One of the recurring themes that the apostle James returns to several times in his epistle is the sinful nature of the human tongue. In 4:11–12, he specifically deals with brothers who speak evil of one another. This tendency to speak evil of each other has deep roots in mankind’s sinful nature…

Wednesday at the prayer meeting, Pastor Thacker read Psalm 109, which was challenging in an unexpected way. The language used in this Psalm may shock us. But the Psalms should inform our worldview and prayer life. In an era of soft Christianity, the Psalms can do much for our backbone. Here’s David praying against his (and God’s) enemies in Psalm 109…

As you will recall, my friend, Paul Vaughn had been scheduled for a hearing on January 10 following his arrest for his pro-life activities at an abortion clinic. As was perhaps expected, the date for the hearing was pushed. Less expected (by me, anyway) is that the hearing was pushed out by a year. The new date is January 16, 2024! So on the legal front, Paul and his family will wait in some sort of limbo for the next 12 months before it is known what reprisal there may be…

Here at St. Mark, we are celebrating the miracle of new life that God brings to our midst with the safe arrival of Cohen James Bryan, and Thea June Carman…

Over the Christmas/New Year break, my brothers-in-law and I were discussing aspects of cultural decline here in the west. One of my brothers-in-law brought up a book he had recently been reading which discusses the fact that most instances of cultural decline were accompanied by sexual promiscuity, debauchery, and confusion. This has led to me doing some ruminating…

The holidays have come to an end, the decorations are coming down, the diets are… well, maybe not back on track, but many of us feel the urgent need to get back to some, let’s say, simpler foods. Perhaps new resolutions have been made for the year, and it may be that you’re feeling a little down, what with all the fun and excitement in the rear-view mirror…

Larson Hicks and Rich Lusk started a podcast a few months ago and it’s been fantastic. Allow me to recommend it to you…

Great stuff from my friend, Tim Gallant…

Our church year begins today as we usher in the season of Advent. How fitting, now as we turn our attention to that expectant and watchful season, that we do so here in the U.S. on the heels of our season of Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving is not a church calendar holiday, it is a good and right celebration when we gather with friends and family to give thanks for all our Lord has done for us…

I am very busy with several projects that are all urgent and should not be writing on my personal blog right now. But I need to take five minutes and write about this anyway. A video has been making the rounds by Victoria Osteen. Victoria is wife to the (in)famous Joel Osteen. She had some stuff to say. Here’s the video, and below some key quotes from what she said

Here are a few pictures of Kaylee’s baptism…

True, those times alone with Christ in the secret place are invaluable. But I have to confess to you that I am doubtful that our Lord meant those should be our _only_ times of worship! Are we not commanded to worship alongside others in Scripture (Hebrews 10:25)? How then shall you fulfill the dozens of “one another” texts in Paul’s epistles if not in the context of a local church like those to whom Paul originally wrote? Is not the first word of the Lord’s Prayer the plural possessive, “Our”?…

Matthew 18 gives instructions regarding church discipline, an act which cannot be executed without church membership. For example, Paul told the Corinthian church to exclude someone who was unrepentant in immorality. Logically, the church could only exclude him if he had first been included, and therefore inclusion in the church must have had a concrete definition…

As I read the book, I found it a fascinating illustration of the reality that what we believe will necessarily impact what we do and how we do it. In this case, it shows that what we believe to be true about children will inevitably shape the way we “train them up.” It concerned me to see that many people follow Michael Pearl’s technique even though they believe very different things from what he believes…

A Christian church has absolutely no business displaying a national flag in the sanctuary, at least not as it is commonly done. The church born at Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, not a doubling down on the fragmentation of Babel…

I’ve been wanting to write about this since it first started blowing up a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t had the time. I don’t technically have the time this morning, but I’m going to write about it anyway because I need to. I need to get my thoughts out there on this. I need to get it off my chest…

I debated writing this… I’m going to get some push back on this for sure (or at least I’m fairly certain. Or perhaps people will read this, shake their heads in disgust and move on). So there’s this picture of a quote from Stephen Colbert (above) going around “The Facebook” and it goes like this…

I’m writing this over my lunch break, because of some things that have happened on Facebook over the last several weeks. In the last few months, it seems I have acquired quite a few new Facebook friends, many whom I do not know. That’s fine. The more the merrier. But I think there’s some things you should know about me, because sometimes there seems to be some confusion…

My previous article got a fair amount of traffic. By far the biggest source was Facebook. But this article was my second biggest source of traffic. He linked to me at the end of his article and so I’m returning the favor. At first I was hesitant because it took me a bit to find his name , but then I realized it was in the sidebar by way of linking to his Facebook page, and his Google+ page. Also his about page lists the Church he pastors. He is Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, pastor of an Orthodox Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. As such I offer the disclaimer that he holds to theology which I very much disagree with (and some comes out in his article). And this is especially important for me to point out now because that’s really what this issue is about, that theology is important, that words, are important…