Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
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.
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!
Today as I visited central London (entirely for a different purpose), I was acutely reminded of
This cartoon depicts what has become of good churches…they are very hard to find!
HT friends on FB.
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!
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!
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!
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!
Seeing that today’s post modern generation has a rabid interest in ambiguity, the latest Mayan discovery has sent hordes of anxious young people spinning on their heads as the end of the world has become infinitely indeterminable. Surely the Mayans must have hidden this bit of calendar and then tweeted to themselves “LOL”! You see….
In a striking find, archaeologists in Guatemala report the discovery of a small building whose walls display not only a stunningly preserved mural of a brightly adorned Mayan king, but also calendars that destroy any notion that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012.
These deep-time calendars can be used to count thousands of years into the past and future, countering pop-culture and New Age ideas that Mayan calendars ended on Dec. 21, 2012, (or Dec. 23, depending on who’s counting), thereby predicting the end of the world.
The newly found calendars, which track the motion of the moon, Venus and Mars, provide …Read More!
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!
I came across these 10 tips and was rather fascinated by them. I still chuckle when I skim through them seeing that I am the most forgetful of all sinners:
1. Thou shalt not engage in shameless self promotion, as if you deserve the glory that God alone deserves.
2. Thou shalt not make an idol of evangelism. God deserves worship, not His work.
3. Thou shalt not give the enemies of God occasion to blaspheme. Reaping the results of being a jerk for Jesus is not persecution, it is defamation of God’s character by your actions.
4. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy by taking opportunity to rest, worship and serve in the local church. This means your local church, not someone else’s. …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!
“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
Erik a young pastor recently visited a pastor who has buried 200 members. No, he wasn’t the village undertaker. And no, his cooking wasn’t that bad. However there is a lot to learn from this profound story. Here goes….
I was recently spending some time with a minister who is nearing retirement. He was going through his office and packing up boxes, books and other personal items. He directed me to a large box and told me to take a look. I saw dozens of manilla file folders with names on them.
“What are all these?” I asked.
“Funerals.” The pastor said.
“How many?” I inquired.
“Over two-hundred.” He soberly replied.
There in his office I was struck with so many emotions. Here stood a man who has buried over two hundred of his parishioners. And here I stand, a young-buck having buried a grand total of zero of our members.
The seasoned pastor went on to tell me that he cannot throw this box away because in every folder is a life.
“In every folder is a life, a soul. And in each one is a piece of my life.” He said, holding back obvious emotion. I almost lost it too. …Read More!
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!
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?
Ray Comfort has an interesting Atheist’s day letter:
April 1st already. May God continue to richly bless each one of you with good health, long life, and may you come to a knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal (see John 17:3).
For those atheists who have been quoting Matthew 5:21-23, please know that I would never call a Christian “brother” a fool (see the context). I do, however, side with God Himself when He calls the atheist a “fool” (see Psalm 14:1 and Romans 1:22). I have learned, through years of experience in dealing with drug addicts, that the way to reach them is not to argue with them about what they are doing, but to show them how stupid they are. They are not abusing drugs; they are using drugs to abuse themselves. The same applies with the stupidity of denying a Creator, with creation staring at you in the face. The atheist will only harm himself…
Excerpt from Words of Comfort.
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!
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!
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.
Ever met some one who said he is both Calvinist and Arminian; straddles both sides of the proverbial fence? I am proudly Cal-minian they say. Well I know it gives a theological head ache . Listen to this …..
There is so much wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to begin. First of all it assumes that two mutually exclusive claims can both be true. This is patently false. Believe in both/and propositions all you want, you and the semi truck cannot both cross the intersection at the same time without grave consequences. There is only truth and error. There is only life or death. …Read More!
In Britain today St. Patrick’s day is well known for being a day when you get bombed out on booze till you can’t feel your knees. It’s almost a pagan holiday of sorts. But who was St. Patrick? And one thing, was he (umm) a leprechaun? Let’s get Moore to the Point….
In his volume, St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, Philip Freeman, a professor of classics at Washington University in St. Louis, lays out a compelling portrait of Patrick, the theologian-evangelist. In accomplishing this, Freeman attempts to reconstruct Patrick’s cultural milieu—that of a world that had “ended” with the fall of Rome in 410 A.D. This collapse of Roman power had unleashed savagery in the British Isles, as thieves and slave-traders were unhinged from the restraining power of Caesar’s sword. Patrick’s ministry was shaped by this new world, not least of which by Patrick’s capture and escape from slavery. …Read More!
This is an interesting dramatisation and an informative one at that…okay humorous if you watch it to the end (I wont spoil the ending for you):
Have you ever wondered what to pray for when it comes to praying for your elder or pastor? I hope this article makes it easier to understand what he needs most. To begin with Stephen Altrogge asks if have you heard of the word “unction”?
It’s a term that sounds vaguely medical, as in, “I went to the doctor today and he told me that I have a bad case of unction in my lower GI tract.” Or it sounds like a term my mechanic would throw at me: “Yeah man, your unction piston is cracked right down the middle and we’re going to need to replace the entire engine block.”
