The King Confesses His Mistake and Asks God to Take Away the Guilt In 1 Chronicles 21 we read the account of David telling Joab to take a census of the people to determine how many fighting men are in the nation. This was Satan’s doing who tempted David into numbering his military. This could […]
An Old Testament Parable Warning about the Perils of Prostitution and Idolatry Ezekiel shares a story about two sisters. It’s an Old Testament parable. And it comes directly from God. The older sister is Oholah, and the younger sister is Oholibah. Oholah is Samaria, the capital of Israel and represents the ten northern tribes. The […]
But Luther Believed the Pope Had No Power Over Purgatory Martin Luther’s second group of ninety-five theses addressed the pope’s authority over purgatory, or to be more correct, the pope’s lack of authority. Martin asserted that the pope had no power when it came to remitting sins and their penalty in purgatory. Though some accounts […]
The book of Proverbs contains the majority of the Bible’s mentions of the word “adulteress” (seven times in Proverbs compared to five times in the rest of the Bible). It refers to a woman who commits adultery, that is, she has sex with someone other than her husband. In today’s language, that is referred to […]
Forgiveness Is a Serious Thing, and We’re Well Advised to Never Withhold It You’re probably familiar with the Lord’s prayer, sometimes informally called by its opening line as the Our Father. It’s a well-known passage in the Bible and many Christian traditions recite it as part of their Sunday worship service. Growing up in a […]
Jesus Wants Us to Fully Forgive Others So That We May be Fully Forgiven In asking the simple question, “Is God’s forgiveness conditional?” the answer seems obvious: “No! God’s forgiveness is unconditional.” I was taught that if I followed Jesus, he would forgive me. It was a fact. Forgiveness was unconditional. It made sense, and […]
In my post Be Careful What You Pray I mention a line in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Different groups have different wording for this line. There are some I’ve run into: Debts “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” The word debt, conjures up thoughts […]
In the post on forgiveness, I cited the instructions of Jesus: when someone treats us wrongly we are to first confront (“rebuke”) them about the issue. If they apologize or acknowledge their error (“repent”), then we are to forgive them. From this, we can infer a three-step process: Which evokes several questions: Frankly, I don’t know […]
Once when teaching his disciples, Jesus addresses forgiveness. He says when someone treats us wrongly we are to first confront (“rebuke”) them about the issue. If they apologize or acknowledge their error (“repent”), then we are to forgive them. Although Jesus literally says we are to do this seven times, there is actually no limit to forgiveness. […]
The Lord’s Prayer contains a curious phrase that gives me pause. Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable every time I say it. The passage in question is “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” We mean the first part, but do we really mean the second part? When we ask this of God, are […]