Building on the Foundation

  From his own day to ours, the apostle Paul has been a lightning rod of controversy. Many folks wrongly claim that Paul taught against God’s law. Even some of those who rightfully uphold God’s law accept this foolish notion and declare that Paul was a false teacher whose writings shouldn’t be in the Bible. Even during his own lifetime, some falsely accused Paul of breaking God’s law and teaching others to do likewise (Acts 21:20-24). Peter defended Paul from such accusations, observing that some of Paul’s writings are “hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16). He then condemned “the error of unprincipled men” (2 Pet. 3:17; NASB). “Unprincipled” is Strong’s #G113, athesmos , which means “lawless.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon adds that it describes “one who breaks through the restraints of law and gratifies his lusts.” So it wasn’t Paul who rejected God’s law, but rather those who twi...

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...

  If you’re shooting a rifle at a target a thousand yards away, you’ll never hit that target if you’ve got your sights or crosshairs on something else that’s only a hundred yards away and far off to your right or left. And if you’re driving a car down a narrow, one-lane road, you’ll drift off the road if you fix your gaze on everything off to either side and not on the road. So it is in our walk with God. We can’t stay on the narrow path or reach the goal of His Kingdom if our focus is elsewhere. Yeshua/Jesus told us not to worry about the things of this life, even the daily necessities, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mat. 6:31-34). This is the number one priority. As Nathan Griffith has written previously , we must not be distracted. No matter the cost, no matter what’s going on around us, we must keep our eyes on the prize. When the storms of life are raging all around us, we must keep our eyes on the Messiah...