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The day’s second teaching session was taken by Jeff Noblit who preached a message about the duties of church membership. He said “If you do not get this, you do not get anything. And if you get this, you have about everything.” He spoke of our duty to the bride of Christ. We live at a time when church membership means almost nothing. It’s a disgraceful thing almost to challenge people as to their duties to the church. The church …
Over at “Cowboyology,” Clint Humphreys has posted an interesting take on the Baptist wing of the Reformed Renewal we’re experiencing today. A former Professor of New Testament at Toronto Baptist Seminary, Clint now pastors Calvary Grace Church in Calgary, Alberta. Looking at the landscape of Reformed Baptists, he identifies five streams and suggests that most contemporary Reformed Baptists will fit into one of them. They are: The Neo-Evangelical Stream. Leading Example: John Piper Characteristics: Calvinistic convictions arrived at from within …
The Banner of Truth web site features a host of useful articles (1302 at last count). One that I’ve found worth reading and bookmarking is entitled simply “Apostasy.” In the article the author, David Samuel, makes a distinction between two terms that many people mistakenly use synonymously – apostasy and heresy. Apostasy he defines as a rejection of truth that a person once believed. Hence I would be apostate if I were to suddenly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, …
Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Emasculated Theology… Those of us who have been keeping a wary eye on the Emerging Church know that to understand the movement we must understand Brian McLaren. Though it is not quite fair to label him the movement’s leader, he certainly functions as its elder statesman and his writing seems to serve as a guide or compass for the movement. Where he leads, others follow. It is with interest, then, that I turned …
Two months ago, Suzanne Sataline published an article in the Wall Street Journal. The article was cleverly titled “Veneration Gap: A Popular Strategy For Church Growth Splits Congregants” and dealt with churches that had been split apart through the attempts of their leaders to convert them to the Purpose Driven paradigm. Last month I wrote an article that was, in part, inspired by that one. I wrote about the church’s dirty laundry and expressed concern that Christians should be very …
At the Together for the Gospel blog, C.J. Mahaney has challenged the other contributors (Mark Dever, Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan) with two questions. “What is the gospel? What is the most serious threat to the gospel in the evangelical church today?” I thought it would be a good challenge for me to think about this and attempt answers as well. But before I do so, I’d suggest we back up just a little bit and define evangelical before we …
I enjoy Ingrid Schlueter’s blog, Slice of Laodicea, and not just because I designed it and it is still near the top of my list of favorite designs I’ve made. Ingrid keeps on top of the trends in Christianity. Her blog is an ongoing source for what is happening in the church. By keeping up with her blog you’ll keep up with some of the worst of what is being introduced to the church under the guise of “Christian.” Often …
It was just about a year ago that I was invited to submit an article for publication in a small periodical that reaches a couple of Reformed denominations. The editor told me that they were planning an issue dealing with “-isms” and I decided to write about “ageism,” something I feel is becoming an increasing concern both within the church and without. I posted an expanded version of the article (which for the magazine had a limit of 800 words) …
In this, the final week leading up to Christmas, Christians continue to discuss those churches that have decided to not hold services on Christmas Sunday. The news, which originally broke following the decision of many megachurches to cancel their services, has put these giant churches on the defensive. Christianity Today‘s weblog says, “Whatever the uproar over closing of churches on Christmas Sunday means, pastors and pundits are sure that it means something big. For people on both sides of the …
I love the expression “ink has been spilled.” Unfortunately it is not entirely valid in today’s world in which most nonverbal communication happens in a virtual realm of fonts, screens and pixels. As far as I know there is no phrase that adequately replaces it (“keys tapped?” “pixels sent?”). So I will use it even though it doesn’t make perfect sense in this context. In the past couple of days the blogosphere has been buzzing about the article first printed …