But the word “unction” actually has a rich history behind it, even if we don’t use it too much any more. And let me tell you, I desperately need unction.
Unction is what separates a mighty sermon from a boring lecture. Unction is what causes a sermon to pierce the heart of a listener. Unction is what transforms a sermon from a boring load of facts to a mighty, God-filled, life-changing sermon. …Read More!
You would think as Easter approaches people would spend more time reading their bibles and focusing on Christ’s death for sinners. No, some pastors are into more hip and trendy (actually goofy) ideas…
In a hip, artsy, area of Houston, a hip, artsy pastor is taking an unorthodox approach to Lent.
Standing in front of his congregation at Ecclesia Church, a congregation he admits is different – more diverse, more urban – than many evangelical churches – Chris Seay encouraged them to do so something he said combines the ideas of sacrifice and devotion that mark the Lenten season, the 40-day lead up to Easter.
He asked them to get tattoos. Specifically, he asked congregants to get a tattoo corresponding with one of the Stations of the Cross, the collection of images that depict scenes in Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion.
“The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering,” Seay said in an interview. “Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.” …Read More!
Clint Archer looks at the communion table and questions surrounding it in his latest article:
After my post on children taking communion I received some great questions. I wanted to address them more fully than in a crammed comment cage.
Have you ever thought of these provocative variables in the form and substance of the Lord’s Supper:
- Should we not emulate the NT church’s practice of sharing an entire, sit-down meal?
- Must the bread be unleavened?
- Must the wine be alcoholic?
- Must the wine be red or can we use Champagne instead?
- Where does one draw the line? For example, can pizza and Coke count as communion? I.e. can the bread be sweetened, or have a topping? What about milk and cookies?
Makes the blood boil a bit, doesn’t it? You may have got stuck on the milk & cookies on, and you would probably say: “Obviously not, don’t be dumb.” …Read More!
If I am master of my fate, architect of my destiny and my words contain power as the WOF (word of faith) and prosperity preachers tell me then I am pretty much invincible. I do not need to pray to God, afterall what can He do that I cannot speak into existence. I am sovereign. So, do these WOF and health, wealth and prosperity preachers ever fall sick, fill in job application forms, go to the bank for a loan, get drenched by rain or even die? Well check this out…
Here’s a rhyme, how much wood could a wood chuck chop, if a wood chuck could chop wood? Here’s another. How much deception can be seen and heard, when there is no word, and nobody is really listening?
How long will we look the other way while people are ravaged by false teaching’s promoted by men who spread their own miracle rumors?
It was E.W. Kenyon in his book the Hidden man on pg.99 wrote, “I know that I am healed because he said that I am healed and it makes no difference what the symptoms may be in my body.” An example would be if they are coughing and you say you have a cough they respond by “no I don’t, I haven’t had a cough in years.” That’s called denial of reality at best, and lying at worst. …REad More!
You have seen gaudy and blasphemous caricatures of Jesus Christ and satirical depictions of Christians by major new outlets. Anybody can take a pot shot at Jesus and walk away with a wink and smug look. Is there a bias and how about other religions? How come we do not see satirical depictions of other religions? BBC has come out with an honest explanation…
The head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has admitted that the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed like it mocks Jesus.
He justified the astonishing admission of religious bias by suggesting that mocking Mohammed might have the “emotional force” of “grotesque child pornography”.
But Jesus is fair game because, he said, Christianity has broad shoulders and fewer ties to ethnicity.
Bias
Mr Thompson says the BBC would never have broadcast Jerry Springer The Opera – a controversial musical that mocked Jesus – if its target had been Mohammed. …Read More!
A while ago a YouTube video featuring a well-known Nigerian preacher, David Oyedepo, slapping a congregant and calling her a witch may have been dismissed as a one off incident. However un beknownst to many it actually seemed to highlight a silently growing trend plus the power of some church leaders. In the clip below a teenage girl kneels before the pastor, and after saying she is a “witch for Jesus” he calls her a “foul devil”, slapping her violently across the face while the congregation cheers. In a later video (see video at end of article) , he can be seen boasting “I slapped a witch here last year.”
Recently in the UK a very disturbing trial came to an end. “Child witches” and exorcism was shown not to be a problem out there but rather under reported and very present even in the UK. In particular this trial shed light on the events surrounding the life of a young boy called Kristy….
When 15-year-old Kristy Bamu left his parents in Paris on 16 December 2010, he was looking forward to spending the Christmas holidays with his siblings, visiting their sister and her boyfriend in London.
On Christmas Day he was found by paramedics in the bathroom of an east London high-rise flat. His body had been mutilated, some teeth were missing and he was covered in deep cuts and bruising. In the last four days of his life he had suffered acts of unspeakable savagery, doled out by a man he called “uncle” and one of his own sisters.
Why? Because Eric Bikubi and Magalie Bamu, then both 28, were convinced the boy was a witch, possessed by spirits who wanted to bring evil into their home, the Old Bailey heard. On Thursday they were convicted of murder. They had earlier admitted actual bodily harm against Kristy’s sister Kelly and a younger sister, who cannot be named.
