Hell's Best Kept Secret

If I've been blessed with any gifts, talents, or special abilities by the Holy Spirit I believe that the most important of these gifts is that of discernment. When I hear something good and right and biblical I just know, and when something isn't biblical (but claims to be) I tend to feel bad about it. I may not know why I feel good or bad about something but it drives me to do the Berean thing and find out why I'm being nudged in that direction. For example I've never felt right about the Douay-Rheims bible, I eventually found out that it's not a bad translation, but it's not translated from original documents like our modern bibles. It's a fair translation of a fair translation (The latin vulgate) and when you run a document through that many translations which always gets messed up. Try it for yourself - go to www.Babelfish.com and translate something a few times. Here's an example: I took Matthew 17:19 and translated it from English, to German, German to Italian, back and forth between a few languages. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” eventually became "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said: "could not but why we still going?"

Although it's not the 16th Century version of The Message, it feels that way to me.

Reflections In A Big Church

I don't like crowds, to me a crowd is just an angry mob waiting to happen. To me little good comes from huge crowds, huge good comes from little crowds. Where do you think you could find justice: a jury of 12 or a mob of 12,000?

And when you take a huge crowd and put them in a church many things can happen, some of them good: my 'bible study partner',  John MacArthur, is in a big church. Raul Reis, whom I truly admire and firmly believe God is guiding, is in a big church. Greg Laurie, huge church. Chuck Smith started a HUGE church, he started by preaching the Word of God to hippies and surfers and even facing death continues with the same fervor he had during the Jesus movement. 

On the other hand, big churches, really big churches, contain people I don't trust so much at all: Tony Campolo, Joel Osteen, Rodney Howard-Brown, Rick Warren, Joyce Meyers, C. Peter Wagner, T.D. Jakes, Steven Furtic...  None of these people I would follow to a free buffet. However I've met pastors glowing with the love of God in small churches I'd follow into a mine field to retrieve a live grenade. 

OT Tuesday: Herding Cats

The Medes and Persians are now in charge of Babylon, and the king of Persia, Cyrus, appointed a new boss, Darius (also known in historical documentation as Gubaru) who appointed 120 satraps (provincial governors) to rule over the territories of Babylon. Over them Darius placed three commissioners that the satraps would be accountable to. One of those commissioners was Daniel.

It appears that Darius had heard of Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting on the wall and his appointment by Belshazzar as co-ruler of Babylon and appointed him to this group of commissioners. By now Daniel is an old man with a good spirit and a close relationship with God, and Darius saw that Daniel was trustworthy and loyal and planned to place him in charge of the entire kingdom of Babylon. This, of course, made the other commissioners and satraps jealous and they tried to dig up dirt on the old prophet but they couldn't find a single thing they could accuse him of. They found him to be as faithful and incorruptable as Darius had found him, which angered them even more.

Then these men said, “We will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his God.” (Daniel 5:6)

Emergent Monday: Heresy du Jur - Binding Satan

I know that the charismatic church is not the emergent church, but both being ear ticklers and both emerging as the leading form of goat herding, I lump them together otherwise I'd get nothing done around here. And besides, it's getting kind of boring reporting on Rob Bell and his never ending Apostasypalooza.

The Heresy du Jur is something I just stumbled upon and didn't realize mankind could be so arrogant or so stupid to fall for this one of Satan's most heinous pranks: Binding Satan. Binding Satan is one of the more insidious heresies that come out of the charismatic movement. An escapee from the charismatic movement wrote a letter to my "bible study partner" Dr. John MacArthur and described her situation: 

Random Stuff... and Things!

This World Is Not My Home

The Pro "Choice" movement finally came out of the closet and revealed to the world where their actual allegiances lie. The truth came out during a Pro "Choice" rally in Texas. This leads to an interesting question - is abortion actually child sacrifice? I used to wonder, now thanks to the pro "choice" movement I know beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that abortion is human sacrifice. And thanks to the "peaceful" pagans among us, it's considered a holy sacrament.

Dr. Gareth Fraser is a biologist at the University of Sheffield informs us that humans will eventually evolve beaks, like puffer fish. You know about evolution, it's that 'science' that gave us a legacy of honesty and detailed scientific research that makes the operators of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor look good. Real good.

The best loved hymns? Thanks to my catholic upbringing I only know a couple of these hymns, and only one of them was ever sang in our church. L I'm trying to make up for lost time however.