Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go To Bible Study

I have no idea why I get the junk email that comes pouring into my inbox... no check that, I know EXACTLY why I get the junk email that comes pouring into my inbox and I wish it would stop. There's an underground economy out there based on trading and selling you. Your data (phone number, address, email address) is worth money to people and there's a lively trade going on. I found that one used car dealerships put me on a ton of junk lists, I wonder how much money they got for selling my data.

Ok let's restart: Dear Lord in heaven, what did I do to get put on a Life Way mailing list? 

This latest piece of ejunk particularly rankled me, it's an advertisement for a bible study for the book of Ephesians named "Defined" but it starts out splashing the movie Overcomer across the top of the page. Since the Overcomer is mentioned in the ad picture this in your mind using any movie trailer Voice Of Doom guy's voice:

From the people that brought you The War Room - In a world gone mad, where sins becomes virtue and false teaching becomes fast cash comes a new kind of superhero - The Overcomer

I have no idea why the movie the Overcomer is tied to this bible study other than the name Priscilla Shirer is featured in both. I don't go out of my way to see a lot of movies, and when I do go I've researched the movie before I plunk down $14 for lemonade and a small popcorn. Which is why I've seen very few "Christian" movies. An inordinate amount of "Christian" movies are only "Christian" in the loosest terms of the word, and many are barely "movies" at all. One of my tests is to look for the names Kevin Sorbo and Priscilla Shirer in the credits. I have very few qualms with Kevin Sorbo so I'll see his movies. Priscilla (and her dad) are a different story, and a reason for me to not see this film.

But the question remains - why is the Overcomer tied to 'Defined' which is a study of the book of Ephesians? At the bottom of the ad is the clue:

OVERCOMER is in theaters August 23. Buy tickets here. To see books, Bible studies, and other items based on the movie, visit LifeWay.com/Overcomer. 

I'm Not Moving! My Blog

I had an idea yesterday to move this blog over to WordPress, I've cross posted a few times over there but it was a task that I tended to forget to do and in the end I ended up with the same post in two locations, so I dropped doing that all together. 

There are a whole lot of things I do want to blog about that do not fit in here neatly. Like when a few weeks ago I was fiddling around on my Tecsun PL-660 in the 40 meter band when a station came up "blowing my doors off" on USB and when I looked up his call sign I found that his QTH was in Florida, and here I'm in Colorado getting him 5/9 on a 3 meter sloper! I found out that it wasn't propagation, he had a 2KW amp and an antenna array that covered acres.

That kind of post doesn't fit well into a blog that's been 100% theology, and after a day of playing around I found that WordPress does some things very well, but to do other things will cost a lot of money that I don't have. Such as RefTagger which is a little gadget designed to identify a bible verses in your blog. When it sees that the reference, such as Romans 3:1-2 it will set up the link to Biblia but also give you that little popup that shows a bit of the verse. Here on blogger it's free to add to your blog if you have the skills to set it up. On WordPress you need a business account to set up widgets like that, and a business account is $300 a year. On WordPress it's easy to subscribe to a blog, on blogger it's a serious pain to set that function up (I'm still trying to figure it out). 

WordPress vs Blogger is like Spaghetti vs Lasagna, they both do the same thing, but they do it in different styles. 

So I decided on leaving this blog as it is, to continue my posts here, posts like "What's A Cogic?" while over on my WordPress blog I put my personal updates and other interests, like railfanning, or a movie review, or Joe Biden's latest act of plagiarism. Or AOC's latest brain dump. Or Elisabeth Warren's latest racial identity. Or my granddaughter's latest goldfish. I consider my WordPress blog my garage, all kinds of interesting things will be stored there, things with no rhyme or reason, and no room for a car.

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

This world is not my home I'm just a'passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

You all remember Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib's botched trip to Israel. "I just wanted to see my Grandmother!" Rashida sobbed. The lame stream media made this sound like a congressional junket but suddenly Israel put restrictions on Tlaib only allowing her to see her grandmother. Talib balked at those restrictions and cancelled the trip.

