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Showing posts from December, 2017

Should Christians Make New Years Resolutions?

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Ah, the new year! Time for a fresh start. New beginnings. Bogus prophesies that don't mean anything! (Seriously, watch out for those yahoos declaring, "This is the year of your breakthrough!") By now you've  made a few New Years resolutions of your own. Perhaps you want to lose a few pounds or break a bad habit or learn a new skill. And then two weeks later when you epicly fail at your resolution, you'll say, "Eh, there's always next year." Is it a good idea for Christians to be making New Years resolutions? Sure, why not? There's nothing wrong with setting personal goals. Just remember that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31)! Er, unless your new years resolution is to diet, in which case don't eat and don't drink to the glory of God...? Consider also these words from James 4:13-16. "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town a...

Should Christians Celebrate Kwanzaa?

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Kwanzaa is an African-American holiday celebrated from December 26 to January 1, created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga (formerly Ronald Everett). The holiday draws from African rituals and black national ideology to create the seven principles of Kwanza, called the Nguzo Saba. Among these principles are racial and national unity, self-determination, and faith in humanity. Decorations feature colorful art and foods that represent African idealism. Ceremonies include showing gratitude to ancestors, drink offerings and feasts, and reading the African Pledge and Principles of Blackness . Kwanzaa is a celebration of humanism, in which human fulfillment and values are the focus. This mindset is of the flesh and hostile toward God. The seven principles teach that people can improve their lives by sheer will and self-determination. For the holiday's founder, apparently that means abusing drugs and women. In 1971, he was sentenced to prison for the sexual assault and torture of t...

Was Jesus Born in a Barn?

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Luke 2:7 says, "Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." This one verse is why we think of Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem at the last minute, being turned away by an innkeeper, and then giving birth to the Savior of the world in a barn! But none of that is accurate. Due to the census decree, Mary and Joseph journeyed to Bethlehem, and verse 6 says, "while they were there, the time came for her to give birth." So they'd been there for a while. It wasn't like she arrived in labor pains. Joseph didn't drag his wife from Nazareth nine months pregnant. Because they went back to the place of their lineage, they would have been staying with family. We get the idea that because the inn was full and Mary laid Jesus in a manger, He must have been born in a stable, but scripture doesn't say that. The Greek word for "inn" is kataluma ...

Is Christmas Pagan?

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Is Christmas a pagan holiday? No, it's a Christian holiday, a celebration of the birth of Christ! If that wasn't what Christmas was about, our secular culture wouldn't be so afraid of the name Christ -mas. But didn't Christmas start out as a pagan holiday? Probably not. There have been many pagan festivals around the winter solstice, including the feast of Saturnalia. In 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian chose December 25 as the birthdate of Sol Invictus, the Roman sun-god. Prior to that in the early 200s, Hippolytus of Rome, in his commentary on the book of Daniel, tried to calculate the birth of Christ and mistakenly came up with December 25 . This was long before Rome was Christianized or December 25 in particular was associated with any pagan festival. It's probably just a coincidence (or divinely providential) that a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ ended up on the same day as a festival celebrating the birth of the "Unconquerable Sun." Just b...

What Does it Mean that God is Sovereign?

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From the late R.C. Sproul. Find the full sermon here . "If something happens in this world -- by the power of men, by the power of nature, by the power of machines -- God always has the power and authority to prevent it, at least, from happening. Does He not? And if He does not prevent it from happening, then that means at least this much -- that He has chosen to let it happen. "That doesn't mean He applauds it. That doesn't mean that He's in favor of it, insofar as He gives His divine sanction to it. But He does allow -- not in the sense of, again, approving all the time -- but He does allow it to happen, and in so allowing, He is making a decision. And He is making it sovereignly. And He knows in advance what's going to happen, and if He decrees that it shall happen, He is retaining His sovereignty over it. "Now if things happen in this world outside the sovereignty of God, then that would simply mean that God is not sovereign. And if God is not s...

Are We Surrounded by a Great Cloud of Witnesses?

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Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." What does this mean, that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses? Well, it's often interpreted that the saints who have gone before us, the faithful who have died and are with Jesus in heaven, are looking down from above. They're watching us, cheering us on as we run the race, just like athletes in a sports arena would compete in front of a big crowd. However, no where else in the Bible are we given a picture of saints watching us from heaven. Furthermore, the Bible doesn't say anywhere that we should pray to these believers. They're not watching, and we can't talk to them. So they're not witnessing us. They witness to us. The stories of these saints and their completed lives of faithfulness continue to minister to u...