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Trinity

In Blog, Holy Spirit, Theology on
October 30, 2022

The Holy Ghost

Today is Halloween—the day where it’s all of a sudden acceptable to encourage your kids to stay out after dark and take candy from strangers. I grew up in a conservative, southern Baptist home, so I never really celebrated Halloween. I attended a handful of fall festivals in my childhood years, but I never went trick or treating, or walked through haunted houses, or decorated with spiderwebs and tombstones.

However, I once saw a Halloween decoration that I think my parents could get on board with. It was an outdoor sign made of different pieces of wood that were all painted in a variety of fall colors, and it read, “The only ghost that lives in this house is the Holy Ghost.”

The Holy Ghost, aka the Holy Spirit, can sometimes be a mystery to many believers. Who exactly is the Holy Spirit, and what exactly does He do in the world and in our daily, personal lives? Well, gang, it’s time to hop in the Mystery Machine and grab your Scooby Snacks because we’re about to discover that this Ghost is not as mysterious or daunting as He may seem.

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In Blog, Prayer, Theology on
April 17, 2022

Prayer Basics

Without communication, a relationship will never survive. I’ve had many friendships fade away because I just lost contact with them. And the same is true with other kinds of relationships, too. Marriages that lack communication often end in divorce. Miscommunication between bosses and employees tend to result in missed deadlines and uncompleted tasks. Parents who never communicate or cultivate relationships with their children are often estranged from them later in life.

Our relationship with God is no different. While a lack of communion with God won’t end in divorce or loss of relationship, forsaking practices like prayer and Bible reading can hinder one’s fellowship with God, making them feel like God is far away from them. Bible reading is a fairly straightforward discipline, and it’s rather easy to recognize how God speaks to us through His Word. But many Christians struggle with prayer. Who do we pray to? When should we pray? What should we pray for? Even people who have been believers for years are asking these questions, and all of them and more will be answered in this Prayer Basics post!

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In Blog, Heresies, Theology on
April 3, 2022

Test the Spirits

Everyone is trying to sell us something, whether it be on YouTube ads, interstate billboards, or commercials during the nightly news. Forbes reported in 2017 that the average American is exposed to four thousand to ten thousand ads every single day.[1] Everybody wants to convince us that their product or message will make our lives easier, better, or more enjoyable.

And this isn’t limited to secular media outlets. Even our pastors and churches feed us different messages every week. Many of these messages are rooted in the Word of God and are edifying and uplifting. However, there are also messages being delivered by “pastors” every week that are not rooted in Scripture, that are not truly edifying, and that actually lead people away from the truth of the gospel. Because of this, we must be like the Bereans, examining the Bible to see if what we are hearing lines up with God’s Word (Acts 17:11), and test the spirits (1 John 4:1).

To help you test the messages you’re hearing and discern whether what you’re being taught is biblical truth, I’ve compiled a brief list of nine heresies that originated in the early church and are still popular today and how the Bible disproves them.

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Trinity on
May 17, 2021

Delighting in the Trinity

Many have attempted to describe the Trinity and how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit relate to each other in simple terms. Some have said that the Trinity is like a shamrock, and the shamrock’s three leaves represent the three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit). However, this analogy could suggest that each person of the Trinity is only one part of the Trinity and not fully God without the other two persons.

Others have said that the Trinity is like the three states of water – liquid water, ice, and vapor. All three of these states are fully water, and all three persons of the Trinity are fully God. But this analogy could suggest that God changes form (Father becomes the Son, Son becomes the Spirit, etc.), and this is actually a heresy known as modalism.

Neither of these analogies accurately describe the Trinitarian relationship we read about in Scripture, and I’ve heard of several other analogies that aren’t quite right either (eggs, apples, triangles, etc.). As believers, we need to have an accurate view of God and the relationship between the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. This is why Michael Reeves wrote his book, Delighting in the Trinity.

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In Blog, Common Questions, Theology on
July 20, 2020

Does God Accept All Religions?

“Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.”[1]

You’ve probably heard something similar to this before. This quote was written by the Buddhist monk Ikkyu, and it basically means that you can reach God and salvation through whatever religion you choose to practice. Our culture today loves and embraces this idea. They preach that you should be able to believe and practice whatever you want to believe and practice and that what’s true for you may not be true for somebody else. In fact, the Ligonier State of Theology Survey found in 2018 that sixty-five percent of American adults agree with the statement that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”[2] But can this really be true? Does this statement agree with the truth we find in the Word of God?

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