Author name: Philip Conley

One of the most unique things the scope of world history has ever seen is that the Divine One stepped into terrestrial shores in material form.  Jesus asked the question to some Pharisees in Matthew 22:42 about whose son Christ would be.  They properly answered that Christ would be the son of David.  However, Christ’s […]

In the modern world we live in, there are all sorts of communication etiquette procedures.  For example, what is required in a response to a text, post, etc.?  Is a response even expected or required?  What are the nuanced differences between responding electronically vs. in the flesh?  Paul gave clear, concise instructions about what we

One of the often-misinterpreted dualities is when something is an action or state.  For example, emotions are actions that are taken, but prolonged persistence of those actions yields a state.  That protracted amount of action is what causes someone to be known as a happy, sad, or angry person.  However, there are some things that

One of the Greek philosophers – Heraclitus – famously quipped, “The only constant in life is change.”  While that statement seems obvious, our perspective and the season we currently inhabit either aids or prohibits our ready access to that constant of life.  For example, if things are going well, we might not want the change

When we are children, one of the hard lessons to learn is when something concerns us and when it doesn’t.  Children like to be in the “business” about things in which they have no business, while they can oftentimes ignore the things that are their business.  As God’s children, we mimic these same behaviors in

The church is a concept/entity that today is as muddled in the minds of many as perhaps any other subject.  To properly scope the term from a Biblical perspective will challenge many of the thoughts and ideas that are common today.  While the Bible uses the term to describe different things – sometimes as all

One of the hardest Biblical ideas for good-minded Christian people to wrap their minds around is the subject of church discipline.  Much like the doctrines of election and predestination that we hold to, people generally just try to ignore them.  Just a cursory reading of I Corinthians 5 shows that the idea of church discipline

Most of our churches have an article of faith that reads something like this, “We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the inspired word of God and are our only rule of faith and practice.”  There are variations of verbiage, but the heart of the matter is that our churches look

Human beings live in a “double whammy” condition due to the depravity of our nature.  One whammy happens because we lack ability to do better and meet the moral standards of God, and the second whammy occurs when we lack the desire to do better because we think we’re doing just fine.  The Psalmist describes

One of the peculiar things about growing up as a Primitive Baptist is explaining to someone else why we do things in church and why we don’t do other things.  When it comes to doctrinal precepts, there are clear-cut verses to describe election, predestination, eternal security, particular redemption, etc.  A simple perusal of passages like