Posts with the tag “cross-point”

Yes, I know, most people will think of an older person being cared for, maybe in a nursing home, when they read the title.  What I mean is almost the opposite of that.  I’m talking about Elders (shepherds, pastors), as in the church officials, who help care for the congregation.  As mature Christian men take on this role, what is expected of them?  More specific, what does the Bible say is expecte...  Read More

If you are like me, you look at the landscape of our society and wonder: what in the world has gone wrong?  We once were a country that honored God, the Bible, the morals taught in the Bible, and even though we had many problems and many individuals with problems; overall we trusted in the Lord and had time honored principles we lived by that derived from the teaching of Jesus and his apostles.  T...  Read More

In an article by Ken Idleman in the July/August 2022 issue of the Christian Standard magazine he quotes Tina Rosenberg, who wrote the following words: “Few things in life are more important in determining the kind of people we become than the group we hang out with – the group with which we regularly associate.  The behaviors of that group determine what is appropriate or cool or desirable in our ...  Read More

In the Bible, like all well written documents that tell a story, language techniques are used to communicate effectively.  Metaphors are used regularly, for example (a figure of speech where a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable).  “Put on the full armor of God” in Ephesians 6, speaking of how to guard our faith, is a metaphor.  Another language...  Read More

In Part 1 we looked at how “the fear of the Lord” is a common reaction when people throughout history have encountered God’s messengers.  We cannot stand boldly before the Lord with face-to-face encounters, we cower in his presence, fall on our face, bow before him.  In the book Recovering Our Sanity by Michael Horton, he says “a sure disproof of someone reporting a vision of God or a message from...  Read More

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!                                                It is like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard, flowing down Aaron’s beard    Flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.  It is like the dew on Mount Hermon, flowing down the slope of Zion, where God commands the blessing, ordains eternal life.  Psalm 133We have arrive...  Read More

“I look to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?  No, my strength comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, and the mountains” (Psalm 121:1).The above is from The Message, and not the typical wording of this verse.  But I must admit I was always a little confused by the traditional translations.  The ESV renders this: “I lift up my eyes to the hills.  From where does my help c...  Read More