When people struggle with control issues in their lives one helpful therapy technique is to talk about who is writing your story. People often struggle with letting others affect them or control them in ways that aren’t appropriate. It is as if our life is a story that is being written in a book. The words that appear on…

...Click here to read more »

The resurrection is a big topic, and I’ve hardly exhausted it. Hopefully, I’ve shown that it matters both theologically and practically. It affects how we think of the church and how we live as Christians.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in Bible class when someone argued against this or that good work on the theory that “It’s…

...Click here to read more »

It wasn’t until I entered therapy that I became aware of how much your story affects so much of your life.

I was in therapy for five years but I didn’t enter therapy the traditional way. I entered therapy as a therapist.

When you learn to do psycho-therapy one of…

...Click here to read more »

The thief on the cross

I guess the most common remaining question I get on this material is based on —

(Luk 23:42-43 NAS)  42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”  43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

There really are two closely related…

...Click here to read more »

Why is it that so many song leaders insist on leading songs with bad music? You’d think that worship leaders, of all people, would understand the importance of beauty in the melody and the arrangement. But in the Churches of Christ, we’ve adopted a form of Greek dualism, treating the words of the song as holy and important to God,…

...Click here to read more »

God speaks to us about heaven and judgment and the Second Coming in metaphors. The goal of this brief series has been to get the metaphors right — at least, closer to right than our usual readings. But of necessity, when it comes to the next age, the scriptures don’t answer every single question we wonder about. Our brains just aren’t…

...Click here to read more »

I have a confession to make: I didn’t know what the “Rapture” is until I was in law school. A degree from Lipscomb and a childhood of Sunday school classes and sermons, and somehow the Rapture got entirely past me.

We in the Churches of Christ don’t speak of the Rapture — either pro or con. In fact, my first

...Click here to read more »

It could happen among any group of Christians when the subject of conversation turns to evangelism. One person draws back from the thought of approaching strangers to distribute evangelistic leaflets. Another feels unable to engage in door-to-door “cold campaigning” such as is done by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, but also feels guilty in this regard. A third member of the…

...Click here to read more »

2 Peter 3:10-13 is one of the most common — and understandable — objections to belief in a general bodily resurrection, as opposed to a disembodied eternal fate for the saved. This familiar passage is usually taken to mean that God is going to take the saved away from earth so that he can then destroy the earth with fire.

(2Pe…

...Click here to read more »

So I was teaching a Wednesday Bible class of older adults not long ago, and I mentioned some of this to them, and they became upset with me. They’d always been taught they’d float off into the ether as disembodied souls. Plainly I was wrong. But I pointed out to them that they’d also always been taught that Jesus would…

...Click here to read more »