Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
This letter was excerpted from here. Please read through it and understand the uncomfortable nature of the topic and also appreciate the genuineness of the pastor’s resolution to safe guard his flock and young people.
Come out from among them and be separate, says the LORD. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you
– 2 Corinthians 6.17
Dear Friends,
With a somewhat heavy heart I must write to you regarding separation from error. I have a heavy heart because I know that these are matters which can cause upset and contention. But these are matters which we must be very clear about.
From time to time I receive invitations to join our church with various organisations or events. One such well-meaning invitation was to an event called ‘Arise *****’. We understand that over 5,000 people gathered at ******* Stadium for a time of prayer, worship and so forth. We surely rejoice in one sense, that so many people cared enough about their faith to come together.
This event saw many churches in the area joining together. Surely it is mean-spirited to raise any objection to so many people who seem to long for God’s blessing, gathering together? But that is not the case. In order to foster this ‘unity’, many simple truths of the Word of God are ignored. We see the Roman Catholic church simply accepted as equal to any other church. We see outright liberal denominations given the same courtesy. What foolishness can have seized us if we think that God will be pleased to bless those of his children who are ‘unequally yoked together’ (2 Cor 6) with those who deny the clear teaching of His Word?
Today I was reading on God’s providence. Here is something I would like to share…
God arms the devil, as well as all the wicked, for conflict, and sits as umpire, that he may exercise our patience. But if the disasters and miseries which press us happen without the agency of men, let us call to mind the doctrine of the Law (Deut. 28:1), that all prosperity has its source in the blessing of God, that all adversity is his curse. And let us tremble at the dreadful denunciation, “And if ye will not be reformed by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; then will I also walk contrary unto you,” (Lev. 26:23, 24). These words condemn our torpor, when, according to our carnal sense, deeming that whatever happens in any way is fortuitous, we are neither animated by the kindness of God to worship him, nor by his scourge stimulated to repentance. And it is for this reason that Jeremiah (Lament. 3:38), and Amos (Amos 3:6), expostulated bitterly with the Jews, for not believing that good as well as evil was produced by the command of God. To the same effect are the words in Isaiah, “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things,” (Is. 45:7). Institutes 1.17.8
HT: Jim West
When it comes to setting fashion trends and appealing to people’s sensuality, Ed Young jr. has indeed become a household name. At times his gimmicks have been ambiguous and over the top but he gets away with it because… Well he has a mega church that likes what he does and they will fund him to display his pranks and gimmicks. Recently he seemed to have bitten off too much and thereafter like an impudent brat spoken out of turn leaving his own audience cringing. You see (reports one Ordinary Pastor)….
This morning I was inundated with a number of references to a sermon by a prominent Texas pastor. The fact that Ed Young says something controversial is not new. He has been in the news for bringing live animals up for his sermons and who could forget the whole 24-hour web chat from his bed, with his wife, atop his church building? Because of these types of stunts, I don’t pay much attention to what he is saying.
Today was different however. In the midst of a sermon he launched into a diatribe against Reformed Churches. His motto was that “Reformed Theology leads to Deformed Ecclesiology.” Can Reformed pastors afford to look in the mirror in light of the Scriptures? Yes. Absolutely. Do we have the corner market on the truth? Absolutely not.At the same time, what Young said was truly troubling. Concerning his rant, Justin Taylor tweeted, “(it was) A sad mixture of prideful boasting and sinful slander against fellow pastors and brothers.”
But this is not the primary reason why I was troubled. My biggest offense was with what he said about the work of the Holy Spirit:
Are they all bad? No they just don’t reach anybody. Last year at Fellowship Church we baptized 2,632 people. One of the fair-haired boys of this movement, I will not call his name, they baptized 26 people last year. (he then drops his hand-held mic on the floor and looks stunned). Oh, he’s deep. What are you smoking? Are you kidding me? I cannot put my head on the pillow at night knowing we baptized 26 people.
Without going too deep, the Bible seems to teach that conversion is directly tied to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the same gracious, powerful, loving, God that brings 1 person to faith that brings 100 or 1,000 to faith.
I have many times tried to read just a paragraph of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and made it to only the end of the first sentence to just munch over and over what he meant. I love reading snippets and quotes from his works from time to time. Calvin was an extremely brilliant exegete of the scriptures and his work is still respected to this day. I came across this year plan to go through The Institutes in a year and thought I would just post it. You sure will have learnt a whole lot of Systematic Theology by the time you will have completed. Karl Bart once said:
John Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life with just Calvin.
Rightly said there Karl! I guess I too would have loved to listen to him teach through the book of Job or Ephesians.
Finally, to introduce the student to the study of the Scriptures Calvin wrote this following text. This program is no substitute or supplement for regular reading of God’s Word. Rather, the former is designed to serve as a aid to the latter.
Grant, Almighty God, that, since to a perverse, and in every way a rebellious people, thou didst formerly show so much grace, as to exhort them continually to repentance, and to stretch forth thy hand to them by thy Prophets, — O grant, that the same word may sound in our ears; and when we do not immediately profit by thy teaching, O cast us not away, but, by thy Spirit, so subdue all our thoughts and affections, that we, being humbled, may give glory to thy majesty, such as is due to thee, and that, being allured by thy paternal favor, we may submit ourselves to thee, and, at the same time, embrace that mercy which thou offerest and presentest to us in Christ, that we may not doubt but thou wilt be a Father to us, until we shall at length enjoy that eternal inheritance, which has been obtained for us by the, blood of thine only-begotten Son. Amen
Amen!!
Get a free kindle plus ePub or ebook of The Institutes. [ Ps: Amazon has very cheap versions too!]
Jim West never pulls any punches. He doesn’t beat about the bush either and that’s the reason I love his blog. Today we will visit his blog and listen in on a question and answer session. Hey, do not say I did not warn you 😉
Dear Jim,
First, let me thank you for your blog. I love it. I do have a question. What is your definition of a mega church?
Thank You,
DuaneHi Duane,
That’s actually an easy question to answer- a mega-church is any church which is so large that the Pastor doesn’t know the names of every person who regularly attends. Such Pastors aren’t truly pastors – they are merely functionaries, public speakers. Pastors know their flock just as shepherds know their sheep. It is no accident at all that the early Church seized on the analogy of the Pastor as shepherd.
For that reason a church which is so big that the Pastor can’t or doesn’t know those who come is no longer a Church as such but a group, an ‘audience’, nothing more.
With all best wishes,
Jim
I told ya! 😉
Many Calvinists grow up in the rich Reformed tradition, but some of us became Calvinists later in life. We began as naive foaming in the mouth Arminians always on the look out for “those rabid Calvinists who worship Calvin” but as we studied the Bible closely became graciously closet Calvinists till we were able to hold our own ground in the Reformed faith. (Disclaimer: Calvinists do not worship John Calvin). I must therefore emphasise this, before we continue that one’s theological stance must always be based on balanced scriptural and doctrinal integrity rather than popular sentimentality or trending fads. I will now gladly introduce you to a new fledgling club. A couple of Wesleyans seem to appreciate Calvin for his theological views as John Starke (The Gospel Coalition) found out as he interviewed Fred Sanders (Patheos)….
John Starke: Recently you had a fun post, “Calvinists Who Love Wesley.” From what I know of you, I’m tempted to call you a “Wesleyan who loves Calvin.” Is that fair? What about the Calvinist and Reformed tradition do you find compelling? Where is it strongest?
Fred Sanders: Definitely sign me up for the “Wesleyans who love Calvin” club. I teach excerpts from The Institutes every year, and I’ve worked through the whole book cover to cover five times (three with students in seminar). There is no better way to learn the craft of theology than to work through The Institutes. Calvin shows his work: he always lets you know what he’s after, what he’s afraid of, and why he’s doing things. He brings you along with him, and requires an active and responsive reader who is willing to make costly decisions all along the way. …Read More!
