The subject of whether or not a Christian should drink alcoholic beverages may be today’s most controversial Christian subject, especially among younger believers. John MacArthur just posted an article on his website titled, “Beer, Bohemianism, and True Christian Liberty,” which begins, “If everything you know about Christian living came from blogs and websites in the […]
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Author: Rick Shrader
A New Kind of Liberalism
Christianity Liberalism In 2001 Brian McLaren wrote A New Kind of Christian1in which he made bold statements against orthodox Christian beliefs. He proposed that heaven and hell are really the same place which some will enjoy and some will not;2 salvation belongs to everyone because God loves everyone and, therefore all will eventually be […]
The Highways and Hedges
I found the joy of the salvation of others. Oh, the privilege, the blessed privilege, to be used of God to win a soul to Christ, and to see a man or woman being led out of bondage by some act of ours toward them. To think that God should condescend to allow us to […]
A Word About Small Churches
There is no more satisfying statement to the New Testament believer than John’s on the Isle of Patmos, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). That says everything to us. John was a believer who possessed the Holy Spirit, who, though no one else cared what he did that day, made […]
In The Law of Christ
When Paul wrote that if we walked in the Spirit we would not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:16) and that if we bore one another’s burdens we would fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2), he was lifting us to higher ground than we commonly know. To the Romans he wrote, “for […]
Why We Love The Brethren
Love is one of those things that almost all people think they possess. Brotherly love is something that almost all believers would say they possess and practice as well as most Christians. We know God has loved the world of people, that believers ought to love other believers, and yet we also know that there […]
In Jesus’ Name
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. 13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in […]
The Providence of God and why we are tha...
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thes. 5:18). “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20). One of the most difficult things for us to do is to give God […]
Apostasy, Then and Now
I think we have finally gotten over any love of Halloween in our churches. That pagan holiday with its ghosts and goblins, witches and broomsticks, can thankfully be gone from our church calendars. I don’t know of any Christian church that celebrated it this year. When the origins of customs remain unknown and harmless (such […]
Is Holiness A Doctrine?
I was born in 1950. The last half of the twentieth century and now into the first half of the twenty first has been an interesting time to be alive. In addition to the fast and ever-changing world in which we live, I think the church life of the average American believer has been an […]