The Blue Collar Scholar

This episode explores the differences between premillennial dispensationalism, historic premillennialism, and amillennialism. (Unfortunately, the recording got cut off before discussing postmillennialism or preterism.) In short, there are many different interpretations of eschatology. Scripture is not as crystal clear about eschatology as we would like, and therefore, Christians should be very tol...

If your exposure to my teaching is mostly limited to the content of this podcast feed, then you might have concluded by now that I am one of the those End Times preachers. After all, I have already done a Bite-Sized Theology series on the End Times, a pandemic-era Sunday School series on the End Times, and a Lifetime Learning college class on eschatology. I ask you to believe that I actually do no...

In this conclusion to The Hurt & the Healer series, we talk about what it looks like to heal, and how God can use the tragedies in your life to bring glory to Him, to enrich your life, and to love and serve others in their times of trouble.

The Hurt & the Healer series continues by showing that the ultimate struggle between God and Satan is already a foregone conclusion. Satan and evil and death and pain are marked for defeat. Ultimate victory and healing belong to God, and Christ's victory is our victory. For in New Heavens & New Earth, He will wipe every tear and there will be no more pain or death, and God will make His dwelling w...

This episode digs into the age-old Problem of Evil, or as it is usually expressed: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The question can be answered, but we need to be careful. Telling a hurting person that God may have sufficient reasons to allow a certain instance of suffering, or that there are not really any purely good people, is probably not helpful. Such explanations are not going to...

This is the first sermon in a series called "The Hurt & the Healer." This series was inspired by the Mercy Me song of the same title. This series seeks to provide hope to those who are hurting. The theme of this message is "strong tower," as in: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe." (Proverbs 18:10) Each of us has a crossroads moment when hard times...

This is one of my favorite sermons from the archives. By mining the rich mines of Jesus' parables and teachings, this sermon seeks to show that loving people is how you love God. Now, of course, love for God is more complex, as it involves worship, something that you should never offer to any person short of Jesus Christ. But Christ makes it clear. Whatever you do for the least of these ... you do...

This episode clears up some confusion I had in my lecture notes for the previous episode regarding the Church of Satan, and I go into much greater detail on the New Age Movement(s).

This episode is less of a sermon and more like a lecture. At First Baptist Church of Cherokee (KS) we called it the Winter Workshop 2010. I had taken a class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary about the dangers of the occult. Part of the class was to prepare a lecture or sermon to be delivered at a church or other community organization. This was my presentation. I talk about the origins o...

This is an evangelistic Gospel message presented at a youth conference in November 2010. The theme of the conference and of the message is "The Price Is Right."

This is a presentation of the Gospel in the form of a short story. Note: I shared the same story on Facebook Live during the pandemic, and the audio of that recording in available on this podcast feed, Episode #166.

This sermon uses several themes that have been in other messages that were given to different churches; themes that have been prevalent in recent episodes of this podcast. In this episode, Satan's temptation of Christ in Matthew 4 serves as the central text for the sermon, which leads into a discussion about the four key characteristics of Scripture: Authority, Clarity, Necessity, and Sufficiency.

This sermon was the introductory sermon to an entire series on the Apostle Paul and his writings. I only preached the introductory message, not the entire series. In this sermon, I draw six lessons from the life of the Apostle Paul: (1) The health & wealth Gospel is false. (2) Exercise reckless boldness for Christ. (3) Make decisions, but be open to God changing the plan. (4) Check all spiritual t...

I was a guest speaker at my church (CornerStone Community Church in Haslett, Michigan) on August 2, 2009, during my three year sojourn in the great state in the north where people point to the palm of their hand to show where they're from. This is a rather lengthy teaching on the importance of Scripture. I laid out 6 characteristics of Scripture: purity, authority, clarity, necessity, sufficiency,...

This is the first message in a Spring Break conference we had at the Michigan State University/Lansing Community College Christian Challenge campus ministry in March 2008. The theme of this message is evangelism, and as such, you will recognize much of this teaching. I used most of this content in other sermons in other churches, some of which were recorded and are available on this podcast. Pleas...

This is the final sermon that I preached in my Expository Preaching course for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Spring of 2007. In this episode, I dissect the doxology at the end of Psalm 16 to determine that a balance, complete life devoted to God results in Joy & in Life.

Psalm 16 is not about maintaining healthy relationships. However, in order for the teaching of Psalm 16 to be true, it is assumed that a person has maintained a healthy relationship to God, to fellow saints, to the lost, and to one's self. So this episode digs into those 4 relationships.

Psalm 15 preaches itself. It is basically a list of things that a righteousness man does to be righteous. This sermon was prepared for and preached in my Expository Preaching class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Spring 2007.

This is the first sermon in a 4-part series that I did for my Expository Preaching class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Spring of 2007. All 4 sermons will come from the Book of Psalms, and the texts chosen for these messages are in order. Today's text is the 14th Psalm.

This episode examines the promise in James 1:5-8 that God will grant wisdom to those who ask.

It is difficult to find joy in trials and suffering. The Apostle James knew it was difficult when he commanded us to to so in James 1:1-4. Nevertheless, while happiness is dependent on circumstances, joy does not have to be. We can find joy despite hardships. But in this sermon we will ponder 5 reasons why the trials and suffering themselves could be the source of joy.

Herod "the Great" is one of the most memorable villains in the Bible. When we analyze his behavior in Matthew chapter 2, we can draw some lessons on what NOT to do.

Some of the more challenging passages of Scripture to preach or teach are genealogies. It is not easy to draw life lessons from lists of names. However, the way the Apostle Matthew arranges the genealogy of Jesus shows us several things. Firstly, it establishes the identity of Jesus, emphasizing his royal credentials. Secondly, Matthew has an absurdly balanced genealogy, but he abandons his symmet...

This is the conclusion of the Soldiers of the LORD series preached at Bosworth Baptist Church in 2006. This is all about the importance of Scripture in the life of a Christian.

This, the second message in the Soldiers of the LORD series, digs into the classic "Armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6:10-20.