A few years after I left college, I was working in the hotel business and on one occasion I had a long weekend break from work.  An old college buddy of mine named Ivan happened to call and we made plans to go to Charleston, SC for the weekend.   At the time, I had fallen away in my walk with God and was, to use an old fashioned term, in a backslidden condition.  Ivan wasn’t living for God either.  But both of us had been raised by Christian parents and attended Christian schools, and so we both were more or

Read More…

The other day I was engaged in a conversation with a young man who is not a part of this church, but who nevertheless endeavored to explain to me what, in his opinion should be the defining characteristics of Christianity and the church. This young man proceeded to tell me that the message of Jesus Christ was one of love and inclusiveness.  That Jesus came to bring peace and togetherness.  That love and acceptance should be the hallmarks of the church and that judgment and exclusiveness are never Christian virtues. And afterwards as I was thinking about what he had

Read More…

As we come to this passage of scripture today, we must remember that we are entering into the middle portion of an ongoing sermon of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we must keep in mind the context of this sermon, what has been said so far.  For Christ is building a message, precept upon precept.  And in order to correctly understand what we are looking at today, we must remember what Christ has already been preaching, and consider it in that context. So what has Christ said so far in His message?  Well, He started out criticizing the Pharisees who He said

Read More…

There is a dangerous tendency when coming across a passage of Scripture such as this one, to isolate these verses from it’s context.  It’s dangerous because when you do that, what you end up with is a flawed doctrine.  And a flawed doctrine is one that you cannot fully rely upon.  You can’t fully trust it.  It may sound good, it may seem true from a superficial reading, but when a real crisis hits your life that flawed doctrine isn’t going to hold water and it can cause shipwreck to your faith. A superficial view of this passage would suggest

Read More…