Sermon: Colossians 1:15-20, “The Supremacy of Christ”

 Here is another installment in my sermon series on Colossians.  I’m almost done with the book, one more sermon to preach, and will post the rest of the sermons periodically.  You can find all the sermon on this blog by clicking on the “Sermons” category on the right side of the screen.  I really enjoyed [...]

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To See Ourselves As Others See Us

I remember reading a John Donne poem about a man who was sitting in church. In front of him was a very rich woman, dressed in the finest of clothes, radiating class and beauty. She was very much the bees knees and thought very highly of herself. But as he sat there he could see [...]

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The power of personal discipleship.

I’ve been saying for a long time that the key to the church being effective is for it to rely less on programs and gimmicks and talk more about discipleship and personal growth.  For that I was told that I was just “jealous” of the big churches. Today I read in Leadership magazine that Bill [...]

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Poor, Poor, Jealous Mark Driscoll

No, not really. But I’m sure that there will be folks out there who will accuse Mark of being “jealous” because he is taking Joel Osteen’s message of Prosperity-Word of Faith Theology to task. Yeah, right. Watch this clip, it’s an awesome message that shows that the Christian life is not just getting everything you [...]

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False Teachers are Nice Guys

Found this great video clip from Desiring God over on the Heart of Flesh blog… very accurate and very scary; his examples are historical, but it doesn’t take a lot of searching to see this playing out in the present day.  John Piper is pointing out that the bible tells us that false teachers will [...]

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Hitting the Sweet Spot

I don’t golf very much… probably twice in the last 5 years. As a result (or maybe as a cause), I’m not very good at it. Oh, I can get the ball down the fairway and into the hole, it just usually takes me twice as many swings as the average golfer. I would have [...]

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What’s the Point of Pointing Out

You might think of this as a follow-up to my “Jealousy Card” post. It seems that whenever someone points out the error of a well-known preacher or church– either in doctrine or practice– someone is quick to jump up and accuse the criticizer of jealousy. That’s such a lame charge to make and does nothing [...]

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Playing the “Jealousy Card”

In political parlance there is often talk of someone playing the “race card” to shut down conversation.  A person is convicted of some crime and there is discussion about what the penalty should be.  Then the “race card” is played: the charge is made that the person is only being prosecuted because of their race.  [...]

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IWJO is the new WWJD?

In my previous post I made a remark about a “Joel Osteen fan club”.  I was just kidding about such a thing, but then got wondering if there were such a thing.  Well, a Goodsearch of “Joel Osteen fan club” did not turn up such a thing. Then I read about this site while reading [...]

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Laughing all the way to the bank.

Here lately Joel Osteen has been all over the evangelical blogosphere.  Most of the comments have not been very complimentary, to say the least.  I got thinking about all that and wondered if Joel ever trolls around the internet to see what folks are saying about him.  Other than a few people who are accusing [...]

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