Churching Today

  What you are about to read below was inspired by a Facebook post from a person who noted that oil companies are being greedy, by raising the price of gas. This is a normative response when prices go up whether it is gas or eggs. Now as a person who has studied economics, there is a fair amount of ignorance in the statement that said oil companies or any company for that manner are being greedy, and an economic response would be warranted. Yet that would not be effective, because when people make statements about a company or person being greedy it is a statement not based on facts, but emotional. Emotional people do not respond to facts, if they did, they would not be emotional. But still, I want my response to be based not on economic data, but rather biblical data. What does God say about greed? How does God determine what greed is? There are only a couple of reference to greed in the scriptures. The term, greed or greedy is different in the Old and New Testaments, but th...

  Avoiding the Uncomfortable   “And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Matthew15:26 Yes, Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog. I have heard numerous pastors and commentators try to explain away why Jesus would call a woman a dog. Even the great Warren Wiersbe tries to soften the blow. “In His reply, Jesus did not call her a “dog” the way the Pharisees would have addressed a Gentile. The Greek word means “a little pet dog” and not the filthy curs that ran the streets and ate the garbage.” Wiersbe Be Series Matthew page 133. With all due respect for Mr. Wiersbe while in this set the word in the Greek can mean puppy, the root word is still, dog. Yes, Warren Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog. It is what the scriptures says. Instead of softening the text, or worse yet, avoiding the text we need to explain what is meant when Jesus says to the woman, “it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to...