Throughout life we celebrate many dates.  We celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, dates of employment, cancer-free dates, and many other days on our calendar each year.  Sunday, January 22nd, was one day that many people celebrate while others see it as a sad birthday in American history – the anniversary of Roe v Wade – January 22nd 1973.  It was on that day when Roe won a controversial decision in a 7-2 majority that...

Oprah Winfrey sat down with Joel Osteen in an interview that she has now aired on her OWN network – Oprah’s Next Chapter.  After Oprah attended a service at Lakewood and heard Joel preach, they went back to his home where the interview was recorded.  The interview was “more of the same” with Joel.  With 16,000 people in attendance, you would hope that a man who is supposed to speak for God would stand and...

Growing up in church, I recall hearing the word Emmanuel in sermons, Sunday School lessons, and my most memorable use of the word was in the songs during the Christmas season.  It really didn’t make sense to me as a child and teen, so I simply overlooked it.  This word is one that should not be overlooked in the Bible or hymn book.  The word Emmanuel has great significance for our salvation and great significance regarding the...

Abraham was given a promise by God (Genesis 12:1-3; 17:1-8), it was reaffirmed to Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5), and once again to Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15).  The promise was more than land and people.  It was more than expansion and blessing.  At the heart of the promise, we see clearly the heart of God for the nations!  What was promised in Genesis to Abraham and his descendants is also visible in the words of Psalm 67.  The Psalmist...

I originally wrote this article back in February, but I have been thinking about this issue in recent days and decided to repost it. My wife and I were watching a television program about Alaska recently.  Although it wasn’t at all related to the doctrine of the church, it was interesting to see how one woman lives alone for 9 months out of the year in a little village.  She lives in a very remote location and her nearest road...

In 1517, something greater than Halloween took place when Martin Luther nailed his document (known to us as the 95 Theses) to the castle door in Whittenberg.  It literally gashed open the bowels of the Catholic Church and out of it came the Protestant Reformation.  Last year I wrote a document about Martin Luther for the church I serve here in Georgia in order for the people to recall the great sacrifice of Luther.  That document is...

In recent days, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bryant Wright, publicly announced in his September video that he was commissioning a task force to study to see if a name change is necessary for the vision and purposes of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Immediately, as you can imagine, the blogs were off to the races. Facebook was also involved in this response – and it didn’t take long before many...