In some Christian circles soul winning ends up becoming ‘belt-notching’. This misguided thinking brings to mind comparisons of the ‘kill’ talley painted on the cockpits of fighter aircraft. Here’s the account of a former soul winning ace, who one day started to question the shallowness of manipulating people into praying that simple prayer; the one that is said to trigger salvation. In one of the accounts that he gives, a drunk man is coached into praying the sinner’s prayer. Incredibly, it was later said of the drunk man:
“I wonder if he’ll even remember getting saved? Boy will he be surprised when he gets to heaven!”.
Excerpt from The Old Truth.
If I were a prosperity preacher I would name and claim this crib surely 😉
Your best life now.
Photo HT friends on FB.
There is place for missions and aid appeals. However Darren Carlson is looking at a very pertinent issue. The draw backs of short term mission trips and aid initiatives….
I have seen with my own eyes or know of houses in Latin America that have been painted 20 times by 20 different short-term teams; fake orphanages in Uganda erected to get Westerners to give money; internet centers in India whose primary purpose is to ask Westerners for money; children in African countries purposefully mutilated by their parents so they would solicit sympathy while they beg; a New England-style church built by a Western team in Cameroon that is never used except when the team comes to visit; and slums filled with big-screen TVs and cell phone towers.
I have seen or know of teams of grandmothers who go to African countries and hold baby orphans for a week every year but don’t send a dime to help them otherwise; teams who build houses that never get used; teams that bring the best vacation Bible school material for evangelism when the national church can never bring people back to church unless they have the expensive Western material; teams that lead evangelistic crusades claiming commitments to Christ topping 5,000 every year in the same location with the same people attending.
Short-term missions is fraught with problems, and many wish such trips did not exist, at least in the common form today.
Pastor Baitswitch had finally managed to get the right ingredients for his church choir.
But they seemed to have forgotten whom they would be worshipping. 😉
There’s never a dull day when Rick Warren gets to tweet ‘pearls of wisdom’. He is the Evangelical pope isn’t he? He is of course America’s pastor and what he says will trend in the high ways and byways of evangelicalism. Ever since we exchanged our bibles for that good, well written and inspired church growth purpose driven manual of his we have never looked back.
Why do many people think that Jesus was the fulfilment of the old testament prophecy and expectations? They think He is the one that the Bible is all about! And I am very happy that Rick put these people back in their place with a very well timed ‘tweet’. And that settles it. Yippee!
If only I could walk with a wise man like Rick on the road to Emmaus and he would exegete Scripture. I would ask him to begin in the Old to the New Testament and explain to me what verses like these ones by (umm Jesus) mean:
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27)
You search Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me (John 5:39)
Oops! Those verses will make him put his foot in his mouth! …Read More!
Do they want bigger hot dogs? Flavored water or cushions for their ankles the customer is king. This is the approach to successful entrepreneurship. It is sometimes no different when it comes to modern day church marketing only that it is called being ‘purpose driven’. Long gone are the days of preaching the gospel and teaching sound doctrine. It’s not uncommon to hear pastors talk and ask questions like ‘what’s the vision for your church?’ or ‘how is your church going to grow?’ By ‘vision’ they usually mean ‘a purpose driven plan’ or pragmatic approach to church growth.
You see, the purpose driven church movement makes several assumptions but here we will look at 5 common errors and how they deviate from scripture.
1.A pragmatic church assumes that the primary purpose of Sunday morning church services is to reach out to unbelievers who are some times erroneously referred to as ‘unchurched christians’ . In the New Testament, however, the reason the church gathers is for worship and equipping (Eph. 4:11-16; Acts 2:37-47). Evangelism is to primarily take place in the believer’s life context (“as you go”—Matt. 28:18-20) rather than being the main focus of the Sunday worship service. …Read More!
Well, if you are ready and armed with a Bible then here we go with a few easy trivia questions 😉
A: What is the shortest verse in the Old Testament?
B: Where in the Bible do you find a father who had 88 children?
C: Saul was the first king of Israel. Who was the second? (It wasn’t David)
D: Who is the only person in the Old Testament mentioned as being buried in a coffin?
E: How many times does Eve’s name appear in Genesis?
F: Who are the only three angels mentioned in the Bible by name? …More Questions!
A recent trend these days in Evangelicalism is to endorse a celebrity and in return a preacher gets publicly affirmed. Another version of this trend is to preach (weak and neutral soppy messages) pandering to people’s feeling and sentiments so as to get recognition. These trends are mostly seen among prosperity and word of faith preachers and broad casters. When prosperity guru T.D Jakes was endorsed by multi millionaire P. Diddy, I saw a few people get excited. They said, “Oh look! Now surely there are going to be multitudes coming to church too after seeing their celebrity in church.” The rationale is usually and sometimes is that the celebrity becomes a draw string to bring people to their church. One ill advised pastor revved up his church by inviting a Hip hop artist to share his pulpit while another mega church pastor invited a popular talk show hostess and on and on the brouhaha goes.
Recently “word of faith” and prosperity teacher Joyce Meyer’s teachings got a public nod from an elated celebrity known for her explicitly raunchy music. Had the message of sin, righteousness and judgement self esteem, health and wealth struck a chord of contention or agreement?
Rihanna’s spiritual beliefs may have raised questions for some in the past, but the 24-year-old singer is not afraid to admit that she is a fan of Christian minister and author Joyce Meyer.
This month, the record-breaking Barbadian singer has been using her Twitter account to spread Meyer’s teachings.
“If Satan can defeat you in your thoughts then he can defeat you anywhere else as well,” reads a message written by Meyer and re-tweeted by Rihanna on June 4.
To underline her point, the singer sent a tweet to Meyer directly.
“@JoyceMeyer you’re awesome,” Rihanna told the minister via Twitter on the following day.
When one of Rihanna’s fans tweeted about Meyer being …Read More!
Dear ladies, if you surely want to warm your dear gentleman’s heart this festive season. Look no further…an Eu d’ Eternity! 🙂
HT J. Barr via FB.
We have heard many people doubt the inerrancy of Scripture. Some say, well Jesus said that the mustard seed is the smallest seed and yet there are other seeds that are minute and microscopic and others are the size of spores (much smaller and modest than a mustard seed). So did Jesus get it wrong? Well, R.C Sproul explains….
In the 1980s, I was involved with the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which sought to call the church and the church’s scholars back to a firm defense of the inspiration and infallibility of Holy Writ. There was a New Testament professor at one of the largest seminaries in America who had abandoned the doctrine and was teaching his students that no one could believe in the inerrancy of sacred Scripture because there is a clear mistake in Mark 4:30-32. He would tell his students, “Jesus said that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds, but botanists have discovered seeds that are more minute than the mustard seed.” This man had rejected the inerrancy of Scripture based on that issue.
Apparently England is on a brink of a constitution crisis. All papers today are highlighting the likely consequences to the Church of England, if the Government’s plans to redefine the institution of marriage to include same-sex unions, contrary to the official teaching of Church, as established by Act of Parliament. Archbishop Cranimer believes that the legislation for same-sex marriage is the shallow proposal of a disingenuous government intent on an unsatisfactory and ill-considered reform . Furthermore Cranimer believes that such changes will undermine the integrity of church -which is exactly what people behind the gay agenda really want.
This is likely (Cranimer adds) to result in a constitutional crisis: as human rights legislation forces the Church of England to treat homosexual couples in the same way as heterosexual couples, we are on the path to disestablishment as the Supreme Governor becomes embroiled in the mightiest church-state battle in centuries. In a well written post he expounds:
At her Coronation [the Queen] swore the Oath:
Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?
Queen: All this I promise to do.
According to the Laws of God and the Protestant Reformed Religion, marriage is a union between a man and a woman. …Read more!
