Did Christ Carry a sword? Should We? Obviously, these are controversial questions. For the purpose of this article, let’s see what the Bible actually says about the subject of weapons, and self-defense. For those that have not studied it, a sword is a weapon of war, strong’s G6132. The only reason people carried swords was because guns had not yet been invented, they are the exact same thing in function. Let’s also examine the arguments used to say that Christians cannot or should not bear arms. A lot of these arguments are compelling, many cite scripture, but I think you will find they are lacking in foundation. I would imagine that I of all people, will be considered to have a bias, and that’s understandable; however, there is a reason for my position. After all, you don’t have to agree with me, my goal, in all my writing is for YOU to ask and answer the question yourself. Let’s start by establishing some of the arguments Against a Christian bearing arms. 1. Christ said to Pe...
Is Someone Trying to Control You? Manipulation and Gaslighting are common terms that describe a situation where one person is trying to gain control over another person. Though the most common use of these concepts is in the field of social relationships, the concepts are just as widely used in business, industry and extremely often in Religion. It is no secret that the Obedient, Docile and Believing nature of Religious people make them a target to the type of people that desire Power and Control. So you should occasionally ask yourself, “what of MY church?”. How to spot religious manipulation. Do the messages always differ slightly from the Bible? Are you made to feel guilty for not understanding why the messages differ from the Bible? Are you threatened or chastised for asking questions? Do people that ask a lot of questions in your church often disappear? Is the answer you receive from your preacher about a non-biblical statement always "that's not what I meant...
Sermon - Such a Time as This We had some friends over a few weeks ago, and we were playing a Reverse-Q-and-A game. In response to one particular statement, nearly all of my friends stood on the Strongly-Disagree side and all of their reasons really struck me. The statement was ‘Political Issues should be talked about at church’. I, as a skeptic and part-time contrarian was on the Strongly Agree side, all alone. As you can imagine by my mentioning the story at all, I’m still of the same opinion, but I also COMPLETELY agree with all of my friend’s reasons for taking the opposite position. While playing this game, I was the only person on that side, so I had the first round of explanation. I said that I believe political issues should be talked about even more at church because ALL things that pertain to life have a way of becoming political. In response my friends said a few variations of, ‘if you want to define political things that broadly, you’re muddying the idea’. When th...
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