The Faithful Christian a blog of The Lighthouse Ministries

 I often argue with people that Jesus' resurrection cannot be explained in terms of mythology. But I also point out that people who think Jesus is a myth equivocate between whether they mean "mythology" or "urban legend." While mythology takes a long time to develop, urban legends are just stories that have been passed along throughout society. Since they do not result from a long process of mythologization -- where at some point the story is misinterpreted or corrupted -- either the person(s) who first told the story experienced something they misunderstood for something else, or they didn't. If they didn't, they must have known that they didn't (i.e. they made it up), although I suppose insanity could be a possible explanation as well. If they did experience something which they subsequently misunderstood, it was either something outside the person or it was something inside the person's mind (i.e. a hallucination). Thus an urban legend m...

The merits of a theology that advocates belief in Scripture’s revealed truths concerning God and man...even when we can’t reconcile those truths. Nineteenth century London pastor, preacher and writer Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a Calvinist. As such, he was opposed by anti-Calvinists and a variety of non-Calvinists. He recognized their salvation and sincerity, but believed their view of God was often too small, and hence their view of man too big. Spurgeon’s big view of God motivated him to take seriously God’s commands to reach out to the needy. He had a deep concern for caring for the poor and spreading the gospel. Spurgeon built seventeen homes to help care for elderly women, and a large school for hundreds of children. Spurgeon and his church built homes for orphans in London, rescuing them from starvation and vice on the streets. He tirelessly preached the gospel and encouraged his church to reach out to the lost, extending to them the gospel of Christ. For these goo...

There are so many signs that tell us we are living in the last days of earth's history. Not only do we have the main Bible signs , and the 6000 year timeline plan of God , we also have the apostle Paul's description of the last days in 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 .....'This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.' Would you agree that we are living in "perilous times"? I believe we are. But how can we be in the last days when so many people around the world are living normal happy lives, without a care in the world? ... Matthew 24:37-...

Isaiah 1-2 How God Sees Sin   1.  God sees the PERVASIVENESS of our sin.   In  Isaiah 1:1-8 , Isaiah the prophet describes a vision he has concerning Judah and Jerusalem.  In verses 2-4 God makes various statements about Israel that I believe prophetically refer to all of us, “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me, The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly!  They have forsaken the  Lord , they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. We need to hear these words as spoken to us.  God is revealing to us who we are.  Like the doctor who examines his patient, God is examining us, and he not only sees our sin, he sees the pervasiven...

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. Luke 9:23 Many people interpret “cross” as some burden they must carry in their lives: a strained relationship, a thankless job, a physical illness. With self-pitying pride, they say, “That’s my cross I have to carry.” Such an interpretation is not what Jesus meant when He said, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” When Jesus carried His cross up Golgotha to be crucified, no one was thinking of the cross as symbolic of a burden to carry. To a person in the first-century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by the most painful and humiliating means human beings could develop. Two thousand years later, Christians view the cross as a cherished symbol of atonement, forgiveness, grace, and love. But in Jesus’ day, the cross represented nothing but torturous death. Because the Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own cross...

Comedian Ken Davis tells of the time he gave a speech in his college class. The title of his talk was, “The Law of the Pendulum.” For 20 minutes he carefully explained the principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc until finally, it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal. As part of his presentation, Davis attached a 3-foot string to a child’s toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard. He then pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back he made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the d...