Samson's Jawbone

By David L. Miner and Glenn A. Griffis Recently, we have been hearing reports of conservative Christians and even evangelical leaders, implying that patriotism, and especially the nationalism advocate by President Trump, is a polite and cleaned up version of idolatry. In other words the question seems to be, can a Christian be loyal to his country, and support the countries dominance in world affairs without being idolatrous? Should we honor a government whose leaders may be corrupt, secular or with whom we disagree. Is loyalty to a secular, godless leader or country the equivalent of worship of that leader or country?  After laughing a bit, and after realizing that these people are actually serious, we have decided to  rant about such a sincere but misled doctrinal viewpoint. So, to sincerely rebut this sincere position, we need to see what Scripture has to say about this. First, in our view, is the command to submit to and support our political leaders is ...

Samson's Jawbone: Jesus Declares War: Operation Sabbath Freedom -- M... : By David L. Miner Mark, in his Gospel, ties an event with some interesting teaching that, on its face, seems unrelated to the even...

By David L. Miner Mark, in his Gospel, ties an event with some interesting teaching that, on its face, seems unrelated to the event. In truth, I believe this passage is a subtle but powerful declaration of war on the Pharisees and especially on the established religious belief system enforced by the Pharisees. I believe Jesus, in this passage, subtly announced that he was here to more than just upset the apple cart! In chapter one of Mark's Gospel, Jesus is recorded as teaching and healing at several times. Casting out evil spirits falls under both teaching and healing, as Jesus indicated, and he does some of both. The result of all this is that by the end of the first chapter, Jesus is thronged by crowds every time he comes into town, and in chapter two, even while he is still out of town. In chapter two, Jesus is confronted by a man with "the palsy," which was almost certainly some form of paralysis. Four friends brought the man bef...

I often wonder whether Christian contemporary music has helped or hindered our worship. Samson's Jawbone: How we Lost Worship to the Worship Wars : I served as Pastor of the Charter Oak Evangelical Free Church in the early 80's in the midst of what some now refer to as "the wo...

I served as Pastor of the Charter Oak Evangelical Free Church in the early 80's in the midst of what some now refer to as "the worship wars." It was really a debate over music styles in our liturgies; churches were dividing on whether to allow contemporary Christian music accompanied by guitars and drums and driven by Christian radio; or was only hymns accompaniment by organs piano's, classical instruments and singing from hymnals reverent enough for worship. Many young and middle aged people had become Christians through campus ministries in the 60's and 70's and had spent most of their youth listening to rock and role. They were more familiar with musicians who came out of the Jesus movement, Larry Norman, Andre Crouch, and The Second Chapter of Acts, than with music that could not be played on traditional church organs. Many found the traditional hymn boring and hard to sing. Others, principally those who were older saw  the church as a fortress that p...