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Poetry by Kay Cude. Click to enlarge. Used with permission.

In Part 1 I outlined the fact that we're all called to contend for the faith. This includes witnessing, protecting the message from corruption, and correcting ourselves and others when the message is corrupted, which inevitably tends to happen. I also addressed what I call 'drive-by commenters'. Though we all read the same Bible, Christians disagree. What is the root of disagreement? In part 2 I outlined three reasons why disagreements arise. In this part, I offer some biblical ideas about how to positively engage in civil discourse that becomes contentious. Mixed messages? And there's the rub. The Bible offers lots of verses on how to speak civilly, but also offers contrasting examples of people delivering their message both civilly and in seemingly uncivil ways. For example ...  Jesus and John the Baptist called the Pharisees vipers. Paul suggested the Judaizers emasculate themselves. He called the false apostles 'deceitful workmen', he affirmed the well-kno...

Part 1 here Part 3 here In today's 'tolerant' and 'don't judge' atmosphere, when discussing biblical things, if the other person blows up it's often seen as a failure of communication on our part. But in many cases it's not. Though we can't account for how other people respond, there are many Bible verses given over to what kind of speech we are to employ. Here are just a FEW! Words from a wise man�s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips (Ecclesiastes 10:12). The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools (Ecclesiastes 9:17). A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. (Proverbs 15:1-2) A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. (Proverbs 15:4) Anyone who says to his brother, �Raca� is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, �You fool!� will be ...

Part 2 here: Why do Christians Disagree? Part 3 here: Putting it All Together Introduction The practicalities of how to contend for the faith is a big subject. We're told to contend, of course, many times and in many ways. For example, Jude wanted to write a nice, little encouraging letter, but found that because of false brothers teaching false doctrine, he had to do his duty first. Beloved, although I made every effort to write you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints . (Jude 1:2) Paul was sure that in his absence the Philippians will be " contending side by side for the faith of the gospel ," (Philippians 1:27). Paul urged Timothy to " fight the good fight ". (1 Timothy 6:12). Stand firm, do not turn, speak truth, and so on. It's important to consider, especially in this day and age of social media platforms with widespread audiences watching us, re...

Hunted by Meagan Spooner is a new book release, a Beauty and the Beast inspired novel. I don't think anyone is surprised by the current Beauty and the Beast trend, are they? I'm not complaining! This one is Russian influenced--Russian inspired another current trend on a severe upswing right now--but that is an interesting development since Beauty and the Beast usually doesn't get a Russian treatment. So has anyone read this one yet? Book description: Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones--and in her blood. Though Yeva grew up with the city's highest aristocrats, far from her father's old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who's ever come close to discovering them. So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there's no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas...or to submit to marryi...

Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth When God created the earth, He could have made it colorless. He could have used only His brush strokes of black, or gray, or brown. The world could look like this: Did you ever wonder why God graced us with a common grace of color? He has made the world beautiful in its time, says Ecclesiastes 3:11. This beauty includes the spectrum of colors which we enjoy in all its prettiness. I particularly enjoy colorful flowers. The Bible has in it of course, references to colors. It doesn't, however, really explain if colors of the tabernacle meant anything, if they individually had a symbolism. Other colors do have a symbolism. Here is Baker's Evangelical Dictionary's entry on color: Color, Symbolic Meaning Of Although the Bible contains relatively few references to individual colors, their symbolic associations are theologically significant. Colors usually symbolize redemptive and eschatological themes. The Bible ...

