Timothy's Thoughts

A bigail Jones takes a summer job as a nanny only to discover that she is working for a man that the news media has been looking for. It’s the story that will save her job as a magazine journalist, if she can get the story without revealing who she is. A Cowboy’s Touch by Denise Hunter is a romance set on a ranch in Montana. It isn’t the kind of story I would typically buy, but Denise sent me a copy after I participated in a picture caption contest. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. It was a very enjoyable read. I noticed several similarities in this story to the story in Searching For Mom and Mother Not Wanted , so you can imagine that it would be easy for me to slip into the environment of this story. In particular, this story involves a single parent with an eleven-year-old child. That is about the same age as the girls in those two stories. It is a Christian romance, so the book as all of the romance elements you would expect with hints of a growing relationship wit...

A few days ago I asked the question, Is Rob Bell Teaching that Hell is Empty? The question was triggered by comments from John Piper, Albert Mohler, and some of their Calvinist brethren. After having read Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins , I have say they jumped the gun—boy did they ever jump the gun. I don’t agree completely with Rob Bell’s book, but concerning hell it appears that he is saying that not only is there a hell, it is a literal place of torment, and if we go there it is our own fault and no fault of God’s. It isn’t always easy to follow Rob Bell’s thought pattern because he asks so many questions and it isn’t always clear whether he is asking to make a statement or simply asking because some people will ask those questions. He seems to flirt with the idea that people may be able to repent after they have reached hell, so hell may not be eternal and yet he also has much to say about the possibility that those who go to hell will continually reject Christ throughout et...

H appy ides of March. As you recall, Julius Caesar was slain on this date in 44 B.C. Because of that, it seems like a fitting day to talk about online forums. The conspirators who killed him stabbed Julius Caesar twenty-three times. If you’ve ever participated in some of these forums, you may have found yourself in a similar situation. If you’re a glutten for punishment, go over to the Christianity forum on Amazon.com and post something that sounds even remotely Christian. Before the day is out, all the atheists over there will swarm your post and tell you all the reasons why you are an idiot for believing what you do. If you want your punishment to be a little less severe, post something in support of a Christian book over on the Kindle forum instead. They won’t slam Christianity quite as hard, but plenty of them will make it clear that they don’t like Christian books and you won’t have many who will come to your aid. Forums display the opinions of the small number of people who ...

D o you suffer from imposter syndrome ? I think most people do at some point in their lives. If when you hear someone singing your praises for something you’ve done and you don’t feel worthy of their praise then you are suffering from imposter syndrome . It really isn’t as dangerous as it sounds and it can take many forms. One place I’ve seen it is when a person gets up to speak before a large group of people. Afterward, people tell them what a great speech it was and talk about how they wouldn’t have the nerve to get up in front of that many people. The speaker dismisses it as nothing. Another place we see it is among authors. A publishing company offers them a large contract and they feel like someone made a mistake. Or after the author self-publishes a work, people actually enjoy reading the book. The author tells himself that they are just being nice. I believe that imposter syndrome is a result of us having an ideal of what success looks like that doesn’t match what success fee...

D o you share the gospel with your friends and neighbors? I’ve often heard people talk about how we’re afraid to even go across the street and share the gospel with a neighbor. It gives the impression that someone who is afraid to do that is pretty worthless as a Christian and yet many Christians do have a fear of sharing the gospel with a friend across the street. If you find yourself in that situation, don’t feel guilty. The fact is that God has gifted some of us to be great at bringing up the subject of salvation with people we don’t know very well. Praise God for that! But some of us have other gifts. But just because we’re otherwise gifted doesn’t mean we don’t want to share the gospel and perhaps see someone get saved. What it does mean is that our success at soul winning is more likely to come closer to our comfort zone. When people tell you to get out of your comfort zone, they often mean to get out of your comfort zone and get into theirs. Some distance out of a comfort zone...

B ack in the days when most people didn’t actually own a personal computer, I had a TRS-80 Model IV. The programs for this—at the time—wonderful machine were written in BASIC. The nice thing about that is that you could hit the Break key and edit the program. These days, with our understanding of the need for computer security, we can see that there are all kinds of things wrong with that, but back then, it allowed me to edit the games I had for the machine. If I wanted it to be easier to win, I simply had to change a few lines of code and run the program. These days, many computer games have cheat codes that will effectively achieve the same thing. You don’t have to play fair. In life, God doesn’t play fair. When something doesn’t go the way we would like, we are often tempted to cry, “That’s not fair.” The evil seem to prosper and the righteous are persecuted. “That’s not fair!” But when we look at the bigger picture, we really don’t want it to be fair because it is God who isn’t p...

B e in the world, but not of it, the Bible teaches us. Some people have trouble balancing this concept. Some people seem to overemphasize the “be in the world” concept by taking part in the ungodly activities of the world, even bringing these things into their churches. Their claim is that they hope to reach the world for Christ by making friends with the world just like Jesus was a friend to sinners. Other people overemphasize the “not of the world” concept by completely avoiding anything they see as worldly. I believe we are to balance these two concepts. Be In the World If we are to be in the world, we are to actually be in the world. That means we’ve actually got to get out and talk to the world rather than hiding away in our homes. I don’t however think we must conclude that because Jesus was “a friend to sinners” that we are to participate in the bar scene, get involved with dancing with its immodest clothing and movements or anything else that we might do to assure the world th...