Gospel Living

Women in Ministry | Various Texts Shaun Marksbury | Quacco Baptist Church Sunday Evening Service | 2 July, 2017 My proposition to you isn’t that we should let the Bible lead, something I think everyone in this room already believes.  In fact, I imagine that the Bible is so clear that you will agree with about 90% of what I have to say.  My proposition is that the Bible gives us clear guidance on this issue—that is that ordained men should lead in church services, start to finish.   Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5cX9sDv0SQ Audio: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=73171819491 Sermon Notes Women in Ministry | Various Texts Shaun Marksbury | Quacco Baptist Church Sunday Evening Service | 2 July, 2017 I.                Introduction The message this evening comes from a series of related questions that many people in the congregation have been ask...

No, not that Tim Conway.  From the video description: Everyone tends to agree that men and women are equal, in that both are created in the image of God. However the big question that comes up is whether men and women are equal in their roles? One side says they are, and the other says the different roles complement each other. Yet we must ask ourselves: What does the Bible say? In this Ask Pastor Tim we go to Genesis to look at both views. Video: MP3: http://illbehonest.com/complementarianism-and-egalitarianism-tim-conway

Sermon from Tim Foster, Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, GA on 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (audio only).  Foster carefully navigates the text to discern the proper order of worship while affirming the imago dei  and spiritual equality of women in Christ.

From the 2013  GCC  Men's Conference: Download MP3 Download Notes Purchase the Book (Amazon)

From the 2013  GCC  Men's Conference: Download MP3 Download Notes Purchase the Book (Amazon)

From the 2013  GCC  Men's Conference: Download MP3 Download Notes Purchase the Book (Amazon)

From the 2013 GCC Men's Conference: Download MP3 Download Notes Purchase the Book (Amazon)

(Preached on June 15, 2014 at Cornerstone Church of Savannah ) Mark Lowry will always be remembered best for the new Christmas classic, “Mary, Did You Know?” as well as his time with the Gathers. Back in the nineties, he also toured with his comedy routine, which included his recollections of certain fundamentalist preachers’ obsession with 1 Corinthians 10:13, that it is a shame for a man to have long hair. Lowry’s response was along the lines of, “ It says it’s a shame, not a sin. A lot of things are a shame. It’s a shame that it’s too hot in here… makes you glad that you’re not going to Hell! ” Every Christian faces the temptation to major on the marginal, to ignore the forest for a few verses, to build and refine teachings from scant biblical support. Driving off the road into the other temptation would be ignoring what the Bible does say because we think it’s not a big deal. Being biblical is not just believing what the Bible has to say, but balancing ourselves according...

Here's how it was, according to Be Not Surprised : Mark Driscoll kept his word and crashed the Strange Fire Conference, handing out free copies of his book A Call to Resurgence with James MacDonald watching from the car.  Grace Church security confronted Driscoll and offered to help him carry his books back to his car. Driscoll instead offered the lot to security as a gift to Grace Church, but then claimed on Twitter that they confiscated them. Both Driscoll or MacDonald stopped at the conference on their way to their own conference to supposedly instruct attendees to " act like men ." And that, in short order, is why conferences calling us back to the Word of God like Strange Fire are so necessary. UPDATE, 23 OCTOBER: Aw, the footage.  What a shame:

As Baptist Press reported earlier this year, "[C] hurches that host wedding ceremonies or other events for traditional couples should examine their bylaws and shield themselves from the impact of possible litigation, says an attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues ." This is on my mind as our church plant begins the process of drafting our constitution and bylaws, but it should also be on yours. BP continues: A number of situations could place churches in legal trouble, such as congregations who would:  -- allow a traditional couple but not a same-sex couple to use their facility for a wedding ceremony.  -- allow a traditional couple but not a same-sex couple to take part in a marriage class or retreat.  -- terminate an employee involved in a same-sex wedding.  Bylaw language defining marriage in the biblical sense doesn't mean a church won't face a suit or a complaint, but it does mean the church would be in a much better situation legally, ...

