This week we'll be going through another familiar story, except this one isn't misused in how it's interpreted, but more often than not, in how it's applied. We'll be looking at the well-known story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11. This, of course, is the story of a woman who's used by the Pharisees to trap Jesus into breaking the Old Testament Law. It's a s...

Well, if you've gotten one message from our series on "Misused Stories" so far, hopefully it has something to do with reading the Bible accurately. Because when we don't read the Bible accurately, we can come up with the wrong conclusions. Or we get to the right conclusions the wrong way, and because we got there illegitimately, people begin to doubt our conclusions, eve...

How sure are you that you are a Christian? How sure are you that you are truly a believer? Maybe you're just deceiving yourself. We're pretty good at convincing ourselves of lies. How can you really know that you're a true believer and saved? What if down the road you betray everything that you say you love and cherish now? What if you abandon the faith sometime in the fut...

This week we're back to the book of Daniel (some of you may remember me preaching through this book in 2009). In our series on "Misused Stories of the Bible" we've jumped way ahead canonically (it's a long way from 1st Kings to Daniel) but just a little bit chronologically (we're still in the time of the exile). We'll be in Daniel 6 and the famous story of "Daniel and the...

We've made our way to the book of 2 Kings in our series on the Most Misused Stories of the Bible. This week, we're going to be looking at 2 Kings 5:1-19, the story of Naaman being healed of leprosy. Now many of you might be familiar with this story, but how it's misused is a little bit more obscure. It's not quite as obvious as David and Goliath's siren song to...

This week we're back together, meeting in-person at Harper Park. I appreciate everyone's patience as we dealt with our first covid scare. Everyone who needed to be tested was and they all tested negative. Thank you, Jesus. Mark had mild symptoms, is recovering well, and we look forward to his eventual return. Furthermore, this Sunday, for the second time after going six ...

As we continue our march through the Bible looking at some of the Most Misused Stories of the Bible, we come this week to the infamous story of Samson and Delilah in Judges 16:4-31. Samson and Delilah. Those names conjure up a lot of thoughts, most of which revolve around temptation and squandered strength. We tend to look at Samson as the quintessential anti-hero. He's re...

PastoralLetterfor a Distributed Church September 19, 2020 Dear friends, It's been a month since my last letter and we're a few weeks into our new sermon series on "Misused Stories of the Bible."We've looked at Cain, Rahab, and Gideon (tomorrow) with Samson, David, Naaman, and Daniel still to come. I hope it's helped you to see what the real main point of these storie...

This week we're moving on from Rahab to Gideon in our sermon series on "Misused Stories of the Bible." We'll be in Judges 6:36-40 and the famous story of Gideon "putting out a fleece" in order to have God confirm the instructions that He's already given to Gideon. It's not just that Gideon doesn't like the instructions God's given him, but rather he's terrified of the inst...

This week we continue our new sermon series on "Misused Stories of the Bible." We'll be looking at a number of famous Bible stories that are often misinterpreted and misinterpreted to such an extent that we miss the real meaning of the story. It's interesting because one of the stories I use in my preaching class at Reformed Theological Seminary, as an example of HOW NOT ...