Life's Inanities and Ironies

  Every autumn the same question returns to Christian homes, churches, and dinner tables: Should we participate in Halloween? For some families the answer is a clear no. For others it is a careful yes, limited to neighborhood candy, pumpkin carving, and costumes that stay far from darkness. Still others land somewhere in the middle—turning off the porch light or attending a church fall festival while declining the broader cultural celebration. The disagreement is real, it runs through evangelical congregations, and it deserves a fair-minded examination rather than slogans. This post looks at both sides from a conservative Christian standpoint that holds Scripture as the final authority, values holiness and separation from the world’s darker patterns, and also recognizes Christian liberty in matters of conscience. The goal is not to bind every believer to one practice, but to equip families to decide with biblical wisdom, love for one another, and a clear-eyed view of both the holid...

 Credit to Pastor Brad Eckerley, Conorstone Fellowship Church of Peru for today's blog.  This was the scripture for his sermon on 10-25-26 and I felt the need to dig into it. In a day when the world seeks to blur or erase the distinctions God Himself established between men and women, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul speaks with unchanging clarity. First Timothy 2:8–15 is not a temporary instruction for one local situation, nor is it a cultural relic. It is the authoritative Word of God for the ordered worship and life of the church in every generation. These verses call us back to the Creator’s design set forth in the Garden, confirmed in the Fall, and upheld in Christ. They invite both men and women to find their highest joy not in self-assertion but in glad obedience to the Scriptures. The passage reads in the King James Version: I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn thems...

  The prophets of the Old Testament lived through times of national unrest, foreign invasion, and moral collapse. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk all saw cities burn and societies unravel, yet they also saw the sovereign hand of God at work. “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” the psalmist asked (Psalm 2:1). The answer has never changed: the Lord sits in the heavens and holds the nations in His hand. The riots and protests of our day are not outside His control any more than the upheavals of ancient Israel or Judah were outside His control. Jeremiah warned a rebellious people that judgment was coming, yet he also offered the promise of a new covenant written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Habakkuk cried out over the violence he saw, then learned to rejoice in the God of his salvation even when the fig tree did not blossom and there was no fruit on the vines (Habakkuk 3:17–18). These men did not pretend the chaos was insignificant, nor did they lose hope in the...

Jesus told His disciples, “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14). Those words were not spoken in a time of peace and prosperity. They were spoken to a small band of followers living under Roman occupation in a world already marked by injustice, violence, and religious hypocrisy. The same calling rests on the church today while protests turn violent and lawlessness increases. Salt preserves and flavors. In a society that is decaying under the weight of self-love, brutality, and the rejection of God’s order (2 Timothy 3:1–5), the presence of genuine Christians slows the corruption and points people toward something better. Light exposes and guides. When the streets are dark with fear, anger, and destruction, the church is called to shine with the clarity of the gospel and the integrity of holy living. That does not mean loud political commentary for its own sake. It means lives that are marked by self-control, honesty, compassion, and the fear o...