Tommy Mann

Q. What does God require of us that we may escape His wrath and curse? A. To escape the wrath and curse God requires of us faith in Jesus Christ and repentance unto life. As we saw last week in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death.” We lack the ability to go back and “un-sin,” and no amount of good deeds can erase the sin we have already committed. There are two things we need to do, but they are not accomplishments on are part; rather, they are acknowledgments of accomplishments on Jesus’ part. The first thing we need to do is put our faith in Jesus Christ. This goes beyond believing He is real or that He died on the cross. To put our faith in Him means that we put all of our trust in Him and Him alone. We put all of our eggs in His basket. If it turns out that Jesus is wrong, we will be wrong with Him. To put our faith in Jesus means to go all in, risking everything, and yet ultimately gaining everything. The second thing we need to do is repent, which is a 1

Q. What does every sin deserve? A. Every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse. Humanity has developed its own system of crime and punishment, where not all sentences are the same. A person caught smoking marijuana may pay a fine, while a person caught selling it may go to prison. There are harsher penalties for a rapist who has a deadly weapon versus an unarmed rapist. First time offenders usually get off easier than repeat offenders. But God’s system does not match our system. There is no difference between the first time offender and the career criminal; God does not rank and weigh one sin against another. His law is clear: all sins are equally offensive and each deserves the same sentence: death. There will be no plea except guilty, for “all have sinned (Romans 3:23, 5:12).” There will be no attorney to argue a loophole, for “the wages for sin is death (Romans 6:23).” We need to see sin for what it really is—a gross offense to a holy God that invites the curse

Q. Do we make it to heaven based on how well we keep the Ten Commandments? A. No, we have all broken God’s law; our only hope is through the Savior, Christ Jesus. Many people believe that if they are a good enough person—if they never kill, commit adultery, or rob a bank—then they will go to heaven when they die. But this mistaken idea assumes that God only cares about a few commandments. The truth is, God is just as concerned with coveting as He is with killing. We might rank the commands in order based on our criminal justice system, but our ways are not God’s ways. In fact, it doesn’t matter if we have never murdered or cheated on a spouse; the Bible tells us that if we have broken one part of God’s law, we are guilty of breaking all the law (James 2:10). We cannot stand before God on Judgment Day and brag about how well we kept the Ten Commandments. Even our best efforts fall pitifully short. What this all amounts to is a guilty verdict. We are totally dep

Michael Gungor made headlines this week when he stated that he does not take the Bible literally. This revelation came after his Dove Award-winning (and Grammy-nominated) band Gungor had a show cancelled for that same reason. In an effort to explain himself, Gungor apologized if any fans were duped into thinking their Christian band had Christian beliefs. Taking a page out of the Emergent Church playbook, Gungor said, “We have always tried to be upfront about our wrestling with doubts and questions of faith.” That’s fine. Many people wrestle, and it often takes years for a person to really understand what they believe. But Gungor goes a step beyond mere wrestling with doubt. He stated, “NO REASONABLE PERSON takes the entire Bible completely literally (emphasis in original).” Well, Mr. Gungor, I am one of those reasonable people you say do not exist. In the same post Gungor makes clear that they are not young earth creationists (meaning they believe in Darwinian e

One of the most common criticisms of the Bible is that it was written by men and not God; my response to this is always the same: man would not write a book like the Bible. Let me give a quick example. In President Barack Obama’s first book, Dreams From My Father, he records the story of his paternal grandfather in Kenya, Hussein Onyango Obama. For a brief period in time the elder Obama converted to Christianity and changed his last name to Johnson, but that was a short-lived venture. Here is part of his description: “But he could not understand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that this Jesus could wash away a man’s sins…this was foolish sentiment, something to comfort women. And so he converted to Islam—he thought its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs [1] .” Had man written the Bible independent of God then the idea of mercy toward enemies would not be in it. A man like Hussein Onyango, who was physically abusive toward each of his wives, a