“In this connection it is not claimed that an unsaved person must come to know every phase of truth about the atonement of Christ before he is divinely prepared for salvation; but it is claimed that the Spirit proposes to make the meaning of the cross sufficiently clear to that person as to enable him […]
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Author: Rick Shrader
Puffed Up Or Built Up?
If a person is offended by God’s Word, that is his problem. If he is offended by biblical doctrine, standards, or church discipline, that is his problem. That person is offended by God. But if he is offended by our unnecessary behavior or practices—no matter how good and acceptable those may be in themselves—his problem […]
Three Biblical Baptisms
I confess three types of baptism: that of the Spirit given internally in faith; that of water given externally through the oral confession of faith before the church; and that of blood in martyrdom or on the deathbed. . . . John names these three baptisms with which all Christians must be baptized “the three […]
Redefinition Evangelism
The gospel partakes of what has been called the “scandal of particularity.” This particularity is sometimes embarrassing to Christians who want to be sophisticated and tolerant, but the specificity is essential to the gospel. Christianity is not a vague cosmic optimism, a utopian vision of everyone loving one another, a formula for success and happiness, […]
Ashamed of the Gospel
Ashamed Of The Gospel What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. Albert Camus1 The above quote from a well-known unbeliever is an amazing admission of […]
Lying – The Denial of God’s Reality
Truth forever on the scaffold Wrong forever on the throne Yet that scaffold sways the future, and Behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above His Own ~James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis Not long ago, in a prophetic way, the Boston Globe reported, “In our culture, it is not […]
Loving The Unlovely
I suspect that many of us, in our quest after holiness, have imagined that being filled with the love of God would flood our consciousness with a kind of contemplative rapture, or a sense of infinite satisfaction. That is why many have developed a ‘holiness’ turned inward instead of outward; mystical instead of practical; self-centered […]
Technological Symbolism Over Substance
Postmodernism’s pragmatic instrumental view of language is why image is everything in our culture. Language is not neutral but a tool by which those in power or in control of the media can manipulate and construct reality.1 Timothy Phillips and Dennis Okholm I believe it was Confucius who said, “When words lose their meaning, people […]
Christmas Missions
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n with healing in His wings. Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth. Hark! the herald angels sing, […]
Those Biblical Oxymora
The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. . . I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist’s pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the […]