Although many Christians claim to want genuine community, many want it only on their own terms, when it’s convenient, and when it demands nothing from them. What they want isn’t the church community, but a country club where they pay their dues for services rendered. They want to be served without having to serve anyone... Continue Reading

Nowhere does Paul suggest that justification is in stages. It is always presented to us as a once-for-all declaration, a benefit received through faith alone. Sanctification is inaugurated. Sanctification is progressive. Sanctification is to be consummated but our justification is complete. It is finished.   Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ... Continue Reading

  They are still stuck in the past, culturally speaking. Some churches look frozen in time. While there are lots of rich things from our history and tradition worth holding onto, having a church that looks like it stepped out of a time machine in the 1970s probably isn’t it. Some churches are so committed... Continue Reading

“I’m not certain what my expectations for ministry were as a rookie pastor, but it didn’t take me long to realize that prior to arriving on the battlefield that is the local church, I had unwittingly built a fictional church in my mind that was nothing like the congregation that now called me ‘pastor Jeff.’... Continue Reading

“Dispensationalism teaches that God has at least two distinct peoples, namely, the Jewish Nation and the Christian Church. He has distinctly different purposes for them, and each of these two peoples is united to Him by various and diverse covenants.”   Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Changes in the Confession of Faith and... Continue Reading

“What is surprising is the way that even practicing Christians are beginning to conform to the beliefs and behaviors that are now considered normal in our culture,” said Roxanne Stone, editor-in-chief at Barna. “The big story here is that people no longer agree when it comes to the purpose and meaning of sex – including... Continue Reading

But with dwindling reserves—the IMB now has enough cash for only two more years at its current rate of spending—expenses needed to be cut. In November, CT examined whether the situation spells the end of the full-time missionary. “The financial realities are clear,” Platt told CT at the time. “[I]n order to get to a... Continue Reading

“Though the biblical mandate to care for widows should be sufficient motive for our churches, consider some of the struggles widows experience. These seven factoids should give you at least a glimpse of the need for ministries to widows in your church.”   This verse in Scripture cannot be more compelling or clearer: “Pure and... Continue Reading

Once saved through faith in the Person and finished work of Christ, God’s people get brought into the most glorious organism in the universe; the church. Though often messy and seemingly mundane, the NT kind of local church is God’s best, no-alternative plan for humanity this side of heaven. In and through such churches, God brings... Continue Reading

Perhaps the most appropriate lesson to be learned on this point, then, is simply not to make assumptions too quickly about how Christians did things in the past. It’s all too easy to project our own ideas and customs on to persons or groups that inhabit days gone by, and then to turn around and... Continue Reading