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Top 10 of 2011

December 19, 2011 in Blogging with 2 Comments

I heard of an idea recently that I quickly decided to adopt. The thought is to mark out the last few days of the year with reposts of the top blog posts from that year. This gives the readers the chance to read the most popular content from the year (especially if you missed a few of them), and gives me as the author some time to start writing great posts for 2012.

I will be posting my top 10 blog posts from 2011 during the last 10 days of the year. That means that this Thursday (Dec. 22) will be #10, Friday (Dec. 23) will be #9, all the way up to #1 on Dec. 31st.

These selections are based on how many times each page has been viewed—not how many comments it has. As a result, some of them may come as a surprise to you (I know they were for me). I hope you enjoy catching up with these top posts you may have missed or enjoying them a second time. I’m already working on some fun new things for next year.

Faith in the Gospel of John

December 14, 2011 in Bible with 5 Comments

This post is part of a series on faith in the New Testament.

Here is a look at our forth book in the New Testament filtering through all the examples we see of the word faith. This post will exhaustively look at every example we see in the Gospel of John with a brief commentary on each.

John 12:42-43

“Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”

That’s it. One time in the book of John do we find the word faith.

For those of you who have previously read my posts about all of the examples of this word in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you’ll probably need a moment to wrap your mind around this. John’s gospel includes only one mention–and it is a passage unique to him. What’s going on here?

Selling Doubt

December 13, 2011 in Reading, Spirituality with 3 Comments

The one who commits themselves to the task of helping people really enter into doubt, unknowing, and ambiguity needs to be ten, twenty, even a hundred times better than those who sell certainty. They have got to be prepared to walk a difficult and often dangerous path if they wish to invite people into this murky and uncertain world, for in doing so they bring to the surface a whole host of anxieties that we spend so much of our time and resources repressing.

Hiding Behind the Will of God

December 12, 2011 in Bible, Spirituality with 10 Comments

“God told me…”

It is tempting to say this phrase as a Christian and there are namely two scenarios when this occurs. The first is when it actually happens. I have clearly heard God tell me (not audibly) to do certain things throughout my life. Some have been small and specific in a moment. Others have been huge decisions I needed to make. Often times these leadings seemed to go beyond logic alone. The second, is when Christians are trying to justify something that they want to do that doesn’t line up with reality–or doesn’t line up to what He is saying to other Christians.

This post will address the second of the two.

Put the Internet to Work

December 7, 2011 in Links, Product Reviews with 1 Comment

This week I stumbled across something that has literally changed the internet for me. It is a free site called “If This Then That” or (ifttt). Using a simple logic equation, you can setup just about anything to happen for you automatically.

Here are a few examples: