Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 65
I’m continuing from my last column, examining modern transgender ideology. At the outset, let me stress that I’m not attacking individuals. As far as I’m concerned, you do you. I wish you the best. I’m critiquing the ideology that encourages so-called “transitioning” for children. I wrote that the modern movement is based on a neo-platonic idea that the physical world we live in does not define “reality.” It’s what you feel in your heart or choose to believe. That’s what’s really real. This is true even when the idea in your head is flatly c...
File this one under “Nothing new under the sun.” An ancient idea has resurfaced in the current cultural phenomenon of transgenderism. I’m not seeking to insult individual people, dealing with serious issues, who have been made in the image of God and thus deserve to be treated as neighbors. As Christ taught, let’s love them like ourselves. I’m looking at the ideology that is argued for on college campuses and social media, like TikTok. This is the argument that everyone should accept transgenderism as good, normal, and worthy of great sup...
I’m sick of being told what the experts say. Specifically, I’ve had it with experts who take it upon themselves to tell us how the world needs to change (and right now, mister) or else. I can’t even blame the experts themselves too much: they’re simply giving their opinion. The real culprits are the non-experts who constantly insist that the exalted ones should be regarded as oracles. The appeal to supposed expertise has taken on a religious flavor in our day. It’s a flavor that colors everything we argue about publicly. You can’t hold to Opi...
As a volunteer pastor, I’ve come to believe that the No. 1 threat to my congregation is fear. As it turns out, though, I’m not their only preacher. The other ones are broadcast at them. Twenty-four-hour news channels bombard them with reasons to be terrified. What’s coming next? A new virus? Conflict with Russia? China? Remember when the “murder hornets” were coming for us? Part of my answer to all that is this: Jesus fed 5,000 men and their families with a few pieces of bread and a plate of fish in Mark 6. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying th...
In Acts 16:1-12 we have the story of Paul and Silas on a missionary journey. Compared to the rest of Acts, this narrative seems a little dull. There are no shocking miracles; no devilish opposition; and no riots. It contains, however, some good lessons on decision-making, and these are badly needed, especially for the younger folks around us. We’ll talk about one such lesson. Not everyone grew up with wise parents who taught them how to govern their lives or make important choices. Even fewer have that in our day. I think especially of the r...
It’s ironic that forgiveness is so misunderstood among believers, given the place that it holds in the whole scheme of biblical thought. Jesus routinely explained forgiveness in economic terms. He compares it to forgiveness of a debt in Matthew 18. Forgiveness means no longer demanding repayment for what is owed. It doesn’t require a particular feeling. When Jesus demands we forgive each other from the “heart” that’s not saying we are required to feel a particular emotion: it just means we must be sincere. People get tripped up on the requi...
Jesus said in Matthew 10:32, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” This seems like a pretty big deal. If you want Jesus to confess you, you need to confess him. Of course, that’s from a translation that was completed in 1611, so it’s not surprising that the key word there, “confess,” may not mean to our ears what it meant to theirs. We tend to think of admitting to our sins, when we talk about confession. That’s certainly what it means legally and in major religious tra...
When King Solomon died, the rule passed to his son, Rehoboam. His story doesn’t take up much space, but it changed the nation of Israel forever. The account of his sad reign can be found in 1 Kings 12-14. Upon ascending to the throne, he is faced with a huge leadership challenge. His father had made use of forced labor (known as slaves) in several building projects. The people appealed to Rehoboam to back off from the harsh treatment they perceived. He promised them an answer in three days. In the meantime, Rehoboam sought advice from two g...
When you read the Psalms, right away you see David calling to God for rescue from his enemies. They have surrounded him and are threatening his life. This starts in Psalm 2. David cries out to God. I don’t see him taking the time to light a candle or even get to his favorite prayer spot. Right where he is, he’s dropping to his knees, hands reaching toward heaven. When he speaks, it’s not in some measured and gentlemanly King James formality. He’s screaming. He hurts his throat. “Lord, how many are my foes!” (Psalm 3:1) In these psalms, the...
As we stare another new year right in its face, it’s helpful to gaze back for a moment. I mean all the way back, before the beginning. The Scripture says that a few things happened even before the events of Genesis 1:1 and following. Before God said, “Let there be light,” other things were decided. Those things then paved the way for “the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13 and 17, for instance, refer to something called the Lamb’s book of life. If you are in Christ, your name is written in it. The individual names of his people were...
I grew up singing the old Christmas carols. I was stuck in the children’s choir at church when I was that age, and we learned these hymns by heart. I’d stand there, in front of the congregation with the other kids, feeling half-choked by the necktie that was foisted upon me, and we’d sing the songs that had been drummed into us. I was 23 years old when I became serious about my faith. That was at the end of a November eons ago. The next thing that happened was that it turned into December, and the church I attended sang the old Christmas hymns...
We’re studying through the book of Acts in church and one thing that struck us recently was the availability of places for those first preachers to engage listeners with the claims of the Gospel of Christ. Most cities had multiple synagogues that were happy to let traveling ministers address them. There were crowded, open-air markets where people bustled around: you were free to set up your soap box there and just start preaching. You could expect crowds gathered at riverbanks. In our little town, there’s no such place. What foot traffic the...
