Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 25 March 2008

During a men's study today an interesting analogy I have been using was further fleshed out by a friend of mine, Jon Coll.  The analogy is one involving football and faith.

By coming to faith in Yeshua we have "joined His team" so to speak.  We are each called to "play in the game" we are assigned.  We are also called to play by the rules: to act honorably (Hebrew 13:18) and to stop sinning (1 Corinthians 15:34) .  The basic rules that apply to every player are the "rules" found in Torah: the traditionally counted 613 commandments.  Everyone has the same "out of bounds", the same rules regarding fouls, etc.  Even though every person plays by the same rules the "Coach" gives each person individual assignments and tasks to carry out.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently delivered their "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey" results online.  A Fox News analysis of the report indicated that almost half of the 35,000+ Americans surveyed had "left the faith tradition of their upbringing" to either switch to a different denomination or completely different religion (including no religious affiliation at all).

Part of the change has been attributed to the very mobile and fluid nature of our society.  Given that over 22 million Americans moved to a new home between March 1999 and March 2000 and over 8 million Americans moved to a new state in 2006 America is definitely mobile.