Leadership. Preaching. Ministry. theology.
1st Peter 3:15 commands us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” The word “answer” is “apologiav” in the Greek and means “defense or a thoughtful defense of the faith.” One of the areas we need to “answer” has to do with alleged contradictions in the Bible.
Which of the following approaches to alleged contradictions fulfills 1st Pet. 3:15?
Read moreIt is becoming common to hear preachers “finding Jesus” in every text of Scripture. Many name recognized Bible Scholars and popular writers advocate a Christological hermeneutic that forces Christ onto every text. Albert Mohler in He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World wrote:
Every single text of Scripture points to Christ. He is the Lord of all, and therefore He is the Lord of the Scriptures too. From Moses to the prophets, He is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him, and every story in the Bible ends with Him.[1]
Read moreAn unwillingness to forgive is sometimes described as burying the hatchet but leaving the handle sticking out. Country music singer Garth Brooks actually wrote a song about forgiveness called We Bury the Hatchet But Leave the Handle Stickin’ Out
Read moreMichael Bryson, a first-time father, surprised his wife on her first Mother’s Day. He did so by bringing their six-month old son, Jason, to the hospital where she worked as a nurse. After the balloons and the laughing and the sharing was over, Miriam returned to her post and her two men returned to the car for the trip home.
You can imagine that getting all the stuff back into the car was not an easy job. Michael balanced the baby carrier on the roof of the car while tossing the candy in the front seat, arranging the flowers on the floor, and wrestling the balloons out of the wind into the backseat. Finally, he got everything arranged and headed home.
Suddenly, other drivers began to honk at Michael and flash their lights. He could not figure out what was happening, until he hit about 55 miles per hour on the highway and heard a scraping sound move across the top of his car. Then, Michael watched in horror through the rearview mirror as the baby carrier – and Jason – slid off the roof, bounced on the trunk, dropped to the road, and began to toboggan down the highway behind the car.
Read moreWord of Faith Rod Parsley is pastor of World Harvest Church in Cleveland, Ohio. He said, “Forget Paul’s Thorn! We know God has the power to heal…It is His absolute and perfect will to heal you. We do not have to sift through Paul’s thorn, Job’s boils, or Timothy’s sick stomach to try to understand the perfect will of God. You must realize Paul’s infirmity was not in his flesh; it was his soulish man-his mind, his will, and emotions. We know this because he told us the thorn was a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him…. It is time preachers stop trying to make excuses for their lack of faith and understanding of the Word of God” (Repairers of the Breach, page 267, 268).
Read more"The Olivet Discourse is not about the Second Coming of Christ. It is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70." --David Chilton (Preterist)"
Read moreMichael Horton states the importance of inerrancy: “Whatever the holy, unerring, and faithful Father speaks is-----simply by virtue of having come from him----holy, unerring, and faithful” (page 184).
Read moreEric Liddell’s story was told in one of my favorite movies, Chariot’s of Fire. He was called “The Flying Scotsman” after the record breaking locomotive. He wanted to compete in the Summer Olympic games, while his family wanted him to begin his missionary career in China. He decided to put off his missionary work until after the Olympics. His family was very unhappy with his decision. When he made the British Olympic team, he went to the games in Paris in 1924. However, when he arrived, he found out that the qualifying heats for the 100-meter, his best event, were to be held on Sunday. He had made up his mind that he would not race on Sunday – and instead, he preached in a church in Paris that da
Read moreThe Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation is the sacramental view that the elements of the Lord’s Supper are miraculously transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ by the priest’s consecration which is sacerdotalism. At the moment the priest says, “This is my body” the element becomes the literal body of Christ according to Catholicism. For centuries, the RCC did not allow lay people to drink from the cup, for fear that the blood of Christ would be spilled but Vatican II (1962-1965) changed this (Grudem, Systematic Theology, page 991).
Read moreBy John Maxwell
We are to grow as leaders in order to grow leaders (2 Tim. 2:1, 2). “The best thing leaders can do for their organization is to grow personally” (Blackaby, Spiritual Leadership, p. 31).
LAW # 1: The Law of the Lid
Leadership Ability Determines a Person’s Level of Effectiveness
There is a difference between management and leadership. Leaders focus more on dreaming the vision of the future: Joseph (Gen. 37). Managers analyze the details of today. Leaders spend more time looking for opportunities. Managers smooth out current situations. Leaders focus more on people: Be a Barnabas (Acts 4:36; 9:27; 11:26; 15:37). Managers focus on accomplishing tasks. Leaders prefer high risks environments. Managers prefer safety zones. Leaders have a bias toward creativity, fluidity, and innovations. Managers have a bias toward preservation, protection, and procedure.
