Category Archives: Church

Ask for the ancient paths, the good way

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

mountain landscape. ancient paths

Highway construction is big business in this country. I love it when a new stretch of highway makes it easier to get where I’m going, and sometimes, I’ll drive on a new road just to see where it goes, whether I’ll ever use it or not. Sometimes, new construction completely obliterates an old road. The Bible says to ask for the ancient paths. What does it mean for the church today?

Thus says the Lord:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.

… Read the rest

The body of Christ: what is it and how does it function?

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

body of christ graphicThe Bible uses several metaphors to describe the church. All of Paul’s extended descriptions of God’s gifts give attention to various concepts I like to think of as the giftwrapping. Prominent among them is the metaphor of the human body. The church, that is, is not a building or a random group of people but the body of Christ.

The most extensive description of gifts (1 Corinthians 12-14) includes the most extensive description of the church as the body of Christ. Let’s take a careful look (quoting from CSB).

… Read the rest

The leaven of the Sadducees in the modern church

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Matthew 16:5-12). After a while, they understood that he was warning them against their teaching. Today, we speak much more of the Pharisees than the Sadducees. We have forgotten to beware of the leaven of the Sadducees in the church.

Mix leaven (yeast or baking powder) with a flour dough and the whole dough will rise. The leaven leaves no flour untouched. Although Jesus once compared the kingdom of heaven to leaven (Matthew 13:33), it usually signifies some kind of corrupting influence. If the leaven of the Sadducees corrupts good teaching, we need to consider what it is and how to identify it.… Read the rest

Speaking God’s word to a rebellious church

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

Does it require courage for a man of God to speak to the people of God?

It shouldn’t, but sometimes it does. God’s chosen people have consistently rebelled against God’s chosen leaders and messengers. They started against Moses. The rebellious church today continues in the same vein.

God called Ezekiel as prophet to the sons of Israel and told him not to be afraid of their looks or words.

And that’s after Ezekiel had seen four creatures that had four faces apiece. After it dawned on him that God himself appeared to him with them. People can be scarier than the weirdest supernatural visions. … Read the rest

Who wants to stone Jesus?

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

In John 8:59, a crowd wanted to stone Jesus. Today I’m going to start there and work backwards for a while. Why, you might ask, would I do that?

Careful writers often proofread from end to beginning. They have worked on their draft for so long they know what it’s supposed to say.

So they read the last paragraph, then the previous paragraph, and so on to the beginning. It shows what they otherwise might easily miss.

Reading familiar Bible passages from the end to the beginning can also show details we have probably read past before.

Who wanted to stone him?… Read the rest

When Christians ought to judge

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

Have you ever noticed that much of the American church today doesn’t like to mention sin?

Try saying aloud that something is sinful. If you’re not careful about what company you say it in, someone is bound to thunder, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

Why do they always quote it in King James? Simply because they have memorized it that way, and it becomes a handy club to beat up anyone who dares to criticize sin.

They have no clue that their use of the verse amounts to judgment of you, the one who dares to bring up the very idea of sin.… Read the rest

Peter, Rhoda, and feeble unbelief

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

 

Peter was miraculously delivered from prison. He had more trouble getting into a prayer meeting.

The story is told in Acts 12. It has a haunting resemblance to Jesus’ first resurrection appearance. In both cases, people who should have had faith show the sin of unbelief instead.

The chapter opens with the murder of James, one of Jesus’ inner circle.

The king apparently planned to follow it by executing Peter after a public show trial. Passover interfered with his plans, so he put Peter in prison under heavy guard.

Peter had no apprehension the night before his scheduled death. He was sound asleep, handcuffed to two guards.… Read the rest

Holy drunkenness on Pentecost

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

Did your church acknowledge Pentecost? If so, how? The church has become divided over the significance of the events of the first Christian Pentecost.

Pentecostals emphasize the supernatural events and consider them normative. Others fear them and try to explain them away.

Some even teach that God no longer performs supernatural acts and that anyone who claims otherwise follows the devil! So what happened? And what does it matter now?

… Read the rest

Fire, quail, and a worldly church

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

 

Have you ever noticed that some people just like to complain? They don’t even need a legitimate reason. Alas, you can easily find them in churches.

But here’s a better question. What is the effect when griping goes into overdrive? It would try the patience of a saint. Or in the case of an Old Testament illustration, Moses. Nobody comes out looking good in the sorry story told in Numbers 11.

We often refer to the people Moses led out of Egypt as the children of Israel. They never acted like grownups, did they? But according to Exodus 12:37-38, 600,000 Israelite men left Egypt, plus the women and children—plus a large number of other people.… Read the rest

Same-sex marriage, false prophets, and apostate priests

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

Dark cloudsA small but vocal minority of people have managed to redefine marriage in the United States by judicial fiat.

Justice Kennedy excused his setting aside all of human tradition on grounds that most Americans now accept same-sex marriage.

Ten years ago most Americans rejected it. Why the change?

Because the church failed to be the church. It followed the sorry pattern of Old Testament prophets and priests.

Judgment is coming. It will not be pleasant. “For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”… Read the rest