A Pastor's Thoughts

The Bible is a closed book.  When God was done writing the Old Testament, he stopped until Matthew.  When he wrote Revelation, he stopped.  There are warnings in the Bible about adding or subtracting words from the Bible. Deuteronomy 4:2 & 12:32 and Revelation 22:18 are the three most specific.  The idea throughout the Bible is that this book is inspired Scripture and people have no right or authority to add to them or take away. This is why the Gap theory is so strange.  People probably feel it would be too obvious to add 16 extra chapters to Romans or Ephesians, so they try and sneak some extra stuff into Genesis.  That is the Gap Theory. The Gap Theory says that there is a space of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  The space that some people insert is a couple of hundred years all the way up to billions of years.  The most popular use for the Gap Theory is to put the entire evolutionary process between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  People who cannot believe that God

One theologian has said, “80% of all disease, both biological and psychological, is rooted in separation from God, yourself, and others.”  This is an interesting idea.  Throughout the Bible God has used disease and pain to point people to him and to bring people back to him.  Today, with the advances of medical technology it is easy for even true believing Christians to go to a doctor for a headache and forget that God might be involved.  I am not saying that we should not trust medical science.  Recently I had a bad headache episode, and I had an MRI to make sure there was no organic cause, but is that all I should have done? Charles Swindol and Billy Graham both told of times when they got very ill and after going to their doctors and finding nothing, they began to examine themselves and they began to ask God to search them and know them.  God revealed to each, unconfessed sin, which they were able to confess, repent of, and their sicknesses vanished. C.S. Lewis says that Christ

** Psalm 49 **

Alameda County is doubling down on controlling churches and gaining more property tax.  After the recent election, Alameda County had a new Assessor who claimed to be a property tax attorney, very experienced in fighting the county on property tax issues.  It seems that this new assessor seeks to increase the property tax revenue. Alameda County, including with the latest set of forms where churches claim they are doing nothing wrong, supplied a multi-line form.  On this form, the county wants to know everyone who has entered and used the facilities, apart from the owning church.  The county wants to know the name,, space used, square footage used, number of days in the year and what the activity was.  When this form arrived in mailboxes all over Alameda county, several pastors that knew my fight with the county contacted me to express their fear, anger and disgust at the county. What is at risk is the desire for churches to not pay property tax.  As churches shrink in attendance,