Submitted by Andy McIlvain and originally posted March 2020.
There is a pandemic that has silently moved through the world. It is particularly acute in our region. It is not the Coronavirus or Avian Flu. It is Bible Illiteracy. Continue reading
Andy
Do You Know The Ten Commandments? (Matthew 5:17-18)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
There was a time in the American culture when children and adults knew what the 10 Commandments were. They memorized them and attempted to apply them to life. Unfortunately, most Christians today cannot name them. Continue reading
Extinguishing Hell (John 16:11)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
Since the fall, since pride and sin contaminated the world, men have tried to deny or explain away Hell. God’s judgement is that there are consequences to our sin, evil thoughts/deeds and behavior. Hell is the ultimate consequence of our unbelief and our choices. Continue reading
The Amnesia of Sin and The Plague of Pride (Psalm 10:4)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
Sin gives us amnesia; it makes us forget.
Our amnesia has its roots in our sin nature and in our world. We forget how faithful God has been in the past. Even now his steadfast love, grace and mercy is at work. We know this, yet… Continue reading
Help Reading the Bible – Part 2 (Translations and Resources)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
God wrote a book-The Bible. As Christians we should strive to live and breathe the Bible.
The Bible is inspired (God-Breathed), meaning God divinely influenced the human authors of the Scriptures to write the very Word of God. In the context of the Scriptures “inspiration” simply means “God-breathed,” making the Bible unique among all other books. The human authors, though inspired by God, had different writing styles with their own personalities, worldviews, and cultural influences. Yet, because the words of Scripture were received from an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect God, the Bible in its original form is inerrant and authoritative. Continue reading
A Bible Overview
Help in Reading the Bible – Part 1 (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
Do you read your Bible? I mean really sit down without distractions and read it? We call it “The Holy Bible” because it is God’s Word set apart from all other books. Continue reading
All Our Yesterdays and Tomorrows (Ecclesiastes 3: 1-22)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
We see in this quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that the theme of Ecclesiastes is felt and expressed by all men in all of history. Continue reading
God is Not Silent (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
Is your Bible closed? How often do you read from it? A LifeWay Research survey revealed that of 2,000 Americans who read the Bible, only about a third of them read it almost every day. The average reader owns 3.6 copies of the Bible, and1 in 5 churchgoers never read the Bible. Continue reading
It was the Best of Times; it was the Worst of Times (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
In his book A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens has given the literary world one of the greatest statements of all time. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” This so aptly describes our age and our world.