The judge, Mr Justice Paget, exempted the jury from jury service for the rest of their lives because of the “strain” of the trial, adding it was a case “every one of us will remember”. He said: “It has been a most remarkable case and at times a very harrowing case.” …Read More!
I would love to do a lot more exercise than I get to do. This week we get to meet another Christian. He loves to blog. He loves to read. He loves to blog – did I say that already? He is a husband, a father and a pastor. Well today he dreamily seems to be doing some gym work. And as he brushes past making a bee line for the weights and stuff, we get to stop him in mid action. Hey mystery Christian guest, care for a two minute anonymised interview? [More anonymised interviews here] Listen in to the actual interview:
ATCT [Atwisted Crown of Thorns]: Sorry you are masked from your audience today. What is a typical week in your life like?
CHRISTIAN: That’s hard to say. They’re all a bit different but generally speaking they’re filled with writing, phone calls, hospital visits (when necessary), dropping in on Church folk, posting an occasional bit on the blog, and reading, reading, reading. And then there’s going to the gym and trying to combat the woes of aging. But that’s another subject altogether.
ATCT: Did you have any Christian influence in your youth or childhood?
CHRISTIAN: Not at home. My parents thought of God as a big joke and when I told them I was called to ministry my mother told me I’d be happier being a garbage collector. My childhood pastors were good and decent Christians though and I was close to them.
ATCT: What is the gospel in one sentence? …Read More!
I have not ceased to put this information out not only to highlight the importance of freedom of worship of this young man but also that the gospel may advance in countries like Iran. Today I will highlight another aspect of the story of profound theological importance. You see…
Youcef Nadarkhani has been reported in both the secular and Christian media and periodicals to be under a death sentence for his conversion from Islam to evangelical Christianity. He was arrested on 12th October 2009, in the city of Rasht in the northern part of Iran, where he had been the pastor of the underground church there. He is reported to be the evangelical pastor of “the Church of Iran”. However, what might come as a shock to many evangelical believers is that “Pastor” Nadarkhani is actually one of the leaders in a growing cult in Iran, which is linked with the Oneness Pentecostalism (Jesus Only) cult, which is non-Trinitarian, believes in baptismal regeneration, and is very closely linked and supported by the United Pentecostal Churches outside of Iran. They greatly admire and follow the teachings of an American preacher, William M. Branham, who claimed to be the last of God’s prophets on earth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is from the devil, and only those who are baptised in Jesus’ name are saved.
But what is the wider implication of this? …Read More!
Well it’s that time of the year again. Lent, and one interesting gentle man has been chronicling photographs of people during Lent…
Greg Miller is not confused by the smudged foreheads he sees on the streets this time of year. In fact, he waits all year to see them.
The photographer works at a snail’s pace in general. This project, for example, has been 15 years in the making — though it has amounted to more like 15 cumulative days. He waits all year for Ash Wednesday. And even after a whole day’s work, he walks away with only a few frames, because he is lugging around a large-format film camera. This clearly is not about instant gratification…
For Christians, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, and the tradition of putting ash crosses on the forehead is meant to symbolize the beginning of a penitential season, a reminder of mortality. …Read More!
The first time I heard of Pastor Nadakhani I was struck by his courage in the face of aversity. The Iranian authorities have barely been under any international pressure, so they have decided to enjoy their mind games by stepping things up a notch…
[Pastor Nadarkhani] who refuses to renounce his Christian faith could be hanged as soon as Wednesday, after a trial court ruling this week upheld his death sentence for “apostasy.”
Religious freedom advocates are calling urgently for governments to take up the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old evangelical first sentenced to death late last year. If the sentence is carried out he will be the first Iranian Christian known to have been executed for his faith in 21 years. …Read More!
This is usually the last sentence that an addict will usually say before they are willing to get help. Those of you who have family members struggling with alcohol, drugs or other forms of addiction (and yup, sin too) know what I mean. This week (again) I have had to see some one I love go through denial after denial that they are struggling. Watching these 3 clips of Jeff Allen’s story and his struggles with alcohol and later coming to repentance and faith in Christ have been quite refreshing in a way.
Part 1:
I am not surprised any more (honestly) at what some of these celebrity pastors come up with. Especially from the guy with endless gimmicks who calls his flock “ferraris“, tells them that they should get a swagger and at the end of it all demands them to give him their bank direct debit details and routing numbers so that he can “joyfully” strip them of their tithes. But that is not all….
Sexperiment author and Fellowship Church pastor Ed Young, who is challenging married couples at his church to have sex for seven straight days, believes that sexual deprivation and not satisfying a spouse within the lovemaking department are sinful.
“I think one day we will be held accountable regarding how we satisfied our spouse’s sexually,” Young told The Christian Post in an interview Friday.
“I would, in fact, off of Romans 12:1 say that sex is even an act of worship because Romans 12 said we can present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is a reasonable act of worship.”
Young teaches in his new bestselling book, Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, that depriving a spouse of sexual intimacy is a sin. …Read More!
