Gary Shogren's Blog
For the first time in our blog’s 11-year history, we will feature an occasional series written by me, Gary Shogren; and our long-time friend, Tod Hannigan. Tod will do the heavy lifting on the philosophical end. Sign up for this blog if you want to get notified when new Testing 4 Truth posts come... Continue Reading →
FALSE PROPHETS: Just finished reading Jeremiah, and part of it's story is that false prophets greatly outnumbered true ones. God says, “I have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for me. I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying." (Jer 23:21)I'm convinced of the same today. This... Continue Reading →
Scenario #1. At the Jersey shore in July, people ran in and saved a drowning man. They were at a beach wedding and saw the situation; they hauled him out and one man performed CPR and revived him. I saw it on the Philly news, and asked myself: Would I have taken that risk in... Continue Reading →
I have a limited number of people whom I would call my heroes. In fact, one time in an interview I was asked to name a hero of mine: "Uh...Abraham Lincoln" was all I could come up with. In fact, it was President's Day, and the picture of Lincoln hanging on the wall of the... Continue Reading →
Sermon given to Sovereign Grace Fellowship, Boscawen, NH, on June 7, 2020 Our text is 1 Cor 13:8-13 NLT; Paul emphasizes what we have now and what we will have them - Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and... Continue Reading →
I was fresh out of university when the editors of the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary asked me to write the article on election. My starting point is exegesis of texts, not systematic theology. You can read the original article in volume 2:441–444; the following is slightly paraphrased. The nature of this article is a panoramic... Continue Reading →
I will share my conclusion up front: of course we do! And if we are able to settle that, the main issue now becomes one of logistics, not of theology. First some background. Churches are offering online worship services: Bible studies; small groups. A Mennonite church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is offering drive-through prayer: the... Continue Reading →
"My pastor doesn’t tell us how to vote! What he does is give out a score card that describes what the issues are [remember that phrase!] and then shows what each candidate stands for. But then he tells us to make up our own minds!" Anyway, that's the word on the street. Let’s look at two... Continue Reading →
I love to write, and since I just yesterday finished drafting out a new book - and having a great time doing so! - a comment by C. S. Lewis reminded me that I should not claim to be doing some great act of self-surrender whenever I crank up the laptop. To paraphrase Plutarch from... Continue Reading →
This material adapted from 1-2 Thessalonians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, from pages 161-66. The book is available from Amazon and as a discount from Amazon, and also from Logos, in Korean and also in Spanish. 1 Thess 4:4 is the most complex verse in the Thessalonian correspondence because of the difficulty of... Continue Reading →
