We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
This Week’s Sermon: Sledge Hammer Faith
Greg is feverishly working on a new book on faith and doubt and he decided to preach on this topic for a couple of weeks. He’s also been dealing with this topic on the blog as a part of fleshing out the ReKnew Manifesto. This week he asks the question: Is certainty-seeking, doubt-shunning faith idolatrous? Many Christians assume faith means you must have perfect certainty in matters of belief. This makes doubt the enemy, and our job as Christians becomes the mantra of the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz, “I DO believe. I DO believe. I DO, I DO, I DO believe!” But biblical faith is not anything like a “strength-tester” from a carnival where you try to hit the faith-puck hard enough to ring the certainty bell at the top. Rather, biblical faith is entering a loving relationship with the One who created us and came to redeem us.
You can download audio and video files of this sermon from the Woodland Hills Church website.
After you’ve listened to the sermon, we invite you to share your thoughts with the rest of the ReKnew community on our Facebook page, or send us your questions here!
Category: General
Tags: Faith, Religious Idolatry
Related Reading
Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 6
This is the sixth of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? In this segment, Greg addresses the apparent discrepancies in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew and the implausibility of the idea that they were simply fabricated. We’ve been hearing that people are using…
Benefit of the Doubt: Sneak Peek
We’ll be leaking little tidbits from Greg’s soon-to-be-released book Benefit of the Doubt from today until the book release. We’re really excited about the potential of this book to impact the lives of those who have limped along with the assumption that doubts and questions disqualify them as “faithful”. Here’s today’s snippet: The truth is,…
Faith and Mental Illness
Greg talks about mental illness. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0055.mp3
When Jesus Questioned the Father
Though the sinless Son of God had perfect faith, we find him asking God the Father to alter the plan to redeem the world through his sacrifice—if it is “possible” (Matt. 26:42). As the nightmare of experiencing the sin and God-forsakenness of the world was encroaching upon him, Jesus was obviously, and understandably struggling. So,…
What Motivates Torture “In Jesus’ Name”?
Why has the church, at times, tortured and murdered people? What motivates killing and persecution “in the name of Jesus” or “for the glory of God”? (See the post from yesterday about how the church has tortured people.) A variety of political, social, and theological explanations could be offered, and they might all be valid.…
The Good News That’s Really “Good”
Often we view our relationship with God in terms of a legal contract. For instance, people often ask questions about salvation in this way. They see God as the judge, we are defendants, and salvation is about staying out of prison. With this perspective, questions about salvation and the Gospel—which means “good news”—are about the…