Understanding the End Times from the Bible

In my recent lengthy search for a church, I had a few boxes to tick as “must have” before I would consider joining. One box was solid teaching about the end times from a premillennialism perspective. I did not find a single church that met this criteria. Some churches had premillennialism encoded in their statement …

Expository or Topical Teaching?

I’ve been to churches that are almost dogmatic about expository teaching. Usually such churches are not a fan of topical teaching because, according to the logic, teaching on various topics in the Bible avoids dealing with other passages of scripture that would not be encountered in a more systematic expository approach. Usually, the promise is …

Critiques of Hank Giesecke Article

I ran across a great article by Hank Giesecke at the following location: Harbingers Article. The article was good at reviewing the history of our nation and the current pathetic status of our culture and the silence of the church on the great moral and spiritual issues of our day. However, his recommendations to “have …

Home Church Update

I have started a home church. Been going for 6 weeks now with one other dechurched couple. I’ve become the de-facto teacher since others don’t have the time to do the preparation. But so far so good. Finding I have some things to learn about communicating the Word effectively to others. It’s one thing to …

Balaam’s Blessing

How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, and your dwelling places, O Israel! Numbers 24:5 There is a very interesting story in the Book of Numbers that goes on for three chapters, Num 22-24. To make a long story short for the sake of the post (not that any of my posts are short), the …

Personal Interpretation of the Bible Part 3 – 12 Simple Rules

The last post gave my 7 overarching principles to help frame personal biblical study and interpretation. In this post, I’d like to recommend several rules to help you extract intended meaning from the text. All this means is letting the Bible text speak for itself. The simple rules provided here are the mechanics of that …

Personal Interpretation of the Bible Part 2 – 7 Principles to Guide Your Study

I have a lot of Bibles! If you are a Christian I bet you do too. I have a box of pocket bibles for handing out to people. I have two massive study bibles. I have a cheap Bible I bought for $12.95 when I first got saved and I know there are several more …

Visioning a Home Church

Starting a home church is not to say there are not good churches out there. I am sure there are but I can’t find one. I know there are pros and cons but the loss of the local neighborhood church is tragic and even unbiblical and the further down the dark road this country goes, …

Personal Interpretation of the Bible Part 1 – Biblical Illiteracy

A recent poll said that only 17% of Christians in the US indicated the Bible as the primary influence on their perspectives about the current war in Israel against Hamas (Survey). This was a distant second to the media (44%). Another poll from stateoftheology.com for 2022 indicates that among those who identify as evangelicals, 77% …

Can a Born Again Christian be Demon Possessed Part 3 – More about demons

This is part of a series of posts about the demonic realm, specifically, about demon possession. Its not something discussed in church for various reasons. I suppose its considered dark subject matter and yet the scriptures devote some real estate to this topic. Its not dark if its in the bible. Its light. The Holy …