Tag: Church

February 8, 2011 / / Church

Concerning the Collection for the Saints

One of the very first commands God gave man was to give. Cain and Abel were asked to give a sacrifice to God, appropriate to His will. God, explaining to Cain why his offering was not acceptable, states in Genesis 4:7,

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

Giving an offering to God was not just a matter of convenience or the “thing to do,” giving was a serious action with serious consequences. If the giving was unacceptable, God explains, “sin lies at the door.”

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July 7, 2010 / / Church

The Church of Choice

The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:1-5: “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” 

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December 21, 2009 / / Church

What are you building?

As some of you know my wife and I are in North Carolina visiting my brother and his wife. We have been blessed with a safe journey so far. While driving around Wilmington I couldn’t help but notice the quantity and quality of the denominational “church” buildings.

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September 28, 2009 / / Church

A True Worshiper

  Too often I hear complaints such as “I don’t get anything out of the service”, “the church’s worship doesn’t inspire me” or “church is boring”. I wish I could say that I don’t relate to these complaints, but the fact is I do. I’ve felt those same things before and the only conclusion I could draw to fix the problem was that something needed to change.

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August 3, 2009 / / Church

Gender in Church Leadership and Worship

Consideration of the question of female church leadership and the place of women in the communal worship of Christian assemblies is of increasing importance in Western churches and religious bodies.  As women have gained prominence and assumed positions of authority in secular institutions so have they advanced to leadership in religious organizations, albeit slowly and with more opposition.  Some denominations have endorsed and encouraged women to go into the “ministry”, while others have not permitted this at all.  Still others have concluded to allow a combination of husband-wife “pastor teams” or boards with both genders fully represented.  I have been asked before why the church doesn’t allow women to be ordained to office or to lead the congregation in its worship of God.  The simplest answer, which I still give, is, “the Bible doesn’t permit the ordination of women.”  Let us review a few passages and I will throw in my two cents on this important discussion.

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July 29, 2009 / / Church

The Kingdom

Like most Jews at the time of Christ, the Apostles asked this question in anticipation of an earthly kingdom in which the Christ would reign over the Earth and restore Israel to its original majesty. Now, 2,000 years later, many people still wait for the day when temporal governments will be thwarted, the Kingdom will be established, and the Lord will rule on David’s throne from Jerusalem.

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March 24, 2009 / / Church

The Apostles, the Prophets, and the Cornerstone

The word of God teems with imagery.  From Pharoah and Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dreams, to Revelation’s well-known apocalyptic symbolism, to Jesus’ many memorable parables (“The kingdom of heaven is like…”), God employs imagery throughout Scripture to reveal His will.  Speaking to the mind’s eye, the Bible’s imagery encourages us to first envision its truths that we might then be enlightened by them.

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