One more Bible blog, hoping to get one more person into Heaven.
This is one of those Bible verses that, for the longest time, didn't make sense to me. I heard about it when I was around 14. And I read it in the strangest of all places, the “Letters” section of Guns and Ammo magazine. (I don’t remember the context, but given the magazine, I don’t … Continue reading Why did Jesus tell his disciples to buy swords?
This one was really tough to write. It seemed that every time I had my story together, some conflicting information would emerge and disrupt my narrative entirely. (I changed the title three times.) Maybe that’s a sign that I wasn’t (or I’m not) qualified to write it. Either way... Let’s start with a personal … Continue reading Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter?
With this past Sunday marking the Feast of the Ascension (recognizing the bodily ascension of Jesus into Heaven), it seemed appropriate to write about a necessary prerequisite to the event: rising from the dead. Thankfully, a good friend turned me on to a pretty good analysis, written by a better researcher than myself. In the … Continue reading The Case for Christ’s Resurrection
In my last post, I brought up the question of whether rape was forgivable. I chose that example because it was (personally) the biggest forgiveness mountain I’ve ever had to climb. I know others have had bigger and tougher mountains, for sure. But my point in that example was really to provide some context for … Continue reading What’s the Limit of God’s Forgiveness?
Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday, and that, of course, means that today is Mardi Gras. For the New Orleans crowd, it's a pretty lively celebration - a chance to let out all your human-ness before entering the solemn, spiritual season of Lent. For me, Mardi Gras has a another significance. And given Harvey Weinstein's … Continue reading Is Rape Forgivable?
This seems to be one of the most popular questions around Christianity. A quick search through religious pamphlets shows there’s no shortage of explanations: natural result of bad decisions, rotten luck (aka random chance), sometimes at the hand of bad people, the list goes on. In the Bible, especially the Old Testament (as God was … Continue reading Why do good people suffer?
Yeah, I know everyone pretty much glosses over the “Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah" stuff and so on. And why not, right? I mean, it’s pretty much like reading through an Old Testament phone book. BUT, when it comes to Jesus’s lineage, there’s actually a really awesome story in there. … Continue reading (Reprised) Jesus’s Lineage – My FAVORITE Christmas Story. For real.
For a brief period three years ago, almost to the day, I was homeless. (By brief, I mean “two hours.”) Voluntarily. This post is about what I learned – and who I met – when I decided to dress “homeless” and stand on a street corner in Baltimore panhandling for change. The Backstory: Coming out … Continue reading My Afternoon as a Homeless Man
In my prior post, I showed the inconsistencies in the notion that all life evolved from one single point, notably out of the sea. For the sake of argument, let's assume that it happened as the scientific explanation claims. As time passes, things get bigger, and eventually we end up with dinosaurs. That is, until … Continue reading The Atheists’ Faith, Part 4 (of 4)
In my prior post, I explained the unlikeliness (impossibility?) of simple, organic atoms randomly combining to get living DNA, and then the even more unlikelier leap to single-cell organisms. This week, the cells have to become lots of things. Assuming that our young Earth is filled with all different types of self-reproducing cells, and that … Continue reading The Atheists’ Faith, Part 3 (of 4)
