A number of years ago I had a Sunday School teacher who was talking about saving faith. He said that Christianity was an adult religion and the faith that was required was an adult faith. In other words, Christian faith is an informed faith. It is faith that is informed with an understanding of sin as offense against God, a lack of saving ability in ourselves, and a turning away from sin and to Christ. These truths, he said, really cannot be grasped by children. The implication is probably as obvious to you as it is to me. I trusted…

Sell your possessions, and give to the needy.  Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heaves that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no month destroys. Luke 12:33 Our good friends Brandy and Noah Lee are church planters in Montana and they are adopting this beautiful little girl (Nora) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, they are a few thousand dollars short and need some help from fellow Christians to get them over there to pick her up. So, if you have a heart for orphans, please help our friends…

Sometimes when we go on a walk we stop traffic. Seriously. People will slow their cars down and rubberneck with some misguided thought that staring is going to answer their questions. Two adults, four kids. Adults are Irish-looking, kids are African-looking. But just to mix it up even more, all of our kids appear to be the same age (and in reality are pretty close – two 3-year-olds and two 2-year-olds). Conversations only complicate matters: not only do we have 4 Ethiopians that are being raised by Americans, they are going to be raised in Cameroon, in a village, where…

My freshman year of college, I walked into my dorm kind of nervous and afraid, but fortunately there was a kind girl named Lisa Voth that lived a couple doors down from me.  She was quirky, full of life, and welcoming and thus we became friends quickly.   The next year, we went to Israel through a program at our college and were roommates.  I was struggling in my classes because I did not know much of anything about the Old Testament coming into the program.  However, Lisa was very patient with me and time and time again explained about how…

Most of us have had the experience when we were children. You are going to do something you shouldn’t, you check to make sure that no one is looking, and then immediately your mom calls out from the other room. “I told you that you can’t have cookies until after dinner.” How did she do that? You have already done an eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head check when you were hugging her. There’s nothing there, just hair. You’ve asked before, but Mom just raised her eyebrows at you. Like there is something she knows that you don’t. Finally, you kids out there, I have the…

Our Dallas preaching pastor, Craig Cabaniss, preached a really helpful sermon today on faith (listen to it here). The passage was Mark 5:21-43 which included the healing of the woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years and also the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Of the many good points about faith that he made during this sermon, there was one that struck me. As he described Jesus approaching the wailing in front of Jairus’ house, Pastor Craig commented: He comes in and he says, “Hey why are you making such a commotion and weeping? The child is not…

 Tone languages are a result of the Fall.  When missionaries go to the field and determine their languages are tone languages, some seriously doubt their calling to the field.  – Various GIAL  professors. So, I just finished an 8 week class called Tonal Analysis and I would like to explain it but I find it a little hard to do so.  Here is my attempt:  Some languages use vowels and consonants to construct words (like English) while others use vowels, consonants, and tone to construct words (like Mandarin).  Whether a pitch is high or low in some languages is as…

The last couple blog posts (part 1 and part 2) sought to answer the question “Does our justification lead to inaction?” Our hope is that these posts would spur all of us on to proactively pursue good works. We are speculating that another lie that Satan tells us to “slow us down” from pursuing good works is that… 3) Me Preaching the Gospel to Myself will Save other People “I must be doing well spiritually.  I am in an community group where I am vulnerable with others and freely confess my sin, I attend the gospel-centered Christian conferences, I am…

In our last post, we sought to encourage our own souls and those of our readers that the reality that we are justified in God’s eyes should in no way slow us down from seeking to zealously pursue good works.  We are speculating that Satan is lying to the church telling us that the doctrine of justification should slow us down in our attempt to please God with our lives.  The second lie that we’ve been tempted to believe is… 2) God always “Feels” the Same Way Towards Us I am sure I am not the only one who has…

Thankfully, very few Christians today would say that the doctrine of justification[1]gives us permission to sin.  This lie definitely has been used by the Devil to derail many believers, but I am not so sure that this is his lie of choice in evangelical churches today.  Instead, I am concerned that we emphasize so much that Christians are not saved by good works that we are suspicious of “good works” altogether.  A common refrain in American churches is that we need to “preach the Gospel to ourselves every day.”  When inquiring among our brothers and sisters about a career choice, we…