Despite the God-ordained diversity of giftedness within the body of Christ, and even the providential diversity of gender, ethnicity, educational level, and socio-economic status, we… Read More »Spiritual Unity Is not Natural
In some cases, “lay” elders are introduced into Baptist churches because those doing so believe that a plurality of elders is an explicit or implicit… Read More »Elders in a Baptist Church: Plural, Yea; Lay, Nay (2)
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul notes the beautiful of the church’s diversity, as the Spirit of God gifts each individual believers with particular functions within… Read More »Spiritual Unity in the Church
I’ll sometimes hear the claim from some men that a plurality of elders, made up of “staff elders” and “lay elders” in a local church,… Read More »Elders in a Baptist Church: Plural, Yea; Lay, Nay (1)
There is a lot of discussion about diversity and identity today, both in the wider culture and among Christians. Unfortunately, such discussions often are not… Read More »Functional Diversity in the Church
The body of Christ is something bigger than the local church, and believers should in theory be able to serve at one church just as… Read More »Thoughts on Local Church Membership, Then and Now
Reading Spurgeon is a sheer delight to the heart. At the same time, it is often faintly discouraging to the preacher. How could a preacher… Read More »Spurgeon Uncut and Unpasted
The term “social justice” has become quite a buzz word in evangelical circles in recent years. Social matters like immigration, racial reconciliation, and sexuality are… Read More »What’s wrong with the recent evangelical “social justice” movements?
This is the sixth post in this series (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5). The whole of the first five parts could be summarized… Read More »Love for Christ & Scripture-Regulated Worship 6: Love for Christ and New Testament Authority
Of the little pilot-fish words that swim alongside the more commonly mangled word, culture, two of the more frequently heard are multicultural and diversity. In… Read More »Unicultural Uniformity
Thus far, I have attempted to establish a biblical basis for individual Christian cultural activity, but when Christians gather together as local churches, the picture… Read More »The Church’s Unique Mission
In discussions of evangelizing the post-modern West, something is often forgotten. Those cultures which were formed by Christianity and have since abandoned it are not… Read More »Pagan Culture and Apostate Culture
In the first post, I introduced Scripture Regulated Worship and the topic of this series. In this post, I consider some of the most important… Read More »Love for Christ & Scripture-Regulated Worship 2: Arguments for RPW
Galatians 6:10 gives a concise statement that prioritizes our personal giving as believers and guides the church’s stewardship of its resources. This verse states, “So… Read More »How Christians and Churches Prioritize Going About the Doing of Good
In Africa, particularly where black nationalist sentiments arise, it is not uncommon to hear the title of this post thrown around in conversation. Similarly, half-formed… Read More »We Don’t Want Your White Man’s Religion
A common error in the study of church history is to seek to find a version of one’s present branch of Christianity in the past.… Read More »Christian Culture in Church History
I present my children with two written tests. They open the envelope of the first, and see the heading, “Dad Orthodoxy”. A series of questions… Read More »Two Exams, and Two Questions
“Why this waste?”, said the greediest member of the Twelve. Judas’ supposed concern with helping the poor and for efficient use of ministry finances was… Read More »On Baby Grands and Expensive Hymnals
Modern Christian champions of relevance mean many things by the term. One use is the concept of intelligibility. When calling for the church to be… Read More »Relevance and Intelligibility
When some people speak of “making Christianity relevant”, they are referring to demonstrating Christianity’s importance and applicability. They fret over the fact that unbelievers and… Read More »Relevance and Importance