A Workman Not Ashamed

  So, I missed posting yesterday.  Not because I lacked anything to say, but I was on the go, busy the entire day.  For once I was nowhere near my computer but working in a different office suite instead, measuring out the entire suite so I could draft it in AutoCAD.

  Then as soon as I got home, I got busy taking apart a bed we had in our spare room, and moved it to the main bedroom.  We have taken apart our king sized bed and replaced it with the queen.  The idea is to turn the spare bedroom into an office, and the basement living room into... well... a living room.

  At the moment the basement room is an office/media room/excercise room/wine room

  Not exactly a great way to sell the house.  So I'm slowly packing things in the basement living room.  I have 2 cases of wine to bottle before I can put away all the wine equipment.  A desk to take apart and move into the office room.

   Needless to say, every night I get home I've been busy working away, slowly packing things, moving things and cleaning things.  I'm usually a sweaty mess by 7 o clock, which is around the time I stop so I have time to rest and unwind before I head to bed.

The Source of Truth

  I recently got into a discussion in a forum regarding suffering.  The responses I got were... ridiculous.  As I was discussing the reason for suffering to people, I discovered many of these "believers" rather than having beliefs that found their source in the gospel, instead had philosophies that had more in common with eastern religions than anything that was actually taught in the Bible.

   It baffled me.  These, good people, who love the idea of grace are teaching something that is so far from anything Jesus established.  To me, this is truly dangerous.  Even, if I dare say it, demonic.  Granted, not everything we do is laid out in the Bible.  Yet when it comes to doctrine, if the Bible says something different, we ought to be very careful in how we proceed.

2 Timothy 2:15-18 

15 Endeavor to present yourself to God qualified, an unashamed worker, correctly cutting the word of truth.

16 Yet from profane prattlings stand aloof, for they will be progressing to more irreverence,
17 and their word will spread as gangrene, of whom are Hymeneus and Philetus,
18 who swerve as to truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred, and are subverting the faith of some.

   Paul himself does not mince words in regards to this, he begins by calling these philosophies "Profane prattlings' and ends with the final result being "subverting the faith".

  For this reason, we need to know the word of God all the more.  Continually testing these doctrines and philosophies against the scriptures.  Most importantly against the gospel that Paul taught, which is our gospel today.

Ephesians 6:13

13 Therefore take up the panoply of God that you may be enabled to withstand in the wicked day, and having effected all, to stand.
14 Stand, then, girded about your loins with truth, with the cuirass of righteousness put on,
15 and your feet sandaled with the readiness of the evangel of peace;
16 with all taking up the large shield of faith, by which you will be able to extinguish all the fiery arrows of the wicked one.

  The word of truth is our protection.

1 Thess 5:21

21 Yet be testing all, retaining the ideal.
22 From everything wicked to the perception, abstain.
23 Now may the God of peace Himself be hallowing you wholly; and may your unimpaired spirit and soul and body be kept blameless in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ!

   Be very careful of people who "spiritualize" the word of God.  In the majority, the word is to be taken literally, unless the context is obviously meant to be a figure of speach, allegory, or symbolical.  Those who alter the word of God to fit their philosophies do so at their own peril.

And one last word from Paul;

2 Tim 3:1-7

1 Now this know, that in the last days perilous periods will be present,

2 for men will be selfish, fond of money, ostentatious, proud, calumniators, stubborn to parents, ungrateful, malign,
3 without natural affection, implacable, adversaries, uncontrollable, fierce, averse to the good,
4 traitors, rash, conceited, fond of their own gratification rather than fond of God;
5 having a form of devoutness, yet denying its power.
6 These, also, shun. For of these are those who are slipping into homes and are leading into captivity little women, heaped with sins, being led by various lusts and gratifications,
7 always learning and yet not at any time able to come into a realization of the truth.

  

With all love and grace,

Travis