Grace, Free Grace!

One of the issues that often come up when discussing the doctrines of grace with someone who does not believe them, is the misunderstanding that those on the free will camp have of its tenets. Although those of us who believe in what is commonly called "Calvinism" point out that nothing takes place by coincidence or because of man's autonomous, libertarian free will, we are continuously accused of being fatalists. And why? Because in the mind of the free will advocate, if whatever comes to pass has already been preordained by God, then whatever will be will be and we can just sit back and do nothing. Our actions, the thought goes, will make no difference in the final analysis, so why even try.

Heaven and Why I Want to Go There

A few weeks ago, I did a mini review of a book by Rob Bell entitled “Love Wins.” As you may remember, Bell has determined that heaven will be nothing more than a glorified earth where God will banish anything that is “bad.” I discussed at the time, that Bell’s concept of heaven has little to do with the scriptural idea and very much to do with the concept that man has of what heaven “ought” to look like. As humans, we have a tendency to fill in the gaps with our thoughts and ideas about what heaven, or anything we have not experienced or seen, is like.

The Bible Tells Me So

There’s an interesting controversy in the church today that has been brewing for some time, but that seems to be gathering steam of late. And that is the role that the Bible plays in the life of the church and Christianity as a whole. You may have heard of a rather well known preacher who has popularized the idea that Christianity is not dependent on the Bible simply because Christianity began before the Bible. I suspect that what the preacher is intending to say is that the New Testament was not composed until after Christianity had been established. This fact is then used to promote the idea that we should not be so dependent on the Bible for our faith and that we need to detach ourselves from some of its pronouncements if we’re going to be successful evangelists in a postmodern culture.