Author Archives: salooper57

Unknown's avatar

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.

Cover Up: What Is Your All-Time Favorite Cover

Posted on May 23, 2021 by salooper57

In your opinion, what is the best cover of all time? Here’s a short list just to get the juices flowing: Jimi Hendrix doing Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower; Aretha Franklin covering Otis Redding’s RESPECT; Cocker covering the Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends; the Beatles themselves remaking the Marvelettes’ Please, Mr. Postman; or possibly Janis Joplin’s cover of Kris Kristopherson’s, Me and Bobby McGee. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

Going and Coming: Christian Faith in America

Posted on May 22, 2021 by salooper57

From his perspective, religion is like a physical trait. People are born with it. Yes, a person can undergo a kind of spiritual surgery to change her faith, rather like a person can undergo surgery to change her nose. But, apart from such radical intervention, a person’s faith is the faith her parents gave her.

The Bible offers a different and more nuanced perspective. It is the news and entertainment medias and, frankly, uninformed academics, that present oversimplifications. The Bible offers a rich, multi-layered, intelligent exposition of faith. Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, Faith, Theology | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

What it Takes to Change: Hope for a Better Future

Posted on May 20, 2021 by salooper57

If you’re going to change in a way that leads to even better changes and does not lead back into the bondage of old habits, these three elements must be in place.

First, you have to see the benefit that change will bring. You have to think it, feel it, want it, dream it, daydream it; you have to live with a vision of what your life will be. Without that hope, change won’t last. Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Can People Really Change?

Posted on May 19, 2021 by salooper57

I know alcoholics who have stayed sober for decades, but they stayed sober by changing and continuing to change – by growing. But staying sober is not the only thing that requires change; staying Christian does too. It requires progressive changes, one leading to another, across the span of a lifetime. Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Lifestyle, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Bury Your Idols

Posted on May 16, 2021 by salooper57

Idolatry is the root cause of all of the symptoms of sin.  The envy, the deceit, the lust, the anger, the gossip—they all have their source in “the one great sin that all others come from”—idolatry (Idleman).  That is why the very first of the Ten Commandments is “you shall not have any other gods before me.”  As Martin Luther says, “We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one.” Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Family, Sermons, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Feeling Misunderstood? You’re Not Alone

Posted on May 15, 2021 by salooper57

According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2020, nearly 6 out of 10 Americans feel misunderstood. This figure holds across racial and ethnic lines, with 58 percent of black, 55 percent of Hispanic, and 61 percent of white Americans … Continue reading →

Posted in Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Handling Anger: Tapping into the potential of the spiritual life.

Posted on May 14, 2021 by salooper57

Most of us haven’t learned to use a tenth of the potential embedded in our Office 365 software or our phones. There is so much more that could be done with them than we are doing. But that’s nothing compared to the mind-boggling potential God has placed in the new self. Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Prayer, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Anger: Part of an Integrated Package

Posted on May 13, 2021 by salooper57

So, here is one thing we need to understand. Anger is integrated into the system – your system. You can’t go and pull it out while leaving everything else in place. When I was a kid, TVs had vacuum tubes. On Thursday, when your TV stopped working, you took off the back, pulled the tubes, went down to the drug store (where they had a tube tester), found the bad one, replaced it, and were watching My Three Sons that evening.

We might think that we can do the same thing with anger: just pull it out of our lives like one of those tubes. We want to stop being angry but we don’t want anything else to change. But that won’t work. Here’s why
Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Handling Anger: The Beachhead

Posted on May 12, 2021 by salooper57

(This is part 2 in a short series of posts on handling anger responsibly.) Anger has a wide blast radius. All of us are affected by it and some of us are controlled by it. It causes us to do … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Family, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Handling Anger: The Begotten Consumes the Begetter

Posted on May 11, 2021 by salooper57

(This is the first of several posts regarding anger and what to do with it.) I believe we were living through a pandemic before any of us had heard of COVID-19. Like COVID, this malady is communicated from person to … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Family, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment