The Word and the Work: Thoughts on Preaching, Pastoring, and the Christian Life

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure- 2 Corinthians 12:7 Here we see Paul, discussing the thorn in his flesh.  There have been many theories as to what exactly this thorn was.  They range from depression to malaria and everything in between.  Some say it was psychological, some say it was physical, while yet others believe it had to do with his memories of his past.   Let's just say we do not know exactly what it was.  What we do know is that Paul dealt with some issue on a near continual basis.  Paul said that this was an attack from Satan, but it was also used of God to keep him humble. I guess my question is this:  What is your thorn in the flesh?  Is there something in your life that you cannot pray away?  I'll bet there is.  It may be a physical ailment, or it may be your past lurking, waiting to pop

I have been letting it stew in me all weekend.  I have shrugged it off.  I have talked to God with no real assurance.  I have racked my brain for an excuse.  The inescapable truth is that as a minister, a follower of Christ, and a leader of young people I dropped the ball.  Let me tell you this story so that you may not do the same. Friday night my lovely wife Sarah and I took a Wal-Mart trip to Culpeper, Virginia.  Because I ignored an initial warning sign my car gave me we ended up broken down on the side of the highway between Culpeper and Orange.  It was bad enough to be broken down, but it was worse to be broken down with two little boys who were already up past their bedtime.  To make matters worse I did not have my cell phone for the first time ever and my wife had few if any numbers of people from the church or friends that we might call for assistance.   Thankfully, Sarah was able to get in touch with the Lee family. W.T., who I am recommending for Baptist sainthood, dro

Today, I have decided to really give a kick start to everyone's weekend and write about sin.  I know it is everyone's favorite thing to discuss.  Joel Osteen has probably felt a disturbance in the force and is shifting uncomfortably in his seat right now.  This has been on me since I opened my Bible this morning so do not say you were not warned.  Conviction abounds in my heart, we will see if it is contagious Now I decided this morning to do some study in Romans.  Joel Gregory(not Osteen) calls Romans the crown jewel of Scripture, and perhaps he is right.  If I had to pick two books of the Bible to study in for the rest of my life I would choose Romans and Hebrews because almost everything in God's story is represented in one book or the other.  Now the particular passage of Romans that I got stuck on is Romans 1:28-32.  It reads: 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They wer

One way that my wife Sarah and I differ greatly is our level of appreciation for well thought out alliteration when it comes to sermon points.  I tried to do it for this blog post but there was just not another "P" word I cared to discuss. Anyways, today I am in the middle of recovering from a binge of procrastination.  I was doing well but the temptation came in the form of a trip we took for a wedding(get to that later), a power outage(third P?), and even spending time with my children.  That's right there are actually times when I would rather spend time with my boys rather than do my school work.  This is my school work I am talking about here.  I would love to procrastinate at work sometimes, but I could not handle the stress.  I am not built that way.  I wonder why it is different for school?  Maybe I dont value my online educational experience.  Actually, I probably just do not like doing discussion boards designed to make my class interactive.  Online cl