Think On These Things

 

Salutations!

One of the awesome things about Christianity is that we do not have a long list of do’s and don’ts that we must follow. God saves us from our sin through faith in Jesus alone. Nothing we do adds or takes away from that. Furthermore, God, though His Spirit, gives us a new heart that desires to worship and walk in His ways. We change our actions and behavior because of love for Him. Instead of enforcing holiness externally, via exhausting rules, the Bible teaches that we become Holy through the work Jesus does in our hearts.

Company Ethics

 

Salutations.

Recently, thousands of gamers raged when a gaming company, Activision-Blizzard, took steps against a gamer. During a live broadcast of a Blizzard event, the gamer shared his support of the Hong Kong movement. Gamers felt betrayed because the company they loved seemingly pandered to China by heavily punishing the offending gamer.  This gaming company has a growing interest in China, and clearly hopes to grow its sales in one of the largest markets of the world. These gamers hope to force change in the company through protest and refusing to buy future products from the company. This brings up a few logical disconnects that I hope to address with this blog entry.

The Evil of Self-Affirmation

Salutations!

We live in a day and age where everyone is taught to pat themselves on the back, affirm how ‘good’ they are and make sure they ‘love themselves.’  We are all taught that we are generally ‘good’ people.  If you ask someone if they are going to heaven or hell when they die, most will say they are going to heaven.  When you ask them why, they will say that they pretty much think of themselves as a ‘good’ person.  Ironically, this goes directly against the teachings of the Bible.  Let’s look at Romans 3.

Check The Claims

Salutations.

We live in a world where skeptics question and attack God’s Word ceaselessly. I have numerous friends who state they do not believe the Bible, primarily due to ‘all of the errors’, ‘contradictions’ or ‘heinous acts’ in it. Ironically, when I ask them about their concerns, most struggle to even explain in detail the challenges they find in God’s Word. At best, they simply parrot sound bytes they heard or read off of the internet. Yet, many of those challenges were debunked or answered many moons ago.  And many more are completely without substance.  Today, I go over just a couple of categories of claims.

Why 30,000 Denominations?

Salutations.

I recently had a friend express concern that Christians have so many different denominations. For other religions, this is a point that proves the falsehood of Christianity. After all, if Jesus created a church, should it not be just one church? Catholics and Later-Day Saints, in particular, point to this argument. Does denominational divisions truly prove that Christianity does not work?
If you look hard enough here into the archives of my blog, you will find that I have plenty to say against denominational division. I do believe that Paul taught against the very idea. So, the irony of me stepping up to defend it is not lost me. However, I will categorically state that the existence of such division does not disprove Christianity. Furthermore, many of these denominations teach the essential truths of Christian theology. As a result, I reconciled myself to disagreements within the body of Christ a long time ago. Basically, there are a two main category of differences, and scripture addresses them both.

Why Do Christians Hate Socialism?

Salutations.

Recently, I had another Twitter micro-discussion.  This time, we discussed why Christians seem to hate socialism. In those posts, it was implied or stated that a perception exists that Christians simply do not care what happens to the poor. This would clearly violate scripture. Jesus warned numerous times that those who forget the less fortunate do so at their own peril. It also states repeatedly to not favor the rich over the poor, a problem socialism attempts to address head-on. So, why do many self-professing Christians stand against it?

Practice Your Faith In Private?

Salutations.

Recently, I had a twitter micro-discussion about how we, as a culture, treat homosexuals compared to Christians. I made comment that our culture today frowns upon Christians practicing their faith in public. They replied that this restriction should please Christians since Matthew 6:5 commands private worship. However, is this really the case?