The Bible says a lot about prayer. Many other books have been written, talking about what the Bible says about prayer. Space would fail me here to scratch the surface of the topic. I’m not even going to break out my fancy googling machine to tell you how many verses in the Bible mention it. You can do that or get a grandkid to do it for you. For me, though, some of the simplest, most important instruction comes from Jesus in Luke 11. Having been asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray, he hands them a lot of really great i...
I’d like you to meet my friend, Herman. He’s super nice. He mows his lawn. He waves when he sees you out and about. He watches the news, at least until it makes him want to throw a brick through the screen. He knows the world is going insane, but he doesn’t know why. His pastor tells him it’s because we’re in the End Times (and he must be right because he’s been saying it for 40 years). Apparently, this is how it must go. Herman worked hard all his life. He sent his kids to the public school because, well, that’s what one does. That’s what t...
The No. 1 challenge facing Christianity in America is fear. This also happens to be the No. 1 challenge facing America in general. Fearful people do things that are especially deadly to New Testament faith. Fearful people search for someone to come to their rescue. This plays right into the hands of wanna-be Messiahs who aspire to power. These villains need your fear to empower them. You’re scared? Trust me. I can help. But, in order to help you, I’ll first be requiring some things from you. (There’s nothing new under the sun. Check out 1 Samue...
Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desire of your heart.” The word “delight” puzzled me, as I dug into the original Hebrew of the text. When it’s used as a noun, as in when you might say that something is a delight, the word means “feminine.” In other places in the Old Testament it describes women who appreciate sophisticated, luxurious things. She recoils from setting her bare foot on the ground, because she doesn’t want to get dirty: that’s the picture. Now, how you take a noun that like, which refer...
Who is the master of your conscience? Or, who gets to define for you what is right and what is wrong? Who has the authority to tell you what you must believe to be true? If you could answer those questions in my hearing, you’d be telling me who your god is. And, let’s not get it twisted, as the kids say: If you named a human person, even one in your church, that human is your god. If you answered those questions with Me, Myself, and I, then we also know who your god really is. One of the outgrowths of the Bible’s teaching about our consc...
When God established his own nation, Israel, the system of government he installed, had no legislature (since it already had the law of God) and no executive branch (someone authorized to use force and coercion to control behavior). Instead, regular people were to govern themselves as individuals and families under the simple code we call the Ten Commandments. When this self-government failed, and actual crimes were committed, there was a bottom-up system of appeals courts that would try the case. The New Testament’s rules concerning the c...
My last article here, about the injustice done to WNBA player Brittney Griner, resulted in a few angry responses. These were not responses to me personally, but to the friend who posted it on his social media. All of them, ironically, displayed the very biblical ignorance I suggested the average, Evangelical believer exhibits. One man accused me of not caring that Griner was in flagrant violation of the Bible’s commandments concerning sexuality. His point was that since she’s a sinner in this area over here, then whatever comes her way in anoth...
WNBA player Brittney Griner has been sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia on drug charges, including the possession of marijuana. From the standpoint of biblical principles, this is an unjust sentence for a couple reasons. For one, in God’s law, given through Moses, prison is never commanded or authorized as a punishment for crime. In the rest of the Bible, it is only ever the pagans and the tyrants who lock people in prisons. For civil offenses, the authorized punishments are of two kinds: either against the person of the criminal, o...
Simon the sorceror in Acts 8 has the distinction of having a particular sin named after him, “simony.” Note to self: There are things you don’t want to be remembered for. One of them would be messing up so badly that your name is associated with a type of sin from now on. Simon’s sin was offering money in exchange for spiritual authority. In doing so, he was seeking to circumvent the order that Jesus Christ set down for his followers in the upper room. It was there that he clothed himself like a slave and served his people, by washing their fee...
One popular saying about wealth is that he is a rich man who has a dollar more than I do. Similarly, among conspiracy theorists, the maxim seems to be that a nutty conspiracy theorist is one who believes in one more conspiracy than I do. One survey suggests that about half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. But, let’s define our terms. I’m calling a “conspiracy theory” one that places blame for events or circumstances on a secret group’s covert plan to achieve its nefarious goals, in contradiction to the official narrative...
I enjoy listening to podcasts. One of my favorites is from a retired, long-time veteran of professional wrestling. I’m not a wrestling fan so much, but this guy is genuinely entertaining and funny. He’s a great, natural story teller. He also happens to be an atheist. His religious faith, or lack thereof, makes an occasional appearance on the show. He’s decided that everyone who actually believes in God is at best brainwashed, and at worst insane. He also takes long moments at the beginning of shows, depending on the headlines of the day, to co...
It can’t keep going like this. I mean, it can’t, right? Something’s got to give. The divisions in this country get deeper, and then the threats hurled across the chasm get darker. Tragedies abound and all the arrows point down. I wonder what depths we’ll have sunk to when my future grandchildren show up. How’d our boat get in this gooey, brown creek, anyway? And, where did that paddle go? The ones who do, in fact, study history, are doomed to gnash their teeth while all the unread yahoos repeat it. So, we’ll continue like this, circling th...
In Acts 6, the first Christian martyr, Stephen, is described as a man full of grace. For your future Bible trivia conquests, note that there are only two people described as “full of grace.” The other one besides Stephen is the Lord Jesus. What does it mean to be full of grace? There’s an old Seinfeld bit about having or not having grace, but that’s talking about something different. We want to know what the Bible means by grace. The original Greek word that gets translated as “grace” in our English Bibles starts us moving in the right direc...
