Hard Questions #5

Welcome! I would encourage you to continue to pray the secret prayer. Today I will give a brief message followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and cup, and following this we will have a sharing time, where all in the body are welcome to share what the Lord is teaching them.

This is our final message in our Hard Questions series. The questions we are going to look at today, like the others in this series, asked by you, are these: How do we tell whether an open door is God’s will? How do we tell whether a “closed door” is God revealing that His will is something else?

Hard Questions #4

Welcome! I would encourage you to continue to pray the secret prayer. Well, I have a lot of ground to cover today, so I will get right to the hard questions. There are three questions we are going to look at today. The first is this: Is there an unforgivable sin?

What is the context of this question? It comes from two passages, one in Matthew 12, and the other in Mark 3. Here is the Matthew 12 passage:

And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. – Matt. 12:31-32

Hard Questions #3

Welcome! Have you been praying the secret prayer? I would remind you to continue to pray this prayer. If you don’t know what it is, talk to someone in church after the message today. Today, as we continue with our Hard Questions series, we are going to look at a number of questions. The first, a nice, easy question, is this: “Why do some people have easier lives than others?” And the flip side: “Why do some people suffer so much more than others?”

What, that’s not a nice easy question? Actually, no – it certainly qualifies as a hard question. I think it is also a huge question; that is, the question can mean many different things, depending on the questions an individual has behind the question, and thus, there is not one answer, but many. And in general, regardless of the particular “flavor” of the question, the answers are not short and sweet, but complex. To be honest I only feel that I can go a short way towards an answer, but I will give you all that I can.

Hard Questions #2

Welcome! I trust that you have been remembering to pray the secret prayer. If you have no idea what I am talking about, I encourage you to ask someone in church today. I also strongly encourage you to read or listen to last week’s message. Today we continue with our Hard Questions series. There are two questions we are going to tackle today. The first is this: What is a proper Biblical understanding of women’s roles in the church?

I admit that this is a somewhat intimidating topic for me. But they aren’t called hard questions for nothing!

Well, I think the place to start is in Genesis. Much of this will seem basic, but I think it is important that it be said.

Hard Questions #1

Welcome! Today we return to the second portion of our Hard Questions series. Today we are going to look at Bible interpretation, are also going to look at a very personal question for us as a church. This latter question we will explore a little at a time; and in fact, we will revisit it to some degree in every one of these 5 teachings on hard questions.

Our first hard question can be posed this way: How should one go about gaining a proper understanding of what a Bible passage means? This question has countless applications. One is a question someone put on their card back when I asked people to send in hard questions. Here is their question, slightly paraphrased: How do we know which New Testament commands and practices are for all time and which are specific to a particular culture?