Wade Poe

Synagogues weren't "authorized" by God.  Sometime in the days when Israel was in or just getting out of exile with Babylon, it developed - probably as a means of encouraging one another while they were "away from home".  They weren't allowed to offer sacrifices outside of the temple worship system and especially not outside of Jerusalem, so at some point synagogues came into existence - first as a gathering and then as formal locations with buildings called "synagogues". If you read through the Old Testament, they're not mentioned at all.  It's only when you get to the gospels you run into them being mentioned. Something developed to replace their temple worship, per se, after Solomon's Temple was destroyed.  And even after a new version of the temple was built, they continued on with synagogues in their various locations. God didn't say "make synagogues" but they did.  There's no indication they were condemned by God ...

Since about the first part of this year (2025), it has been interesting to get feedback from the grapevine about how people perceive those who "quit going to church". For some, it's as if you are persona non-grata or an "unwelcome person" or "unacceptable person". You're someone who doesn't fit into the category of "lost" or "unsaved", but worse. If you were potentially someone who might be invited to and convinced to join a church, you're still potentially valuable for that "win", but if you're not - no reason to waste any time on you. And I'm not simply speaking from my own experience, but from what I see and hear from others whose faith walk shares some similarities. It's almost as if it would be better if you went off "into the world" and were "living in sin" - 'cause you'd still be fitting into the grand story of how church works.  You still have potential for a happ...

No one likes to see someone young leave this life too soon.  It is especially sad if their passing was tragic. __________ Job offered regular sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they messed up and offended God in some way while they were enjoying life. Not long after, they're all dead after a storm struck the house they were in.  Gone.  Just like that. It's one of those features I'd overlooked in Job for a long time.  I was usually focused on the boils on his body and the sackcloth and ashes and just skipped over the loss of all his stuff and his kids. The story of Job is thought to be the oldest story - meaning that it's likely one of the first things that was written down in the Old Testament - if you remember that they weren't necessarily in the order that you see them in most all Bibles. That's a really old story.  And it makes sense that it is so old.  This situation with Job is timeless.  It's the stuff we deal with in our time, tho...

Something I've been learning for a decade or more is that we can trust God and depend on him, way more than we imagine. We can depend on the fact that we are his and he is ours - already, now, and completely.  We can know that he will never leave us or forsake us and we've had any division between us removed. He loves us unconditionally and forgives us of anything and everything - in fact he did that at the cross - completely, fully, and forever. Forgiveness of sins is not "salvation" per se, but it makes it possible for us to have new life with God. A lot of people want to be "saved" but they don't necessarily want new life with God. __________ Jesus said a lot of people would be looking for a religious experience, but not everyone would find the path to life - and they are two different things. It's not to say the religious people won't be "saved" for heaven, but that many will live in less than the best available for them in this lif...

A lot goes into decisions to move on and make a change. Leaving a friend group. Leaving a relationship or marriage. Leaving a church. Leaving a tradition. I've said this in pieces over the last few months, but it's coming together more clearly with each passing week - the leaving behind was more of a leaving something that was already leaving or had left. Some suggested to me that I was leaving a ship that was sinking and I get that, but I don't think it was a ship that was sinking so much as one that was changing directions and getting very focused in the development of a certain quality that I'd begun to move away from some years earlier. Denial is a powerful thing.  It can make you hold on to something with the hope that what you want to be true will be true.  It can make you ignore the things you see with your own eyes. Someone told me that my "new understanding" of God, the gospel, etc would be something that would be a thorn in my flesh as long as I was ...

  God wants to know   (and already does)   if you are just using him for what you want - or if you want to actually know him. __________ You  want people to know what  you  think.  But you’re afraid to put yourself out there. Or at least many people are. Probably most. Even if you’re afraid to admit it and you want to avoid any kind of downside to saying what you think or how you feel, you want to be heard. You can deny it, and I’m okay with that, but it’s true. We live in a culture where we/people are dying for affirmation.  People,  including you,  want to be affirmed that what they say, think, do, etc is important, valued, etc. We live in a time in which people are valued for what they can produce for us (money, agreement, etc) and we know that we are valued in the same way for many people. __________ We’ve all seen memes or reminders over the last ten+ years about the need to  actually  listen to people as they talk and N...

Whenever I read Ecclesiastes, I feel sorry for Solomon, the wisest man who'd lived up until that point, according to lore and tradition. I mean, he has anything and everything you could want and he still found it to be just so-so at best on many occasions. It would be like a person who won the lottery everyday and never had to worry about resources - that's roughly the same as what Solomon's situation was. He had all the food, houses, servants, music/musicians, military support, entertainment, books, women/sexual partners in the world he could want and then some.  And he still found it to be, "Meh".  When he was young, God told him he could have anything he wanted and he asked for wisdom. And God gave it to him. I don't know that his wisdom was exceptionally deep, mysterious, or wise by the standards we think of today - it was just basic, profoundly true things that no one we know of had seen, acknowledged and recorded before - and it blew people away. I try t...