Back in January of this year, I wrote that 2015 was going to bring some special challenges. So far, things have gone as expected. The first three months have been especially difficult and busy for me and my family. On top of the normal challenges of work, school, and my health; we have also been preparing for a wedding and two graduations in May. Additionally, my husband’s father passed away in March. Needless to say, things have not been easy. But, our Lord is good. His lovingkindnesses never cease and his compassions never fail. (Lamentations 3:22) He has provided strength, comfort, and help for us. I’m thankful for all he provides.
The events of the past three months have affected the amount of time and energy I’ve been able to give Chapter 3 Ministries. [...]
His Word or Your Imagination? When we believe that certain things about God are true, but these same things are not confirmed by His word, then they are really just human fancy; and create an erroneous, lesser version of the true God. Know Him through His word.
Today, I want to look at a very important exception to everything. I do not believe that everything includes anything contrary to God’s word. In other words everything means everything but sin.
There is a treasure in the church that I hope you have discovered and are enjoying. I am referring to a large collection of writings by Christian men who no longer walk amongst us. While they were under the sun, they put pen to paper or quill to parchment and produced a body of work that has enriched many Christian lives. I have been and continue to be blessed by these authors, theologians, and pastors and want to highlight them and encourage you to open the chest and dig in if you haven’t yet or keep digging for more if you have. I doubt we will ever see the bottom.
My first glimpse of the treasure came when my husband and I discovered that we had a sizable gap in our knowledge about church history, namely the period of the Reformation. Unable to live with that black hole and filled with curiosity, we began to gather and devour relevant material. [...]
This post is the launch of a new feature on Chapter 3 Ministries! I’m calling it "Do You Take This Verse?". The name is a play-on-words that brings together what has been traditionally asked during a marriage ceremony (Do you take this woman/man?) with the idea of living out Bible verses in our marriages. [...]
Living in New England right now and seeing all that snow-white wonder, it’s impossible not to think about verses that mention snow and our Lord’s might and sovereignty over the weather. “”Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the[...]
2015 promises to be a year to remember. This year our oldest is getting married and graduating from college and our youngest is graduating from High School. In case you are wondering, we only have two. :) I have oftentimes affectionately referred to them as “my bookends”. I came up with this years ago because of the way they used to flank me on the couch when we were saying goodbye to their papa whenever he left to photograph a wedding. We have a couch right in front of a picture window that overlooks our driveway. As my husband was heading out, we would all kneel on the couch, with me in the middle, and watch as he got in his van and drove away. We would wave, tell him we loved him in sign language, and then pray for his safe return. I cherish those memories and hold tightly to them as this new year starts. [...]
In the past six and a half years that I have been mostly housebound and ministering online, I have “met” a lot of people. They have been from different cultural backgrounds and have held a variety of beliefs. Whether it was Muslims in Egypt, a humanist in the Netherlands, or a sister in Christ from the Midwest, the Internet has been great for connecting me with people from all over the world. Some individuals that I have met stand out quite clearly in my mind. They made a lasting impression. I know that will be true about a woman I met recently. Her name is Elizabeth Prata. She is the author of The End Time blog. [...]
The new year will be here soon! It’s not too late to start thinking about whether or not you would like to start a Bible reading plan in 2015. I enjoy plans. They help me to be more regular with my reading.
Not all reading plans are the same. Though many are geared towards reading through the whole Bible in a year, there are more options available. There are some that will extend the reading out for two or three years or shorten it considerably. I once went through the Bible in six months. To be honest, it wasn’t planned. I was pregnant and suffering with “morning” sickness so badly that all I could do was read! Some plans focus on just parts of the Bible like the gospels, the Old or New Testament, or bring you through the same books more than once. Plans can also go through the books in the order they appear in the Bible or go through the Bible in the order that things took place chronologically in history. I prefer the latter. [...]
The following is a continuation of my review of Beth Moore’s September 13, 2014 Living Proof Live Simulcast streamed from Fort Wayne, Indiana. You may read Part One here and Part Two here. I recommend reading them in order. Part Three takes a look at the topic of personal revelation. It is the final post in this series. It will review some revelations that were shared during the simulcast as well as references to receiving “a word” from God. It is not surprising that these things would come up during the simulcast. Beth Moore has repeatedly claimed to receive personal revelations over the years. This has been addressed and documented by various people and ministries. Here are a few examples. [...]
