Regular Normal Christianity

02/01/2026

John 6:1-25

Eating is essential for life. Many of us do it several times a day, and yet, without fail, we always become hungry again. Jesus said he was the eternal Bread...

10/10/2025

From the 2009 Ligonier National Conference with D.A. Carson, Derek Thomas, W. Robert Godfrey, Thabiti Anyabwile.Here is the original link put out by Ligonier...

09/19/2024

I think many people look at religion as a path to peace and safety and comfort and even prosperity. And many of the world’s religions, that men have concocted, offer just that - they have no power to provide any of it, but they appeal to that desire in men. Even many who give their attention to Christianity, who go to church on Sundays and post vaguely Christian themed notes on social media sites (like pictures of baby angels watching over us or greeting card-style ‘Just follow your heart’ type memes), are often seeking peace and safety and comfort and hope - not truth and the holy God we are to serve and obey.

But the Christianity presented in the Bible not only doesn’t promise us peace (as in our own self-centered notion of peace) but promises us hardship. Where popular tv and bestselling ‘Christian’ authors get the notion that coming to Jesus means entering into a life of safety and comfort, and even prosperity, and how they enjoy the great multitude of followers who believe that what they’re teaching is Christianity is a tragedy of the contemporary church era.

Here’s what the Bible, not popular tv and bestselling ‘Christian’ authors, but the Bible itself (Phil 1:29) says about what those coming to Jesus can expect, what kind of life is promised the Christian -
For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to . . .
(to what, to enjoy peace and safety and comfort and prosperity?)
For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to . . .
suffer on His behalf.

Of course the abundantly joyful end of the Christian’s story is that we will come into an eternal peace and safety and comfort and prosperity that will be far more peaceful and safe and prosperous than any peace and safety and comfort and prosperity this world can imagine . . . if it is the God of the Bible, the true God as He is, that we seek, not our own good welfare in peace and safety and comfort and prosperity for ourselves.

09/10/2024

On What Do We Stand?

I’ve been a bit shaky on my feet lately - too much pain medication I think. As tricky as it’s become for me to navigate myself through a room, as worrying as it is for my wife to see me so unstable, and whatever the outcome of this health circumstance will finally be, I’d rather have this shakiness twice as bad and for the rest of my life than to not have been given the infatigable assuredness of the eternally abiding truth of the gospel message. Listen to the stability, the permanence, of God’s message of His determined salvation of His people ~

Gal 1:8 & 11
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed . . . For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

We’re not standing on our own deservedness, we’re not standing on our association with any church, we’re not even standing on our faith - We are standing on the authority of Scripture, the validity of the message, the truth of God’s own revelation of His determined salvation.

The Reformation, after generations of a clouded ‘gospel’ and false teaching, owned a vivid and accurate understanding of the gospel, because the reformation was Scripture inspired and informed. The Bible is the revelation of eternal truth, God’s truth. In a certain manner the history of the church is a history of man trying to improve the gospel ~

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” . . . “it”, the Bible’s revelation of the gospel that saves us, is the power of God for salvation - not our cleverness, not our constructs, not even our sincerity. Just now, my own two legs can’t always carry me through a room safely, when I stand and start to walk these days I am not always confident I’ll make it to through the room - what a treasure, what joy, what peace to know that, forget the room ahead me, I am making my way to heaven, to paradise, to eternity with an unshakable confidence that I will, most assuredly, reach my destination safely and just exactly on time . . . because “I am making my way” in His arms. Jesus is going to be in heaven, at His Father’s side - and He’s taking me with Him.

08/16/2024

Christianity is no mere religious comfort, some fanciful poetic notion preferable to a stark reality of facing a fearful unknown and a dreadful end - it's the only idea, assertion of reality that makes sense, and it's the only idea, reality that makes sense because it is the stark, real, truth.

Those who discount the Bible and it's gospel message, those who mock Jesus and His atonement, like to comfort themselves with an assumed 'superior' notion that people who believe the Bible, who trust in Jesus as their only hope, must certainly be emotionally frail and intellectually weak folks who need some man-in-the-sky to make everything wonderful for them . . . I'm emotionally sturdy and I'm no dummy, I believe the gospel because God has revealed Himself and His truth to me, not in some superstitiously flavored episode of prompted enthusiasm - but rather in a process of sound reasoning over demonstrable facts.

There is archeological and historic evidence and there is textual scholarship that substantiate the claims of historic Biblical Christianity. It's not a superstitiously religious neediness that makes Christians - it's the academically reliable evidence present as God's own Spirit opens our eyes and softens our hearts to the truth that makes Christians.

Christianity is not a foolish religious dream; it's the only idea, the only assertion of reality, that makes sense - because it's the truth.

02/28/2024

Is the feeding of the 5,000 as simple as Jesus miraculously providing food for people . . . people are fed and Jesus validates His assertions of divinity - but is there more to it than that?

Eating is essential for life. Many of us do it several times a day, and yet, without fail, we always become hungry again. Jesus said he was the eternal Bread...

12/17/2023

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” . . . what should God’s peace look like on earth?

Christmas can be a very stressful time of the year, so how can we have peace in this crazy time of year? How can we find peace in God when we are hurting? To...

12/05/2023

What is it that we understand this to mean ~

“This is He who came by water and blood — Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.”

Guest Speaker Mickey continues our series in 1 John and discusses three main points: who believers are in Christ, how we can know we are saved, and the bibli...

08/21/2023

James 4:4 ~ “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

There’s no neutral, no sort of, no middle ground with Jesus for us, we’re either surrendered to Him and advancing His kingdom, or we are His enemies in rebellion against Him - there is no in between.

In our modern world, we have the ability to “choose” more than at any point in human history. The internet has brought any item or idea literally to our fing...