity is a warped way by going to this …

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10. “Yappy”, the Shunned Wise Man”

9. “Finding God’s Facebook: A Teen’s Christmas Journey”

8. “My 30 Year Post Traumatic Stress: A Shepherd’s Story after the Announcement of the Birth”

7. “Either take the Room by the ice machine, or it’s the Stable. That’s all I got: The Innkeeper’s story”

6. “You Pick the Right Manger!” Interactive dinner theater

5. “King Herod’s Kid’s Christmas Cantata”

4. “Biblical Billy Bass tells the story of Christmas”

3. “A pregnant stranger, her husband, a blizzard, car trouble, a kindly old couple, a baby boy born, house foreclosure averted Christmas!

2. “Mimes Keeping their Flocks by Night”

1. “The Night the Animals Texted”

Copyright 2008 Dave Tippett (djtippHA@yahoo.com).

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Chelsea Schilling of WorldNetDaily is reporting that a certain Hindu extremist groups are seeking to blot out Christianity from the state of Orissa in India. The extremist groups are offering money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes. Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, said Hindu militants are targeting Christian leaders and “The going price to kill a pastor is $250.”

Questions
How do you approach this as a Christian living thousands of miles away? Do you feel good that you don’t have to face treatment like this? Do you wonder why God would allow this? Do you get angry?

In I Peter 3:9-16 we find help in sorting through …

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A number of questions regarding the current teaching was submitted last week. I’d like to address one here:

Does the Roman Catholic church today believe in taking money to in exchange for forgiveness of sins?

In my understanding, this is not an overt doctrine of the RCC. However, given their system of salvation (process justification—as Dan has pointed out), almsgiving is seen as one of many “bricks” in one’s road toward justification. Whereas we believe that the Bible teaches that one’s forgiveness of sins is a one-time event (forensic justification), we would hold that giving money to the church or to the poor would be as a RESPONSE to forgiveness. Not as a means of forgiveness.

To make it more simple, the …

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On Saturday I saw this spotlight on the Richt family on ESPN’s Gameday. Mark Richt, Georgia’s head football coach for those of you not in the “Dog-Nation,” and his wife adopted two children from the Ukraine–one of whom has a facial deformity. It is a stirring piece. This reminds me of the grace God has shown to me through my adoption into His family, deformities and all. God is good!

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I was going to forward this talk on to the Adult Ministry Team (AMT), but I think this would be a good listen for anyone interested in why we teach within the church. It features Pastor Rob Paris, of Wellspring Anglican Church, preaching a message on a Christian view of education in the church. I found it helpful and encouraging.

He closes with what seems to be Wellspring’s vision for education….

We envision multitudes of children and adults delighting themselves in God’s Word and God’s world because they have discovered the life-giving power of His truth and grace. We long to be a learning culture where people study hard to excel in all that they do for the glory of God,

…

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Listen as J.I. Packer draws to a tight focus the central issue in regard to homosexuality, the Gospel itself. Dr. Packer makes a very lucid argument for why it is the very Gospel of Christ that is at stake when it comes to the issue of same-sex relationships.

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I’m not usually fond of blogs that quote a blog quoting a book, but Justin Taylor has been reading Paul Tripp’s Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy and posted an excerpt that I find extremely insightful and personally convicting…

Sin lives in a costume, that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party.

Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth.
Lust can masquerade as a love for beauty.
Gossip

…

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We have been weaving our way through a teaching series called ChurchWorks . In digging through how a church functions we have been taking a look at expressions of the Spirit (a.k.a spiritual gifts). In doing research for this aspect of the teaching, I was turned onto a person claiming to be a powerful conduit of God’s Spirit. So, I thought it would be good to try and apply the teaching points we have unearthed in this study thus far (I Corinthians, Ephesians 4, etc.) directly to a Mr. Todd Bentley.

Here’s a general introduction from an Nightline special focusing on Mr. Bentley. BTW. I understand the people conducting the “investigation” are bent …

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There are few issues like politics that inspire question marks in the minds of Christians. Questions like, Do I vote for a candidate who is “pro-choice” when the other candidate is not only “pro-choice” but “pro-tax”, “pro-big government,” “pro-liberal social programs”, etc? Living in a society in which we are given the freedom to participate in the political process in turn demands that we learn to think through finding balance in how we cast our vote as a follower of Christ. Let’s face it, to abstain completely from voting because a candidate holds a view that you or me would consider to be “unchristian” will leave us with no candidate at all. A person with this …

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