My name is Timothy J. Hammons, and I am a pastor/teacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an amateur reporter. I am married to Elisa, a beautiful woman and true help mate from the Lord. I have two boys, Andy and Joey.
Why I Blog
God gives us all gifts, some spiritual, some practical. I feel compelled to write about things from a Christian world perspective. This is why I am political. I also feel compelled by His love for us, to write about theology in order to help us all grow and understand the Triune God who has revealed Himself through the 66 books of the Bible, and ultimately, through the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ. I feel that this is part of my calling as a pastor. I know that some would disagree and say that I should never get political, or religious. But I take that charge to be directly from Satan. After all, the word of God tells us to take every thought captive. That is what I’m doing here. As Christians, we need to stand for the truth in all areas of life, not just the areas of our faith. Doing this is the end result of the Great Commission. As we make disciples, then those disciples go into their worlds and live as fellow believers, being used by God to take every thought captive in their respective work places and families.
Important Posts
Why I Write: Casting Down Arguments
Please note that all photos appearing in the banner are copyrighted Timothy J. Hammons 2011.
My Passion
If you want to hear what I’m truly passionate about, go listen to one of my sermons here.
Who Am I?
Who am I? Since I turned 50 recently, there is a lot to my past.
I was raised in a Christian Science home and became one when I turned 21. However I confess that I never could reconcile life to the claims that those in CS were making. There were always these miracles taking place, but never real honest miracles. Lots of miraculous cures for the common cold and such. Most of the testimonies given by those in CS were of the nature that the giver was on “death’s door” and then they prayed, and were healed. Given that death’s door can be so subjective, I take it that most of these women giving these testimonies were getting over their menstrual cramps.
When I was 9, my family had a major car accident that left my mother paralyzed for life. I remember praying over her body as she laid on the side of the road, just as we were taught to pray as Christian Scientist, but she didn’t get up. She never would walk again even though she refused medical treatment as was the common practice, and would go to a special hospital for Christian Scientist where the nurses prayed for healings. My take from it: if the god of Christian Science wouldn’t answer the prayers of a 9-year-old boy, then he was not god at all.
United States Coast Guard
When I turned 20, I joined the United States Coast Guard and was shipped off to Alameda, CA for training. Ever since I was a small child growing up on the Galveston coast, I wanted to join the Coast Guard. The lure of the white ships and small boats had a real appeal for me since my family was into boating so much. So it was natural for me to pursue that which I knew.
After graduating from high school, I did spend a couple of years as a disk jockey, but given my lack of life experience, I didn’t make a very good DJ. My idea of a funny joke was to play the song Can’t Get No Satisfaction, by the Rollings Stones, dedicate it to all the virgins in the audience and then say, “thanks for nothing.” You can see that my career there was absolutely stellar.
Given that, the Coast Guard was my best bet. I figured I would receive orders in Galveston and be able to drive home on the weekends. It didn’t turn out that way at all. After boot camp, I volunteered to serve on the United States Coast Guard Cutter Sedge which was stationed in Homer, Alaska. (Check here for the unofficial site).
Why I chose that base is beyond me. Living on board a buoy tender is hard work. The motto of the ship was, Workhorse of the Black Fleet. I believe that was actually coined while I was on board ship. We not only had to work our buoys and day boards in the Homer/Kodiak/Anchorage area, but we had to go down to the Washington and Oregon and work all the buoys there because the normal buoy tender that worked them was in dry dock for repairs.
SN “Mutley” Mulligan and BM3 ??? came up with the name and the logo. We spray painted the logo on every buoy up and down the coast of Washington and Oregon. We wanted everyone there to know that we worked their buoys for them while they got to go home to their wives and families every night.
(To be continued…)
Oh, what we would give to hear sermons like yours preached from the pulpits in our area!! Your stand on the Word of God is an encouragement to us!
