Building on the Foundation

What started as an interesting thought project for my own amusement has grown and developed into something quite substantial that I'd like to share with you. For you long-time readers, you may remember an article with a similar title that was posted quite a while ago, but regardless of the similarity in title, they cover two completely different topics.  As followers of God, we refer to our walk with God as, “Christianity” and we say “Christianity” is our “religion;” one of many religions worldwide, and even one of many sects within Christianity. A problem has developed with the idea of religion and even with the idea of Christianity, and they have come to carry the idea and weight that they are a thing that exists alongside our lives. We have our life and then we have our career and our religion, and these two things exist in parallel with our life.  Religion is found in the New Testament, so there is nothing wrong with the word itself, but the idea behind the word, and the c...

  Do you, as a Christian, consider God to be the ultimate authority? Do you consider the Bible to be His written Word and therefore, likewise, the ultimate authority? Does your church? Does your church base all its doctrines, to the best of its knowledge, on God’s Word? Or does it instead follow the traditions of men? Worse yet, does it follow pagan traditions masquerading as Christian ones? God’s Word says, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deut. 12:32). Jesus Christ spoke to the religious leaders of His day, quoting Isaiah the prophet, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat. 15:9). Has very much changed from that day to this? Given the differing doctrines and the many disagreements among the churches out there in this world, it logically follows that they can’t all be right. Most of them must be “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” This shouldn’t surprise anyone, fo...