Some of the more humorous bits was that it wasn't a congressional junket, it was just Ilhan and Rashida, and it wasn't Israel who put the restrictions on Rashida, it was Rashida who told Israel in a letter that she was just going to see her grandmother. Israel then made it public that Rashida was only going to see her grandmother, whereby Rashida got angry and said something to the effect of 'if I can only see my grandmother, I'm not going.' However the unfunniest part comes when you realize that the entire trip was sponsored by the terrorist sympathizing organization Miftah, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue & Democracy Now Miss Tlaib is comparing Israel with Nazi Germany, maybe I should risk upsetting Mrs. Tlaib and let her in on the truth: her anger is misdirected

Has the art of self worship reached it's zenith? Or is this just a stepping stone to a Mormonesque "I Am A God!" theater of damnation?

Why was it necessary for God to die for our sins? I'm sure many readers here know, but here is a well thought out outline

Iceland murders babies but worships a block of ice

Top 10 False Teachers that you will find in Evangelical churches

The Battle Against Heterodoxy

heterodoxy
/ˈhed(ə)rəˌdäksē/
noun
deviation from accepted or orthodox standards or beliefs.
"his work was marked by elements of theological heterodoxy"

The definition of heterodoxy is pretty straight up, and we as Christians need to try to avoid heterodoxy at all costs. Heterodoxy is the work of Satan, it's one of his greatest weapons in his battle against God. Satan knows that he cannot win against God so he will try to take as many of us with him as he can.

This creature to the left here is Haresis Dias. She's a 16th Century, satirical depiction of a goddess heresy or heterodoxy, and she contradicts the teachings of Christian Church. This is a pretty good illustration of heterodoxy, she looks kind of nice from a distance but when you look closer you start to see the evil creatures that wrap themselves around her, and I think that's a body of a demon she's clutching, she's got the ears of a donkey, her neck is made of brick, and she has cloven hooves. To battle Heterodoxy, the false teaching itself, our best weapon is Apologetics 

apologetics
/əˌpäləˈjediks/
 noun
reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.

Apologetics is useful against the false teaching itself, when we see a friend getting swallowed up in false teaching we intervene with the truth from the Gospel and use quotes from the great masters. Masters such as Charles Spurgeon:

Who, think you, are the most honest men - those who tell you plainly what the scriptures say concerning this wrath of God, or those who smooth in over or deny it all together?

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

This world is not my home I'm just a'passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Broadcast radio is dead to me. I suppose that my cable system spoiled me with Video On Demand and digital recording. Mrs. WideAwakeChristian and I record all our favorite programs so we can zap commercials (it's easy if you know how to program your remote to leap ahead in 30 second jumps) and I can watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it.

As I've mentioned in the past, Christian radio in this area is almost all charismatic chatter. I would love a station that played All MacArthur All The Time but no such luck, we might get a 1 minute Mac Bite occasionally but that's it. I love Red Eye Radio an 11 PM to 4 AM radio show, but I'm not up at those hours. But I can get the podcast and listen to it in my idea of morning and not have to listen to Glen Beck

There are a couple of MacArthur podcasts but my new favorite Christian podcast is: The Good Fight Radio Show. It's available on the android Double Pod app so it is probably available on iTunes. (I can't be sure, I don't do iTunes, iTunes is for toys) Try this episode on their website, they're discussing our favorite, most dapper inventor of narcissigesis Steven Furtick who claims he is now the gate, a job once reserved for Jesus Christ. Comment on this post on your favorite Christian podcasts and I'll devote an article to Christian podcasting 

The LGBTQXYZ community has a very high rate of suicide and has always has. Seriously. Always. The California legislature has decided to fix this situation by blaming you the Christian.

What Criteria do historians use to get to the minimal facts about the historical Jesus?

Department of Redundancy Dept: Hillsong song writer renounces his faith  (Isn't joining Hillsong a renunciation of faith?)

A Christian from South Korea arrested in Nepal on charges of “attempting to convert” and misuse of visa

The ChiComs have now banned Christian summer camps

And meanwhile Southern Baptists put Lifeway profits ahead of beleaguered Chinese Christians