Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

Under Weigh~ The New Year is now firmly "Under Weigh". This is a nautical term that means to WEIGH anchor an put a vessel in motion.  When I was a freshman in college I was very interested in a number of things other than the forced interest of 'hard' classwork, notably learning to pilot an airplane and sailing.  The school I attended actually (at the time, and no longer) had a Small Boat Handling...

Renewal and Reunion! This morning I posted a picture on my FB account showing me with my wife Becky, our daughter Emily, our big GSD Charlie, our small Min-Pin mix and Emily's dog Luna out on a walk together. Em's husband (fiance at the time) Arin took the picture. Sadly, Charlie is no longer with us, as we had to put him down about 5 weeks ago due to a sudden and in-operable illness. Taking these...

Pants Before Shoes~ There are certain things that when put on order just seem to make sense; letter A before B, number 1 before 2, takeoff before landing, pants before shoes. If we try these things in any other order they don't work, or if they do not nearly as well. Yesterday I wrote that before a beginning there must first come and ending, and in this case the reverse seems more applicable to ou...

Endings and Beginnings~ So many things to remember from this Christmas season. Our daughter and her husband went to North Carolina to visit his parents for Christmas, and before they left they invited my wife and me, and my son and his wife to dinner the night before I took them to the airport. We had gift giving after dinner, and the final present was a small package given to my wife by my daught...

Heavenly Music~ I am sitting here in my easy chair listening to an online radio service that is playing 24 hour Christmas music. This is not the kind you hear on commercial radio, with it's pop singers singing "Here Comes Santa Claus", with electric guitars and rock drums. This station  (KUSC.org/holidayspiritchannel) is playing some of the most Heavenly Music ever written, because it  celebrates...

The Best Christmas Present of All~ When you and your family gather round the Christmas tree on Christmas morning to open presents what will be the best present there? Will it be a new bike for Jimmy, or a talking doll for Jane? Will dad get a new putter, or mom get a trip on a plane? Each gift will be wrapped well in fine paper and ribbon, and no one is left out, not even the dog or the kitten! Th...

Comeback~ Making a comeback is hard to do. There you are, going along swimingly, family is wonderful, work is good, and you are feeling good and looking sharp. Then out of the blue you are blindsided by an event or a personal situation that simply derails everything. Suddenly you don't know which way is up. The pain of loss, the uncertainty of disease, the burden of an unlooked for financial catas...

Graduation~ Yesterday my son, Zach, defended his Ph. D. dissertaion, was passed by his committee, and has now been graduated into his Ph. D. in music composition at UCLA. He is now able to use the title Dr. Zachery Neufeld in his professional life. This is truly a watershed moment in his life, and will inform everything he does from here on in his career in both writing and performing music.  This...

Missing in Action~ Why would God take the time to prepare an army of 'the Faithful' only to take them off the battlefield just before battle is engaged? This situation sounds unlikely, if not impossible, but this is what many Christians believe will happen at the end of time via the 'Secret Rapture' that will supposedly take the 'Faithful' out of harms way into the heavens before they go through t...

Pay Attention~ One of my dad's favorite expressions was, "Don't keep your head in the sand."  When I was a boy I didin't really understand what he was saying; I mean, how do you stick your head in sand when you aren't at the beach? Why would you want to stick your head in the sand anyway? We had gone to the beach at Santa Barbara many times, and each of us four siblings had been buried up to our n...

Rockroller~ Yesterday Spirit of Truth Ministry provided a Past Program on Blog Talk Radio. This was a program from Nov. 26, 2012, and the highlight for me was hearing our good friend Dr. Rich (Humpal) interact with Dr. Don and myself (Dennis) as we fleshed out a topic concerning tempering boundaries.  I highly recommend that you go to our 'Episodes' page on our BTR web site (blogtalkradio.com/sot)...

Today is what the mercantile world has termed 'Black Friday'. This is a day where people of a certain 'religion' flock to their places of worship to honor thier 'god', by sacrificing printed paper to the priests of these places of worship, for the purpose of finding happiness of a certain type. This is a convoluted way of saying the people with more money than sense crowd into stores that have thr...