This is a very wonderfully passionate sermon clip where Voddie Baucham preaches on the cultures wars, the relevance of preserving the sanctity of marriage and the lace that binds everything together…the centrality of the gospel in our lives.
Now you know why I got carried away and kept screaming for him to preach on. 🙂 …Read More!
Love him or hate him, Mark Driscoll is a very polarizing personality. Though of late he has drawn alot of concern among many conservative Christians (following his hasty endorsement of heretics, his controversial book and esoteric visions). Now there is Andrew-gate :
Until last fall, a 25-year-old Seattle man named Andrew was happily committed to Mars Hill Church, one of America’s fastest-growing megachurches with more than 5,000 members. He volunteered weekly for security duty at his branch of the church, joined a Bible study group, and had recently become engaged to the daughter of a church elder. Then he made a mistake that found him cast out: He cheated on his fiancee with a community college classmate. The fury over Andrew’s experience—and his decision to publicize the church’s internal disciplinary procedures—has led to accusationsby otherChristians that one of the most powerful evangelical voices in the country, Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll, employs a cultlike leadership style… …Read More!
Watching events across the pond recently made me roll over backwards when an unusual moment occurred:
If the organizers of the national prayer breakfast ever want a sitting president to attend their event again, they need to expect that any leader in his right mind is going to ask — no, demand — that he be allowed to see a copy of the keynote address that is traditionally given immediately before the president’s.
That’s how devastating was the speech given by a little known historical biographer named Eric Metaxas, whose clever wit and punchy humor barely disguised a series of heat-seeking missiles that were sent, intentionally or not, in the commander-in-chief’s direction.
Although Obama began his address directly after Metaxas by saying, “I’m not going to be as funny as Eric but I’m grateful that he shared his message with us,” both his tone and speech itself were flat, and he looked as though he wished he could either crawl into a hole or have a different speech in front of him. …Read More!
I know this is a very common question. In fact Matt Slick does agree that….
This is a difficult question to answer. How do we reconcile the idea that our prayers influence God as James 5:16 implies, yet God knows all things as 1 John 3:20 says?
James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”
How is it possible for us to influence God who has always known all things from eternity? Does God interact with us in some sense of knowing what we will do and decides to do things in response? Or, does God decree whatsoever shall come to pass including our prayers, so that all our prayers are ultimately within his will? The debate within Christianity is deep. However, Scripture is clear. We know that God works “all things after the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). This means that he includes our prayers in the counsel of his will – from all eternity. But, does God look into the future to see what we are going to pray and then decide what to do based on that? This can’t be, because it would violate the sovereignty of God who does not react to man’s desires and offer “a backup plan” when he “changes his mind.” Furthermore, looking into the future to see what would happen would imply that God was learning — which contradicts 1 John 3:20 that says God knows all things. Furthermore, our prayers come from our hearts and the Bible tells us that God “moves the heart of the king where He wishes to go,” (Proverbs 21:1). …Read More!
Rabbi Ralph Messer who crowned Bishop Eddie Long as king in a bizarre ceremony (where he wrapped him in a gawdy scroll in his church) apparently has been doing his antics for a while.
A video showing minister Paula White being wrapped in a Torah scroll by controversial rabbi and television personality Ralph Messer has emerged only days after White’s attorney denied the pastor’s endorsement of Messer following a “coronation” ceremony involving Bishop Eddie Long.
The ceremonial wrapping seen in the 2009 video (shown above) of Messer on White’s program, “Paula Today,” is almost identical to Messer’s wrapping of Long during a recent sermon at the minister’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. …Read More!
Why do few pastors do expository preaching these days? Some pastors will weasel their way around the bible and use passages to promote a health drink, an exercise plan, secret recipe and even a dieting plan but never the joys and liberty of the gospel of Christ. One particular pastor seems to have read in his bible that there was a secret diet. You see…
Pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life and head of Saddleback Church in Southern California, has always seemed larger than life.
But now he’s a smaller, healthier size. And he’s spreading the word about how he trimmed down on a program he initiated called The Daniel Plan (danielplan.com). It’s a lifestyle program that incorporates healthy eating, regular exercise, stress reduction, prayer and group support from other church members in small home groups. …Read More!
It is often said that the nature of the atonement defines its extent. The atonement is simply coextensive, as far as its saving effects are concerned, with the number of true believers. This should have been the last word, and indeed would have been, were it not for men who, being driven less by religious convictions than by speculative tendencies, deemed it necessary to extend the atonement to all men alike. Today we shall look at the four basic universalist theories:
A. The thorough-going theory of universal salvation; that is, the belief that in virtue of Christ’s work, all men will ultimately be saved. The only good thing that can be said about this theory is that it carries its presuppositions through to their logical consequences. It affirms that the actual restoration attained by Christ is coextensive with the actual ruin of the race. It overlooks justice simply falls back on a fuzzy idea of Divine benevolence. Though it is completely and utterly unscriptural, it is at least self-consistent.
