Truth Be Told

Paul follows "love does not boast" with the phrase, "love is not proud." Just like Jesus Christ in His ministry, the Apostle Paul shows us an elevation idea. Not only do we have to be careful in our outward actions, but also in our inward thoughts and feelings as, boasting is the external expression of pride.

Pride leaves no room for love of others, love of God, or appropriate love of self, so Paul leaves no room for the love of pride in his description of the type of love a Christian is called to.

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

The Christian life is full of duality as we struggle to live like we are more and more a part of the life we are looking forward to in God's Kingdom, while still currently living as human beings in this world with all of its pressures and stresses and commitments. How do we reconcile this split reality? 

In this episode we look at how Christ dealt with the things listed in Revelation 21:4 that will be "former things" in God's Kingdom. Christ was fully Man and fully God in His walk on Earth and He was able to live a perfect life without feeling torn between the two realities He was a part of. Let's hope we can do the same!

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

Every single person called by God needs to wake up to the fact that we are called into the middle of spiritual warfare. Those who have gone before us realized this truth, understood that they were what was being fought over, and comprehended that they were called to take an active part in fighting against the spiritual forces against them. 

Satan the devil and all those who fight with him are a malicious and organized system designed for our destruction and they have perfected their style of warfare over the thousands of years of human history. 

Fortunately for us, they have continued to attack humankind in the same way time and time again because it has continued to work for them. While we have to be careful to guard against these attacks, record of these attempts on humanity have been recorded in the Bible for us so that we can learn the enemy's movements, know where they'll attack, and fight against them more efficiently. 

Today we look inside the enemy's playbook to see the three places, that also happen to be human weaknesses, where Satan and his army will continue to attack so we can become better members of the army of the Living God, and fight on until death or the Kingdom comes.

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Music: Pop-Rocks Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

In this episode we look into the life of the Apostle Thomas and attempt to go through a process of:

1. Not accepting something just because someone says it or says it often

2. Reading the text for ourselves

3. Applying context (cultural, historical, literary) to the scripture we look at

that can be used to dispel all kinds of presuppositions we have about the Bible so that we can study more effectively and begin to think more critically about the text of scripture. Even if you already know all of the information I present here about the Apostle Thomas (unfairly named Doubting Thomas, from my perspective), the structure presented should be something you can take with you throughout all studies of the biblical text and all statements made by others that you'd like the Bible to weigh in on.

Often, speakers at churches, conferences, or just in conversation will give expositions about certain words found within the Bible. A common tactic, is to do a brief word study and, to add credence to the fact that their topic is important, announce the number of times the word they've chosen as their topic appears in the Bible. The inference, if speakers and listeners are not careful, that can be taken away from this, is that the more often a word appears in the text of scripture, the more important it is to the section of scripture, to the Bible as a whole, or to your very life.

There is, however, a term used by literary analysts, borrowed from the Greek called Hapax Legomena that literally means "used only once." This can be once in a section, once in a collection of works, or once across all of literature depending on the context. The Bible has 1,086 true Hapax Legomena, meaning words that are only found once in the entirety of the Bible. Are these words less important than all the rest? Can we ignore them? Or, is all scripture God-breathed? 

While the usage of word count can be interesting and not intended to cause harm, it might lead us to unintentionally be cavalier in what we deem important or non-important, strictly based on quantity of times. Today we'll look at why frequency of use does not always equate to level of importance and some oversights we all might be guilty of in our speaking, hearing, and study, examples of Hapax Legomena, and a call to caution as we all go forward in our studies.

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Logo: Matt Hernandez

Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

When Daniel says the words, "O King, live forever," to king Darius of the Persian empire, it should cause us to ask ourselves some questions. Why would Daniel say this to a national enemy? Was it just a phrase or a nicety meant to pacify a ruler, or did Daniel mean what he said?

With the geopolitical landscape being a hotbed of disagreement and fuming frustration, and the world itself becoming increasingly more divided along various lines that sometimes even overlap, we could look at nearly anyone on Earth as an enemy to us in something if we desired to. We may find ourselves angry with world leaders, angry with people who support them, angry with certain stances taken by people we believed to be friends - but do we hold fast to a true and real love that we're supposed to have for all men, including our worst enemies? On the flip side, do we love everyone as the world understands love by accepting all evil that comes along with individual rulers or people we come in contact with? 

What can we learn from Daniel's example when he looks his oppressors and would-be killers dead in the eyes, asks them to repent of their sins, speaks truth to his own disadvantage and harm, and unashamedly continues doing right even when it defies them to their faces, but then simultaneously sees them with real, Godly love and says the words, "O King, live forever."? 

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

This episode is a verse by verse study of Psalm 46 culminating in an evaluation of Psalm 46:10, which is a so commonly used out of context. Odds are you have heard or seen someone use this verse out of context or you have even used it out of context yourself! Join us as we take a brief look at what this Psalmist is saying throughout this Psalm, what context we SHOULD read verse 10 in, why it's important to not take sections of scripture out of context, and why we might be tempted to. 

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

When we think of the word challenge, a number of real life examples probably come to mind, but they are probably all things we want to get through, overcome, or leave behind us. None of us consider challenge to be a place we want to remain in. However, following Christ, who lived a life of challenge and died a challenging death, is guaranteed to come with some amount of suffering, struggle, and/or difficulty. With this in mind, we can redirect our understanding of challenges to not represent things we desperately want to wish away, but rather something we need to accept that we'll be living in. God promises to provide a way through trials, but what if that way is that He makes us rise to the occasion and be able to live IN the challenges we find presented to us rather than leading us THROUGH them or allowing us to obliterate and leave them behind?

In this episode I will attempt to encourage all of you to challenge yourselves and make leaving your comfort zones a part of every day living so that when challenges are brought upon you circumstantially or from God, you won't be as shaken with the fear of failing a challenge, and you won't be as uncomfortable in unfamiliar territory. If we know we will be challenged in our lives as Christians, let's not wait to challenge ourselves in the little things so that when Christ asks everything of us, we'll be ready.

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful by Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

Spiritual gifts are such a hot topic amongst Christian communities. We treat them like superpowers we should be on the lookout for after we receive God's Holy Spirit and we wonder what our unique talents and abilities are or will be. In this message, given in Columbus, Ohio, I discuss the absolute best way to determine what our gifts from God are. Hyper charismatic churches attempt to boast that God is working miraculous things in their churches because their attendees truly believe He can. The implication is that other Christians, that don't subscribe to health and wealth gospels, DON'T believe in God's power. If we're not careful we can begin to believe this belittling and totally untrue message and begin to be frustrated with, what we perceive as, our lack of God-given gifts. If this is you, take heart!  Your ability to prophecy the future or heal the sick are no correlation to God's work in you and I'd be willing to bet that you have boundless gifts from God if you would only look in the right place and see them as gifts!

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Music: Pop-rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Logo: Matt Hernandez

How can Paul say with confidence, love does not boast, when he admits to boasting in 2nd Corinthians? How can we be called to not ever boast, when we have examples like David boasting in God? Is it ever okay to boast, or were these great men admitting to just being unloving in their boasts of various things? 

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Music: Pop-Rock Beautiful By Twisterium

Thumbnail Logo: Matt Hernandez