Many of us have heard about how police investigators learn to spot counterfeit money. They do so not by studying the counterfeits closely, but by learning the real thing inside and out, like the backs of their hands.
But there’s an implicit reality to this metaphor that often goes unacknowledged and unapplied. It is so obvious that most of us think right past it.
Read MoreWhatever else the Bible might say about God’s involvement or judgment or sin or compassion in the midst of this outbreak, remember at least Christ’s call to repent.
Read MoreYou cannot read the Bible at face value and come away with the ideas that God has nothing to do with the current epidemic coursing through the world or that He never has anything at all to do with the difficulties that come into our lives. Only a Bible read through dense, thick lenses of wishful thinking and insistence on our own definitions of love and goodness can be made to reach that conclusion.
Read MoreMany Christians in our modern day either fail to see or refuse to believe the statements the Bible makes about the eternal state of God’s chosen people, concluding instead that it is the children of God’s responsibility to win the world, issue in the kingdom and set the stage for the return of Christ.
If the Great Commission includes an implicit directive to fix the world, then political notions of utopia fit in rather nicely.
But the Bible points us in another direction: one of present allegiance to a heavenly kingdom and of future hope in God’s rebuilding of the world.
Read MoreThe true Christian disciple understands that he has been called to a life defined by struggle, war, striving, suffering, endurance, competition and labor.
Victory is assured, but only if you get in the fight.
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