November 2021

Some stories in the Bible encompass a whole chapter or more and have one main lesson for us. However, sometimes the Bible is overwhelming. For example, let’s be overwhelmed with these 59 words.  We can spend a lifetime in 59 words like this. 9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in …

The term good news gets thrown around a lot. What about that? What is good news? The term appears 44 times in the New Testament. In old English, good news was said gospel. So, it still appears in the Bible due to tradition.  Guess we should pay some attention to Gospel and Good news. The Gospel of Mark begins. 1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,[a] the Son of God,[b] Therefore, Mark’s whole book is about the gospel. …

Plato shared an illustration that Socrates shared. In it, people are all pinned to a wall in a cave and cannot look to right or left. Shadows of real things can be seen on the wall they look at but nothing real. One person gets out of the cave and the light hurts his eyes and after a long time of struggle, he can experience life outside the cave, and it is amazing. The limits of education can be seen …

In the 1675, Philip Jacob Spener published Pious Desires (Pia Desideria). He was a Lutheran German pastor who saw that going to church was not changing people’s lives.  He saw that correct doctrine alone leads to dead faith.  I see nothing has changed. So how do we face the Correct Doctrine Dead Faith problem? Philip had some ideas and we can think as well. At West Point I became best friends with Erin who came from an Orthodox Presbyterian Church …