Bible and Theology on Core Beliefs

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Why It’s So Hard to Get Rid of Negative Thoughts

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Core beliefs can be hard to change because they’ve generally been with us for a long time, and we assume that they’re true. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to changing our core beliefs is that they are s...

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Author

Anne Bogel

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Compared to our personality traits, character traits are more malleable. Our personalities can only be managed (or tamed, some might say). Our characters can be shaped, although this isn’t easy and ha...

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Is Christian Faith Antithetical to Reason?

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Richard Robinson

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In his book The Allure of Gentleness , Dallas Willard includes a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard Robinson, a prominent atheist thinker from the mid-20th century. In his work An Atheist’...

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Author

Lesslie Newbigin

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Scripture

John 6:15, Matthew 5:38-39, Matthew 7:24-27, Matthew 15:1-9, Matthew 16:13-17, John 18:36, Luke 4:18-19, Acts 9:1-9, Psalm 1:

Jesus is understood in the light of the assumptions which control our culture. When “reason” is invoked as a parallel or supplementary authority to “Scripture” and “tradition,” what is happening is t...

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The Governing Center of our Faith

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

Christianity

Scripture

Revelation 1:4-5, Ephesians 1:13-14, John 14:26, Colossians 2:9, 2 Corinthians 13:14

That which distinguishes Christianity has not been stolen. For what makes Christianity absolutely distinct is the identity of our God. Which God we worship: that is the article of faith that stands be...

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Losing Faith but Missing Jesus

Author

Lee Strobel

Keywords

Jesus

Scripture

John 20:24-29, Mark 9:24, Job 42:2-6, Isaiah 55:8-9, John 6:68-69

Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag...

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The Thrill of Truth in a Time of Fads and Fashions by Trevin Wax

Author

Trevin Wax

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Theology

"Just Believe..." “It doesn’t matter what you believe, just as long as you believe something.” That’s the sentiment once expressed by President Dwight Eisenhower. America would be stro...

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Seventh Sunday of Easter

Author

Scott B. Bullock

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Scripture

1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

A Note of Understanding The Lectionary and the Liturgical Calendar Preaching from the lectionary isn’t always easy. When the assigned texts align with major moments in the liturgical calendar—Christ...

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Preaching on Parables: A Simple Framework to Teach Them Effectively

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Matthew 22:null, Matthew 22:1

A Special Kind of Story Most Christians have some idea of what a parable is. Ask an adult Sunday school class and you might hear: “It’s a story!” Another might chime in, “with a moral message!” Mer...

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How to Celebrate World Communion Sunday

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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The first Sunday in October is World Communion Sunday. It is a day to use the Lord's Supper, our common meal, to remember that the Church is one body. But it's not always clear how to cele...

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Gentleness: The Indespensable Trait of True Christians

Author

Ray Ortlund

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Gentleness

Scripture

Matthew 11:29

One of Christianity’s most brilliant theologians, Jonathan Edwards, taught us that gentleness—he called it “a lamblike, dovelike spirit”—is not an optional extra but instead is “the true and distingui...

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Belief, Explained

Author

James I. Packer

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Scripture

Mark 12:30-31, James 1:22, James 2:14-17, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 1:12

When people are asked what they believe in, they give, not merely different answers, but different sorts of answers. Someone might say, “I believe in UFOs”—that means, I think UFOs are real. “I believ...

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Strengthen Your Core

Author

Ken Costa

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Scripture

Colossians 3:3, Philippians 1:6, John 15:5, Psalm 18:2, Isaiah 40:31, Ephesians 60:11, 2 Corinthians 5:17

You can only build an effective Christian life when you have a “settled core”: an inner self “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3). When you go to the gym or a Pilates class, your instructor might enc...

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Author

G. K. Chesterton

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Scripture

Romans 14:1, Colossians 4:6, 2 Timothy 4:2, 1 John 4:1, 1 Corinthians 1:10, Acts 15:39, Proverbs 27:17

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

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What Do You Believe?

Author

Dorothy L. Sayers

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Scripture

Job 1:1-22, Psalm 22:null, Psalm 42:5-11, Psalm 43:null, Psalm 88:null, 1 Kings 19:null

In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its...

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Christianity at its Core

Author

Andrew Purves

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Scripture

John 14:6, Philippians 3:8, Ephesians 2:13, 1 John 1:3, John 10:10, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-17

Christianity at its core is not about subscription to a theological system or the authority of a sacred text or ethical perspectives, although they are all important. Christianity at its core is about...

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Our Unworthy Cornerstones

Author

Ryan Bundrick

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Scripture

Ephesians 2:20, Isaiah 28:16, 1 Peter 2:6-8, 1 Corinthians 3:11, Hebrews 12:27-28, Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, Luke 20:17

The cornerstone was a critical element of ancient architecture, the anchor that the rest of the building relied on. The cornerstone was the stone that set the alignment of the entire building. Every o...

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A Firm Conviction

Author

Ben Patterson

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Scripture

Isaiah 40:28-31, Ephesians 3:20-21, Psalm 147:5, James 1:5, Proverbs 3:5-6

The foundation of faith is a firm conviction regarding three things about God—his perfect love, wisdom and power. Like a three-legged stool, no combination of two will do. There must be all three for ...

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Author

Paul E. Little

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Scripture

James 1:5, 1 Corinthians 13:12, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 8:32

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body ...

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Author

Lauren F. Winner

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Scripture

Titus 3:4-7, John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Peter 3:18, Romans 5:8, Colossians 1:19-20, Philippians 2:6-8

To tell someone what you believe may be to answer the wrong question—better to say, instead, what the church believes, better to use the language the church has bequeathed to us to shape our experienc...

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The Nicene Creed: A Rope to Hold On

Author

Glenn Packiam

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The farmers in the old prairie days used to prepare for a winter storm by putting up a rope between the house and the barn. They did this because they knew that in a swirling blizzard, even a brief di...

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Consider the Culture

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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One of the areas often missed in a lot of Christian apologetics is the social setting in which a person encounters the gospel. For example, it is far easier to espouse "rational arguments" f...

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The Creeds Connection to The Body of Christ

Author

Deanna A. Thompson

Keywords

Confession of Faith

Despite belonging to a church where recitation of the creeds is an integral aspect of worship, I was for many years part of that group of moderns Pannenberg referenced who have wondered (sometimes sil...

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God Believes in You

Author

Ann Voskamp

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 31:3, John 3:16, Ephesians 2:4-5, Romans 8:38-39, 1 John 4:9-19

There was what an Orthodox Hasidic rabbi had said on a flight westward. He’d put his prayer shawl in the overhead compartment and sat down, sweeping aside the tassels dangling from his pockets. And so...

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Defining Religion: Creed, Cult, Conduct

Author

Robert Farrar Capon

Keywords

Religion

In this fictionalized pastoral counseling session, the Episcopalian Priest Robert Farrar Capon shares some eternal truths related to the nature of religion—and in conclusion, how Christianity differs....

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

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Are All Religions Basically the Same?

Author

Timothy Keller

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Most people who assert the equality of religions have in mind the major world faiths, not splinter sects. This was the form of the objection I got from the student the night I was on the panel. He con...

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Author

George MacDonald

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Scripture

James 1:22, Titus 3:8, Philippians 2:13, Romans 12:2, John 14:15

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

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Author

Timothy Keller

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We believe the world was made by a God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. You were made for mutually self-giving, other directed love. Self-centeredness destroys...

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