Abraham Lincoln's very unhappy marriage

Some excerpts from The Slow Fires of Misery:

• Lincoln’s marriage was a mess, and accepting the pain brought deep strength in the long run.
• It was a pain-filled marriage. The familiar lines in his face and the somber countenance reveal more than the stress of civil war. But the two stayed married. They kept at least that part of their vows.

Are We Christians (and Our Churches) Stuck in a Stifling Status Quo?

Check out missiologist Alan Hirsch's 2 minute video. He speaks quite fast, so here's the transcript:

I think that Christians are very risk-averse. And churches are very risk averse.

Churches are places that you don't normally associate with adventure or risk or creativity. Because here is the deal: If you want to be creative you have to risk failure. If you want to achieve something beyond the status quo, you have to get out of the status quo. That means you can't make everyone happy.

The God Who Made Everything (Genesis 1-2)

What is the point of Genesis? Jesus says that the entire OT Scripture, including Genesis, is about Jesus (John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44). John 1:1-3 tells us that Jesus is the Word and the Creator God.

The debates over the symbolism and literary genre of Genesis 1-2, and the debates regarding the relationship to contemporary science is highly complex and confusing not only to the uninitiated, but also to the scholar. But what is the irreducible minimum that Genesis 1-2 must be saying for the Bible to have any coherence at all? Let's see what Genesis 1-2 teach us about God and about man.

A Church With Major Problems (1 Corinthians 1-4)

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to a church--a church with many painful problems. Why does a church, sanctified (made holy) in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 1:2), have problems?

It is because everyone in church is utterly sinful, from the top to the bottom, even if we are redeemed by the grace of Jesus (1 Cor 1:4). Very interestingly, the top think that the problems are predominantly the sins at the bottom, while the bottom think that it is the leader’s sins that is the major problem.

How does Paul see these problems?

Understanding the Gospel from the Fall (Genesis 3)

If we do not understand man's fallen condition (total depravity), we will not understand the glorious gospel of our salvation.

We may think we are basically good, but that bad circumstances and events cause us to be bad.

Or we may think that sinning makes us bad, not realizing that we are bad because we are sinners (Rom 3:9-11).

Otherwise, we make excuses for the sins of others, as well as our own.

Over the past week, Arnold Schwarzenegger confessed to have fathered a child with his house maid 14 years ago. Also, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the president of the IMF and a leading candidate to being the next French president, was charged with attempted rape of a hotel maid.

Why do such things happen? How could men who seem to have everything act in such brutish ways?

How did sin start?

This post does not attempt to explain every verse in its depth and wealth, but we can think of Gen 3:1-24 in 3 ways:

1. Satan (The Lie) (Why we sin)
2. Man (The Cover) (How we act)
3. God (The Solution) (What God does)