God’s voice or just bad gas?

Once one of my close friends told me that if I believed God actually spoke to people then I must be schizophrenic.

It’s a good point, really.  It’s a valid question.

Lately we’ve been talking about waiting to hear from God what to do next.  Do we actually think that God talks to people?

Beggars—Give Or No Give

We got a lot of comments on our last post about beggars.  All of the comments were different and covered very different sides of the debate.

Melissa and I have been trying hard to figure out if we should help beggars on the street.  We still don’t really know, but we did look through the bible, and these are some things that we found to be relevant…

Enjoy The Earth

A lot of modern day Christianity is about self-control, avoidance of sin and tradition.  To the outside world, Christianity looks kind of boring, and with good cause.

God created this Earth for us. He made it beautiful and useful, he invented the concept of fun and enjoyment.  Certainly, part of Jesus’ message is about controlling ourselves and resolving our priorities, but does that mean that we should eliminate God’s first gift to us?

We spent some time studying the bible to try and find out…

Debt—Conclusion

We can criticize our debt-bound culture all we want, but do we have a solution?  How do we live in houses or go to college if we can’t have any debt?

Excellent question, it would be unfair of me not to answer.

Debt—Part Four

Debt significantly inhibits our ability to share good community with our brothers and sisters.  Jesus instructed us to strive together as one body.

We, as Christians, are all parts of that one body.  If the right hand works for the benefit of the whole body, but the left hand works to repay what it owes to someone else then the the left hand is useless to the body.  It’s dead weight…

Debt—Part Three

Whether you choose to take part in a Christian community or not, debt simply doesn’t make good sense.

A $100,000 home financed at 7.00% interest over 15 years actually costs $162,000.  Think of the things that we could do with that extra $62,000 if we had the patience to save our money first…

Debt—Part Two

Debt attaches us to the world.  When we borrow money it shows that we are more concerned with obtaining material things than fully relying on God.  Debt encourages us to put on the appearance of great wealth.  We purchase things that we can not afford and then ask God to provide more to pay for it.

The simple fact is that when we owe money we are a slave.  Our time is not our own.

Debt—Part One

For better or worse, debt is commonplace in America.  If we own a house, we’re probably paying it off.  If we’ve been to college, we probably have outstanding loans.  If we own a car less than 7 years old, we probably receive a monthly bill for it.

But debt is a serious road block to living in Christian community.  When we have debt we can not spontaneously respond to the call of God.  We can’t leave behind jobs, cars and houses…