Author Archives: salooper57

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About salooper57

Husband, father, pastor, follower. I am a disciple of Jesus, learning how to do life from him. I read, write, walk, play a little guitar, enjoy my family.

Family: It’s Role in God’s Loving Purpose

Posted on June 3, 2022 by salooper57

Kevin Looper explores the connection between family relationships and God’s relationships with people. The family, he contends, was designed by God to express his love for humans and reveal what he desires in a relationship with them.

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Heaven and Hell (Biblical Theology Class #20)

Posted on June 1, 2022 by salooper57

I was away this week, so Kevin handled this difficult class on his own. He explores what the Bible says about hell (and a little about heaven). This difficult, challenging subject is treated with care and humility.

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A Shot Across the Bow: Coming to Terms with Death

Posted on May 28, 2022 by salooper57

Death, like a Victorian era visitor, often sends a calling card to announce its arrival. But death is no gentleman. It sometimes comes silently, like a robber. At other times, it delivers a warning. It fires a shot across the … Continue reading →

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A Man Called Paul (Wide Angle): Before Saul Became Paul

Posted on May 23, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading Time: approximately 4 minutes.) At the trial of St. Stephen’s trial, Saul of Tarsus must have sat shaking his head. “This heretic! Who does he think he is, lecturing us!” When Stephen accused his peers of resisting the Holy … Continue reading →

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The Reason Art Got Ugly

Posted on May 21, 2022 by salooper57

The performance arts have also become enamored with ugliness, preferring darkness to light, and antiheroes to heroes. Today, antiheroes are artistically interesting, but heroes are boring. Antiheroes represent truth. Heroes are a fantasy. These days, no one is making films with “High Noon” plots or Will Kane-like heroes. Darkness – think of the recent Batman films – is in vogue. Continue reading →

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A Man Named Paul (Wide Angle)

Posted on May 19, 2022 by salooper57

In this Wide Angle series of posts, we have been surveying the mountain peaks of biblical revelation – the most important people and events in the history of God’s interaction with humans. We have been skipping from one mountain of … Continue reading →

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Why We Can’t Seem to Forgive

Posted on May 17, 2022 by salooper57

Why do we have so much trouble forgiving? We either don’t want to forgive or, wanting to, we find ourselves incapable of it. It probably not that we aren’t trying hard enough, but that we aren’t in a place in … Continue reading →

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The Cross: Biblical Theology Class #17

Posted on May 15, 2022 by salooper57
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God Loves You Just the Way You Are

Posted on May 14, 2022 by salooper57

Another common Christian cliché is this: “God will never love you any more than he does right now.” This, it seems to me, is also true. If God’s love is not conditioned on the worthiness of its object, then neither is it conditioned on that object’s unworthiness. Hence, the correlate to this claim is also true: “God will never love you less than he does right now.

While these avowals of God’s love are true, they are also incomplete … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Peace with God, Theology | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Baptism of the Spirit (Wide Angle)

Posted on May 11, 2022 by salooper57

Reading time: Approximately two minutes. There are some things in Acts 2, regarding the coming of the Spirit, which we would do well to note. The first is the meaning of the word baptism as it is applied to what … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Church, Church Life, Theology, Wide Angle | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments