Triune Love
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. he who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8 (NKJV) The prominent Roman Catholic theologian, Hans urs von Balthasar, was once asked why there was a […]
Why We Should be Wary of Adding Extra-Biblical Rituals to our Worship
by Philippe Sterling1, originally published in the Jan/Feb, 2010 edition of Grace in Focus as “Return to Ritual, Pt 2”2 What are some reasons for not returning to the rituals of historic Christianity? A. MOST LITURGICAL PRACTICES ARE NOT DERIVED FROM APOSTOLIC TEACHING. The return to liturgy from the “historical church” may be inconsistent with […]
2006: A Tough Year for Assurance
By Bob Wilkin Over the course of ten years, our annual conference had been growing dramatically. Our first conference had 35 attendees. In 2006, our 11thconference, we had 350, a tenfold increase. One year later, at the 2007 annual GES conference, we had 160 attendees. In the ten years since then our attendance has ranged […]
How to Persevere Through Trials
In February of 1982 I was hired to be the pastor of a very small (25 people) Bible church in the Dallas area. I pastored that church as I finished the master’s program at DTS and then during my doctoral work. Sharon and I went to Arkansas for a week of vacation the last week […]
Why You Need Basic Bible Knowledge
I was speaking about John’s Gospel to a man who was a life-long Baptist and had attended Church for over fifty years. At the time, we were discussing John the Baptist’s Aaronic heritage and how that fit into the meaning of John 1, when I casually mentioned that John was killed before the end of […]
Not Impressed?
For most of us, there is a tendency to be impressed when we meet people of accomplishment. The world certainly has its ways of measuring the greatness of individuals. The same thing is true in the Christian world. When we speak of pastors, for example, we often measure greatness by the size of that pastor’s […]
When Compromise is Destructive
For many people, there is a strong desire for compromise. We all find ourselves in situations where we do not see eye to eye with others around us. In many of these instances, the other people involved are people with whom we want to have some kind of relationship. Compromise is the way to bring […]
One Way You Should Emulate Martin Luther
“For several years he [Martin Luther] read through the whole Bible twice a year, cover to cover. He characterized his reading with phrases like “rapping on it” or “knocking on it” for it to open; he “stormed” it or “tasted” individual verses.”—Thomas Kaufmann, A Short Life of Martin Luther, p 60. The Reformation was fueled […]
Do Not Defile Christ’s Church — Build Up the Body
On January 1, 1985 I was asked by the elders of my church to resign as pastor, effective immediately. I did as they asked and wrote a nice resignation letter. Through a strange series of events, Sharon and I ended up going back to that same Bible church four years later. After a time I […]
One Way to Prepare for Any Decision
Every person wrestles with making decisions. We make decisions every day such as what clothes to where, whether to check social media right now or read the Bible, whether to order fries or Brussel sprouts with a hamburger, whether to eat out in the first place, etc… As well, we all face “larger” decisions at […]