Social Media and Discernment

John MacArthur writes:

Twenty-five years ago Neil Postman observed that television had become an American “necessity” and lamented its effects on society. He correctly described the culture of the 1980s as one that was amusing itself to death. If he were alive today, Postman would be astonished at how quickly Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media have gripped our society. His earlier criticisms raise an interesting question about these current trends: If TV put our culture in the casket, has social media nailed the coffin shut?

Read more here as Pastor John MacArthur encourages all to take a careful look at social networking and encourages believers to exercise discernment.

HT: Light and Heat

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Hermeneutics

Ugly Hermeneutics

First, listen to this 9-minute clip.
 
Those who take God’s Word seriously spend many hours in study. Coming out of diligent study are lessons, sermons, articles, and books that are deep, weighty, sober, doctrinally coherent, and theologically consistent.

Sadly, today’s evangelicals aren’t known for being profound, sober-minded, or consistent; instead they’ve developed a reputation for being superficial, trivial, doctrinally erratic, and theologically naïve. Want proof? Walk into your local Christian bookstore, sample the preaching online, survey the blogs—the shoe fits.

So if the way back is to fear God, honor His Word, and work hard to understand and teach it accurately, what kinds of things are standing in the way?

Should Christians Celebrate Christmas: Do We Have to Choose Between Christ and Christmas?

I don't know about you, but Christmas sometimes seems like anything but a "Holy Day." It's become a season of hyper-consumerism and self-worship (e.g., What do you want for Christmas?). As a result, I wonder if Christians should even celebrate Christmas at all.

John MacArthur writes:

Scripture doesn't specifically command believers to celebrate Christmas--there are no prescribed "Holy Days" the church must observe. In fact, Christmas was not observed as a holiday until well after the biblical era. It wasn't until the mid-fifth century that Christmas received any official recognition.

Dealing with Habitual Sin

By John MacArthur

Take your Bible and turn back to Hebrews, chapter 12. As you know, this is a great and monumental Scripture; there is much here to be considered. In the brief time that we have as we anticipate sharing in the Lord's Table, I want to focus only on one phrase, just one phrase of great import--and that phrase is found in verse one. It says, "The sin which so easily entangles us."

I want to see if we can't talk about dealing with entangling sin. It is the nature of man, even the nature of a believer, to be easily entangled in sin. It happens so easily, and frankly there are certain sins which more easily entangle each of us than other ones. Each of us, in our own lives, have certain propensities for specific kinds of sins. It can be because we have in the past life cultivated habits of sin which now plague us even after our salvation. It could be because in our spiritual weakness even after becoming Christians we continued to develop habits of certain types of sin; certain specific sins that now we find more easily than others do entangle us.

It is true of every Christian that we have certain sins that easily capture us, but it is also true in general that sin easily entangles us. Not all sins are what we could call our personal entangling sins or our personal besetting sins: our personal habitual sins; the sins which we commit and then confess, and then commit again, and then confess, and then commit again, and then confess, and go on that way in our lives. Some sins fall under this category, but in general all sin seems to have sway with us. And maybe it will help you to understand why that is true if I just give you three very simple points about sin.