There are few bloggers who pull no punches. Honesty and truth are character traits that are rare to come across in the post modern world we live in. I have come to learn a lot from bloggers of the yester year. Most especially those who have taught me a lot on theology (reformed theology) and have kept the seduction of the culture wars at bay. I salute bloggers like Jim Bublitz(Old Truth), Mike Spencer (Internet Monk) who stood at the pulpit of the modern day Areopagus (blogosphere) and boldly proclaimed what they believed. They may be gone from blogging for now but their fire still burns for the Lord.
Lately I have come to love another blogger who pulls no punches. Phil Johnson’s writings and his input on several things have been known to have pyrotechnics! I have more than once featured his posts on this blog. And just when I was beginning to anticipate his next post, guess what he has done? Yup, he is officially unplugging and retiring from blogging and all social media. You see, Phil recently revealed….
Today was my 59th birthday (11th July) . In other words, I’m now officially in my 60th year. Last week I did some careful reflecting; I also did some calculating; and it was—how shall I say this?—unsettling. Convicting. Alarming. In the very best case, I figure I might have a decade and a half of productive full-time labor left. Looking back on the past 15 years, I realize that’s a very brief time. I want to make the most of it.
Thursday my doctor confirmed what I was beginning to think: I need to cut out everything non-essential in my life that causes stress without giving me any cardiovascular benefit. I hate when geriatric patients recite the details of their medical reports, so let’s just say that the doctor was serious: It’s time for me to stop burning the candle at both ends. Darlene emphatically affirmed that diagnosis. Everyone who loves me is likewise in hearty agreement.
So: (gladly, with no reluctance whatsoever) I’m officially retiring from blogging, social media, and every other activity that intrudes on things that ought to be the real priorities in the final two decades of a man’s life. …Read More!
You can imagine the uproar that could occur if the above notice met congregants to most mega churches. Well not only mega churches do ‘Altar Calls’ but most churches I know do. We all know when that moment is a bout to be breached….when the pastor gives a nod and the pianist and worship leader begin to take their places.
But what’s wrong with the ‘Altar Call’ you ask? Well here are ten reasons but first Thabiti Anyabwile humbly explains:
I’m sometimes asked by people why we don’t do “altar calls” at our services. Like the people who ask the question, the churches in my personal background pretty much all practiced “altar calls” at the conclusion of a sermon or service. I’ve seen them done in very poor fashion, and I’ve seen some pastors be really clear about the gospel, repentance, faith, and the fact that “coming forward” does not save. I date my own conversion to the preaching of Exodus 32, which concluded with an altar call.
So, why don’t we practice “altar calls”? I don’t think the pastor who practices an “invitation” at the end of a sermon is in sin, but he may not be acting wisely either. This list of reasons, compiled by Pastor Ryan Kelly of Desert Springs Church, is a pretty good summation of some of my thinking (HT: Z).
1. The altar call is simply and completely absent from the pages of the N.T.
2. The altar call is historically absent until the 19th century, and its use at that time (via Charles Finney) was directly based upon bad theology and a man-centered, manipulative methodology. …Read More!
False teachers are like kitty…
They may appear as though they care about you but they will make merchandise of your soul.
Ultimate dream: Do you need personal body guards armed with tazers too?
Its disheartening to hear of the atrocities committed in the name of God. More so when the most vulnerable and poor are fleeced of the little they have ( most times they are shamelessly relieved of almost all their livelihood). This is done to fund an opulent lifestyle for a supposed snake oil sales man a.ka man of God. Street Journal reports that…
It has become an agreed fact that the only other business bigger than running a church in Nigeria is politics. No thanks to the intoxicating effects religion has on Nigerians which have gone a long way to prove that Karl Marx was not mistaken when he defined religion as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the masses.”
Unfortunately for the country, despite the increase in the number of religious centres, there has been a directly proportional increase in the rate of crimes and vices being perpetrated in the country; religious centres inclusive.
In some parts of Nigeria, five minutes walk from anywhere will lead one to a church. Investigations have however shown that not all the churches are genuine; some are no more than business centres and money-making ventures. …Read More!
Matt has an interesting post on conversion therapy. Matt is a 23-year-old blogger who is sharing his testimony of being engrossed in a homosexual lifestyle and heavy drinking till two years ago when Matt was transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ (he is no longer a practicing homosexual by the grace of God). I would suggest you read his testimony here. He asks pertinent questions in this article. Do we come to Jesus because of the things we can get from him? Read on….
Although I fully support biblical and spiritual counseling, I am not the biggest fan of the idea of conversion therapy. Nor am I a fan of programs that lead people to focus more on their desire to haveheterosexual attractions than their to desire to know Jesus Christ (who, by the way, is the only One who holds the power to create such a transformation in sexual desires). I just can not bring myself to support the idea of putting someone through a systematic program solely in order to “re-orient” them. Now, with that said, there are many biblical, Christ centered programs out there who help sexually broken people find healing by pointing them toward the grace of God found in Jesus Christ. I would take a bullet for these kinds of ministries, being that I myself struggle with homosexuality and know how confusing and lonely it can be at times. These ministries do great, glorifying work in the Name of Jesus that help many people. They are far from perfect, but what ministry can claim perfection?
Before I became a believer, I heard about Christians who had claimed to be “cured” of their homosexuality by means of conversion therapy, but then these people would later be found in gay bars or having sex with men they met on the internet. After becoming a believer, I have seen and heard this even more frequently. I think the title conversion therapy is often erroneously placed on organizations that are not trying to sexually “re-orient” people, but rather are helping people to find healing through the means of an intimate relationship with their Creator and Savior. Those who have a sound biblical perspective on homosexuality know that the issue of same sex attraction is really just a symptom of a much deeper problem stemming from the innate brokenness and sinfulness of the person’s heart. Sexual re-orientation is not the goal; holiness in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is the goal. …Read More!
Today as I visited central London (entirely for a different purpose), I was acutely reminded of
If we define morality and the institution of marriage by our own human standards we are bound to open the flood gates for even the wackiest of ideas. No, I am not kidding. If we eliminate God’s standard of morality we soon find ourselves with situations like this one.
A woman who grew impatient with waiting for Mr. Right has found a solution: she’s married herself.
36-year-old single mother Nadine Schweigert stood in front of 40 family members and friends as she took part in a ‘commitment ceremony,’ swapping rings with her ‘inner groom.’
Schweigert, from Fargo, North Dakota, even read vows at the wedding, promising that:
“I, Nadine, promise to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self.”
News of her solo wedding got passed around, and within days Schweigert found herself speaking to Anderson Cooper about her motives for marrying herself. …Read More!
This cartoon depicts what has become of good churches…they are very hard to find!
HT friends on FB.
Well I don’t know how this piece of news will be taken. Some will say, “Aha! It’s the mark of the beast being unleashed!” Others will…well let me not speculate. You see The Daily Mail recently published that…
Barcodes and microchips could be found on nearly everything these days, but could humans be next?
American science fiction author Elizabeth Moon raised a few eyebrows last week when she revived the debate about whether it could be beneficial to place barcodes on babies at birth during an interview on a BBC radio program.
‘I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached — a barcode if you will — an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals,’ she said on a weekly show called The Forum, according to the New York Daily News.
According to Moon, aged 67, the tools that are currently used for the purposes of surveillance and identification, such as video cameras and DNA testing, are too slow and expensive.
Placing a barcode on each person at birth, in her opinion, would solve these problems.
While the technology is already in place, civil liberties advocates have decried past efforts to make ‘barcoding’ a reality, claiming that …Read More!
I have lately been searching for Reformed and conservative missionary groups in Africa more especially Uganda. On the surface Uganda just like many other third world countries struggles with many issues theological and otherwise. Christianity in Africa as they say is “a mile wide but an inch deep”. I am deeply grateful for the few laborers going into the field and faithfully preaching the gospel and discipling new believers. Today I will feature a simple letter (blog post ) written a little while ago. It is written by James Huckabee a missionary from America to rural Western Uganda.
Greetings! I thought I’d send a brief letter and let you see the latest construction out at the Juru church. They have put the roof on the pole building, and we had our first service at the new location yesterday. Thank you to the church that sent us money for the construction. This is what your money built:
We had a great service. The morale of the church is greatly improved. I know it wasn’t terribly comfortable meeting in the old place, which had mud walls and a tarp roof (’til some lowlife stole it). It was wet in there when it rained, and hot in the sun. This new building is dry and cool. There’s always a nice breeze. …Read More!
Crown Rights Media takes you behind the scenes while asking a street preacher (Tony Miano) a few hard questions on open air or street preaching. It’s worth the 4 minutes:
My highlight indeed was meeting with the one and only ….Charles Darwin! We had a chat but he is rather quiet these days. You see …Read More!
Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) is changing fast. Many say that a hidden agenda is relentlessly pushing for drastic erosion of traditional family values and roles. You see…
The Health Service has removed the word ‘dad’ from a pregnancy handbook for fear of offending gay and lesbian parents.
Officials decided to use the term ‘partner’ throughout the 200-page guide, titled Ready Steady Baby, after receiving a complaint that ‘dad’ was discriminating against same-sex couples.
But the omission of the word has angered some campaigners who claim that traditional family values are being undermined. …Read More!
Voddie Baucham delivers a much needed sermon on “Adapting to the Culture or Not” at the Master’s College.
Download this Sermon here. [Audio]
HT: W. Revels via FB.
It is a good thing to go to church with the bible firmly tucked under your arm. It’s also a good thing to watch Christian television with an open bible planted firmly under your nose. But some times having a bible with you is not all that the discerning listener needs. False teachers have invented a new smart technique that beats the lazy eyed listener…its the “heresy two step” technique:
The Heresy Two-step starts with two feet on the text. The allusion must be given that the text is going to be taught on. Then a sliding step backwards is taken into an abstraction. You move from the text to an idea about the text or to a word in the text. Once the text is abstracted and a general principle or something along these lines is made. You can now wiggle around and go in any direction you want. You can make the text say whatever you want. Instead of teaching the text you are pontificating on this abstraction which was drawn from the text.
For some of us who are less experienced I hope this explanation is helpful in discerning false teachers, but it would seem to act as a measure for anyone who preaches/teaches. One needs to understand that exegesis and hermeneutics do have a critical role in preaching and understanding what the text says. …Read More!
A couple of Christians (on Facebook) were concerned and discussing the recent sickening decline of the situation in Syria. With hordes of bodies of children sprawling in deserted streets, no body seems to be interested in stepping up to put a speedy end to the blood shed. One Christian lamented how the West was quick to take tangible action against Libya but how long would it be before the West decided to take tangible action against Syria? Hasn’t that regime utterly disqualified itself from any legitimacy? A wise reply came from one J. Dowton:
I absolutely agree that things can’t continue on this way. The problems, however, are that the government and the resistance movement/s both/all seem to be committing atrocities and lying about them (so it’s hard to tell what’s fact, except that people are dying horribly), and the animosity between Syria (with connections to Iran) and Israel (with connections to the U.S. and U.K.) would likely mean that Western military intervention would probably be even more of a disaster (and the history of Western intervention in Syria has not gone well).
It seems to be a lose-lose situation no matter what happens.
Prayer is good! (and not just ‘resigned to passivity’ prayer but rather prayer that whatever does happen actually has a positive effect and puts a halt to the unimaginable, terrifying chaos that is now the case).
Pray for Syria. Pray for the Christians there too. Pray ceaselessly that the chaos and depravity that seems to be plunging such a beautiful country into utter depth of moral decline will come to a quick resolution.
Pray for Syria!
Well how do you draw crowds on Pentecost Sunday? Er, by eating fire behind the pulpit. Seriously …
A fire-breathing vicar has lit up his Gloucestershire church with a party trick he learnt in order to entertain friends at barbecues.
Reverend Nick Davies, of St Philip and St James’ Church in Cheltenham, was marking Pentecost.
“I don’t get many ooh’s and aah’s and gasps during my sermon but I did this morning,” he said.
At Pentecost the church celebrates the descending of the Holy Spirit for the first time on Jesus’s disciples.
The Bible says the disciples were together when they were filled with the Holy Spirit and what appeared to be tongues of fire came to rest on each of them.
Mr Davies has never accidentally set fire to anything but he said the church banners were moved to the far end of the building just in case.
“There were some suggestions that some people would like us to get rid of the pews, and this could be a good opportunity …Read More!
John Calvin was born in 1509. He died in 1564. This year on the 27th of May we will read what Philip Schaff wrote about John’s death. Before he died his last wish was to be buried in an unmarked grave with no witnesses and no ceremony. Schaff writes:
… Calvin spent his last days in almost continual prayer, and in ejaculating comforting sentences of Scripture, mostly from the Psalms. He suffered at times excruciating pains. He was often heard to exclaim: “I mourn as a dove” (Isa. 38:14); “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it” (Ps. 39:9); “Thou bruisest me, O Lord, but it is enough for me that it is thy hand.” His voice was broken by asthma, but his eyes remained bright, and his mind clear and strong to the last. He admitted all who wished to see him, but requested that they should rather pray for him than speak to him.
On the day of his death he spoke with less difficulty. He fell peacefully asleep with the setting sun towards eight o’clock, and entered into the rest of his Lord. “I had just left him,” says Beza, “a little before, and on receiving intimation from the servants, immediately hastened to him with one of the brethren. We found that he had already died, and so very calmly, without any convulsion of his feet or hands, that he did not even fetch a deeper sigh. He had remained perfectly sensible, and was not entirely deprived of utterance to his very last breath. Indeed, he looked much more like one sleeping than dead.”
He had lived fifty-four years, ten months, and seventeen days.
HT Jim West. (And there is a good collection of posts here. Thanks to my good friend and insomniac, Jim again! 😉 )
I am not usually the kind that gleans theology from the local new paper. But once in a while an interesting post does come up. A recent investigation does confirm that an earth quake did occur around the time period that Pontius Pilate was Procurator. That’s not all….
Jesus died on Friday, April 3, 33AD, according to an investigation which matches his death to an earthquake.
The investigation, from the International Geology Review, looked at earthquake activity around the Dead Sea, which is around 13 miles from Jerusalem.
The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27, says that as Jesus lay dying on the cross, an earthquake shook the area, scattering graves and making the sky go dark.
Now researchers have looked at textual accounts, geological records and astronomical data to find the most likely date for Jesus’s death. …Read More!
You have probably heard that question before. Brace yourself…
Avoid superficial interpretation. One of the common problems in interpreting the Bible is this little phrase, “This verse means to me….” so forth and so forth and so forth. Let me tell you something. It doesn’t matter what it means to you, the question is what would it mean if you weren’t alive? What would it mean if you didn’t exist? What does it mean PERIOD is the issue, not what does it mean to you. Sometimes you’ll hear people get together and supposedly have a Bible study which is little-more than a pooling of ignorance. People say, “Well, I look at this verse and I feel this verse is saying…”
It doesn’t matter what you feel. That has nothing to do with it.
It’s not a matter of how you feel about the verse, it’s not a matter of what you think it means to you. Avoid ad-libbing in Bible interpretation. …Read More!
A couple of years ago I was struggling with several theological issues. Most stemmed from my background in the Seeker Sensitive church. I was battling to understand decisional regeneration plus I was wondering why I wasn’t hearing preaching more about sin, righteousness, judgement or even hearing the gospel of Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sins. Most of the sermons I was being lavished with were about how to live a better life, make more money, have a better marriage and not miss the next “fun filled” conference on how to become a better me. Well these motivational tips are not bad in them selves (I was actually over dosing on the same topics or even better ones on secular radio and television talk shows). What I desperately needed was Christ-centered biblical approach of the old paths of Christianity. And sure enough one of the blogs I came across seemed to challenge me in a good way. It was The Old Truth.
The Old Truth was run by a gentle man called Jim. I later tracked him down and realised he had slowed down and wasn’t writing as actively any more. Jim’s life had taken one tumble too many. He at the last time I counted has broken at least 70 bones in his body (due to a rare medical condition that makes his bones brittle). Was diagnosed with End Stage Liver disease (has been waiting a liver transplant for the last over 4 years) and was spending more time in hospital than at home. But he amazed me with his ever humorous writing and attitude and more so with a profound trust in God. I started this blog soon afterwards and I have re blogged several of his posts over here, here and here. I even used this set of questions on the Sovereignty of God in Salvation from Jim that is featured on my profile page.
This week I would like to ask you to pray for my good friend Jim. In a blog update (on May 22nd 2012) on the CaringBridge website titled “The beginning of the End” he says:
Today I was told that my liver simply will not process blood anymore; it is irreversibly dying and that I have days or weeks to live.
So, tomorrow starts the preparations for my journey home. I need to have an Oxygen tank ready, a whole bunch of other medical equipment, pain pump, and arrange a private ambulance to get me home.
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With the myriad of false teachers parading in church today some say, it is unbiblical to “name names”. They add and lament that it is unloving to do so. Those who do so are summarily labelled as “judgemental” or “divisive ” brethren trying to rock the boat and should be avoided like the plague. Oh wait a minute Sir! But what does the Bible say though?
Yet, as I study the Scriptures….The authors of Scripture take false teaching very seriously and so must we. Indeed, throughout the New Testament, we see numerous examples of specific men named as false teachers—as traitors to the gospel.
Paul tells Timothy that Hymenaeus, Alexander and Philetus are among those who have made a shipwreck of their faith and swerved from the truth (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:17-18). Their “irreverent babble,” he says, will spread like gangrene among God’s people. …Read More!
Pieter Stok has travelled far and wide with his camera. He has been to several places and gathered interesting photographs along the way. Some times he takes his muppet friend Grover along. At the moment I believe he is travelling from Ur but you will love his collection of Stave churches that have survived for centuries:
The Uvdal Stavkirke (Stave Church) in Numedal district in central southern Norway. It dates from the end of the 1100s and was remodelled into a cruciform shape in 1720. It is one of about 30 that remain in Norway today. Below is the more ornate Gol Stavkirke now found in the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo on the island of Bygdoy. This was built in about 1200 and moved to the present site in 1885. …See More!
Since the time of Simon the magician there has always been a relentless surge for the miraculous. (Actually in the days of Jesus many loved following him just for fish and bread). Simon in his day was a local celebrity. He was a magician of sorts, and had mesmerized the locals with his arts. And they had given him the title “The Great Power of God”. And he loved it. He basked in his reputation and fed off the admiration and respect he received. I bet he would have made it big time on the talk show circuits around Jerusalem.
Speaking of circuits, a local pastor recently found a signs and wonders tent pitched up right near his church. Pastor Scott Rodriguez did what every pastor ought to do in this kind of situation:
Brothers, several have been asking for some backstory/context on these videos. Mrs. Muldoon set her tent up across the street from our church (it is still there until Sunday 5/20.) I received a call from one of our people that some families that attend our church were sitting in her audience. Others were there to pray and share the gospel afterwards with people leaving. They had been accosted by a young man named Devon, (the managers son) on the evening before when he overheard one of our young men talking with someone after the service about the call of Pastor being reserved for men. …Read More!
I had a very interesting trip recently to Germany and Switzerland as I followed a few of the Reformers. One of them stuck out. No he didn’t nail theses on walls but he knew how to get his point across. I must add here that the Reformation actually was not a one man crusade as some would want you to believe. God in his providence harnessed events in tandem to bring about one of the greatest revivals since Pentecost and the visible effects were actually out workings and fruits of birth pangs that had began with people going back to reading the scriptures.
In Zürich (Switzerland) stands a statue that has braved mischievous and militant Swiss pigeons to the hilt. It stands in the church yard of one of the biggest cathedrals in Zürich, the Grossmünster. The statue is of the man who was called “the people’s priest” Ulrich (Huldrych) Zwingli. Zwingli was born January 1, 1484 in Wildhaus, Switzerland. Early scholarly gifts caused him to be sent to school, especially at Basel, and he learned to love the classics.
When Zwingli became a priest he arrived in Zürich town with the announcement that he would begin to preach right through the Gospel of Matthew. This was a departure from the fragmentary reading of Scripture that had prevailed in the medieval Church. After Matthew he preached through Acts and then turned his attention to Paul’s epistles. There is a lot that the contemporary church movement would learn from this simple man who led to spiritual reform from just beginning to preach verse by verse (expository preaching) at the Grossmünster. (Click here for Zwingli resources online)
The Grossmünster (“great minster”) is a Romanesque-style Protestant church in Zürich, Switzerland. It is near the banks of the Limmat River. Construction of the present structure commenced around 1100 and it was inaugurated around 1220. Huldrych Zwingli initiated the Swiss-German Reformation in Switzerland from his pastoral office at the Grossmünster, starting in 1520. Zwingli won a series of debates …Read More!
The recent Reformation Week conference in German/Switzerland gave me an opportunity to visit the memorial stone of John Huss. The slide show depicts: sights and scenes in Constance, The Huss museum, Huss memorial stone, the munster (cathedral) in Constance. So, who was John Huss?
John Huss (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master’s degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a bachelor’s degree in theology (presumably a more advanced degree than the term suggests today).
In his day, there was a crisis of authority in the Western Church. In 1305, under pressure from the King of France, the seat of the Popes was move from Rome to Avignon in France, where it remained for 70 years. (This period is called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, suggesting the 70 years that Jerusalem lay desolate after when the Jews were deported to Babylon.) …Read More!
This year’s conference began with evening dinner on Thursday 3rd May followed by sessions led by Dr. Bernhard Kaiser. Dr Kaiser is founder and director of the Institute of Reformational theology in Reiskirchen near Giessen, Germany and is a lecturer in Systematic theology at the Selye-Janos University in Komamo, Slovakia. His passion is teaching the relevance of reformation Theology for today’s generation.
This year’s programme delved in to Reformation Theology (the Solas) …Read More!
A local pastor Jodwell K. Olsteen has renounced prosperity gospel in a sudden turn of events. Known for his sell out stadium events that always drew the elite of society and celebrities, this is surely out of character for the always smiling and positive talking pastor.
In a press release circulated around Hollywood the remorseful man of God said he had come to realise the depth of his own depravity and sin. He had realised he had given many people false hope in preaching “prosperity for all” in the name of Jesus. Jodwell said that the prosperity gospel preachers create a ponzi scheme. He likened it to clouds with out water and a road to no where. But his biggest remorse came from the fact that his messages had corrupted the gospel and inoculated people to the message of the cross. Hence forth, Mr Olsteen’s ministry has been dissolved the money has been used to buy bibles for Christians in North Korea and the rest donated anonymously to churches in Timbuktu and Kwazulu Natal (Africa). If he has defrauded any one he has requested that the person be re-paid four times the original value. Mr J. K Olsteen listed a number of former cronies and millionaire pastors and called them out to preach more about “sin, righteousness and judgement”.
Visitors to the pastor’s website were greeted by this Puritan poem prayer:
Lord Jesus, give me a deeper repentance, a horror of sin, a dread of its approach. Help me chastely to flee it and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be Thine alone.
Give me a deeper trust, that I may lose myself to find myself in Thee, the ground of my rest, the spring of my being. Give me a deeper knowledge of Thyself as saviour, master, lord, and king. Give me deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in Thy Word, more steadfast grip on its truth. Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action, and let me not seek moral virtue apart from Thee.
Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly husbandman, that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide, until Thou alone art seen in me, Thy beauty golden like summer harvest, Thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.
I have no master but Thee, no law but Thy will, no delight but Thyself, no wealth but that Thou givest, no good but that Thou blessest, no peace but that Thou bestowest. I am nothing but that Thou makest me. I have nothing but that I receive from Thee. I can be nothing but that grace adorns me. Quarry me deep, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water. –The Deeps, A Puritan Prayer
Majors news outlets still cannot deny or confirm the validity of all these accounts. Some say this could just be a satirical prank. But could it be true? 🙂
DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS, NAMES, LIKENESSES AND EVENTS IN THIS STORY—ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD MAY BE PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
A very interesting and very dis heartening occurence these days in many churches and among very well meaning Christians is when time for testimonies exceeds time given to listening to the preaching of the gospel. No, testimonies are not wrong. They indeed remind us that God is doing marvellous things in our midst. But it is also good to remember that it is the gospel that saves and not the flashing lights and THE BOOM in the story – however dramatic the experience was.
If our testimonies, our teachings and our lives are centred around the gospel then we will be known as the gospel guys-Christ followers or Christians saved by grace through faith in Christ to the glory of God.
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No it’s not a riddle. It is not even a trick question. I while back some of my friends kept asking, “Why has Michael become a “Reformed Christian” after several years in prosperity driven and seeker sensitive churches?” So to make things alot easier to understand I thought it’s best to go back to the Bible and back to basics. What exactly does it mean to become a Christian?
I have come to believe that Salvation begins with an unfailing work of God in the hearts of all those who will believe. While most churches in our current day believe that you “believe to be born again”, like the Reformers and Puritans I have come to believe the opposite about that; my belief is that you are “born again to believe” (see the change in order?).
Here’s a simple quiz for bible believing Christians. …Read More!
[Adapted from an article by Steven Lawson]: Other than Martin Luther, Heinrich Bullinger, and John Calvin, the most important early Reformer was Ulrich Zwingli. A first-generation Reformer, he is regarded as the founder of Swiss Protestantism. Furthermore, history remembers him as the first Reformed theologian. Though Calvin would later surpass Zwingli as a theologian, he would stand squarely on Zwingli’s broad shoulders.
Less than two months after Luther came into the world, Zwingli was born on January 1, 1484, in Wildhaus, a small village in the eastern part of modern-day Switzerland, forty miles from Zurich. His father, Ulrich Sr., had risen from peasant stock to become an upper-middle-class man of means, a successful farmer and shepherd, as well as the chief magistrate for the district. This prosperity allowed him to provide his son with an excellent education. He presided over a home where typical Swiss values were inculcated in young Ulrich: sturdy independence, strong patriotism, zeal for religion, and real interest in scholarship. …Read More!
It’s because of God’s grace and providence that mere mortals get to have sunshine and rain and air to breathe. Yup, even atheists get to enjoy the brilliant colors of the rainbow and the sweet fresh smell of Spring rises up to greet them every morning when Winter is gone. What would happen if God was to lift His grace from our lives just for a moment? Came across this:
Me thinks: One moment without God and we would not even reach “mournday”…we would be dead in “Sinday” (Col 2:13) 😉
Photo HT: Friends on FB.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (May 24, 1878-October 5, 1969) was an American clergyman. As a liberal and modernist Baptist minister, Harry rose to prominence as the weekly preacher at New York City’s First Presbyterian Church (1918-1924). Fundamentalist Christians nationwide attacked his view that ‘modern Christians’ could doubt doctrines such as the literal truth of the Bible and the virgin birth of Jesus and still remain faithful. The modernists denied the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. Fosdick ultimately would not acknowledge the literal reality of God’s wrath toward impenitent sinners. To him, ‘the wrath of God’ was nothing more than a metaphor for the natural consequences of wrongdoing. His theology would not tolerate a personal God whose righteous anger burns against sin. To Fosdick, the threat of hell fire was only a relic of a barbaric age.
His sermons were often creative, inventive and topical …Read More!
When Pastor Feelgood started his prosperity sermon series he got a massive turn out. He became popular. There were no seats left in the mega church. Offerings time was a real scuffle. Exiting church was a scuffle too. Till he brought in new personal ushers. 😉
The year was 2050…Prosperity preachers were still the most sought after teachers.
Quite true….
He who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himself. — John Calvin
When I consider the absolute independency of God, and the necessary total dependence of all created things on Him, their first cause, I cannot help standing astonished at the pride of impotent, degenerate man, who is so prone to consider himself as a being possessed of sovereign freedom, and invested with a power of self-salvation, able, he imagines, to counteract the designs even of infinite wisdom, and to defeat the agency of Omnipotence itself…
And yet, because it so exactly coincides with the natural haughtiness of the human heart, men not only admit, but even relish the deception, and fondly incline to believe that the father of lies does, in this instance at least, speak truth. The Scripture doctrine of predetermination lays the axe to the very root of this potent delusion. It assures us that all things are of God; that all our times and all events are in His hand. ~ Augustus Toplady
HT Test all Things.
Test your child’s theology with five questions and then teach him some more. Here are the first five questions:
1. Who made you?
A. God.
2. What else did God make?
A. God made all things.
3. Why did God make you and all things?
A. For his own glory.
4. How can you glorify God?
A. By loving him and doing what he commands.
5. Why ought you to glorify God?
A. Because he made me and takes care of me.
Excerpt from Catechism for Young Children. (An Introduction to the Shorter Catechism) For free down load click here.
HT Reformed Gene via FB.
If you have missed any of the previous anonymized interviews, please check here. “Meet the Christians” series of interviews features anonymous guests so that there is no celebrity. The interviews are evangelistic and have been simplified so that they are easy to follow and to the point. Today my guest too will be masked as we ask him different questions about what he believes. Today’s interview too is an interesting one in that my guest at A Twisted Crown of Thorns (ATCT) was once a preacher and follower of prosperity gospel.
CHRISTIAN: I grew up in a Pentecostal family and my Dad was (and is) a preacher so I’ve always grown up around a vaguely Christian influence although it wasn’t until I was 14 that I heard the Gospel personally for what I count as the first time.
2. ATCT: What is the gospel in one sentence? …Read More!
Blink and you will find the cultural trends have shifted. Blink and morality follows down the drain. Sure enough more people seem to be blinking and alot faster in Sweden.
Not a he or a she but a hen
By most people’s standards, Sweden is a paradise for liberated women. It has the highest proportion of working women in the world, and women earn about two-thirds of all degrees. Standard parental leave runs at 480 days, and 60 of those days are reserved exclusively for dads, causing some to credit the country with forging the way for a new kind of nurturing masculinity. In 2010, the World Economic Forum designated Sweden as the most gender-equal country in the world.
But for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes. This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.
Activists are lobbying for parents to be able to choose any name for their children (there are currently just 170 legally recognized unisex names in Sweden).
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The high point of my week was this message. Needless to say I will jump right into it (see video below):
False conversions are a serious problem that could lead not only to the “suicide of the church” but also to the defaming of God’s name, an evangelical pastor warned.
Mark Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., told some 8,000 ministers Tuesday at the Together for the Gospel conference that he fears there are thousands, if not millions, of people in churches who are not truly converted.
“My fellow pastors, could it be that many of our hearers each week aren’t saved, even many of our members?”
The problem isn’t just the “occasional hypocrite lost in unrepentant sin,” but “systems that seem to produce false converts – not just one man, but whole congregations,” he lamented.
While some may brush off the problem as inevitable and one that pastors should not worry too much over, Dever sought to underscore how false conversions could dim the light of the church.
More importantly, “false conversions obscure God’s plan” – which he described as God doing all things for the glory of His name.
The Southern Baptist preacher described false converts as those indistinguishable from the world and who don’t hold to certain Scriptural truths.
A big source of the problem, he named, is false teachers, and that includes “health and wealth” preachers. …Read More!
It was the year 2050. The office of pastor was now obsolete. Instead the most glamorous office of “worship leader” had taken over the leadership of the seeker sensitive church. This office was more in touch with the emotions of the people. A few qualities were a MUST for this office:
Theme song: We are here for you!
Going back to the cross to understand what Jesus’s death means to Christians….
