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Showing posts from September, 2018

Is God's Love Reckless?

There's a popular Christian song entitled Reckless Love, sung by Cory Asbury of Bethel Church in Redding, CA. The first verse goes like this: Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me You have been so, so good to me Before I took a breath, you breathed your life in me You have been so, so kind to me So far, or should I say so, so far, the song is alright. Psalm 139:4 says that "before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it altogether." Romans 2:4 says that God shows His kindness toward us to lead us to repentance. But then we get to the chorus, where he sings... Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God Uh, what? The love of God is reckless? A word that means "without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action?" Not only is that an unbiblical description of God's love, the artist contradicted himself. In the first verse, he sang, "Before I spoke a word and before I took a breath, you were good and kind to me....

Are You a Pharisee?

Two people are having a spiritual or ethical discussion, one is a conservative Christian and the other more liberal. The conservative calls a popular teacher false, or says a culturally accepted behavior is sin, and points to what the Bible says. The liberal responds by playing the Pharisee card. "You're so unloving and legalistic clinging to the Bible and your doctrines. You're a Pharisee!" Bam! The conservative is instantly discredited, and their arguments are invalid. But more than likely it's the other way around. During the time of Jesus, Jewish communities were governed by the Sanhedrin, made up two factions known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees took a very literal interpretation of Scripture, to the extent that they denied the resurrection of the dead because they didn't believe it was in the Scriptures. The Pharisees were more liberal with the Scriptures, and gave oral tradition equal authority to the written word of God. So you could...