Chris R. Quinlan

The bible is full of principles and commandments. Have you ever asked yourself, "Why are there all those commands? Do we, like children, think to ourselves, "God must be all about robbing me of all the fun in life?" Or have we grown up a bit to see that just like our parents placed rules in our lives to keep us safe and to make sure that we have the best chance possible at succeeding in life, I'm certain that our heavenly Father is the same with regard to the commands given in scripture. He loves and cares for us, and has given us everything we need to avoid many of the pitfalls and temptations of life. I found out that there are 6,468 specific commands in the bible. There are also divine suggestions. Did you know that? I have on my mind something specific this morning regarding pre-marital dating. I want to emphasize a point that I believe will give us guidance as we begin to consider whether or not to follow the worldly custom of dating. I want to look at 1 Corinth...

People tell me, "judge not lest ye be judged." I always tell them, "twist not scripture lest ye be like satan.”

“Here stands God on the day of creation. He looks at stars and He says “all you stars move yourself to this place and start in this order and move in a circle and move exactly as I tell you, until I give you another word. Planets-pick yourself up and whirl, make this formation at my command, until I give you another word. He looks at mountains and says “be lifted up” and they obey him. He tells valleys “be cast down” and they obey him. He looks at the sea and says “you will come this far”, and the sea obeys.  Then, he looks at you and says, “come” ...and you say “NO!" Does that bother anyone?”

2 Peter 3:17-18 (NIV) 17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this ( since I'm warning you ahead of time ), be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless ( unprincipled, wicked ) men and fall from your secure position ( steadfastness ). 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. Today I want to finish my devotional study of 2 Peter. These are Peter's final words to us. I can't help but stop and think about the life of Peter as we finish out this, his last letter to us. The more I learn and study the life of Peter the more I look up to him as a hero of the faith. Today we look at Peter's last two commands. The first, "be on guard for false teachers"... The main theme for this entire letter and others in the New Testament, is warning us about false teachers. This is not just a side note, these are Peters final words! Much care and effort ...

Recently I responded to a question, "What is church?" This person suggested that perhaps church would be better if it were smaller. I got a little carried away with my answer, so I thought I'd blog it. Church is where imperfect people congregate to worship a perfect God. Christian worship takes many forms as you know, but I just wanted to remind you (and anyone that will read) that church first and foremost is the "body" of Christ. It's an organism that has many God-intended purposes, the least of which is being entertained. The "body" has to have all its parts to function properly. It's very tempting to think that a small group of people would be ideal for "doing church", but this simply isn't true. Is there a perfect size for a church? I don't know. Maybe. But the book of Acts certainly doesn't give us specific instruction on this nor does it intend to. Many have erred trying to pull "church normatives" f...

Some may think that I have some sort of irrational distaste for movies. I can assure you, this distaste does not come from trying to make myself pious or “holier than thou.” In my ten year journey as a Christian, I have slowly come to realize the larger picture regarding the movies that we all love to consume. I'd like to share some personal thoughts with you. In my pre-Christian days, I was just like everyone else; I went to see just about every movie that came out that was worth seeing. I didn’t much concern myself with the content. In 1997, I surrendered my life to Christ, and my conscience gave immediate testimony to the things I was doing that were wrong. One of those things was watching movies that contained content that was sinful according to the bible. Every now and then I would go see a movie, defying my conscience, but felt terrible after doing it. As I grew in my Christian walk, I more and more treasured the scriptures and less and less cared about entertaining myself...

2 Peter 3:15-16 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation ; just as also our beloved brother Paul , according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters , speaking in them of these things , in which are some things hard to understand , which the untaught and unstable distort , as they do also the rest of the Scriptures , to their own destruction . What is the first thing that comes to mind when you read the first sentence? Here is how my thought process goes when I read something like this: - OK, this is a command, so I'm very interested in what it has to say to me, knowing that knowing and obeying scriptural commands is an act of love and joy as I follow after Christ. - It starts with the word "and", so I need to remind myself of the previous section. 2 Peter 3:14 Therefore , beloved , since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace , spotless a...