Jonathan Gets a Clue

Posted on December 7, 2010 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

2s In our never-take-no-for-an-answer, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture, perhaps it is difficult to understand Jonathan’s actions in 1 Samuel 20:12-17. We live in a world where self-promotion is expected; encouragement to “lo out for #1” is covertly or overtly stated in almost every advertisement. We […]

The People Began to Scatter

Posted on November 28, 2010 Written by Mark McIntyre 2 Comments

I see in humans (principally in myself), an amazing ability to find good reasons to do the wrong thing. We (perhaps I am alone in this, but I think not) can muster arguments to do what we want even if it is not what we know is right.

Fighting The Wrong Enemy

I read this morning in Mark 9:40, that whoever is not against us is for us. These are the very words of Jesus Christ but often forgotten by those that bear his name. We expend energy in fighting other believers and ignoring the real enemy. Too often doctrinal litmus tests are developed to see who […]

Slow to anger

Too often we misrepresent God by being quick to anger rather than slow. Many examples of harsh on blog posts and angry rants by those who claim to be Christian can be found on the internet.

On the value of good preaching

We should expect our preacher to communicate to himself and to us the diagnosis that God makes upon our condition and the corrective action that God prescribes. We don’t need or want the preacher to interfere with this process by filtering out the inconvenient or disturbing bits.

All the right answers but still wrong

The lesson we should learn from this is that we can have all the right answers but still be wrong. We can say all the right things and still be far away from where we need to be.

On division in the church

The point I take from these verses is that we need to exercise caution when deciding to make ourselves distinct from the churches around us. If we are to be distinct, it is to be in our commitment to preaching and living out the gospel, a distinction that we should be happy to observe in the other churches around us. Any other distinction brings division rather than unity.

Life as an ambassador

It is the role of the ambassador to represent a government or king while traveling in a foreign country. Sometimes the ambassador has to represent his king in an environment that is difficult or hostile.