Thoughts on Theology

Have you ever wondered where some of our everyday things have come from? The problem with urban living is that we have become really disconnected with how our food is made and produced. Luckily, I grew up in farm country. This led to lots of “peeks behind the curtain”. It led to a lot of “what the heck”?! For example, who decided that a burnt tree pod made amazing bean juice (aka coffee). Who looked at an oyster (raw no…

Have you ever heard someone say to you, “Prayers work”? I cannot know for sure, but if I am right, I think this is what they meant. They had something heavy on their hearts, or something nice they really wanted, and they prayed to God and asked him for his help. After they prayed, God removed the heaviness on their hearts, or gave them that something nice they really wanted, and they wish to say the reason why that happened…

Pastor Kim made a comment to me that has stuck with me, and frankly it has seriously shaken me. He told me that the biggest adjustment in moving back to the States, was leaving a country where everyone was at least coming to the table with an agreement that there is a God (even if we don’t believe in the same God). But here in the US, that foundational truth is not a given. Think about that for a second.…

As many of you know already, I grew up as a little boy in Japan. What you might not know is that while I was living there, my parents didn’t put me in a traditional Japanese school. Instead, they put me in an international, and also Catholic, school. Even though the school was founded by Canadian Catholic brothers, the school welcomed students from all faith backgrounds. While I was there, in addition to the usual English, Math, Science, History, French…

If you recall the story, one day a group of people came to Jesus’ disciples, Andrew and Philip, and asked to see Jesus. The people had just witnessed the raising of Lazarus, and it could be that they had wanted to see more. Or it could be they had wanted to hear more. I personally think they wanted to see the person who performed this miracle do something, anything, because they had just seen an incredible miracle. Jesus gave a…

I don’t know about you, but for me the book of Job has always been an incredibly hard book in the Bible to get through. I often find myself speed reading through it, only glazing over the salient points just so I can finish it as quickly as possible and move on to something less uncomfortable. But lately I have begun to view that book very differently. There are several incredibly important lessons in the book of Job, beyond the…

The last couple of years have been the hardest of my life. Night sweats, cognitive fog, muscle atrophy, pain, exhaustion, and sleeplessness stretch endlessly, leaving me drained and painfully aware of how fragile my body has become. These symptoms are the result of the medications I have been taking and continue to take, a reminder that my strength is slipping away. You see, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017. Immediately, I began to understand in a new way…

Many Christians listen to Christian radio stations while they work, do some light house work, or drive. Some listen to Christian music exclusively. Do you enjoy Christian music? I cannot say I do. Occasionally, my wife would hear a Christian song that she said was out of this world, and ask me to listen to it, and she would be right, the song was amazing. But usually, I don’t listen much to Christian music (some of you are questioning right…

I love to garden. I am still not especially proficient at it, and every season is a new trial and error. But there is something incredibly grounding and humbling about taking a small insignificant seed, giving it an environment to grow and a bit of attention and watching it transform into something that in turn produces something of value itself. I have also found that the more time that I spend in my garden, the more that I grow in…

Read Part I When people think of angels, they sometimes think of them as baby angels, not adult angels. They fly around on their wings (not the people, but angels), play the harp and shoot arrows. They had just taken a bath, and they smell good. But that is not the picture of angels in the Bible. Angels are simply God’s helpers, and they do various types of work to, well, help God. But perhaps, angels are best understood to…

What are some things that are nothings, yet famous? A hat, a chair, a notebook, a toothbrush? What else comes to your mind? What about a ladder? Yes, ladder. There are the Putucusi Ladder at Machu Picchu, and the Half Dome Ladder at Yosemite, and I am sure there are others. But did you know there is also a famous ladder in the Bible? I am thinking of Jacob’s ladder. Even for those who are not Bible readers, or have…

Psalm 71:14 “As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more”. John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”                   In this world you will have trouble. I have always taken this as a promise, as much as a warning. Throughout the gospels we are told over and over that we…

