A new, supposed “missing link” was announced two weeks ago.  But despite the frenzied estacy filling the media reports on this discovery, things with this fossil are not nearly what they seem.  Big surprise.  Take the link below for a great article from the good folks at Creation Ministries International.

http://creation.com/darwin-fossil-ida-hype

As many of you may know, the Twilight book series by author Stephanie Meyer has become quite a pop-culture sensation.  The series has sold millions of books worldwide and has even sparked a successful motion picture.  Wanting to see what all the fuss was about, I picked up volume one of the series and gave it a quick read.  The story was interesting enough to make me want to continue, so I read the next three novels as well.  Below are my thoughts:

 

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” 

This wisdom certainly applies to the global warming issue.  Contrary to what the media (not to mention companies vying for gov’t subsidies) would want us to believe, there is another side to this whole issue.  And the link below is a great resource for discovering that other side:

http://right-mind.us/tags/Global+Warming/default.aspx

Fascinating article…

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25348657-401,00.html

There is a fascinating essay on the Christian Science Monitor website predicting, “The coming evangelical collapse.”  I’m not familiar with the author, Michael Spencer.  But he describes himself as an evangelical and he comes to some compelling conclusions, including:

“We evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.”

Many will dismiss his conclusion that our involvement with the culture war and political conservatism “will prove to be a very costly mistake.”  But keep in mind, the decline of mainline protestantism a century ago was triggered, in part, by its involvement in all kinds of seemingly good causes, including Prohibition.  The problem is those mainline churches got so involved in “good causes,” they left the Gospel behind.  Soon, theological accuracy on the essentials of the faith, including the Trinity, the Resurrection, sin, justification by faith, etc., was jettisoned.

As an elder in a local congregation of an evangelical church, I would add one more concern to Spencer’s list.  I believe disloyalty displayed through “church hopping” is a grave sin in our movement.  Too many people are all too quick to leave a church for unbiblical reasons.  Having talked to dozens of people over the years who’ve left churches, I’ve discovered that many will say, “Well, we just weren’t being fed at that church.”  But after scratching below the service, I’ve discovered they fled because of a conflict with a pastor, leader, or another member.  As a result, they have rejected the notion that God, in His Sovereignty, placed them in that situation for their good; to work through the conflict and thus, bring glory to God.  Scripture has given us clear guidelines for working through conflict, but far too many Christians ignore them and choose the easy, cowardly way out.  If we’re called to be imitators of Christ, we’ve failed miserably to show a lost and hurting world what His loyalty and faithfulness looks like.

At any rate, here’s Spencer’s column:  http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

 

Check this out…you got to love their willingness to pick a fight…

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/18/north-dakota-house-gives-fertilized-eggs-human-status/

So what do you think?  Should we all move? 

In our Galatians Sunday school class we’ve been talking a lot about the feelings that 1^st century Jewish Christians had toward Gentile believers.  While having no problem with Gentiles viewing Jesus as their Savior, many believing Jews in New Testament times felt that Gentiles needed to become “Jewish” before being considered fully right with God.  This meant that Gentiles needed to adopt the practices of the Mosaic Law, i.e. circumcision, dietary rules, cleanliness laws, Sabbath regulations, etc. 

 

Many in the mainstream media these days are blaming “free market” economics and Pres. Bush for the current recession.  We constantly hear things like “it was the free-market, laissez-faire policies of the Bush administration that got us into this mess.  We need to abandon that type of thinking and allow government to control and fix the economy.” 

The problem with such reasoning is that Bush’s economic policies were anything but what could be considered true “free market.”  Click on the link below to read a fantastic article on this very topic:

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=10

Click on the link below to read an absolutely fantastic article about sickness, healing, and the goodness of our God. 

http://byfaithonline.com/page/ordinary-life/he-heals-all-your-diseases

By the way, By Faith is the official magazine of the PCA.

Lee Webb raises a very interesting and telling point…check it out below:

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/524342.aspx