Maxwell talks about the Lid Blockers in your life that keep you from growing as a leader. A lid blocker would by anger (Prov. 16:32; 1 Tim. 3:4; 3:5).
Read moreIt is becoming common to hear preachers “finding Jesus” in every text of Scripture. Many name recognized Bible Scholars and popular writers advocate a Christological hermeneutic that forces Christ onto every text. Albert Mohler in He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World wrote:
Every single text of Scripture points to Christ. He is the Lord of all, and therefore He is the Lord of the Scriptures too. From Moses to the prophets, He is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him, and every story in the Bible ends with Him.[1]
Read moreOnly 13 percent of Americans see all Ten Commandments as binding on us today. Ninety-one percent lie regularly---at home and at work. In answer to the question, “Whom have you regularly lied to?” the statistics included 86 percent to parents and 75 percent to friends. A third of AIDS carriers admit to not having told their lovers. Most workers admit to goofing off for an average of seven hours---almost one whole day---a week, and half admit that they regularly call in sick when they are perfectly well.
The survey also posed the question, “What are you willing to do for $10 million?” Twenty-five percent would abandon their families, 23 percent would become a prostitute for a week, and 7 percent would kill a stranger. Think of it! In a gathering of 100 Americans, there are seven who would consider killing you if the price was right. In 1,000 there are seventy (R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, Wheaton. Illinois: Crossway, 1991, 119).
Obviously, the command by God “Be you holy” (1 Peter 1:16) is rampantly disobeyed
Read moreMy first funeral was for 5-year-old Jimmy who died of leukemia. I preached the funeral of my 103-year-old grandmother. I have preached the funeral two suicides. One was saved and one was unsaved. I have preached the funerals of total strangers. I have preached the funeral of preachers. This past year, I preached the funeral of my Dad.
Preaching funerals is a delicate ministry and also a great opportunity to minister God’s Word and point the grieving to “the God of all Comfort” ( 2 Corinthians 1:3).
So how do we conduct a funeral?
Read moreThis was David’s statement that was not made in vanity but in the worship of his great Creator/God. Our study of the nature of man should also move us to worship our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
As Ryrie brought out in his introduction to chapter 32, man has a material part with a variety of features such as arteries, veins, brains, muscles, etc. All of us are agreed on this facet of man’s nature. Man also has an immaterial part with a variety of features such as soul, spirit, heart, will, mind, etc. This is where we agree to disagree on the nature of man. This is not a hill we must die on. But we do want to be as accurate and precise as possible when it comes to interpreting the Bible.
Read more1. What are the strengths of the Intelligent Design Arguments/Movement?
Douglas Groothuis wrties that ID “opens a door for Christian apologetics that would otherwise be closed” (Christian Apologetics, 268). The argument of irreducible complexity seen in the human eye, the flagellum, and DNA irrefutably show intelligent design. Of course, materialistic evolutionists reject this evidence with counterarguments. Groothuis concludes that ID should take its rightful place in the overall circle of evidence. Standing alone, it cannot provide a full apologetic for Christianity.
Read moreIn chapter six, Frame states that the main task is to isolate the Bible’s own argument, rationale, for the truth of the gospel message. Frame argues that only the Christian worldview presents God as an absolute person. Earlier chapters prove this. Also, this absolute personality is found mainly in God’s Word not the Quran and other religious books which though dependent on the Bible distort it.
Read moreIn chapter 5, Apologetics as Proof: Theistic arguments, John Frame presents traditional arguments for the existence of God with a Van Tillian conclusion: nothing is intelligible unless God exists, and God must be nothing less than the Trinitarian, sovereign, transcendent, and immanent absolute personality of the Scripture.
Read moreIn chapter four, Apologetics as Proof: Transcendental Argument, Frame states that the transcendental argument for God’s existence (hereafter TAG), a form of argumentation that has become something of the bread and butter of presuppositionalists. Cornelius Van Til sometimes referred this view as transcendental and sometimes presuppostional.
Read moreIn chapter three, Apologetics as Proof: Some Methodological Considerations, and the next three chapters, John M. Frame discusses one, proof, of the three aspects of apologetics that he discusses in chapter one:
1. Apologetics as proof: presenting a rational basis for faith or “proving Christianity to be true.”
2. Apologetics as defense: answering the objections of unbelief.
3. Apologetics as offense: attacking the foolishness of unbelieving thought.
Read moreIn chapter two, The Message of the Apologist, Frame states that “the apologist’s message, ultimately, is nothing less than the whole of Scripture, applied to the need of his hearers.” Frame summarizes the message of Scripture from two perspectives. The first is Christianity as a philosophy, and second, Christianity as good news.
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