Voddie Baucham

If I went to every conference, seminar and retreat that I get invitations to I would never be at home. It wouldn’t take but a few weeks of missing church to get fired, seeing as how I am the pastor and what not. Having said that, I probably should make time for more of those than I do. So it was a pleasure on the National Day of Prayer to hear some good preaching.

Book Review: Jesus Untangled

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Jesus Untangled: Crucifying our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb by Keith Giles

Giles is an intelligent writer that has done his homework and presents his case well. He is right in saying that Americans have their politics wrapped up in their Christianity. There is no morally right political party and pinning all of your hopes and dreams on any party platform will leave Christian believers disappointed. Let’s begin by analyzing what he does a good job of in this book.

On Preaching: Expository and Topical

If you’re thinking “Wow, this guy hasn’t written an actual blog post in a while” you’re right. The weekly Happy Monday posts will turn 5 this summer but I spend a lot more time now on social media (lots of Facebook, little bit of Twitter) than I do blogging. I’m pastoring a church and maintaining the church website, hopefully some readers are following that as well. There is an RSS feed in the left-hand sidebar, most of the posts are Sunday sermons.

The title of this post is not “Expository vs. Topical Preaching.” I’m not doing a straight compare and contrast of the two forms, but kind of hoping you know at least a little something about them. What I want to do is explain why I prefer one to the other without avoiding the other completely.

Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter

Critics of the Creation Museum say that it presents a “pseudoscientific” young earth creationist view of the origins of the earth and universe “even though scientific evidence shows the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the Universe about 13.8 billion years old.” I hate taking a side in this fight. My argument is that the age of the earth is one of the least important details one can hope to glean from a study of scripture (and in point of fact the Bible does not say how old the earth is).

I can empathize with Ken Ham’s motives for organizing Answers in Genesis and desiring to build a Creation Museum. As a science  teacher in the 1970’s, Ham would take his students on field trips to places like museums of natural history. While there is much to learn about archeology and anthropology from such a museum visit, evolutionary processes and geologic time scales are accepted as fact without question. Ham moved from Australia to the United States where the population of conservative Christians is much higher and began Answers in Genesis in a small storefront office. The idea of a creationist museum was in the back of his mind for a long time.

Acts of God

Hurricane Matthew is about to come along the southeast coast of the United States. I was watching a guy on the news talk about what is and is not covered by various types of insurance. Some people find out after the fact, for example, that flood damage is not covered by a typical homeowner’s policy and you must specifically purchase flood insurance. Wind damage and other “acts of God” may be included or excluded in the fine print of the policy documents. And that statement got me to thinking.

All of My Friends Are Pastors

I was thinking about posting to Facebook the pastor appreciation lunch coming up at our church. My wife and I have been there for two years so not only is October pastor appreciation month but it also corresponds to our service anniversary. It’s an exaggeration to say that “all my friends are church pastors” but many of them are. It makes sense to form working relationships that often turn into friendship with people in the same line of work. No matter what vocation one is in, other guys doing the same job will automatically have a lot in common. And the friends I have that are not pastors are church people; they teach Sunday School, serve as deacons, work in the sound and projection booth, etc.

Field Trip!

So I have never visited Westboro Baptist Church nor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood but have commented on them on their behavior. I have never met Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton, and neither have most people, but that doesn’t stop us from having and expressing very strong viewpoints about not only their politics but also their character, intelligence, ability to serve as president and so forth.

On September 23 and 24 I will be visiting the Creation Museum and Ark Experience. I’m not getting the personal Ken Ham guided tour or anything but will spend several hours at each venue, take lots of pics and of course put up one or more blog posts. I have expressed caution about getting all of our answers from Genesis but I have never suggested there are no answers there.

So the Master’s Table is taking a road trip. I’ll be driving and Van Til will ride shotgun and read the map. Expect a full report when we get back. Happy trails…