Today is Saturday and this morning my intention had been to sleep late after a long week. As is sometimes the case, I found myself partially awake (I was going to say half-awake, but upon reflection it felt closer to three-fourths awake) far earlier than I wanted to be and resolved that if I just stayed put I would eventually fall back asleep. This is indeed what happened, but some thoughts came to me during that partially awake period that remained with me when I woke up for good a few hours later. I don’t remember the path of my thoughts, but I was thinking about life, and God, and what I should be doing, and whether I should write about it, and my mind was drawn towards this saying Continue reading “Is Christianity easy or hard?”
Tag: MacDonald
Does prayer achieve results?
Each person who believes in Jesus as the Son of God has different reasons for doing so. I’ve summarized mine here and discussed them at length throughout the blog. For some people, their personal experiences with prayer provide support for their belief in Jesus. For others, such as myself, the relationship works more in the reverse. I believe in the power of prayer because I believe in the authority of Jesus (on other grounds). As such, I do not consider myself especially qualified to write about prayer. Nonetheless, Continue reading “Does prayer achieve results?”
What kind of God would punish people in hell forever?
The whole idea of hell is a complicated one. It’s also very important, and I would encourage readers to work through the material in this post and read the scriptures to which I have added links.
There is first of all difficulty in defining what hell is. Conservative Protestants generally consider it to be a place, while Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican theologian typically define hell as a state of separation from God. The influential King James Version of the Bible translates three different biblical terms – Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus – as “hell”, masking shades of meaning in each term.
The basic premise, outlined by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Continue reading “What kind of God would punish people in hell forever?”
Is the Bible completely without error?
I find that one’s answer to this important question predicts a lot of how the rest of one’s thinking takes shape.
One group says yes, the Bible is inerrant, right down to the last detail, including the literal six-day creation. This position is usually maintained either through exaggerated claims about archaeology and prophecy, or on the fear that compromise on that point leads down a slippery slope.
A second approach is to say Continue reading “Is the Bible completely without error?”