Building on the Foundation

  Modern society often touts independence as one of the highest virtues, especially in women. The “strong, independent woman” is held up as the ideal for young women to aspire to. Women are told they don’t need men, and men that they don’t need women; that all can be complete within themselves. Young men and women are urged to move away from their parents and “get out on their own” as soon as they turn 18. But despite this, getting married young is discouraged; both sexes are told to first go to college, get degrees, and start climbing the corporate ladder. When they do finally get married, husbands and wives are still encouraged to be as independent of each other as possible: separate incomes, split bills, and taking turns on the various household chores. In extreme cases, even separate meals, separate TVs, and separate bedrooms to accommodate the separate work schedules! This type of thinking permeates not only the western world, but even the churches. It’s common to hear such th...

  In Leviticus 23, we find, “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts”’” (Lev. 23:1-2). The rest of the chapter follows with a list and description of each of God’s feast days. This seems pretty straightforward, but surprisingly there seems to be some controversy out there over which days are God’s feasts. So which days are they? First, it’s important to note that the NKJV translation of Lev. 23:2, which we just read, isn’t quite faithful to the Hebrew text. The Hebrew word translated “feasts,” moed (Strong’s # H4150 ), simply means, “an appointed time, place, or meeting.” A better translation would be, “The appointments of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My appointments.” Does it matter? Yes, a bit. For example, the Day of Atonement, a day on which “you shall afflict souls” (Lev. 23:27), a day of fastin...

  I originally wrote this post as a sermonette, in fact, it was the very first sermonette I ever gave. A decent amount of time has passed since then, and the issues that spawned the original have become even more prevalent, that is, men and women abandoning the roles God has given them in favor of easier roles that don't work well together. There is nothing easy about the roles God has ordained for men and women, and there has been a concerted effort since the beginning of time to destroy them because by destroying them you can destroy the family and society at large which is the full aim of feminism.  Among Christian circles, the story of Deborah has more or less become the poster child of that effort as if one story invalidates everything else the Bible has to say about the topic of men and women. Sadly, the story of Deborah is actually very much the opposite of what these factions claim, and it is a terrible disservice to the incredible Christian woman she actually was when...