Introduction

The following introduction was written by our good friend Peter Wilson, who was the one who came up with the idea for launching this blog. Sadly, he had to back out of being a contributor, but I still think his introduction has a lot of wisdom. I tacked on the bit at the end, but the rest is all Pete's.

As I sat in front of my computer thinking about what I should say in the first post on HoldFast. I wondered what would be the best introduction to the participants of this blog. The conclusion I came to was that the best way to introduce ourselves would be to introduce anyone who is reading this to our savior, Jesus Christ. Our identities that we hold to most dearly are not our names, our favorite football teams, or any other superficial object of this world. We identify ourselves first and foremost as children of God through adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4-6).

This gift is the gift that we hold fast to. We have all been baptized in a public declaration that our life his hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-4). Lord willing, everything that is posted on this blog will be a reflection of our Savior’s heart.

I find that my own words fail when trying to speak of our savior so I find it best to use words inspired by God himself from Ephesians 2:1-10. [Text taken from the ESV bible.]

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This is the kind of God we serve. Let our God be served by our conduct on this website.

So, who exactly are we? We're a couple of senior guys with a passion for the glory of God. We believe that God wishes for us to exercise our God-given thinking and reasoning skills to "test every spirit" (1 John 4:1), whether those "spirits" be related to media, politics, current events, or theology.

That's what this blog will be for: thoughtful evaluations of anything we can apply biblical thinking to. In doing this, though, we are not claiming to have any wisdom at all. Nothing we say on this blog is authoritative, so that's why we want to open this blog up to comments. We welcome your comments, critiques, and disagreements with everything we say.

Now, it would be helpful if you knew who we were. So here you are:

Sam Branchaw: 17 years old, high school senior. Born and raised in Gaithersburg, MD, by wonderful godly parents, and a life-long member of Covenant Life Church. Has three siblings, a sister and two brothers, of which he is the oldest, and also has a black lab. Came to Christ at age 10 after being in secret rebellion for two years. Loves history, reading, blogging, and watching a good movie. Known as the king of random information by his friends.

Josh Tucker: 17 years old, high school senior. Born and raised in Gaithersburg, MD, by wonderful godly parents, and a life-long member of Covenant Life Church. Has four siblings, three sisters and a brother, of which he is the second child, and also has a golden retriever. Came to Christ at age 13 after eight years of rebellion. Known as an incredibly passionate guy by his friends.

There may be one more contributor to this blog, but for now the name will remain undisclosed. He will be introduced in the event that he joins.

So that's us. A couple of regular guys. But, through God's grace, we are heirs with Christ and sons of God. So we seek to honor God through the medium of this blog. We hope you'll join us on this journey.