What is the fundamental, common DNA of every person who says they are a Christian? Today we look at that very issue in 2 Corinthians 5 and see that the answer is “the Gospel”. It is fundamental to an individual being a Christian and essential to the life of a church. MP3 download.

Music video by Kenny Chesney with The Wailers performing Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven. (C) 2008 Sony Music Entertainment

 

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Have you ever prayed that God would forgive your sins after you became a Christian? But didn’t Jesus take-on and didn’t God forgive all of your sins on the basis of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus? Do you, as a Christian, still have to keep tabs on your sinful choices in order to get forgiven? What if you don’t remember a sinful act or don’t ask in a right way, are you not forgiven? But does this mean that a Christian can live anyway he or she wants? After all, they are forgiven… right? Today we will continue the teaching called: “Forgiveness… for the Christian?” that will help you think through this issue that has so many …

 

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The way of Santa and the way of Jesus clearly mark the distinction in the two fundamental approaches toward spiritual living.

The way of Santa says,

You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town.

The way of Jesus says,

“I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:15).
“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

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During Sunday’s Gospel Conversations class, I quoted a bit from a great book I read over the summer: Questioning Evangelism. The title does not mean the author questions the value of evangelism — rather, he advocates evangelism that is characterized by asking lots of questions. If you want a smart, fresh take on evangelism, I highly recommend this book. (Also see the review at 9Marks.)

Here’s the quote I read during our class, which focused on the gravity of sin and the fact that we can’t really understand the Gospel

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I’m not usually fond of blogs that quote a blog quoting a book, but Justin Taylor has been reading Paul Tripp’s Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy and posted an excerpt that I find extremely insightful and personally convicting…

Sin lives in a costume, that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party.

Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth.
Lust can masquerade as a love for beauty.
Gossip

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In this past Sunday’s God Questions series, we tackled the question: If God loves the world so much then why is there so much pain in this world? In talking about that, we mentioned that pain was introduced with the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Astute listeners have pointed out that in Genesis 3:16, God gives Eve (and all women after her) the bad news that He would increase her pain in childbirth. This implies that there was at least some pain in childbirth before the fall.

This is correct. When we said that pain came after the fall, we meant pain in the sense of pain, suffering, and grief. The central

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The Doctrine of God: Week 20
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, by Wayne Grudem.
Chapter 14, Creation:  Why, how, and when did God create the universe?

This week we continue a discussion on why, how, and when God created the universe.  Here we begin discussing areas where some disagreements exist among believers.

 

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Have you ever thought about how incredible the idea of a person rising from the dead?  How you ever thought of the impossibility of this kind of belief?  Well, you wouldn’t be the first.  Throughout history the resurrection of Christ has met with every response possible ranging from sneers to apathy to those that embrace the belief that Jesus did rise from the dead and lives on.  We see this spectrum of opinion in Acts 17:32-33, when it says that “when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.  But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’  But some men joined him and believed…”

Today we will follow the pen of the

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This past Sunday Jeff Stables handed me a Wall Street Journal article entitled, Banned from the Church. The article presented a freakish view into the lives of people who have been disciplined by pastors across the Country in all types of churches. The writer, Alexander Alter, frames the church somewhere between a ravenous monster and an anemic institution trying to scrap together an authoritative stance in the lives its parishners. Frank Turk replies in an effort to create distance between churches that abuse their authority while maintaining the value that expelling people for sinful activity has in the life of a church.

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The Bible says that it is for freedom Christ has set us free (v.1). In our last teaching time we saw the game-plan (Gal. 6:1-2) to deal with people who call themselves followers of Christ (“Christians”) yet are displaying the works of the flesh (5:19-21). Today, we will look at three things that hold us back from helping people who are spiritually unhealthy and some specific signs to look for when a person has been restored to spiritual health again.

 

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