… so that no one can buy or sell

Just a thought experiment here…

For those of you who care, the end times position I hold to is called “amillennialism”. If that term is unfamiliar to you, let me help … are you familiar with the Left Behind book series? If so, it is NOT that. Not really close. Except that both views hold to the future return of Jesus.

Given that, my view of the end times is really quite different than most of contemporary Christianity, as is my understanding of the “mark of the beast.” Almost every discussion of the end times involves the topic of “the mark of the beast” and what it could be. Many (most?) people think it is a physical mark, many (most?) people think it is something like a chip, etc.

I’m not one of those people.

Here are two of the five “mark of the beast” passages: Continue reading “… so that no one can buy or sell” →

Christian, would you fail the “religious test”?

I have attempted to stay away from political posts this year, unless such topics have a direct line to or from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the past week, there have been a few overtly political events that are rooted in the utter rejection of the truth of the gospel, and one of them involves a man who many Christians supported for president, Bernie Sanders, the so called hero of the common man. But Sanders has come out squarely against both Jesus and Article 6 of the Constitution. Continue reading “Christian, would you fail the “religious test”?” →

Remaking Jesus?

People love to remake Jesus. We say “the evidence isn’t sufficient” or “the scriptures are wrong” or “who are we to say what Jesus was like” or “I just don’t think Jesus would ever <do, say, think, teach, etc.> that!”

In the book “Who is Jesus“, (a free epub download by the way) R.C. Sproul makes this statement when addressing our desire to remake Jesus into what we want Him to be (liberalism) instead of who He truly is (orthodoxy):

The problem is simple. It lies not with the “shoddy” reporting of the New Testament authors or the “sloppy” documents of history we call the Gospels. It was Emil Brunner, the Swiss theologian, who blew the whistle on nineteenth-century liberalism. Brunner’s verdict was as simple as it was inflammatory. The problem, he said, is unbelief.

Is your portrait of Jesus the one we find in the Scriptures or are you rekindling this nineteenth-century liberalism with unbelief? Are you cutting and pasting a Jesus together who is more to your liking? How do you decide what to believe about Jesus? What do you keep? Throw away?

If you don’t believe the biblical portrait of Jesus, it’s pretty simple – you don’t believe in Jesus in any meaningful sense of the name. Continue reading “Remaking Jesus?” →