Kay Cude poetry. Click to Enlarge

Doesn't it just crush you to pray to Jesus...and know He hears us? It's incredible, and a privilege we always remember in gratitude. As Isaiah cried in his wonder and grief, "I am a man of unclean lips!" (Isaiah 6:5). In my case, a woman of unclean lips. Why should I be able to use these lips to pray to Jesus when I am the chief of sinners, wretched woman that I am? What is man that God should be mindful of us? (Psalm 8:4). Why should He hear us? But He does. Though 'El Shama' is not an official name of God, it refers to the fact that God hears...He listens. God told Hagar to name her soon to be born son Ishmael. Ishmael is is a combination of el and shama, "God hears" or "God listens". The name would be a reminder to Hagar and all who knew them that He heard Hagar's cry in the wilderness. (Genesis 16:11). He listens. Psalm 17:6 says I have called on you, for you will hear me, O God: incline your ear to me, and hear my speech. Gill'...

Chris Powers is creating visual resources for the global church. As an artist, Powers illustrates and animates theological concepts, and along with his explanations based on and in scripture, he presents thoughtful and beautiful tracts, studies, and videos for the brethren to consume freely. His work can be found on fullofeyes.com, and at Patreon under Full of Eyes , and of course Youtube at his channel Full of Eyes . Here is a recent drawing: He Will Glorify Me By Chris Powers John 16:14-15, " He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine ..." "I was reading through John 16 this morning and was once again struck by the unique role that Jesus tells us the Spirit fulfills. The Spirit glorifies the Son, which is to say, He takes from the fullness of the Son's glory--from the beauty of who the Son is--and makes that known (With the result that the world is convicted, 16:8-11, and the Church is build up in truth ...

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay is another Beauty and the Beast novel on sale in ebook format for $1.99. This is the first time the title has been bargain priced to my knowledge. Book description: In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret... In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city�s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds. Isra wants to help the city�s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan�s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe. As secrets are revealed and Isra�s sight, which...

Two Beauty and the Beast novels by Robin McKinley are on sale for $.99 each in ebook format. Beauty and Rose Daughter were written decades apart and each have their fan base, but overall Beauty is the sentimental favorite. Beauty was very important to me as a teen and still has a special place in my heart and SurLaLune history, too. Book description for Beauty: I was the youngest of three daughters. Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour. . . . My father still likes to tell the story of how I acquired my odd nickname: I had come to him for further information when I first discovered that our names meant something besides you-come-here. He succeeded in explaining grace and hope, but he had some difficulty trying to make the concept of honour understandable to a five-year-old. . . . I said: �Huh! I�d rather be Beauty.� . . . By the time it was evident that I was going to let the family down by being plain, I�d been called Beauty for over six years. . . . I wasn�t r...

On Facebook last night I'd posted a mini-discernment lesson regarding a tweet Beth Moore had written advocating a process for distilling whether a prompt from the Holy Spirit is legitimate or if it's your own imagination. I wrote the following in response to her tweet: Beth Moore is an alleged 'Bible teacher'. She has 753,000 followers on Twitter alone. The following comment is something she taught a few hours ago on Twitter. Nothing in the Bible says what she taught and teaches. What solid and credible Bible teachers do is teach their pupils to go externally and seek the source of all truth, the Word of God. Moore teachers women to go internally and rely on mystical warnings, feelings, and prompts. What Moore is actually teaching is the insufficiency of scripture and the sufficiency of ourselves in obeying personal feelings. If Moore was a true Bible teacher she should have written that we seek wisdom from the Bible and follow its commands. We do not rely on the timing...

"Help me never to mistake the excitement of my passions for the renewing of the Holy Spirit, never to judge my religion by occasional impressions and impulses..." Excerpt from the Valley of Vision, today's devotional, 'True Religion'. The set of Puritan prayers edited by Arthur Bennett is copyrighted and requested not to be published so I won't post the entire devotional, as energizing and encouraging as it is. You can read today's full devotional here . More info on the book here: "In this classic volume, edited by Arthur Bennett, the prayers of the Puritans are brought to life. Including prayers of Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, Charles Spurgeon, and others, The Valley of Vision is a selection of petitions and meditations in the Puritan tradition. This compilation of prayers is intended to teach and encourage Christians to be faithful in their private and family worship." What I love about the book is not just the quality writing, th...