The Domain of Truth completed its week-long series on biblical counseling and the Christian's concern of psychology.  I recommend it, especially if you are unfamiliar with the differences between "Christian counseling" and the more biblical brand, or if you trust life's problems to the hands of a certified psychologist or psychiatrist. Choose Biblical Counseling Not Psychology: Part 1 Choose Biblical Counseling Not Psychology: Part 2 Depression Poem Pre-courtship Counseling: Seven Relationship Questions Courses: Pastoral Counseling Course by Dr. Stuart Scott Marriage and Family Counseling Course at The Master’s Seminary by John Street Westminster Theological Seminary’s Professors on Biblical Counseling Book Reviews: Review: One Nation Under Therapy by Christina Hoff Sommers, Sally L. Satel Review: Freud by R.J. Rushdoony Book Review of “Out of the Blues: Dealing with the Blues of Depression & Loneliness” by Wayne Mack I lift up my eye...

This  blog post title by Justin Taylor gives you a clue as to how well Rachel Held Evans' presents Scripture. Thomas Nelson Publishers thought " A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master' " good enough to print, and the secular media loves it.  The book presents an extension of the argument, "If you say you believe the Bible, then you also believe in stoning people, selling kids into slavery, and turning down shrimp cocktails."  The difference is that the author claims to be a Christian who knows the Bible. Justin Taylor recommends we read Kathy Keller's review (which I plan on doing and invite you to do the same), while highlighting the following: “you began your project by ignoring (actually, by pretending you did not know about) the most basic rules of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation that have been agreed upon for centuries.” “To ...

From Rick Thomas: Life Lesson 1  -  Your starting point will determine how you end. Start here: your parents are not perfect . Life Lesson 2  -   Life is not fair – get used to it! Life Lesson  3  -   The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. Life Lesson  4  -   If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. Life Lesson  5  -   Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity. Life Lesson  6  -   If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them. Life Lesson  7  -  Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you...

We teach our kids more than "right and wrong" when we discipline them - we teach them about how to deal with with our anger directed at others and disagreements.  We teach them the relationship between love and the correcting hand of a parent.  Therefore, how we discipline, from start to finish, is as important as the discipline itself. Do we demonstrate self-control?   Do we model authority under God when we call them to obey authority? Finally, are we more concerned with the child's behavior than the child's heart? Kevin DeYoung channels Martyn Lloyd-Jones and  posts the following : In  Ephesians 6:4 , God tells fathers (though I think the application is fair for both parents) to raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. He also warns against provoking our children to anger. So how do we do one without the other? How do we discipline exasperating kids without in turn exasperating them unnecessarily?  Commenting on th...

I surprised my history students when I said we probably should not have "under God" in the pledge.  Little sayings like "God bless America" and "In God We Trust" can salve our national conscience when we should be on our knees in a pool of tears, pleading for God's mercy. We assume God is for us, when the opposite is probably the case. Let James White explain:

And why are you anxious about clothing? (Mt 6:28) I've never been a believer that men must wear a three-piece suit to church, or that women are more holy if they sport ankle-length skirts (subdued in color, of course).  These things come from a past Christian sub-culture, one that wanted to honor God by seeing Sunday morning as a special occasion.  While I appreciate the sentiment, I've also seen how false it is in fundamentalist circles, especially among some women who want to compete for the snazziest-dresser award. Yet, I also cannot agree with a culture of so-called grace that seems to require folks to dress- down for church.  This too is a demonstration of pride—that fresh out-of-bed look, flip-flops, cut-off shorts, and Starbucks in hand dares people to notice how much this guy doesn't care what the highfalutin Pharisees think.  Right. I suppose it should not be surprising that this new Christian sub-culture of "you're not supposed to care what...

The numbers don't lie: In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.   If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.   If the...