This is Part Two of my review of Beth Moore’s September 13, 2014 Living Proof Life Simulcast streamed from Fort Wayne, Indiana. You may read Part One here. I recommend reading them in order. This part of my review takes a look at Beth Moore’s problematic practices of Bible interpretation. The kinds of problems that exist are the practices of eisegesis, proof texting, and the allegorizing of the scriptures. I became aware of these problems when I first grew more familiar with her and her ministry back in August. If you have been following my posts about this you might remember that I decided to learn more about her because our local church was going to be hosting a Living Proof Life Simulcast. Since I had only heard her name and was unfamiliar with her material, I decided it might be a good idea to check things out. I did some research which lead me to articles that listed a number of problems including those in the Bible interpretation category. [...]
Back in August, I wrote a post called A First Look at Beth Moore. It was the result of my first exploration into the ministry and teachings of Mrs. Moore, an exploration that turned up a number of problems. Please see that post for why I began looking into her ministry and what I discovered. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to become more acquainted with Mrs. Moore. I did more reading online and revisited her website. While there I discovered that it was possible to sign up and watch her Living Proof Live simulcast from the comfort of my own home. I was interested in the simulcast because I knew it was scheduled to be aired at our local church in a couple of weeks, and it seemed like a good way to follow-up and examine her ministry more. Since I would not be able to see it at church because of my health situation, being able to stream the simulcast on my laptop was very convenient. [...]
Today marks one year since I started working on a website for Chapter 3 Ministries. The time has flown by! I praise God that he has allowed me to do this work and that things are going well. Since my last update in July, I moved my site from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site, this one! The move gave me more control over design and a lot more features. Making this new site was fun. I really enjoy the website layout and design work for this ministry. Code is cool. The code files are just letters, number, and symbols; but when you go live with them, they shape the look and layout of the page. If you know what line(s) of code to change or what custom code to add, you can affect the changes you want. The first time I saw how it worked, I was amazed and hooked! [...]
A special thing happened at church this past Sunday. My husband and I had the chance to testify to the goodness of God in the midst of suffering. We shared about our life situation regarding my chronic health problems and how God has sustained us through it all. It was a real blessing to be able to attend church again and to testify. We are so thankful that we had this opportunity.
This came about because my husband Butch sent an e-mail to the pastor. The pastor is currently preaching a series on suffering called “Hope in the Midst of Suffering: The Gospel According to Job”. Without me knowing about it, Butch wrote to him to share our story with him and to thank him for the series. [...]
Counterfeiting is alive and well in America and across the world. The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC), an organization dedicated to fighting counterfeiting and safeguarding intellectual property, reports that the Department of Homeland Security confiscated counterfeit goods worth more than $1.7 billion at our borders in Fiscal Year 2013. The coalition also reports that counterfeiting is a major problem worldwide.¹ When I think of counterfeiting, I immediately think of money; but all sorts of goods are also counterfeited including car parts, handbags, watches, and jewelry. I wonder if 3D printing technology will open up a whole new world for counterfeiters. If so, the government and the IACC are going to be quite busy.
Being aware that there are fakes out there can go a long way in protecting us from being taken. This is true not only for consumer products but also for matters of faith. We need to look out for counterfeit Christianity. [...]
With 66 books, 1,189 chapters, and 31,102 verses¹, the Bible is a considerable read. I have seen word counts of approximately 780,000.² War and Peace “only” has 561, 304 words!³ Have you read The Hobbit and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy? Combined they are only 576,459 words.³ The Bible exceeds this by over 200,000 words! The Bible is a thick book, but it is wonderful. It contains words of eternal life and the greatest story ever told.
Since the Bible is so big, it is helpful to have resources that summarize things for us. [...]
Suffering is universal. It is experienced by all who live and breathe upon our planet Earth. It cannot be avoided or paid off or scammed. It comes and for some it comes often and brutally. There are many ways to suffer be it emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually. I would not dare to choose which is the easiest to deal with, because suffering is very personal. Some of us can handle physical pain better than emotional or vice versa. In my mind, neither the type nor the amount of suffering can be truly weighed by anyone but the person experiencing it. When people apologize for telling me about their troubles in light of my own suffering, I always tell them there’s no need to apologize. Their troubles are troubles to them. They experience whatever sorrow or pain they do in their own being. If they think it’s bad, then I want to be there for them. I don’t minimize any suffering in light of another.
What I do try to do is share what has helped me through my trials with suffering due to chronic pain. [...]
