Author: FromtheBasket

  • Praying the Wrong Way

    Like all people, I struggle with sin. In fact, a particular sin. I’m sure there are lots of others in the same situation. There is some sin that seems to consume them, and they go to God begging him in prayer to remove this desire to sin from their lives. They will even push the…

  • Please excuse some of the language I’m about to use, but I really can’t find a better word to express my complete feeling on the subject. Every generation has its stand-up guys and its chickens***s. My father was a World War II vet and the Greatest Generation had its chickens***s too. My dad enlisted in…

  • Apology to JK Rowlings

    I believe the Evangelical community owes JK Rowling an apology, and we’ve never given it. When the Harry Potter series first came on the scene there were many Christians who condemned it, due to the presentation of magic. They judged it without really studying the books or considering the usages of magic within the books.…

  • In 1955 as part of his IRobot series, Isaac Asimov wrote in the short story Risk, about the world going robot crazy. One of the characters complained how everything required a robot. As he put it, “If you need a step then just get a robot with an extra thick foot.” Asimov was quite prophetic.…

  • The Limits of Grace

    I have been contemplating God and His grace. Most people think He was very exact with the law He gave Moses and was completely lacking in grace because of what we see as the harshness of the penalties. As a result, we think His grace is new thing introduced only through Christ, but we are…

  • I remember looking at various photographs from the Holocaust. In the pictures it wasn’t the victims that caught my eye but the guards. They didn’t look like monsters, but like normal people. People who would play ball with their sons or take their spouses to a restaurant for an evening. They looked like normal people,…

  • What Kind of Messiah

    What kind of Messiah where the Jews of First Century Judea and Galilee looking for? Reading the gospels, it is apparent that there were three types of Messiah they wanted, depending on the group. The common man was looking for a caring Messiah who would feed them and care for them. They were the ones…

  • The Big Kahuna

    The Big Kahuna is a 1999 movie starring Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. It’s not really a very good of a movie. It’s about three salesmen at a convention trying to land a major account, and they refer to him as the Big Kahuna, thus the name of the movie. They can never find the…

  • Political Messiahs

    There are several friends who assume I’m a Trump man, but I’m really not. Trump was far from my first choice in 2016. As a matter of fact, when there were about fifteen candidates for the GOP nomination, Trump was at best my seventeenth choice. However, I did vote for Trump because I didn’t see…

  • Types of Courage

    The ancient Greeks had several words for love. The four most common ones were: storge for the love family members have for one another, eros for the romantic and sexual love spouses would have for one another, philia for the love of friends and comrades, and there was agape which was the ultimate love where…

  • Unanswered Prayers

    We pray and pray and pray, but God doesn’t seem to answer. We wonder why this is so? After all Jesus told us, “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” And yet, our prayers go unanswered. And we wonder why. I think James, the brother of the Lord, had the…

  • Righteous men will from time-to-time sin.  They might have even blinded themselves to their sin and are completely oblivious to their crimes.  But if you go to them quietly and respectfully the will often weep at their weakness, beg forgiveness and thank you for your concern and love.  That won’t happen with a sinful man.…