Read Part I So, taking the Lord’s name in vain is using his name, but emptying it of all its greatness. This can show up in many different ways than one. One way for it to happen is when Israelites make promises and oaths to one another. The Israelites made promises everyday. But when they made promises in the Lord’s name, this was different. They made promises in the Lord’s name to show they were determined to keep the promises…

Do you like taking quizzes? This is not an open book, or more correctly, an open Bible, quiz. Most people can recite with ease what are the top two of the Ten Commandments? But can you recite the Third Commandment? If you answered, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” you answered correctly, and you get a lollipop. Does it surprise you that the commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain comes…

Read Part I The ”third” kind of baptism came in Matthew 28.19. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he spoke to his disciples one last time, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Firstly, this baptism was a baptism in the…

Very early on in the Gospels, we read that John the Baptist appeared and baptized many people in the Jordan River. We also read he baptized our Lord Jesus Christ even though it should have been the other way around. Then, we read in the Book of Acts about people being baptized after the church was established. Here we are in the 21st century, we continue to see individuals being baptized when they come to know Christ, and follow him.…

Read Part I If you and I are to think about trusting God in this way, trusting God happens only when certain conditions are met. We say to ourselves doing something our way is better than doing it God’s way, but we decide to do it God’s way anyway. We would not call it trusting in God if we happen to agree with God his way is better than our way, and we choose to go God’s way. In a…

The theme of trust is something people in the Christian community think about and talk about all the time. The word, “Trust” appears more than 80 times throughout the Bible. All of us know what is trust, but if someone were to ask us what it is, how would we say it? Some say that to trust is to have a strong faith in something. When faith becomes stronger, it becomes trust. When someone tells us to have trust in…

Read Part I Read Part II So, in what way or ways may we say that John the Baptist was Elijah? How is John the Baptist in the New Testament an “Elijah” from the Old Testament? One obvious and fun observation is that they both dressed very similarly. The Bible said in 2 Kings 1.8 that Elijah wore a garment of hair, and a leather belt. Matthew 3.4 said John the Baptist wore a garment of camel’s hair and also…

Read Part I Okay, we know Elijah appeared at Jesus’ transfiguration in the New Testament. Where else did he appear? Check this out. Matthew 16.14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Matthew 27.47–49 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come…

I don’t remember very much what things I did in children’s Sunday School as a little boy. But very bizarrely, I do remember one thing. I remember coloring a drawing one Sunday what looked to me like an old man feeding birds. (Keep in mind this is years before I became a reader of the Old Testament.) I had no clue what was the story behind the picture. I didn’t know why there was a drawing of an old man…

Here at LifeWay, we come together and have communion as a body of Christ, once a month. We do this in remembrance of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. During communion, we firstly eat the bread. Then secondly, we drink from the cup. When we take the cup each month, however, have you noticed that Billy, more often than not, recites from Luke 22.20? He says, “Jesus took a cup and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my…

Read Part I So, the question is how has God used angels in the past? Firstly, angels are God’s message carriers. Did you know that the Greek word, angel, means “messenger”? Angels are God’s spokespersons, so to speak. In the Old Testament, an angel carried God’s message to direct Abraham’s maidservant, Hagar, to return to her mistress, Sarai. Two angels carried God’s message to Abraham and told him about God’s plan to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. An angel carried…

Ahh, angels. Beings from heaven with an angelic face, white robes, wings extending over the shoulders, complete with a halo above the head. Some play a harp, or trumpet. When they sing, they sing with, you guessed it, angelic voices. We are obsessed with angels. We talk about them. We draw them, with a pencil and with snow. We name a MLB baseball team, a motorcycle club, a Navy acrobatic squadron, not to mention a large metropolis, after them. Would…

Read Part I When we face persecution, it is not wrong for us to pray for them to go away. But it is likely of no use. I am not saying here that God doesn’t hear our prayers, and we should stop praying. But I am saying our persecutions will likely not go away. Persecution will stay with us, until the day Christ returns. Nothing in the way Paul wrote in the Bible suggests our persecutions will go away. As…