Gospel Living

There's been quite a fervor of social justice issues entering into the church, including otherwise theologically-sound groups. Reformed voices decry white privilege, reprimand churches for not doing enough, and call for systematic changes throughout society. CrossPolitic held an excellent discussion panel back in January that will hopefully help get the church back to it's gospel mission and some common sense. Media: MP3 More info from the post :  CrossPolitic Live at NSA: A Discussion on Church and Race with Dr. Voddie Baucham and Pastor Doug Wilson 1:26:51 | Recorded on January 27, 2017 Coming at you live from New Saint Andrews College, CrossPolitic host a discussion on Church and race with Dr. Voddie Baucham and Pastor Doug Wilson.  This topic gets a lot of attention in our culture and in our churches, but with little substance or progress in the conversations.  Adding to the challenges of this discussion, we have race riots, situation...

The world's issue du jour . As we consider the cultural conversations swirling around, we must do so with caution and wisdom.  Our commitments today set our churches on trajectories, and may they be God-oriented ones.  Whereas a dedicated love of neighbor seems to fit that description, it may not.  To help us see the danger in this, we need only to learn from the decline of mainline denominations. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology (pp. 875-876) gives this helpful description of liberal Protestant churches: It is helpful at this point to remember that classical liberal Protestantism is humanistic, and its approaches are primarily man-centered rather than God-centered. When a church begins to stray from faithfulness to Christ, this will be evident not only in the shift to impure doctrine (which can sometimes be concealed from church members by the use of evasive language) ...  Pausing here for a moment is important to our understanding, because we often...

21  And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22  Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23  and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24  And he went with him. Jesus, rejected by the people on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, returns to Capernaum on the northeastern shore.  Not much time had passed, so we are not surprised to find this crowd of people awaiting Him.  Indeed, the crowds of the opposing shores represent opposing reactions to the ministry of Christ—one of rejection and one of welcome.  Nonetheless, Jesus didn’t follow just anyone in the jubilant crowd, and we see a hint of the only reaction to Christ that means anything. It’s not enough to simply have a positive view of Je...

So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. One of the trends within Evangelicalism of late is animal activism.  It’s true Scripture that teaches proper stewardship this world, and that those who lack empathy for other living creatures become cruel beasts themselves (cf. Pv 12:10).  Even so, we must also affirm the principle of the imago dei of man—that human beings bear the image of God universally and uniquely.  These principles come to bear in this account. Jesus knew that the spirits wanted to remain for their own nefarious purposes.   These wicked spirits begged Him in v. 10 not to send them out of the country, screeching with disrespect all the while.  So, their request to remain in the country and go into the herd of pigs would seem to indicate they sought to somehow further interfere with Christ’s wor...