Myth Busting: Breaking a Lamb’s Leg (Re-blog)

Break a leg?

I’ve heard this teaching more than once about how shepherds would break a sheep’s leg to not only keep it from wandering away, but to then nurse the sheep back to health and thus gain its love. Each time I heard this teaching, red flags would pop up in my mind. Firstly, the teaching in not biblical. Do we really want to take an extra-biblical idea like this and apply it to Jesus? Secondly, it makes no sense. Anyone who knows anything about animals knows that harming an animal does not create a sense of love and trust, but rather the exact opposite.

I was going to write my own article on this teaching, but I found that several others have already done a good job with it. See the links and article below….

Related articles: The Shepherd Breaking His Sheep’s Legs- Myths That’ll Preach; The malignant myth of the leg-breaking shepherd; Shepherds break a lamb’s leg on purpose?

Dare to Disciple

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

It is well-known in Christian circles that before the shepherd placed the lamb on his…

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Are You Saved? Saved From What?

You have desires. Your desires determine your choices. If more than one desire is active in you at one time, the strongest desire will win. You have a desire to lose weight and therefore have decided to do daily morning exercise. You wake up at five o’clock in the morning and discover there are two desires working against each other in your mind: Stay in your comfy bed for another hour, or get up and exercise. If your desire to lose weight is stronger than your desire to stay in bed, you will get up. If the opposite is true, you will go back to sleep.

Your desires determine your choices, and you can’t choose your desires, at least not in the moment. You can shape your desires over time by your choices. You can create a lifestyle with systems and habits which develops certain desires in your life which then determine your choices. This is difficult and you’ll probably need outside help.

What about moral desires? If you are evil, and your desires are evil, your choices will be evil. How can you change this? How can you know what is good? How can you desire what is good?

You need to be transformed by the only one who can transform you: Your Creator.

The Christian gospel is not primarily about being saved from hell. It is about being saved from being evil. Being evil will send you to hell, but if you were somehow able to avoid hell, that wouldn’t mean that you were then good. The avoidance of hell doesn’t make you good. Christ’s salvation makes you good.

Free will is not the ability to choose A instead of B. Even a person whose will is enslaved to evil is able to choose A vs B. Free will is the ability to always choose the good. To choose the good is to know the good and to desire the good. Free will = good desires. Enslaved will = evil desires.

Christ offers to all salvation from enslavement to evil. You already know the good enough to know that Christ’s offer is true. You already have the desire within you to be saved, no matter how evil you might be. Therefore, Christ’s salvation is available to you right now. To choose that salvation is as simple as asking for it, which you can do right now.

But be warned, Christ’s salvation is no small thing. Your life as you’ve known it will be torn apart, you will die, and there’s no turning back.

Heaven Misplaced (Book Review)

‘Heaven Misplaced’ is an eschatological book written from a post-millennium point of view. If you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘post-millennium’, for now, you just need to know that the ‘millennium’ refers to the 1000 year rule and reign of Christ referred to in Revelation 20. The ‘post’ refers to when Christ will return. So, ‘post-millennium’: Jesus will rule and reign from heaven for the 1000 years (which may or not be a literal 1000 years) and He will return after, or post, the millennium. Another position is called pre-millenniumism, and another amillennialism.

The main points of the book:

1) Jesus is the savior of the whole world. This does not mean every last individual will be saved, but it also does not mean that only a handful of elect Christians will be saved. Jesus came to save the world and He will do just that.

2) Man lost dominion of the world in the garden to the “powers and principalities”. Jesus conquered the powers and principalities on the cross. Jesus has been given all authority. Man once again has dominion of the world through Christ. The Great Commission can now be accomplished.

3) The Great Commission will be fulfilled not when the Gospel reaches each nation, not when individual disciples are made in each nation; it will be fulfilled when each nation on earth is discipled — every nation a Christian nation — not every individual a Christian, but every nation being predominately Christian — a worldwide Christendom. This completion of the Great Commission will usher in the millennium. Jesus will not return until this has been accomplished.

You don’t have to agree with the post-millennialist view to benefit from reading this book. In fact, I highly recommend you do read it especially if you disagree with this view. Often views of the end times are so much doom and gloom. This book is very positive and hopeful. It’ll get you excited about being a Christian.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars.

Find it on Amazon