Comparing and Contrasting Christianity and Eastern Religions

The Resurgence website has posted a great little article that uses some classic Walter Martin material to compare and contrast Christianity and Eastern religions. Here's a snippet:

Comparing and contrasting Eastern beliefs with Christianity is an excellent way to see the differences and dangers they present by downplaying the foundational theological elements of the Christian faith.

Read the rest of the article here.

All Bound-up by Religion?

That's easy to understand. The word religion is connected to the Latin word religare which means to bind fast, or tie up. It later came to mean to place an obligation on. What's that tell ya?

Just remember, Christianity is not a religion - it's a relationship. Binding up is the exact opposite of what God wanted to accomplish through Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for burdening the people with religion (Matthew 23:2-4), and referred to his requirements as easy and light.

Matthew 11:30 NIV
(30) . . . my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The Most Anti-essential Christian Books

Eugene Cho has posted a list of Christian books we most definitely don't need. They're fictional, of course, but hilarious. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Everyone Is Going To Hell Except Me - John MacArthur
• Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - John Hagee
• This Book Looks Longer Than It Really Is - Rob Bell
• God Wants You To Pay For My Airplane - Creflo Dollar
• 10 Keys To The 8 Steps To The 3 Paths To The 1 Way to God (TM) - Rick Warren
• How to Smile - Joel Osteen

Read the entire list here.

breakfast song

There's a part of me that would love to do this song one Sunday morning . . .

John Piper: Testing David Wilkerson's Prophecy

Maybe you've heard about famed preacher David Wilkerson's scary prophecy everybody's been talking about? Has he heard from God? The only way to tell is to test the prophecy against the true standard of the word of God.

Bible teacher John Piper does just that in this post from his blog. In short he says:

What shall we make of this? . . . Two things give me pause . . .

First . . . God might have said this. But it doesn’t smell authentic to me. Too prudential. Too reminiscent of the embarrassing Y2K excesses.

Second, my confidence level drops when the Scriptures are not handled carefully.

But my own effort to be discerning says: Stick with the Bible, David. It is scary enough. And it is absolutely true. And your credibility will never fall.

Good stuff. Read all of Piper's post here.

Christian Sinners?

How do I know if I sin because I'm a bad Christian or a non Christian? Here's a great answer to that age-old qestion.

Pastor Mark Driscoll - pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle - answers this question as part of a live "Ask Anything" session in which audience members text questions to the pulpit to be answered in real time.

New Financial Order to Emerge out of G20 - CNBC 2/25/09

Is this financial crisis leading to a New World Financial Order? One government. One currency. One man to rule them all