Life Thoughts

The God of Good and Evil

Job is believed to be the first book written in the Bible. Yep, it was probably written before Genesis. Job 2:10 says the following:

(My paraphrase) "What. Shall we receive good things from the hand of God and not be willing to receive evil things as well."

At first glance this may not appear to be a real uplifting verse. But here is what I think it is saying, and in it, I believe, is a path of real peace:

God Is In Complete Control!

Complete Control. Everything is His perfect will. He sends the good and He sends the evil. God has no permissive will. Even Satan, however you view him, has to get permission from God before he can do anything. Not just some of the time. But any and every time.

This only becomes a problem if you believe God is going to fail to complete His perfect will. If you believe a large, or even a small part of His creation will be able to remain in their darkness, evil, sin, pain and death.

If, however, you believe God is going to be a complete success, (yes, even more successful than Rick Warren and Joel Osteen combined). And you believe that everything in God's creation is surely coming back to Him, cleaned, restored and bursting with life, then there is no problem. Everything that happened to Job; losing his children, all he owned, the respect of his friends and his wife and being covered with pestilent sores was God's perfect will for Job. Job knew all good and all evil comes from God. The good only shines bright against the contrast of the darkness of evil. And one second after being birthed into the Euphoric Presence of God all the pain of the world will make sense.

Always give thanks to God the Father FOR everything,

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Ephesians 5:20)

The Real Good News!

We Believe the Bible Declares That God Loves You
Unconditionally, Period! Without One String Attached.

- God Gives the Gift of Belief.
- God Gives the Gift of Repentance.
- God Gives Gift of Faith.
- God Gives the Gift of Your Physical Life.

God gives you All of these things in His Timing and for His Purposes. These are not gifts we have to choose to receive. God must even give us the willingness to receive these gifts. (For you theologians out there, No, we are not Calvinists. Please read further.) Since He has given these to some, He will give them to all. If not in this age, then He will do it in the ages to come. The teaching of the God of the Ages is one of the most neglected teachings of the Bible. We will more thoroughly discuss the often overlooked biblical doctrine of the ages a little later.

The following is where we agree with traditional teachings:

We confess that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Him. He died for our sins and was resurrected on the third day, according to the Scriptures. The original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts are the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God.

However, we also believe Scripture when it declares that when Jesus was raised up, He drew all men to Himself. We believe the Father will draw all men to Jesus. We believe every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We believe that as all people died in Adam, even so will all people be made alive in Christ. Jesus is the Savior, not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. He is 100% victorious and worthy to be praised! God is no respecter of persons. His mercy is everlasting.

We believe it is reasonable and consistent to come to an understanding from Scripture, church history and common sense, that God would never everlastingly torment anyone, but when it is necessary He will use suffering in different degrees, for different people, as a means of His kindness, to win everyone to new life in his Son, through the cross. Just like He did for many of you reading this.

Or… do you think there are people who are just too prideful, evil or stubborn to save, or too prideful, evil or stubborn to turn to God. Unlike yourself. You weren’t beyond saving. You weren’t too prideful, evil or stubborn. You were smart enough to turn.

Unless You are Able to Think for Yourself, This Blog is Not for You.

If you think in all things spiritual, that your pastor or elders or bishops or cardinals would always know better than you, then please don’t read any further. This book is for those who are able to think for themselves.

It is our hope in reading this book that you will learn to more completely rest in what our wonderful Heavenly Father has accomplished for us!

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!

(Romans 11:33, NIV)

The Real Good News!

Short Introduction

We are the Bishop Family. We live in the beautiful state of Georgia. Just a little bit about ourselves. My wife Leslie has her degree in Sociology from Gordon College. I am Charlie. I have a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The only reason I bring up this degree is that it is the only way some people will even listen to what I have to say. For you fellow Title Disdainers out there, please overlook my pronouncement. We have three wonderful children and one son-in-law: Courtney and Caleb, Katie and David.


I have worked thirteen years in the insurance field and have owned my own environmental home service business for 9 years and I am currently working at Publix. This has been a wonderful way to meet people, offering a needed service and sometimes having interesting theological conversations. We have not walked the traditional ministry road for a long time now. We believe the Scripture teaches we are to experience body life, where the concept of a professional clergy/laity distinction does not exist.


It was in the spring of 2005 that God opened our eyes to a clearer understanding of the Gospel of Grace, proclaimed by Paul. This book was written as a means of spreading the Gospel of Grace.


We are not out to change the Gospel message, or to proclaim a new one. We believe what we are proclaiming is the Gospel that Paul preached.


For 29 years as a Christian, I believed the message taught by the traditional church, that God loves you, repent, give your life to Jesus and if you don’t do this in time, then you will burn for eternity.


That, in a nutshell, is what the majority of the evangelical churches believe today. They proclaim that God loves you unconditionally, ex-cept for the condition that you believe in Jesus in time.


My conversion experience was wonderful and powerful. I knew Jesus Christ was my Savior, but just a short time after listening to the teachings of the traditional church I began to wonder, “Just what is the difference between Christianity and other religions?” Sure, we are initially saved by grace (as long as we help God out by working up the belief), but then what? If a certain level of good works is not a part of our lives, then perhaps we have lost our salvation. Or maybe we were never saved to begin with. What is that level of good works that we must have? No one ever knew, but you better have some. This is the same as every other major religion. A confusing mixture of law and grace.


I’ve listened to many Bible believing teachers and met many Christians across the world. The law and grace mixture is common to all traditional doctrine.