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Showing posts with the label Gospel

The REAL Mother of Jesus

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No, the title is not an attempt to put forward some Gnostic idea that the Mary we know about in the Bible is not actually the mother of Jesus. Unfortunately, many traditions and false teachings have been presented for a couple of millennia. We should examine who she is according to the source documents. Credit: Free Christian Illustrations Mary seemed to be just another Hebrew girl. The Bible shows us that she was obedient to God, knowledgeable of the Scriptures, had faith, willing to face the hardships of being unmarried and pregnant in that culture — and she was not perfect. She said herself that she needed a Savior. It must have been almost overwhelming to give birth to God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity that became flesh and is the Creator of the universe! Let's find out more. We can see in church history that unbiblical traditions started to accrue about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as early as the second century. This means that some of our thoughts about her...

Taking Up Space — Book Review

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen On Saturday, October 20, I had just finished reading a Western novel, which I do from time to time to "decompress". Shortly after lights out, Steven J. Wright sent me a message that I discovered the next morning. He wondered if I would do a review of his new novel, Taking Up Space, which was going to be published very soon. (After all, I wrote about his novel The Deception back in twenty aught thirteen.) I warned him that I would have to mention things I did not care for as well as positive, and he was okay with that. This child saddled up with some free ebook reading material under no obligation to give a glowing review. So, that's the disclaimer as well as a personal anecdote. Most folks don't know that I am writing up a review for a book, video, or whatever. This was an interesting experience. I was corresponding with Mr. Wright and giving him progress reports as well as some thoughts along the way. Although you have seen some book r...

Whose Life Matters?

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen I don't know about other countries, but America is very "race" conscious. Some ethnic groups claim victim status and persecution from other groups, yet little attention is given to the murders of their own "kind". We hear about the "Black Lives Matter" group, and somehow, it becomes almost acceptable in the eyes of leftist media for them to block traffic and murder police officers. A response is, "Blue Lives Matter", because we need the police to do their jobs. There's a whole heap of racism from whites, blacks, and other groups that you want to name. Somehow, the lives of unborn children are not important to many people. "College Liberal" "meme" inspired by comments from Doug McBurney . This poor girl has been used in so many "memes", and was probably just minding her own business when the picture was taken. Did you know the word slave is based on the word Slav , as in Slav...

The Master of Time

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In any apologetics endeavor, we have to be aware that people will naturally argue from their worldviews. We are to present the gospel (Luke 24:46-27, 1 Peter 3:15-16), and the other person's starting point may be it's atheism, evolutionism, a false Christian system, postmodern philosophy, or a different religion entirely. They ask questions and we can give answers, but watch out — some people use loaded questions and try to keep us on the defensive. They have assertions of their own that they need to explain. In addition, we need to know what the Bible teaches and be clear about it, because some people will think that the true God is just another deity to add to their stable; receiving Jesus is almost meaningless to them. Generated at Redkid , then added some text of my own. A follower of the an offshoot of Hinduism known as Jainism was trying to say that God did not create time. Instead, time created God. Then he insisted that since the Bible does not specifically say,...

Anti-Creationists and Faulty Worldviews Part 2

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen As you can tell from the title, this here article is a continuation. To see Part 1, click here . I hope you do, so this makes more sense to you. Many times, we get comments from atheists on the prod who claim to be "former Christians" (sometimes claiming they were Christians for many years), and then proceed to show little knowledge of the Christian faith. Often, it is because atheists are notorious liars (as I have shown several times before,  especially with this one ). Often, people think  they are Christians because they were raised in a church-going home, or because they're not Mohammedans, Buddhists, or something else, so "Christian" is a kind of default position for them. (One atheist who claims to be a former Christian was raised in the Christadelphian cult ; he's not a used-to-be, he's a never-was.) But these alleged former Christians display little knowledge of the faith and the gospel message . Betcha thought ...

Why do Biblical Creationists Emphasize a Young Earth?

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There are supporters of old earth theology who insist that the Bible does not indicate the age of the earth. True, there is nothing explicitly saying that the world was created on 9 AM Oct 3, 4004 BC, or something similar. OECs (Old Earth Creationists) sometimes claim that biblical creation (YEC, or Young Earth Creation) is something new, and belief in an old earth has been the default position of Christians throughout church history. Not hardly. Belief in recent creation has been taught by the church fathers and the reformers , and getting an ancient planet or universe out of the Bible only comes through eisegesis . Malicious Advice Mallard does not want you to learn from the sources. Although church fathers and Reformers can help establish facts of history and offer important insight into Scripture, they were not writing Scripture itself. The opinions of people aren't as important as what Scripture teaches, and what can be reasonably inferred from the Bible. (Some ow...

Don't Fear the Labels

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  by Cowboy Bob Sorensen During a discussion with the pastor about having a Question Evolution Day event in his church, he was concerned about being "labeled". Don't misunderstand, this pastor is not a fearful man. That is a natural reaction because (as I have pointed out many times), he seems to know that people often "think" with their emotions. Hanging a label on someone is a way to provoke an emotional reaction. Anti-creationists will use this fact to their advantage. I got to cogitating on this, saddled up and set out at full gallop. The URL is now outdated, this was made at Sign Generator, which is also gone now What Kind of Labels? There are many kinds of labels riding the open prairie today, and the most accurate definitions are often left behind in favor of the ones most commonly used. Being labeled is one thing, but the connotations associated with many labels are often inflammatory. I reckon that hanging a negative label on someone...

"Deadly Disclosures" by Julie Cave — Book Review

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen For someone who is not all that experienced in doing book reviews — here I go again! Deadly Disclosures  is not the kind of book that I expected to read. Most of my reading these days is nonfiction. (I agree with some other people that so much of Christian fiction is poorly written and unbelievable, "preachy", with the main character becoming a Christian and then everything comes up roses. The committed Christian life is not easy.) The e-book was on sale at Answers In Genesis , and I thought I would give a Christian mystery with a creationist viewpoint a try. I'm glad I did, and have to restrain myself from diving into the next two books of the trilogy because of time commitments. Julie Cave shows her talent in several ways. We received plot twists, suspense, emotion and other things expected in a murder mystery. There are little extras that add color and realism to the story, including humor and quirks in the characters (I like the occ...

Short Attention Spans, Social Media, Darwin's Cheerleaders and Lethargic Creationists

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by Robert ("Cowboy Bob") Sorensen This article is for the creationists, and I implore you to spare ten minutes to read it. Science is on our side. Most of us are aware of th is fact. Also, our numbers are growing and atheism is on the decline [ 1 ] . It is an exciting time to be a creationist! There are many organizations that present the science and theology supporting creationism and make material available on the Web  [ 2 ] , as well as books, videos and so forth. So what are people doing with this wealth of information? Some will learn a bit, but after the entertainment value wears off, they lose interest. Others will become enthusiastic but do not continue to learn, and become intimidated when challenged by scoffers. There will be some who lose sight of the importance of the message because of their other concerns and leave it behind. Then there are the ones who are excited about the message, the science, the relevance and more, so they dig in deeper. These will lea...