Tag: Church Growth

Wickedness

Christians are also called to stand against what the Authorized Version calls spiritual wickedness (πονηρία), and the English Standard Version calls spiritual forces of evil. Again, note that we are not called to oppose people, flesh and blood, but wrong…

Peace and Christian Unity

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain…

Meeting Together

“Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I…

Tossed To And Fro

(from In Christ—The Church At Ephesus, forthcoming) Paul looked forward to the day when Christians would not be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4: 14). Again, this phrase suggests…

The Orthodoxy of Rob Bell

First let me respond to the recent Richard Mouw article: The Orthodoxy of Rob Bell, Christian Post, March 20, 1011. He begins by saying that he agrees with Bell, and he does. But the fact that he agrees with Bell…

C.I. Scofield

The name of C.I. Scofield is not usually associated with liberalism, yet Scofield’s roots lie at the heart of the post 1865 Congregationalism where Charles Finney made his home. Finney’s Congregationalism promoted a doctrine of polar opposites, as previously indicated…

Informality

Informal Christianity What it isn’t… It is not a church, but is the personal, internal, subjective faith that identifies church members as belonging to Jesus Christ. It is not formless, but conforms to the biblical reality described in Scripture. Its…

The Problem

Increasing Sanctification Because the word sanctification means separated unto God or separated for the purposes and use of God, and because biblical wisdom opposes worldly wisdom (see Arsy Varsy) increased sanctification requires less entanglement with worldly ways and means. This,…

Knowing God

Knowing God It takes one to know one. I can identify another regenerate person because I know what God’s Holy Spirit has done to me. I know how He has changed me, so I can recognize similar changes in other…

History

The story of the Bible is the story of God’s work in the world. It is His (God’s) story, that is the fundamental and original understanding of history. It is only in the post-Enlightenment, modern, secular, humanistic world that God…