B. Arminianism is the second universalist theory. …Read More!
Transgender is the state of one’s “gender identity” (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one’s “assigned sex”. Though a precise definition for transgender remains in flux. Transgender issues are usually very sensitive and rightly so. Legal procedures exist in some jurisdictions allowing individuals to change their legal gender, or their name, to reflect their gender identity. The world’s religions display great diversity and their interpretations of and reactions to transgender people demonstrate equal diversity. This week it was an Evangelical community in India that began it’s conundrum:
CHENNAI: Shunned and traumatized as a youngster, 25-year-old Bharathi now preaches to a congregation of 45 respectful parishioners, including 14 families, as India’s first transgender pastor.
Bharathi, who completed her bachelor’s degree in theology last April, has been a pastor at the Evangelical Church of India (ECI) branch in Chengalpattu, on the outskirts of Chennai, for the past eight months.
The pathbreaking move by the ECI, which has more than 100,000 followers across India, coincides with evangelical denominations in other countries, like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, deciding to allow transgenders as pastors. …Read More!
“We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. They would be styled “evangelical” and yet be of the school which is really anti-evangelical.”- Charles Spurgeon
If I woke you up and told you that controversial Bishop of New Birth church, Eddie Long was crowned king I bet you would ask if I have had a fever. Well, not only was he crowned king but he also got dressed in some despicable out fit and was paraded in front of adulating worshipers. The “humble man” of God was only too pleased to oblige as Ralph Messer (who claims to be a Rabbi bringing Torah truth to Christians) with a couple of supposed Jews masqueraded with garb and old bits of scrolls declared how worthy and anointed Bishop and “king” Long is to read sacred scriptures inscribed there in. I kid you not. Though I have a head ache now.
Mix Word of Faith into your theology with a good dose of belief in an open canon and sure enough you are bound to get a “fresh revelation”. Paul was right:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. 1 Timothy 4:1
I still can’t resist laughing at the ring of his new found title “king bishop” Eddie Long. …Read More!
Mega church Pastor and televangelist Rod Parsley is teaming up with another Prosperity and Word of Faith teacher and multi millionaire Kenneth Copeland and (wait for it) yup, NFL Quarter back, Tim Tebow! In a conference said to let you “experience the power of the Holy Spirit, and learn how the anointing of God to can resonate in your life”.
I hope (sob) Tebow is getting good and sound theological advice. Sob! …Read More!
The modern trend is to shift towards short, vague, and essentially ambiguous belief statements which the modern church uses almost as tools of evangelism. To demonstrate this trend, I’ve (borrowed) Old Truth’s 2006 chart below showing a word count for the statements of faith of some of the most popular churches in America (as in September 2006). For comparison purposes, I’ve also included some old school Christians who have held to the historic belief statements of a better Christianity from times gone by. (Of course I hope this information has changed for the better over the last couple of years)
| Statement of Faith | Subscribers | Word Count | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Baptist Confession | CH Spurgeon, James White |
15,163 | 1689 |
| Augsburg Confession | Martin Luther | 14,938 | 1530 |
| Westminster Confession | RC Sproul, Michael Horton, Jonathan Edwards |
12,307 | 1646 |
| Grace Church Doctrinal Statement |
John MacArthur, Phil Johnson |
5,700 | recent |
| Willow Creek Statement of Faith |
Bill Hybels | 3,731 | recent |
| Bethlehem Baptist Church Beliefs | John Piper | 1,010 | recent |
| Cedar Ridge Community Church Beliefs | Brian McLaren | 877 | recent |
| Saddleback Beliefs | Rick Warren | 557 | recent |
| Fellowship Church Beliefs | Ed Young Jr. | 555 | recent |
| The Potters House Belief Statement |
TD Jakes | 417 | recent |
| Northpoint Community Church Beliefs | Andy Stanley | 362 | recent |
| Crystal Cathedral | Robert Schuller | 361 | recent |
| Lakewood Beliefs | Joel Osteen | Low! 206 | recent |
At the bottom of this chart are the churches with the shortest belief statements, and supposedly – the least emphasis on biblical doctrine. …Read MOre!
A very interesting flow chart I came across on Facebook.
I am still trying to figure it out. Read more of this post
This is an old sermon clip but it will be worth it just to listen to it once.
As you walk through a University campus you will realise there are lots of activities taking place. Or at least it appears so. It doesn’t take long till we find a madly, deeply in love Christian. He is a Law student who has just proposed to his fiancee and everything is looking good. Before he tells me how much he loves his soul mate and how they complete each others sentences, we will place a mask over his head. He will be anonymised during this interview as we pick his brains a bit. So, enter prosecution to greet our defenceless suspect 😉
ATCT [A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®] : Sorry you are masked from your audience today. What is a typical week in your life like?
CHRISTIAN: Basically, I study, work with the clubs at my school, go to the gym, church, and spend time with my fiancee. If there’s anytime left, Disneyland works its way in.
ATCT: Did you have any Christian influence in your youth or childhood?
CHRISTIAN: I did. There was a man in my Southern Baptist Church who I looked up to greatly. To this day we keep in touch. I was friends with his daughter growing up. He shaped a lot of my thinking and values.
ATCT: What is the gospel in one sentence? …Read more!
Jennifer Borders is among the 26 million Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD), from which more than 70,000 people die each year. Jennifer has had two previous transplants. One from her mother when she was only 16 yeas and another later on. However they have all for unexplained reasons failed. As hope seemed to fade, help came from an unexpected source:
Sunday, [ 22nd January 2012] after conducting morning worship services, Derek Staples, pastor of Jacksonville First Baptist Church, will drive to Birmingham to be with a member of his congregation who is scheduled for a kidney transplant.
Staples won’t just be at the bedside, however. He’s the one donating a kidney. The woman whose life he may be saving is Jennifer Borders, who turned 40 in December. …Read More!
If you asked me I would probably say, “dunno”. But since you asked I will point you to a good review of Bishop Jakes’ sermon titled Touched. It has a caution attached to it! The reason why I have decided to run a sermon review is so that you may learn how to compare what people are preaching in the name of God with what the Word of God actually says. Here is an excerpt of Daniel Neades’ review:
T.D. Jakes is the leader of The Potter’s House, a 30,000 member congregation located in southern Dallas, Texas. I had never heard a T.D. Jakes sermon before, though I knew of his reputation. I was curious to see – if only via an Internet video stream – the man that Elevation Church reminded us was named ‘America’s Best Preacher’ by Time Magazine. Would I be able to uncover the secret of his mystique? And would he preach the Biblical Gospel? …Read More!
Knock! Knock! Some body comes to open the door. Un announced A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® [ATCT] has paid a surprise visit to a mystery Christian guest. She is a wife and home maker. A dreamy dinner is almost ready (or is it?) and before she can excuse her self to turn off the cooker, we shall have a two minute marathon interview. The interviewee will remain anonymous for this session as we stir the contents in the frying pan and see what she truly believes. So, what do these Christian believe and why do they believe so? Listen in:
ATCT: Sorry you are masked from your audience today. What is a typical week in your life like?
CHRISTIAN: A typical week is being a homemaker primarily, dealing with meals, the care and feeding of a toddler, teenager and husband, and all that this entails. I spend my child’s naptime writing usually on my blog or sharing news and information through my facebook outlet. It’s a very different life than I used to have, but it’s where God has put me.
ATCT: Did you have any Christian influence in your youth or childhood?
CHRISTIAN: I was raised in a home of professing Christians. We saw little reality of that in the life of our distracted ministry father, but saw real faith in our mother’s life. She was the one who taught us Scriptures, Bible stories and hymns and songs. She was a prayer warrior and she prayed for all of us. Grateful for that.
ATCT: What is the gospel in one sentence? …Read More!
A.W Pink’s classic book The Attributes of God is available free of charge here. (Mobile phone downloads here). One of the first chapters is “The Solitariness of God”. Did you know that…
“In the beginning, God” (Gen. 1:1). There was a time, if “time” is could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three Divine Persons), dwelt all alone. “In the beginning, God.” There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but “from everlasting.” During a past eternity, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. …Read More PINK!
Bishop Thomas Dexter “T.D.” Jakes (born in 1957) is a popular black preacher and evangelist who is the main pastor of The Potter’s House church in Dallas, Texas (founded in 1996), with a congregation of over thirty thousand members. He comes from a United Pentecostal, or Oneness Pentecostal, background. Ryan Turner of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) takes an in depth view into the good points, deeply concerning issues and ultimate theology of the man, T.D Jakes.
Why the Trinity is Important
The modalism view of T.D. Jakes is a very serious Biblical error for a number of reasons.
First, the Trinitarian view of God is the correct Biblical view of God, which Jakes rejects (see “The Trinity” and the “Christian Doctrine” section under “The Trinity” heading).
Second, with the modalistic view of God, we are left with many errors regarding the incarnation of Christ. …Read More!
Just when you thought you have heard it all….
IRAN — A Kuwaiti royal prince has become a believer in Jesus Christ and says that if he is killed because of an audio recording he made about his decision, he believes he will meet Christ face-to-face.
According to http://www.Mohabatnews.com , the Iranian Christian News Agency, Al-haqiqa, a Christian Arabic satellite T.V. station, which broadcasts Christian programs, played an audio file which it attributed to a Kuwaiti prince called “Abdollah Al-sabah.”
This Kuwaiti prince announced, “First of all, I totally agree with the distribution of this audio file and I now declare that if they kill me because of this audio file, then I’ll go into the presence of Jesus Christ and be with him for all eternity.” …Read More!
When I was conversing lately with our dear friend, George Muller, he frequently astonished me with the way in which he mentioned that he had for so many months and years asked for such and such a mercy, and praised the Lord for it, as though he actually obtained it. Even in praying for the conversion of a person, as soon as he had begun to intercede, he began also to praise God for the conversion of that person. I think he told us he had in one instance he had already prayed for thirty years and the work was not yet done, yet all the while he had gone on thanking God, because he knew the prayer would be answered.”-C.H. Spurgeon
When I heard that Matt Chandler was going to preach at the Code Orange Revival planned by Steve Furtick I was abit sceptical. Looking at the line up of mega church peachers and word of faith gurus, he appeared to be the only conservative preacher. On one side you had T.D Jakes, Craig Groeschel, Christine Cane, James MacDonald, Israel Houghton, Jentezen Franklin, Perry Noble, Stovall Weems, Kevin Gerald and Steven Furtick.
So the stage was set for ..umm…Code Orange! However, Matt sure enough showed up. He indeed came with something up his sleeve. He came to with a no holds barred message. By the end of which it seems some one or some people were seeing RED!! Now, every one seems to be wondering why Matt chandler’s sermons have not been rebroadcast on the website. The whodunnit game is going on. Who lost the tape?
After much searching and looking I seem to have found the missing sermon. And WOW!!!! You gotta listen to this!!!
With all the frenzy these days of a fresh revelation and a little pinch of Lectio divina to help hear a new voice of God speaking to us again. Why not go back to square one….
We all want to hear from God. Now you can share the secret closely guarded by our forebears in the faith. This simple yet ancient formula will enable you to experience the voice of God speaking directly into your life:
- Get hold of a reliable translation of the Bible, such as the NKJV or the ESV. (Sorry, no, The Message doesn’t work for this spiritual discipline.)
- Open it.
- Read.
Simple. Uh? …Read More!
My American friends are weird. No, I love them all so much. But when they tell me they love football and then they show me a man running about with a leather bag in his hand I quickly tell the, “No thanks, I prefer soccer!” The last couple of days have been rather difficult. Everybody seems to be singing the name “Tebow”. Oh yes, I did hear that he used to scrawl letters and numbers across his face (like John 3:16). Yup, I heard that he bends a knee before scoring a goal (what ever he does). And YESSSSS, I hear he threw a ball exactly 316 yards! But no, that was not a sign from God!!!
Hey, my Obamanites American friends do not get carried away here with all these figures. I agree with Stephen Altrogge you are getting kooky and weird:
I think we need to be careful when making definitive statements about what God is doing. God doesn’t usually work the way we expect him to. He tends to work through losers and the downcast and the poor and the down and out. He likes to use the weak to demonstrate his strength, and the foolish to demonstrate his wisdom. Of course, that doesn’t mean that God isn’t using Tim Tebow. We just need to be careful when we call something like passing yards a divine sign.
Plus, saying that passing for 316 yards is a sign from God makes Christians look weird for the wrong reasons. …Read More!
One Reformed preacher whose sermons have helped me deal with several theological conundrums is a wonderful man called Arturo G. Azurdia III. Art (for those who know him) and have listened to him usually likes using the word “relentless” and therefore he becomes our first in a series of relentless preachers to be featured. 😉
Lets dig deeper into his personal life and see what things he holds loosely and what things he clings to dearly. Here is an interview excerpted from the Exiled Preacher (2008):
QN: Who has taught you most of what it means to preach the Word of God?
AA: It’s difficult for me to reduce it to one man, because several have had strategic influence on me at various stages of my development.
Shortly after I was converted it was the preaching of …Wanna Read More?
I am currently reading a very interesting book, Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible by James W. Sire. Its actually not a guide to help you become a guru or Swami. Far from it. You see, “Jesus” is co-opted by almost every one who wants some one from the past to confirm their own vision of the ideal future. To Eastern –oriented religious groups, Jesus is an avatar – one of the may incarnations of the gods; to Christian Scientists, he is the great healer; to political revolutionaries he is the great liberator; to Spiritualists, he is a first rate medium; to one new consciousness philosopher, he is a prototype of a sorcerer who can restructure events in the world by mental exercise. It seems there is a “Jesus” for everyone.
One way in which almost any cult can have a claim to the Jesus of the bible is by misquoting scripture. For example:
Jess Stern in a book on Edgar Cayce quotes the following conversation he had with Eula Allen, one of Cayce’s followers. The topic was re-incarnation and Stearn suddenly thought of a problem:
A thought struck me. “Why, if people have lived other lives, don’t they remember anything from them?”
“But they do,” she said. “It’s just some times that they don’t remember that they are remembering. Jesus said, ‘I will bring all things to thine remembrance,’ but he didn’t say how.”
A number of errors are made here. First, this is not what Jesus said. Let us put the clause quoted into its immediate context. …Read More!
When I heard that Christopher Hitchens had died a selfish, base and primitive bit in me almost jumped up and punched the air. I should have but I didnt. The reason I didn’t rejoice is because I myself know what I deserve.
On the question of death of tyrants and atheists, Russell Moore does a fair and commendable job in his blog post:
Hitchens expected this moment, of course, but he anticipated, wrongly, a blackness, a going out of consciousness forever. Many Christians today are sadly remarking on what it is like for Christopher Hitchens to be now opening his eyes in hell.
We might be wrong.
The Christian impulse here is exactly right. After all, Jesus and his apostles assured us that there is no salvation apart from union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, a union entered into by faith. And Hitchens not only rejected that gospel, he ridiculed it, along with the very notion of anything beyond the natural order. The Christian Scriptures are clear: there is a narrow window in which we must be saved, the time of this present life, and after this there is only judgment (2 Cor. 6:1-2; Heb. 9:27).
But I’m not sure Christopher Hitchens is in hell right now. It’s not because I believe there’s a “second chance” after death for salvation (I don’t). It’s not because I don’t believe in hell or in God’s judgment (I do). It’s because of a sermon I heard years ago that haunts me to this day, reminding me of the sometimes surprising persistence of the gospel. …Read Moore!
This Christmas as other Christians sing O Holy Night, it seems to be a grim night in the Anglican camp. Archbishop Cranmer is bemoaning a new subtle root of inclusiveness that is creeping into the camp. Apparently new forms of Christmas carols are making the Royal Holloway College bend over backwards in all forms of theological twists and knots:
[These] ‘inclusive’ Christmas carols services – you know, the sort that bend over backwards to be all things to all people in order that by any means possible none may be offended. In fact, it is these sort of gospel-lite and theology-free services which are largely responsible for people not finding Christ – even at Christmas.
Royal Holloway College, in the University of London, held its Christmas carol service in its own College Chapel, presided over jointly by the College’s Chaplain – an Anglican vicar, the Rev’d Cate Irvine, and a Roman Catholic chaplain from the local church, Fr Vladimir Nikiforov.
And what did the assembled festive throng hear? The prophecy of of Isaiah? ‘For unto us a child is born…’? The Gospel of Luke? ‘There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…’? A reading from Micah, perhaps? ‘But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be Ruler in Israel’?
No, none of the above. Instead, they got the Qur’an …Read More!
This sign is found in Iloilo. The City of Iloilo is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the capital city of Iloilo province. 
How wonderful would it be to find this sign at the exit gate of every church. To be read as you got out of the church building. Nice!
And [Jesus] said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” – Mark 16:15
…Read More!
A recent Nando’s commercial starring some of the world’s most dreadful dictators – pokes fun at highlights how Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is quickly becoming the last dictator standing at Christmas sole member of the club. That aside it also underlines the post modern sole meaning of Christmas (or does it not?)
It may appear funny but it seems some one (either Nando’s or ‘Mugabe’) still doesnt know “who” Christmas is about. Dilettantes! …Read More!
When I came across the doctrines of grace I was utterly humbled. I was deep into word of faith and prosperity theology and the cross and gospel were a distant memory. My eyes were refocused but today I would like to feature a testimony that has been a blessing. Speaking about refocusing our eyes there’s no one who has been sounding the alarm louder than Holly D. Dye of Refocusing Our Eyes. You see….
For the last 2 years, [Holly says] since leaving the Word of Faith movement, there have been erroneous assumptions, by people of that camp, that I have left the Faith. However, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, I have become more solidified in Christian truths and more passionate in my service to God than ever before. I trust that through this 2-part article, God would grant me the ability to “make a defense to those who have asked a reason for the hope that is in me and that I may be able to do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3.15).
In this discourse, I have no intention of “sowing strife”, as is commonly asserted by WoF[1] leadership toward those who resist their teaching. Although it is certain, offense will surely come, I will attempt, by the grace of God, to present my beliefs within the landscape of scripture and by the brush of simple reasoning. …Read More!
A Georgia factory worker claims in a federal lawsuit that he was fired after he refused to wear a `666′ sticker he feared would doom him to eternal damnation.
Billy E. Hyatt claims he was fired from Pliant Corp., a plastics factory in northern Georgia near Dalton, after he refused to wear a sticker proclaiming that his factory had been accident-free for 666 days. That number is considered the “mark of the beast” in the Bible’s Book of Revelation describing the apocalypse.Hyatt, who said he’s a devout Christian, had worked for the north Georgia plastics company since June 2007 and like other employees wore stickers each day that proclaimed how long the factory had gone without an accident. …Read More!
It is usually said that if a stone is thrown into a pack of dogs, the one hit by the stone will usually holler. The same seems to be true with the preaching of the gospel – it begins to bring conviction of sin. Some people don’t like this message and it becomes an offence and a stumbling block to them. North Carolinans seem to be chewing on something odd this week:
On Monday night, vandals desecrated the Cedar Hill AME Zion Church in Ansonville, east of Charlotte, North Carolina, spray-painting obscenities on the wall, smashing stained-glass windows and defecating on the church pulpit. …Read More!
Adoniram Judson lived several years before America’s lucrative export became a lukewarm synthetic form of materialism called prosperity gospel. Adoniram was a selfless Calvinistic Baptist missionary from the United States who labored for almost forty years in Burma. At the age of 25, he was the first Protestant missionary sent from North America to preach in Burma. To summarise his missionary endeavors here is a concise post ….
Anarchic despotism, fierce war with Siam, enemy raids, constant rebellion, and no religious freedom (pg 85). What missionary would decide to go such a place? Although Burma(Myanmar) was essentially what we call a “closed country”, Adoniram Judson went in spite of an admonition from William Carey not to go (pg 85)…at age 24, and with a 23 year old wife! Ahead of Judson was immense loss, which many of us could scarcely imagine. But through it all he could say “If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings” …Read More!
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 
A few good tips on Bible Commentaries and how to use them
David Murray has a list of 20 tips on how to use Bible Commentaries. Here are just 5 of them: