A preacher colleague of mine messaged me on Facebook this week. He wanted to tell me I was on a list of people who have not claimed their big check from Such-and-Such Government Agency. After discovering that he did not know two of his own daughters, confirming my suspicions of a hack, I told him I had reported him to Facebook.
One of my Facebook “friends” (actually a complete stranger to me — social media makes for odd relationships) posted the following last week: “Don’t you dare tell me who I can call my brothers and sisters in Christ! That is way above your pay grade!”
I was tempted to respond, “Is it above yours?”
I could go on and on indefinitely regarding my brother in Christ and fellow Bible student Jesse Winn — particularly regarding some of the specific issues he raised recently regarding the things he has come to “believe” about faith in Jesus. If anyone would like to discuss a particular point of interest with which I have not fully dealt, I will be more than happy to do so in a different forum. I believe I have made my general points I have made about differences of doctrine within the body of Christ and how to deal with them. I will limit my specific points regarding such differences to one specific: baptism.
I was called on the carpet recently for using the term “receiving Jesus” — a term frequently used by those in the denominations to refer to finding grace, particularly in the absence of baptism or any other concrete act of obedience. I then caught myself saying it twice in the very next sermon I preached, so I suppose the observation is valid.
The problem with having a day on the calendar specifically dedicated to the giving of thanks is twofold: one, we are tempted to save our expressions of thanksgiving for “the day”; two, when that day arrives, we wind up repeating ourselves. How can something so sacred be ignored and cliché at the same time? And how do we avoid them both?
Once upon a time, there lived a young man in a faraway place; although Aggies like us inevitably want to call such characters Rock, we’ll call him Jake.
