Ironworks

            Does almost count? There are a good amount of people that would think so. If you have ever had employees that you have managed, you would be familiar with this idea first hand. Over the years, I had many employees that were almost on time. Perhaps the most telling was a young man who worked for me whom we will call Pete. Pete was one of my line cooks who was scheduled quite often to open. I enjoyed working with Pete, he was a hard worker, and fun to be around. When it came to opening, the company policy was that there must be at least two employees present to enter the building. Pete would not show up on time, but was consistently 5-10 minutes late. He would even at times say, “I almost made it on time.” I tried all sorts of approaches to getting him to show up on time, but he rarely was there at 8, if ever. Our conversations usually ended with “sure boss, I’ll try.” I suppose he was almost persuaded. However, does almost count? Why do ...

  Have you ever been in a discussion with someone and no matter how much proof you offer to validate your Biblical claims they still reject them? When a religious person is confronted with Scripture that contradicts their traditions, they may call a New Testament Christian a Pharisee. No one wants to be called that, but how do you respond to such an accusation? Moreover, has it ever made you think, “What if I am being a Pharisee?” It is certainly Scriptural for each of us to test our actions against the Word of God (John 12:48; 2 Cor 13:5; James 1:25). So how can we know if we are speaking where God speaks or if we are speaking in the spirit of the sectarian Pharisees? In order to make a fair assessment, we can consider New Testament examples of the spirit of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees Were Self-Righteous The Pharisees were very self-righteous. Consider the prayer of one Pharisee in Luke 18:11-12,  “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee...