Category: common misinterpretations of Scripture

Why is it that when life becomes complicated or hard, we yearn for “peace and quiet”? I know sometimes it is tempting to try to find a cave to dwell in and get away from people forever. Some days I  think to myself how nice it would be to...

Here is a simple test to see if you know your Christmas trivia. All of the questions are true or false so you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right. Scroll down to the bottom to get the answers and then check the scale at the very bottom...

In honor of Christmas, I will be blogging daily until Christmas Day about certain elements of the birth story that have become distorted over time. I will also be engaging in my annual “prank” of rearranging manger scenes so that they are theologically correct. This is a vast improvement...

“Now he had to go through Samaria.” John 4:4 Usually my blogs address a commonly misunderstood passage of Scripture, but this verse is more often overlooked than misunderstood. At first glance, it seems like it serves as a transition sentence, indicating that Jesus was leaving Jerusalem in Judea to...

If you’ve ever brought pepper spray to a Walmart on Black Friday and used it to “get ahead,” you might be a redneck. Feel free to steal my joke, Jeff Foxworthy. If you get honked at, shot at, sprayed at, or trampled over the next few weeks, you were...

  Growing up, my family always had pets. Dogs, cats, birds, fish, hamsters, ponies, spider monkeys – Ok, maybe not all of those; I mean, wouldn’t it be ridiculous to have a pet hamster?! When one of them died, we lost a family member. Inevitably someone would ask, “Will we...

Can God change His mind? Seems like an easy yes-or-no question, but sometimes people make things way more complicated than they need to be. One of the attributes of God is that He does not change. The theological term for this “immutable,” and no, that does not mean you...

Jesus was a pacifist. Jesus was a vegetarian. Jesus was a bold Asian dude with a pet dragon named Jet Li. It seems everyday someone makes a new claim about Jesus. Usually this is done to help support a movement or an organization and their core beliefs. One such...

Tongues is widely considered the most controversial spiritual gift. Perhaps it was controversial even in Paul’s day. Fee believes that the Corinthians were so obsessed with tongues that Paul wrote chapters twelve to fourteen to address their obsession. “The problem is almost certainly an abuse of the gift of...

Continuing our discussion of the Gifts of the Spirit, we come to one that is probably the most misunderstood of all. Many people read “discernment” and stop there. Discernment is NOT a gift; it is a skill one develops as one matures spiritually. As you read the Bible and...