Martin and Katie Luther The great Reformer Martin Luther was an unmarried monk turned theologian turned preacher.  Because of his rediscovery of the gospel of justification through faith alone in Christ alone, the monastery where he lived began to empty as men realized they could not be saved by their religious works.  Across Germany, monasteries and nunneries emptied as they heard of Luther’s discovery.  On one occasion, Luther found out that nuns were being executed when they left a particular nunnery.  He arranged for the escape of nine of these [...]

[display_podcast] Seeing and Understanding Have you ever seen something but not understood clearly what you were looking at?  On our trip to Colorado earlier this summer, Suzy and I took the scenic route in order to enjoy the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains.  At one point, we saw something ahead of us on the side of the road.  We thought it was a cow or a horse, but when we got next to it, we realized that it was two moose.  We saw something but we didn’t understand what [...]

[display_podcast] One Feeding or Two? The passage we’re going to study this morning is Jesus’ feeding of the four thousand.  You may think that I meant to say, “Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand” and wonder why we’re studying this story again.  But you heard me right.  There are two stories in the Gospel’s of Jesus feeding a large crowd, one was 5,000 (Mk. 6:34-44) and one was 4,000 (8:1-9). Many critical scholars have argued that there was only one feeding story and that the Gospel writers just retold [...]

[display_podcast] The Early Church’s Biggest Problem Arguably the biggest problem that the first Christians faced was unity in the church.  The church then, just like the church now, struggled to love each other, struggled to accept people who were different than themselves, struggled with ethnic divisions and selfishness.     This was and is no small problem.  The credibility of our witness in the world hangs on whether or not we love one another.  Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have [...]

[display_podcast] Legalism at ETBU One of the biggest complaints around the college that I went to was about the rules for the dormitories.  Many of us would say, “The people running this school are a bunch of legalists!”  We used that word to describe anyone who made us do things we didn’t want to do, like have a curfew, clean our rooms, or not be allowed into the dorm rooms of the opposite sex.  Those accusations were not only unfair, they were also untrue.  I’m fairly certain that the administrators [...]

[display_podcast] How Are Onions Like the Bible? Onions are one of my favorite vegetables.  I could eat them like candy.  A few weeks ago, we were at my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a mother’s day cookout and I was given the task of slicing the onions.  This is not something I’m good at.  Evidence for God’s existence is in the fact that I left that day with all my fingers. Cutting a round onion is hard work for some of us.  It’s much easier to peel the onion apart [...]

[display_podcast] The Bloody Theater of the Anabaptists On Wednesday evenings, we’ve begun a study of our church’s doctrinal statement, The Baptist Faith and Message 2000.  Last Wednesday, we discussed where the statement came from and did a brief overview of some aspects of Baptist history.  One of the things I mentioned was the persecution that Baptists faced in Europe which led many of them to come to America.  The Catholic Church and even Protestants were killing Baptists in Europe.  These Baptists were called the Radical Reformers, or Anabaptists, because of [...]

The Intolerance of Tolerance One of the chief virtues of our society is tolerance.  Our culture teaches us that we must tolerate all people and all ideas.  In one sense, tolerance is good and necessary.  In a pluralistic society like ours, with great diversity of ethnic groups, value systems, languages, cultures, and religions, we must learn how to live with people who’re different than us.  We must be tolerant.  Using the language of the Bible, we must “love our neighbor.” But over the last several decades our culture’s understanding [...]