146 results for tag: Front page

No Carry-on Baggage Allowed

By Greg Albrecht—   Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are born by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity. "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." —Isaiah 46:1-4 If you have flown commercially lately, ...

Grace At Church

By Greg Albrecht— To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified ...

God Really Likes You

by Greg Albrecht Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."—Revelation 21:1-4 Does God love ...

What’s So Bad About Cults?

By Greg Albrecht If PTM wants to get lots of letters from readers, all we need to do is publish an article explaining and defending Christ-centered-Christianity against some wrong teaching or biblical misinterpretation. Defending and explaining biblical doctrines is called apologetics. An apologetic article in The Plain Truth usually results in a tidal wave of letters and emails, pro and con. The cons often go something like this: "Why are you so critical of other Christians? Why don't you just leave other people alone and let them believe what they want?" Most Christian denominations were originally formed because they disagreed with ...

The Commands of God and the Traditions of Men

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?" He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions." —Mark 7:5-8 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, widely regarded as a 20th century martyr, put to death by the Nazis just before the end of World War 2 because of his faith in ...

Son of a Preacher Man

By Greg Albrecht— Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" —Matthew 16:24-26 The passage in Matthew that forms the basis of our message talks about losing your life so that you might gain it. At first it may seem to you that Jesus' assertion amounts to little more than theological double-talk. But this teaching begins to make ...

When Your Dreams Wind Up in the Pit

By Greg Albrecht— "Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other. "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams." When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said. "Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing—and they took him and threw him into ...

The Pearl of Great Value

By Greg Albrecht— Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.—Matthew 13:45-46 We turn our attention to one of Jesus' parables about the kingdom of heaven. In the Authorized King James Version the parable is called The Pearl of Great Price. As I normally use the New International Version, we'll refer to it by the title given to it in that translation, The Pearl of Great Value. Here's the widely accepted Christian interpretation of this parable: The merchant is you or me. We decide to look for Christ, and finally, after ...

Ships That Pass in the Night

By Greg Albrecht— Many, even those unfamiliar with the Bible, have heard of Jonah. Most remember the story of Jonah as it is depicted in children's books—a man named Jonah who was swallowed by a big fish and lived to tell the tale. As we go a little deeper into the story (deeper even than the whale went with Jonah) we see that Jonah is yet another biblical example of how humans can completely misunderstand God. We can misunderstand God as Jonah did, and in terms of our relationship with God, be, as he was, like two Ships that Pass in the Night. The book of Jonah begins with God telling Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital city of the ...

Timeless Treasures from the Psalms

  It's just a little pocket Bible, small enough so my father could carry it with him as he served in the U.S. Navy during World War 2. My father was killed when I was only fifteen months old, and while I don't have memories of him, I do have mementos that have been given to me. I have some faded photographs, his old cigarette lighter, the flag that draped his casket when he was buried, some copies of the newspaper describing the tragedy of his death—and I have that little New Testament Bible, which also includes the Old Testament book of Psalms. I don't know how much he read that little pocket Bible, but when I hold it I somehow feel ...

Grace Alone – Greg Albrecht

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who ...