It was Joseph of Arimathaea who had the honor of taking the body of Jesus down from the cross. Think what it would be like to have to pull the cold and lifeless hands of the Son of God from the thick, barbed Roman nails.
These were carpenter’s hands, which once held nails and wood, now being held by nails and wood. These were the hands that broke bread and fed multitudes, now being broken to feed multitudes. They once applied clay to a blind man’s eyes, touched lepers, healed the sick, washed the disciple’s feet, and took children in His arms. These were the hands that, more than once, loosed the cold hand of death, now held firmly by its icy grip. …Read More!
“Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God.” ~St. Augustine of Hippo
I think Kevin is right…
Try to figure this out. Joseph Kony captures kids and has them kill each other. Millions post about how dreadful that is. Then “Hunger Games” comes out and kids kill each other and it is one of the highest grossing films ever. Huh, so we protest it but we pay to go see it? ~Kevin Turner.
HT via FB
[This post was first published in April 2012 but the lesson still stands] How I wish we still had Easter services that focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Very soon we will have a generation attending church week in and week out that will be the perfect example of a Christless Christianity. It is Easter again and the usual brouhaha is going around…
As many churches celebrate Easter with special church services and egg hunts including candy, one North Carolina church will be giving away an Apple iPad, Xbox 360 and two iPod shuffles.
The Shelby campus of Element Church, a recently established congregation of Cleveland County, will be holding a 12,000-egg hunt event at the Keeter stadium of Shelby High School.
Skipper Allen, campus pastor at Element Church, told The Christian Post that the Shelby campus would be doing this along with their other campus in Forest City.
“We have done an egg drop event at our Forest City campus for years now. This year we decided that we would continue doing it in Forest City, and in order to gain more momentum for our Shelby campus we decided to do the exact same service at the same time,” said Allen.
“The Forest City service will be at McNair Stadium which is the home of the Forest City Owls baseball team. The Shelby service will be at Hoyt S. Keeter stadium which is the home of the American Legion World Series.”
“There will be an invitation given so that people have a chance to respond to the Gospel, and after all of that then we will have the egg hunt portion of the event,” said Allen.
A helicopter will drop thousands of eggs, nearly all of which will be filled with candy save four of them which will have markings that make them redeemable for one of the more technological prizes. …Read More!
I thought this was interesting:
HT Friends on FB.
It is probably a step in the right direction when you hear that Perry Noble has used the word “sorry” in a sentence. Many times I have had to send my kids out of the room when he has appeared on television. What? Not only because he played “High way to Hell” as a worship song and declared his sermons are PG-13 rated. No, my concerns are much deeper as he holds the office of pastor yet displays such a lethargy to wards godliness that he is more than a distraction to the preaching of the gospel. It’s good to see that my concerns over his course language, aberrant theology and conduct have been shared by many. And you see….
After South Carolina Pastor Perry Noble apologized to his congregation for criticizing those seeking more discipleship, a Christian apologist and radio host said a simple apology isn’t enough. He suggested that Noble go on a “Repentance Tour.”
Chris Rosebrough, host of Fighting for the Faith, noted on his program that the public apology was a step in the right direction, but he also doesn’t think Noble should stop there.
“I personally think that at this point the magnitude of the error disqualifies Perry Noble from being a mentor to pastors,” he said. Because Noble made those statements at a leadership conference for pastors, Rosebrough said he has to do more to undo the damage of those statements than just apologize to his congregation.
The controversial comments were made at a 2009 conference called Unleash, an annual leadership event conducted by Noble’s church, NewSpring.
During his session, Noble told pastors that “the person that always screams I want to go deeper” is “the jackass in the church.” …Read More!
Well you probably think I am kidding. Where in scripture and church history do we find stripper poles being erected in the sanctuary in church during worship and preaching of the word? Well…
A local pastor said he put a stripper pole on his pulpit to help preach his message.It may raise some eyebrows, but Pastor Mike Scruggs said he’s hoping it will save some marriages.Scruggs admits he’s anything but a traditional pulpit preacher.”We try to make it relevant, straightforward.
We don’t sugarcoat anything,” he said.On Friday, Scruggs’ sermon series drew a packed house at the Light of Word Ministries on Colerain Avenue.”We talk about sex. We talk about drugs. We talk about faith. We talk about relationships…, things that people are dealing with on a day-to-day basis,” Scruggs said.The series of sermons is called the “Battle of the Sexes,” with some rather interesting visual props.”On one side, (we’ll have) what men want or desire: your stripper pole, your video games, your sports,” Scruggs said. “The woman’s side (is) orderly, neat. It’s all about love, candy, teddy bears, roses and being wined and dined and cherished.”Scruggs said his church focuses on real situations and brings godly solutions.”We push the envelope, that’s true,” he said. …Read More!
The human heart is utterly deceptive. In one vein we are capable of accomplishing unimaginable feats of bravery and charitable deeds and the next moment descend into utter depravity and wallow in the most hideous and vile acts.
A have-a-go hero who tackled a gun-wielding robber has been jailed for life for a brutal murder.
Deivydas Jacikas, 21, was praised for his bravery after he was caught on camera stopping a fleeing jewel thief last February.
But just eight months later Lithuanian immigrant Jacikas carried out a revenge attack on a grandfather-of-nine Henrikas Baranauskas, 56, who he claimed head-butted his father.
Jacikas confronted father-of-eight Mr Baranauskas last October before beating him so savagely his victim sustained 14 fractured ribs and severe brain damage.
Mr Baranauskas was so badly beaten that his family eventually had to make the agonising decision to switch off his life support machine. …Read More!
If Paul had written the letter to the Galatians in the 20th or 21st Century, calling out the Judaizers or even Alexander and Hymenaeus would been deemed “intolerant”. And guess what else?
If only I can paste this bit up there! 😉 
HT. John K. Langemann via FB.
These days you can get a divorce citing anything from well your spouse squeezing the tooth paste tube from the wrong end to hanging the toilet roll the wrong way round. But one woman wont let her husband off easily as she says their union was for life and till death do them part. However…
At some point over the next few weeks a letter will arrive at Susan Rae’s home spelling out in cold bureaucratic legal terms the end of her 20-year marriage.
The decree absolute, requested by her university academic husband, is a document she hoped she would never see.
The mother-of-two, from Northampton has spent nearly two years desperately fighting Doug Rae’s attempt to divorce her, insisting their marriage is worth fighting for despite years of rows.
‘I believe that marriage is for life,’ she says.
‘I still love my husband. We have two sons. We are a team. I just want him to come home.
‘The love I have for him is never going to go away.’
This week, the 50-year-old former WPC cut an extraordinary figure at London’s Court of Appeal, where she made a last-ditch effort to stop the man she still loves ending their church union.
There, in front of Lord Justice Thorpe, the couple’s torturous domestic dramas were laid bare, with Susan denying that her ‘unreasonable behaviour’ was to blame for the breakdown of her marriage and arguing that examples given by her husband were nothing more than the ‘minor squabbles’ which take place in any marriage.
She claimed she was perfectly justified in removing the fuse from the family washing machine to prevent her husband from doing the laundry after he regularly ruined her clothes.
Similarly, she argued, there was nothing wrong in throwing away a packet of non-organic ham he had bought to make his sons’ packed lunches.
Meanwhile, Mr Rae, assistant dean at the University of Northampton, said his wife also hid the television aerial to stop him watching his favourite programmes. …Read More!
Patrons of the Elephant Room must be seething and foaming at the mouth. The new “brother” they pronounced as orthodox has kicked up another storm. Just barely two months after T.D Jakes was given the thumbs up and a pat on the back by James Macdonald and Mark Driscoll (despite holding to Modalism, Word faith and prosperity teachings) he has now released a new book Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven that has raised a few more eye brows.
T.D. Jakes recently released a new book on forgiveness that has at least one critic accusing the renowned preacher of denying the doctrine of original sin.