Hello again, Pastor Hammons. I love your blog more the more I dig into your archives. We have a lot in common: I’m a native Texan (Dallas), one of the world’s oldest & most devoted Aggie fan (my brother graduated class of ’56, I can sing you every word of all the songs and yells), my son served in the Coast Guard, R.C. Sproul’s “Chosen By God” crystalized my thinking on Calvinism and I’ve given away many copies.
I just read your Feb.2012 article on Limited Atonement and want to add a verse I’m astounded to say I’ve never seen in any list of Calvinist “proof texts” and wonder if you agree that it’s a rather decisive one.
A few years ago I was at my grandkids’ little Christian school (I’m the volunteer pianist/choral director when one is needed) during a rehearsal for the Christmas program. It was a good program that the school has done more than once, using only Bible passages as its script. Sitting at the piano I was watching a teacher work with a first-grader whose sole responsibility was Luke 2:14. The translation being used was the NIV, and as I watched the little guy struggling with “…. and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests”, I (a KJV-lover, though in no way a KJV-Only-er, and one who harbors deep suspicion of the NIV because of the word “mixed” instead of “hid” in the Mt. 13 parable of the leaven) wondered where on earth THAT came from, and why not have mercy on the kid and let him off with the KJV’s highly-attenuated verse.
When I returned home I looked in my “Twenty-Six Translations of the NT” (that was before I owned a computer) and lo & behold: the KJV is a lonely outlier. Jesus’ very “birth announcement” seems to make no bones about what He had come to accomplish. http://bible.cc/luke/2-14.htm
Kindest regards,
PHB
Hi Phoebe,
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoy my blog! That is encouraging.
Yes, that is one of my favorites as well. So many fail to see it because of the Christmas carol that gives us the KJV translation. But the new translation is better and more true to the text. One of my Greek professors pointed that out when I got to DTS and that was the beginning of my move to Calvinism.
Blessings
Timothy
The ESV is my new favorite translation. It seems to retain all the beauty and familiarity of the KJV (so important, I think, since all the great music & literature of the church is based on the KJV), and corrects some of its deficiencies; e.g., Luke 2:14. It also meets my first test of any translation: “hid” (or “buried”; giving the accurate sense of a surreptitious act, “secreting”) and not “mixed” in Mt. 13:33. What do you think of it? Do you have a favorite translation? (If there’s a discussion of translations in the archives, please point me to it.)
Hi Phoebe,
The only article I have concerning translations is one against KJV only people:
http://timothyjhammons.com/2010/01/27/kjv-only/
The KJV only people are quite a challenge for those of us open to other translations since they are unwilling to the possibility of another translation. Their danger is that they have set up a false standard of righteousness and will gladly use it to look down upon other believers. Sad… very sad.
I use the NKJV currently, and have heard a lot of good things about the ESV. But since I have the NKJV, which was given to me upon my graduation from DTS, I will continue to use it until it falls apart.
I wasn’t aware of the issues with Matthew 13:33, so I can’t speak to that.
Hi I have commented on several of your posts. I shared my background in CS. I feel like I am sometimes drowning in a sea of of CS family and friends. I am the blacksheep because I am a sinner and believer in Christ. I live in STL in the hotbed of the CS community. Could you maybe share a post of how you shared with other CS people in your life? Or maybe email me about how I can better witness or explain my point. TRUST you me….I have gone to extensive measures to share my faith and it’s on my heart all the time. I recently shared to family that I will no longer attend the CS church on holidays with them. World War 3 is about to happen
I am not grateful for MBE or Christian Science and feel sick being in a room where others are. It just brings up anger that I am not capable of maturely handling at this time in my life.
Hey, feel free to delete this after you see it / read it. However, you are always so kind as to read and comment on my blog (OnePointSafety.com) that I wanted to share another one of my blogs with you. It is the LOACBlog.com Not sure if the subject material will interest you or not, but I just wanted to share.
Thanks! Gig’em!