About

Mark12ministries is about Mark 12:28-31 “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Secondly, mark12ministries is a remnant of a former ministry I was involved with. This weblog will be an effort to carry on a small part of that ministry in the area of loving God with all my mind. Today’s blogs are similar to the journals of previous generations of believers and as such, this blog will be an attempt at a spiritual discipline that will keep my thoughts aimed at Christ as the center of my existence.

This blog will deal with my efforts to wrestle with things related to the bi-vocational ministry and small churches, scripture, theology, church history and some apologetics. I will also throw in some personal stuff and make some comments about the news of the day. I will  have some fun on this blog, discussing things like favorite recipes, guns and hunting, politics, history and economics, book reviews, etc. All of life should be captured by the gospel and lived for the glory of God. Sunday School lessons, sermons, and a few rants on various topics will all make an appearance. And there will be stuff about my son’s military career.

Who am I? I have lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in Texas since 1985. I have worked in the security field since 1985 and I pastored a small Baptist church for 15 years. I am a US Army veteran, serving as an Infantry Officer in a light infantry platoon, heavy mortar platoon, and as a company XO. I left the Army in 1985 as a Captain with an EIB. I grew up mainly in Oklahoma, attended OU on an Army scholarship and graduated with a BA in history. I am a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with an Master of Divinity.

My hobbies include blogging (duh); reading (ancient history, church history, the reformation, American history, politics and political theory, economics, theology, classics of literature, science fiction); music (my wife sings classical music with the Oratorio Chorus and Ft Worth Orchestra; I like baroque, classical, romantic, classic jazz, oldies, folk, classic soft rock, some country, contemporary Christian); cooking; guns and hunting.

Favorite Musicians/Music/Songs: In the classical genre I like Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Strauss, Vaughn Williams. In Jazz/Big Band I like Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Lawrence Welkd, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Vince Gueraldi, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday and others.

My Politics: I am a conservative, a member of the vast right wing conspiracy, and the religious right, but I have a few libertarian views too, being somewhat influenced by Ayn Rand.  I like economists like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Milton Friedman. I love Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark DAvis, Mark Levine, Laura Ingraham, James Dobson, Cal Thomas, Mike Adams, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, William F. Buckley, etc. Favorite Presidents include Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

My Theology: I believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, it is the word of God (not merely containing the word of God) and is inerrant, infallible, sufficient and authoritative. I believe in the Triune God- The FAther, Son and Holy Spirit- One in essence yet three in person. I believe that God is Holy, Sovereign in all things, and Loving; he is Spirit and created all that is. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and eternal. He does everything for his glory and pleasure; the universe is all about Him first and foremost. I believe in Jesus as the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh in the incarnation, thus he is fully God and fully Man, 2 in nature yet 1 in person. Jesus was born of the virgin Mary through the miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and lived a real human life. The miracles recorded in the Gospels are true and Jesus died a substitutionary, atoning death on the cross to propitiate the holy wrath of his Father and to bring expiation of sins to us. Jesus literally, physically rose from the dead, ascended to the Father and is coming again to reign. The Holy Spirit is sent from the FAther and Jesus to indwell each and every Believer and to seal our salvation in Christ. We are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, not by works. Salvation is monergistic in that it is all of God, I contribute nothing to my salvation because as a lost sinner, I am spiritually dead and powerless to repent and would not even want to repent apart from a miraculous work from the Spirit called regeneration.

In short, I am a Reformed, Calvinistic Baptist. My favorite theologians and preachers include: Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, many of the Puritans, John L. Dagg, James P. Boyce, CH Spurgeon, Charles Hodge, AH Strong, BB Warfield, Herman Bavinck, Lewis Berkhof, Francis Schaeffer, Millard Erickson, John MacArthur, RC Sproul, James M. Boice, Michael Horton, James White, John Piper, and my current pastor- Tim Presson.

Welcome to my blog, welcome to mark12ministries.