“The kingdom of God does not come with observation;  nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU” (Luke 17:20, 21). This is the New King James translation (and the KJV is the same), and many Christians use this passage to teach that the civil government aspect of the Kingdom of God is a personal, private, neutral affair (“within you”). They often go on to say that when externalized and public, politics becomes a dirty…

What I am saying in these weekly blog postings may not be what you are hearing at church, and I recognize it may even fly in the face of much accepted Christian teaching today.  For example, Jill just heard a popular Christian leader say that one gets closer to God in their Christian walk by “more carefully obeying God’s law.”  One of my staples is  “Our efforts to obey the law of God is deadly legalism, and true, biblical obedience is always only the…

Each week  I am finding myself more and more excited about what I am learning! It seems to me that the Lord is showing me that, yes, there is such a thing as an octogenarian little child, just starting Kindergarten! Thanks so much for being willing to check out my ramblings! As we continue to look at why we were created by God, today I want to be sure we are aware of the “big-picture;” the framework into which all the details and practical…

We have arrived at the Grand Climax, the Summum Bonum, which is the final course of our “Theology for Dummies” seminary training—“Why Am I Here?” Our foundational Bible passage for all our seminary courses has been Genesis 1:26-28:  “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on…

Last week we discovered that God deals with us through “grace alone”—really! However, the problem is, we talk about “by grace, through faith” constantly, but simultaneously believe that we must still do something—choose, decide, invite, obey, etc.—in order to “walk in the Spirit,” or “live by faith.”  This is an indication that we still think we can “please God by keeping His law” successfully, which is not “grace through faith.” Since the Fall, we subconsciously see ourselves as the stars in this drama we…

Mankind, a group of which I am a proud member, was created to rule over the earth, with their wives as their helpers, as God’s vice-regents (Genesis 1:26-28).  However, Satan seemingly destroyed God’s plan when Adam, as the federal head of this human race, chose to obey his assistant in that task, his wife. She asked him to follow her in directly and deliberately disobeying God’s specific command to not eat the fruit of only one certain tree in the Garden of Eden, the…

The subject we will now investigate, after “What Is God Like?”, is “What Am I Like?” This is the second course of the four that make up the curriculum of our seminary, Theology for Dummies. Those who are still enrolled after last week’s class on “Evangelical Universalism” may bail out this week, particularly if they subscribe to the old saying “I’m OK, you’re OK.” If that is you, get ready to have your presuppositions shaken. It will be too much for some! One of…

We have established that an all-knowing, all-powerful God who is everywhere at once, has taken away my free-will and made me His puppet.  But, miracle of miracles, He also loves me, relentlessly, no matter what I do, with a never-failing, agape love that is beyond my comprehension. That love has caused Him to send His Son Jesus to the cross to die for the sins of the whole world. At the cross, all of God’s righteous judgment on every one of those sins was…

To many, that title is a meaningless cliché, but it is a truth the meaning of which is beyond our comprehension. For example, picture an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (present everywhere), omnipotent (all powerful) god who has completely obliterated any free-will you ever had, leaving you completely under his dominion That is precisely the god that some may think I have pictured for you the past two weeks. If that were true, and it were the “end of story,” God would be a frightening, untenable,…

Some time ago, I was discussing a theological idea with a pastor friend of mine. During the discussion, as a totally, throw-away, inconsequential statement of universally accepted truth (i.e.,“the sun comes up in the East”),  he mumbled this aside, seemingly not to me, but as a reminder to himself—”Of course, we have free-will.”  Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, “free-will” has been baked into human nature. It is the  logical result of being able to determine good and evil, right and wrong,…