Tommy Mann

In 2011 I wrote a blog about Mark Driscoll . As stated before, the purpose of the post was for the education of those who were seeing quick soundbites of Driscoll, but who did not know about his crudeness, foul language, and what I believed to be disrespect towards our Lord. The blog was Driscoll in his own words, citing him with page numbers from his own books. Since November 29th, 2011, I have received many angry messages from the comment section and through email. Eventually I quit responding to them because they were all the same: telling me how no one is perfect and that Driscoll may have  changed since those books were written. My response was always the same. If he has changed, he will apologize and we will see a changed man. Why did I want him to apologize? Not because I feel I am owed one (I'm certainly not), but because the apology is symbolic of his acknowledgment of the need to change. Well Mark Driscoll has apologized via an open letter on social media. He ...

Q. Did our first parents remain as they were created ? 
A. Left to the freedom of their own wills, our first parents sinned against God and fell from their original condition. Adam and Eve were created as perfect beings who did not know sin, suffering, or sickness in any way. That was God’s original intention, and for an unknown amount of time our first parents lived in the perfect Garden of Eden. Everything changed the moment that Eve chose to disobey God and take a bite of the forbidden fruit. It wasn’t so much the act of eating the fruit that got them into trouble, but the willful choice to question God’s goodness. God had made clear to the first couple that in the day they ate of the fruit, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17); this did not usher in an immediate death like with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), but rather introduced the process of death and decay. For the first time in history things began to wear out, which would eventually result in death. T...

Q. What is God’s providence? 
A. God’s providence is His completely holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing every creature and every action. In God’s providence He controls everything—living and nonliving—in the best way possible. We also use the word sovereign to refer to God’s providence. I like to define sovereignty this way: God is absolutely in control of everything, everywhere, at all times. Dr. Ron Lynch defines God’s sovereignty this way: God either authors or allows everything that happens. In Scripture we see God author many things. He was the author of the 10 Plagues in Egypt (Exodus 7-12) that led His people out of bondage. In those plagues we see God’s providence displayed over animals (death of cattle), nature (sea turned to blood, hailstorm, darkness), and mankind (boils, death). But we also see Him allowing something He didn’t author. In the beginning of Job God grants Satan permission to carry out an attack on His servant (ch1-2). ...

Q. How did God create man? 
A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, with dominion over the creatures. Last week we saw that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, and it is important to point out the obvious: He created one male and one female. You have probably heard the worn out expression, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” but that is a true statement. Had it been only Adam and Steve from the beginning, the human race would have been extinct shortly thereafter. In the same way, God did not create Adam, Eve, Steve, and Sally—He created one man for one woman. Many people are chiming in saying, “I was born this way; God made me gay.” They like to point out that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality in the Gospels. But quite the opposite is true; In Matthew 19:5 Jesus said, “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ...

In Living Proof, Patrick“Clebe” McClary recounts his time spent serving his country in Vietnam. McClary led recon teams throughout the jungles of ‘Nam, but he was eventually ambushed and nearly killed. Clebe was hit by a grenade, which threw him in the air and took off his left arm. He continued to fight, and shrapnel eventually claimed his left eye; by the time help arrived Clebe could not move his right arm, and his legs were shredded. A VC officer even shot him to confirm he was dead, but he survived the execution. After lengthy stays at multiple hospitals and hundreds of surgeries, McClary is now able to use both legs and his right arm again. He wears an eye patch because he didn’t like wearing a glass eye, and he has a hook he sometimes wears for a left arm. More important to McClary than surviving on the battlefield is the fact that since that time he has come to put his faith in Christ. In his book he acknowledges that had he died in Vietnam, he would be in hell to...

Question: What is Creation? Answer: Creation is God’s making everything out of nothing by His powerful word in six days—and all very good. No person has every created anything. You might be thinking, “ I made a model airplane,” or “ I sew my children’s clothes.” But we must remember that making something and creating something are different. When you assemble a kit you begin with the parts in a box, and when you fashion clothes you grab thread and a needle. Creating means to start with nothing and end up with something. The Bible begins by saying, “In the beginning God created [started with nothing] the heavens and the earth.” There were no particles, no atoms, no cells with which to work; God said, “Let there be,” and everything we see came into existence. Some teach that the universe created itself, possibly through the Big Bang. There are many flaws with that theory, not the least of which is the origin of the subatomic particles that exploded. The Big Bang...