Five Minute Ministry

The New World Translation (NWT) is infamous for changing verses to fit with their theology.  In some verses like Col 1:16-17 they inserted the word [other] in brackets to portray Christ as a created being.  In the most recent edition of the NWT the brackets have unfortunately been removed.  They claim that the bracketed words were inserted to improve clarity.  Even the NASB marks the words they insert to improve clarity so that practice is fine as far as it goes but often in the NWT they are actually there to negate the original meaning.  With that in mind, I would like to suggest that they could have inserted a different word to be just as clear in their goal of negating the clear text: Instead of verse 16 reading: "because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth,..."  they could have written it "because by means of him all things were [not] created in the heavens and upon the earth..." If Christ were 'created'

The scriptures are filled with many admonitions to encourage one another, one Christian to another. Hebrews 3:13, 1 Thess 3:3,4:18,5:11, These verses show a context to the word 'encourage'. We tend to think of it as 'cheer up' but it has more to do with the root 'courage'. Encourage and exhort are pretty much synonyms in the NT. These verses talk about encouraging one another with the Gospel message of hope and the promise of a life with God after the persecutions and trials of this world. To try to encourage a non-believer without the gospel would be more like telling a dying cancer patient to cheer up and he'll be okay. Wouldn't it be more encouraging to confirm their dire state instead of ignoring and then offer the cure, the gospel? So, one way to practice Five Minute Ministry in a very practical way is to send an encouraging card, one that builds their faith in Christ, strengthens them in the midst of trials, and exhorts them to further go

It is worth reading first to see what their thinking and arguments are so we can understand and be able to address what they believe and not just what we think they believe. Here is a tract by Catholic Answers on praying to the saints from a Roman Catholic viewpoint: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/praying-to-the-saints Here is a Protestant counter point article answering the above.  You might want to think what your answers would be first before reading this to test your own reason and knowledge of the subject. http://bnonn.thinkingmatters.org.nz/3-reasons-christianity-plus-prayer-to-saints-equals-polytheism/

Jeff Durbin of Apologia Radio does a great job of working with Mormon elders on the street.  You'll notice that he's memorized a number of references.  That may be a bit challenging for most people to accomplish but I'd like you to pay more attention to his attitude than his arguments.  Even if you don't have all the references memorized you can still have his patience and compassion when you interact with Mormon elders.

Last week’s class was about whether God does evil like ordering genocide or approving of slavery.   Today’s class deals with the question “Don’t Christians do evil.   The rise of the New Atheists and a lot of backlash against Christians came about out of the Islamic 9/11 attacks, strangely enough.   The atheists looked at the threat of Islamic fundamentalism and jumped to the knee jerk conclusion that all religions are harmful . Hence the title of Christopher Hitchens ’ book “God is Not Great – How Religion Poisons Everything.”   Christopher Hitchens lambasts Christians, Catholics, Muslims and more in his book.   He doesn’t limit his ire to Muslims at all, but how many Amish terrorists have you heard of?   Still, to his credit he has done a great deal help a fellow author, Salmon Rushdie, who has a death sentence on his head from an Islamic Fatwa placed on him because of his book, The Satanic Verses.   That book was referring to the questions Muhammed had about the Koranic vers