Thanksgiving~ We are coming to my favorite holiday of the year, Thanksgiving. Family, good food, wonderful conversations and interactions with loved ones, and remembering good times and Thanksgivings past. When I think about it, there is a kind of emotional sappiness about Thanksgiving which I love. But the most important thing about the Thanksgiving holiday here in America for me is that there ar...

Truth hurts~ This past Monday we had to put our old dog to sleep.  Previous to this sad event Charlie, our 12 year old German Shepherd/Malamute/Wolf had for a week basically stopped eating his normal amount, and was progressively less each day. So a week ago this Friday I took him to the vet, where after an abdominal exam the vet said that we needed to do x-rays and an ultra sound to confirm a tum...

Completely Innocent~ Yesterday my wife and I got some very bad news from our vet. Our big Charlie, a ten year old galomphy GSD (German Shepherd Dog) has a large tumor on or near his spleen. We don't know  whether the tumor is benign or malignant without doing a major abdominal surgery, and sending the tumor to the pathologist for assessment. If the tumor is malignant it means that there is a good...

"See to it that no one deceives you!" In observing the circus act and theatrics taking place in Washington the last few days in the 'impeachment' hearings reminds me that this same kind of thing has been going on throughout history. It is not new, nor has it changed in application, all-be-it intensity, as used by those that have no scruples as to how they get their way in the world.  Subterfuge (d...

Mystery~ There are all sorts of stories in book, on TV, and in the movies that are based in the concept that  the main character(s), and thus the audience, don't know something at the beginning of the show that they find out just before the show ends. The best plots delay the 'payoff' until the very end, and it is almost always in a place or person that you would not have guessed at the beginning....

Remodel~ One of the most intimidating things that wife recently said to me was, "I want to REMODEL the bathroom".  Mind you, it wasn't that her bathroom didn't need remodeling, because after 20 years in this house it did. It was that, given my background in construction, I assumed that much of the remodel would fall on my shoulders. My first thought when she broached the subject was, "I'm too old...

Join us for our program The Revelation of Jesus, today at 10AM Pacific time.

Nov. 1, 2019 part 2 Fire Fighters~ Wild fires are consuming California at an alarming rate, stretching the fire fighting resources to the limit, and causing massive destruction and misery for people that are not only directly affected by these fires, but are being told that in order to combat the root causes fo these fires we must suffer the loss of electricty durning high wind events that will he...

Fire Fighters~ Wild fires are consuming California at an alarming rate, stretching the fire fighting resources to the limit, and causing massive destruction and misery for people that are not only directly affected by these fires, but are being told that in order to combat the root causes fo these fires we must suffer the loss of electricty durning high wind events that will help prevent more fire...

Illegal vs. Unlawful! Misconception and misrepresentation are two identities that are so prevalent in the world today as to be ubiquitous! We see both of these everyday in the world of politics, in the battle between the Left and the Right for the 'soul' of the electorate, not only in the USA but throughout the world. One side may misrepresent the truth, while the other side accuses the other of t...

Earth, Wind, and Fire~ No, this post is not about the Band that topped the charts beginning in 1969 and lasted through the 1070's and on, although it could be. (Great sound!) What prompted todays post is the brush fires currently raging in Southern California, and the devastation  that is happening in the 'burn area' (as it is called). I have good friends that live in Santa Clarita and Acton, and...

Fake News~ Recently, we have heard a lot about Fake News, and the closest I can come to a cogent definition for that phrase is this: un-tested and un-confirmed information published as truth! The News Services that do this are certainly publishing Fake News. This not only hurts the person about which this false information is stated, it also hurts the credibility of the news organization that publ...

POD~ Have you ever paid a bill? If you are an adult, and actually live (mostly) in reality then you have certainly paid a bill. In the past bills came in the mail. You would open the bill from you utility, credit card, mortgage, or gasoline company and at the top of the bill is a notice that says 'Due By Date'. If you don't pay the bill by that date your are in 'arrears', and your bill is subject...