House to House / Heart to Heart

Today when I checked the mail it was not an ordinary day. As I reached into the box I pulled out the first issue of House to House / Heart to Heart that we (the Ripon church of Christ) are sending out to our entire city! We are hoping that this can be a great way to make contacts in our community so we can reach out to them with the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow is All-In-One Sunday in Ripon. I’m currently working through Genesis in a series I am calling “Square One: Back to the Beginning.” This week we are going to look at the various attempts to water down the creation account and try to make the Bible conform to man’s ideas as opposed to letting the text speak for itself. It’s my goal that with this lesson I can communicate God’s great hand in every aspect of a marvelous, miraculous, supernaturally designed universe.

Sow the Seed Faithfully,
Caleb

UPDATE: When I said tomorrow is All-In-One I meant two days from now :)

No Intelligence Allowed

It's been a couple weeks since I have blogged. Things have been really busy around here. We are trying to buy a house and I was preparing for a Gospel Meeting in the Bay Area. In fact, I'm just about to leave the hotel to go and finish up the meeting for the weekend. Once I get a little more settled I will blog somemore. In the mean time you need to check out this clip by Ben Stein. It's a movie called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The movie is a documentary style movie about how the sceintific community refuses to allow scientist to go where the evidence leads them. If they come up with any explanation for life that is outside of the Darwinian Evolution box they are quickly silenced. I have not seen the movie so I can't speak for all it's strengths or weaknesses, but check out this trailor and make plans to go and check it out on April 18th. Goto this website to find out where it's going to be playing.

Enjoy,
Caleb

UPDATE:

Wayne Jackson says: "Stein’s movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, will debut in theaters on Friday, April the 18th. I highly encourage parents with children in public schools (and any others who are interested) to see this documentary that is being so rabidly opposed by the evolutionists" (Read his article in its entirety here http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/expelled_no_intelligence_allowed)

Also Answers in Genesis has written a favorable review (a Conservative Evangelical Creationist group) http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n2/expelled-review

There is also an excellent interview with the film producer, Logan Craft, in the January 2008 edition of Think Magazine pp. 20-21.

The Top 20 Hardcovers: More Telling Than You May Think

Today I was flipping through my inbox and found my latest CBD catalog. John MacArthur’s new book A Tale of Two Sons caught my eye. MacArthur usually writes something worth the time it takes to read (more than I can say for most). I was turning the pages and about three pages in was the Top 20 Hardcovers. It wasn’t long after glossing over the top 20 must haves that I was quickly sickened. Now most of you out there are going to think I am crazy, and I know some of the intellectuals will propose some logical explanation that makes the situation sound better than I am about to make it sound – so be it. But at least hear me out!

The top 20 hardcovers is a sad indicator of the state of “Christianity” in America today. The list included titles like Lucado’s 3:16-The Numbers of Hope, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life is still number 4, and believe it not good old smiley health and wealth gospel Osteen’s Become a Better You is still number 5. The entire list was like this. And by this I mean topical, feel good, surface Bible study, be a better this or that, lots of stories, none confrontational, lack of Bible exegesis, lack of deep digging into Scripture, books! Nowhere in the top 20 is there even a book on Christian Evidences! MacArthur’s book on the truth war going on in “Christianity” wasn’t in the list, but his book on Twelve Extraordinary Women was!

Where are the books on being a better Bible student? In my opinion books like Walter Kaiser’s book Towards an Exegetical Theology should be a perpetual top 20 book. Where are all the Bible dictionary books? Where are all the Greek for dummy books? Where are all the digging deeper into Romans, or 1 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians, or Galatians, or Ephesians, ok I think you get it. And what about the Old Testament? Have we completely lost any desire to even study it? Every single book in the top 20 began with a topic and sought to find a few Scriptures to scatter in here or there to back up the author's point.

How in the world did we ever get to the point where Christianity is shaped by man’s ideas instead of man’s ideas being shaped by Christianity? And that’s the problem with the list. It illustrates that this is where we are. We want Christianity to be what we want it to be. We want Christianity to be all about feel good stories. We want Christianity to be non-confrontational. We want Christianity to consist of someone else telling me what the Bible says instead of spending the time to dig out the truths from the text myself. We want Christianity to give lip service to Scripture about topics like grace, and prayer and then shut-up about things like homosexuality, worship, gender roles, or confronting culture.

Now tell me why I’m crazy….

Sow the Seed,
Caleb O’Hara

Endings Mean New Beginnings

This last Sunday I ended the sermon series “This Old House: Taking Another Look at the Church that Jesus Built.” It was a rewarding series for me at least, and I hope it was for the whole congregation. The problem with ending a series is that it’s time for a new beginning. For some time now I have been thinking about what I was going to preach on next. It’s Tuesday morning and it’s time to make the big decision so I can get my sermons done early this week. Decisions, decisions, decisions….

I’ve decided I will make the decision when I get back from Jiu Jitsu. Wish me luck I don’t get choked out!

Caleb