Chris Rosebrough, an apologist, rejected Jakes’ statement to CP that forgiveness is innate and unforgiveness is learned from one’s environment. There isn’t a “single passage (in Scripture) that says human beings are by nature forgiving,” he argued.
Rosebrough explored the premise of Jakes’ new book Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven on his radio program, “Fighting for the Faith.”
Jakes is the pastor of the 30,000-member The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, and his book claims that people learn how to be unforgiving by behavior modeled to them, so this means they can also unlearn it and become forgiving…
But Rosebrough said not so fast. There are “many passages that say we are by nature evil, sinful, at war with God, objects of God’s wrath, dead in trespasses and sins,” he contended.
Jakes’ idea of being forgiving in nature makes it seem like there is something good in our nature, which also would be running contrary to the Word of God, Rosebrough argued. He called the idea that children are naturally forgiving an “argument from limited experience.” …Read More!
“Ultra-organised churches give too great opportunity to men who are inferior in everything but ambition. They climb to the position of prestige to the detriment of abler men. On the score of being ‘administrators’, and ‘good business men’, they rule the Church.” – Dinsdale Young. …Read More!
See? 😉
HT FB friends.
Imagine you have gone to visit your pastor at his home and there’s blood splattered over the walls. The pastor’s kitten is limping across the back garden and the assailants ask you, “Are you one of them?” It dawns on you that you have just unwittingly stepped into a raid on Christians in the area. One church youth group seems to have found itself in a similar rude awakening :
North Korean in prayer
A church tried to teach its youth group a lesson by staging a raid in which unsuspecting teens were ‘kidnapped’ at gunpoint, forced into a van and made to watch one of their pastors being assaulted in his house.
The ‘lesson,’ according to pastors at the Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Middletown, Pennsylvania, was meant to teach them about what Christian missionaries are subjected to in other parts of the world.
However, at least one girl, 14, was bruised and battered after the object lesson, and has now filed a complaint with the police.
The girl, who has asked to remain anonymous, described her terror to abc27.com: ‘They pulled my chair out from underneath me, and then they told me to get on the ground,’ she told the station.
‘I had my hands behind my back. They said, `Just do as I say, and you won’t be hurt.’’
The girl said she and about 17 other teens were taken to the pastor’s house, where it appeared he was being assaulted, covered in what looked to be blood. …Read More!
After pastor Ted Yang started his mega church he soon realised upon visiting his converts that they had found a new way of growing in the word. (satire)
I know social injustice and racial issues really cause a lot of polarizing tension in communities. But the bible says that the solution to the depravity, wickedness and injustice in this fallen world is the gospel. If the right balance is not made with most of these social issues and agendas one can get preoccupied running down rabbit holes chasing shadows. What do I mean?
Atlanta, GA– Pastors, ushers and members of the congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church wore hoodies instead of their Sunday best to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin.
“We’re standing as the church of nonviolence to say that a hoodie is not a weapon,” said Senior Pastor Rev. Raphael Warnock. “We stand in solidarity with the family of Trayvon Martin. We stand in support of our children who deserve better than to be stigmatized and stereotyped.”
Pastor Warnock stood in the pulpit on Sunday wearing a maroon Morehouse College hoodie.
Ebenezer is one of countless churches across metro Atlanta and the nation recognizing this as “Hoodie Sunday.”
‘Hoodie Sunday’ is just another band aid social fad. Social justice is good but it has it’s place and shouldn’t replace the exposition of the word of God nor the preaching of the gospel on Sunday. Why should congregational worship of God be put on hold on Sunday because of a social agenda? …Read More!
Have you ever heard of John Harper? No, not John Piper. I bet you haven’t. When Hollywood made a movie on the Titanic I bet they skipped and conveniently ignored the most beautiful love story of all. The story of John Harper the evangelist (and his God) on the Titanic.
John Harper was born to a pair of solid Christian parents on May 29th, 1872. It was on the last Sunday of March 1886, when he was thirteen years old that he received Jesus as the Lord of his life. He never knew what it was to”sow his wild oats.” He began to preach about four years later at the ripe old age of 17 years old by going down to the streets of his village and pouring out his soul in earnest entreaty for men to be reconciled to God.
As John Harper’s life unfolded, one thing was apparent…he was consumed by the word of God. When asked by various ministers what his doctrine consisted of, he was known to reply “The Word of God!” After five or six years of toiling on street corners preaching the gospel and working in the mill during the day, Harper was taken in by Rev. E. A. Carter of Baptist Pioneer Mission in London, England. This set Harper free to devote his whole time of energy to the work so dear to his heart. Soon, John Harper started his own church in September of 1896. (Now known as the Harper Memorial Church.) This church which John Harper had started with just 25 members, had grown to over 500 members when he left 13 years later. During this time he had gotten married, but was shortly thereafter widowed. However brief the marriage, God did bless John Harper with a beautiful little girl named Nana.
Ironically, John Harper almost drowned several times during his life. When he was two and a half years of age, he almost drowned when he fell into a well but was resuscitated by his mother. At the age of twenty-six, he was swept out to sea by a reverse current and barely survived, and at thirty-two he faced death on a leaking ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps, God used these experiences to prepare this servant for what he faced next.
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It all sounds like a soap story gone awry. At a time like this my prayers go to the Evangelical community within the Anglican church. Reformed Anglicanism reports that …
In a blistering attack not seen in modern memory, the Metropolitan and Primate of the Anglican Province of Nigeria ripped the Archbishop of Canterbury saying his sudden resignation announcement will leave behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness.
Archbishop Nicholas D. Okoh noted that when Dr. Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002, it was a happy family. He is leaving it with decisions and actions that are stumbling blocks to oneness, evangelism and mission all around the Anglican world.
Okoh went so far as to say that it was like being “crucified under Pontius Pilate”.
The leader of the world’s most populace Anglican Province (20 million) said the lowest ebb of this degeneration came in …Read More!
Brad Abley has an interesting article on how to get the most out of the preaching of God’s word seeing that these days the most sought after preachers are those with more riddles and stand up knock-knock jokes. There are few preachers who for love of God’s word and love to feed the sheep remain faithful to their calling and expound and preach faithfully the full counsel of God. So then…
Pray for the preacher – before, during and after the message. [He] needs the prayers of all of God’s people and when he gets those prayers, the preaching becomes a true, corporate effort– not a “one-man show.”
The more God’s people pray for the preacher and the message, the greater the anointing will be upon all. By asking God … he may be spared the oppression that inevitably comes to preachers soon after the message.
Moreover, when we pray for those who preach, we are far less prone to “rate” or criticize the preacher.
If you know that the person whose pulpit ministry you sit under works hard at preaching and teaching (that involves much prayer, study, preparation and the spiritual warfare that comes along with this high responsibility) and genuinely cares for those he has responsibility for, appreciate and honor him or her (1 Tim. 5:17).
Pray too that the preacher will remain faithful to the text in his exposition, that Christ may be glorified and the gospel will come forth with clarity to encourage the believers and draw the sinners by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Excerpt from How to Get the Most Out of the Preaching of God’s Word.
I have always wondered if dogs understand theology.
Photo HT Frriends on Facebook.
On a lighter note, I do love this advert on cell phones in church:
Seeking to train and encourage men to preach, Dr. Somerville wrote “Rules for Sermon Writing” below (left column). Nollie Malabuyo ‘s article draws that comparison between Somervilles’s guidelines with the prosperity and megachurch preaching we see and hear today (right column). But who was Somerville? In Glimpses of Old Glasgow (1894), Andrew Aird described Rev. Somerville as…
As a preacher Dr. Somerville was fervent; his style of address was that of a scholar; and his prayers were the outpourings of his heart. As a pastor he was held in high estimation by his people; and he frequently occupied Glasgow and country pulpits, where his discourses, full of the knowledge which maketh rich, were ever listened to by large audiences. There was something in the tone of his voice, and in the light of his eyes and the glow of his countenance which made one involuntarily say, “This man has been with Jesus.”
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A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 