I've been on Blogger for ten years. For most of those ten, Blogger hasn't put out any new themes. Themes are the offered Blogger standard templates one can use to present your blog. Its design, look, etc. I've been using 'Simple' for almost the entire ten years, customizing where possible. Blogger finally added new themes, to keep up with the times I suppose. I switched themes and of course nothing is perfectly easy in the html world. There is still work to do to bring The End Time back up 100%. I'll tweak it more tomorrow. What I'm hoping is that with a standard Blogger template without customizations, the issues some of you have reported to me will go away. If you have an opinion on how the new theme looks, or what you want to see for sidebars and links, etc, please let me know. The 'Sidebar' is now at the top. If you click the three little lines at the top left, it will appear. Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience!

Last December, Jennifer of the blog One Hired Late In the Day wrote an essay about what happens after you die, . It's good. I re-blog it here. What Happens When You Die? Posted on December 2, 2016 by Jennifer, author at onehiredlateintheday  This morning I woke to the news that a friend from high school had passed away yesterday from cancer. I had not seen him in 20 years. Every one of us will die one day. And when someone in our lives dies, especially when it is a friend or loved one, it stirs up questions in our minds about what happens after death. Some of you may quickly blow that assertion off with �don�t be silly, nothing happens, we are dead that�s it.� Let me ask you something: can you truly imagine yourself not existing? Stop for a minute and try to imagine not existing; being dead. I bet you can�t, really. You at least envision everything being black/dark. But even in that scenario, aren�t you aware of the darkness? Be honest. I would guess that you can�t reall...

How wonderful it must have been to a caravan of spice traders to climb the latest hill and see green instead of brown. Swaying palm branches clustered at oasis signaled water, refreshment, and perhaps, an arrival to their destination and an end to their journey. When I was a freshman attending college way up in freezing Bangor, Maine, and I traveled to Florida during March/Winter break, the sight of the palm trees gracefully swaying in the blue skies at Palm Beach were a most welcome sight. They signaled warmth, and a relaxing of the strain to constantly keep warm. Palm trees and their branches figure frequently in the Bible. The first mention of palm trees in the Bible is in Exodus 15:27. Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water. Ahhh, rest. Refreshment, shade. In the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary we read about palm trees. EPrata photo PALMS: Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) was among the earlies...

Poetry by Kay Cude. Click to enlarge. The Lord of the universe gives us peace, HIS peace. No longer at enmity with Him, we possess peace in our heart and fear is dispelled.

When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James is on sale for $.99 in ebook format. James, a scholar and romance author, has a series of fairy tale inspired romance novels and this one is her retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I've read this one and it draws inspiration from the old TV series, House, for the hero's character development, an unusual attribute. But the hero is more lovable than House ever was. It has some interesting twists on the Beauty and the Beast tropes, too. It also gets better as it progresses past the set-up. It is a category romance so expect the usual content to be found in the genre these days. But of the many B&B category romances I've read, this one stands out in memory--I can actually remember the plot and that is harder than you might imagine these days! Book description: A wonderful spin on a much-beloved fairy tale, Eloisa James�s When Beauty Tamed the Beast is heart-soaring and fun historical romance at its finest. No wonder People magazin...

John MacArthur has famously said on more than one occasion, "If I could lose my salvation, I would." His comment is a succinct but devastatingly incisive statement about the fallenness of man. The fleshly part of man wants to be in control. It wants to be king of our lives. Even Christians who understand our own depravity and desire to work FOR God soon find that if they do not carefully reign in the flesh, that we are not participating in our own sanctification, but we're bossing God around and replacing Him with the idol of works. MacArthur wasn't guessing when he said what he said. It's grounded in the bible. There is biblical precedent for his statement. God instituted a Doctrine of Works. Don't bristle. Stay with me. In Genesis 2, God told Adam, The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, �You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge...