Greek Words, Dan Brown and Why the New Testament is Not like the iPhone

Preface:  This is a paper I wrote for my English 102 class on the validity of the New Testament and why it should be studied.  It was meant to be a 15 page argument paper, but we were able to talk the teacher down to 9 pages.  The following paper is 11 pages (with the worked cited) in Times New Roman 12 point font, double spaced.  So grab a beverage and a comfy place; my hope is this will edify you.  This is why I have stacked my life, both finite and eternal, on the words found in a book.

Fantastic Video on the Christian View of Homosexuality

Matt Chandler on "Actively Engaged in the Abortion Battle"

"If you’re a young woman in here, or maybe an older woman—I didn’t say old; I said older woman—and you were pregnant in your first or second trimester, and you were driving toward the abortion clinic to have an abortion, and on the way to the abortion clinic you were hit by a drunk driver, that person is charged with involuntary manslaughter of your baby. But if you make it to the clinic, the doctor in the clinic is legally allowed to take a vacuum pump and rip that baby to shreds in your womb."

Click here to read the rest.

Charles Spurgeon on the Atonement:

“A redemption which pays a price, but does not ensure that which is purchased—a redemption which calls Christ a substitute for the sinner, but yet which allows the person to suffer—is altogether unworthy of our apprehensions of Almighty God.”

Augustine on the Two Will of God

"Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which never happen. They pray,
e.g., for certain individuals—they pray in a pious and holy manner—but what they request He does
not perform, though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them this will to pray.
And consequently, when the saints, in conformity with God’s mind, will and pray that all men be
saved, we can use this mode of expression: God wills and does not perform,—meaning that He
who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if we speak of that will of His which
is eternal as His foreknowledge, certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth
that He has willed,—not only past and present things, but even things still future. But before the
arrival of that time in which He has willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged before
all time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant not only of the time in
which it is to be, but even whether it shall be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills,—not because
God will then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event, which from eternity
has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall then come to pass." - City of God 22:2

Winners of souls must first be weepers for souls. —C.H. Spurgeon

The Gift Of Prophecy

"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;"  -Romans 12:6
 
   Since I was born in 1994 there have been have around 40 predictions that the world would end [1].  One of the major "predictions" was from Harold Camping.  He predicted the end of the world multiple times (the irony of that is clear).  The truth is, the Bible gives us guidelines on how we are to handle "prophets" (I use that word vary loosely in this case. With this in mind, it makes me wonder why there is not more discussion of the gift of prophecy.  This gift has seemed to become a topic for the more "scholarly", when it is something that is vary applicable to the ordinary.