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 […]
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Author: Rick Shrader
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 […]
Things that Peep and Mutter
“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no […]
Hiding The Gospel From Faith Alone
No thinking person likes it when a salesman beats around the bush before explaining the reason he’s talking with him. Who likes to get those dinner-time calls asking for someone by name, as if it were an old friend, that turn out to be telemarketers? Beating around the bush, bait and switch, hawking one’s wares, […]
The Bema Seat of Christ
The Bema Seat of Christ is the Judgment Seat of Christ. “Bema” is the transliteration of the Greek word and “Judgment” is the usual English translation of that word. Paul appeared at Gallio’s bema seat in Corinth (Acts 18:12), at Herod’s bema seat in Caesarea (Acts 23:35), and at Nero’s bema seat in Rome (Acts […]
Will The Church Be The Church?
I have written much lately about the church being the church in today’s world. It has been my contention that the local church of Jesus Christ needs to be about doing the Father’s business and not the world’s or the government’s or the devil’s business. The local church of Jesus Christ is God’s instrument on […]
Politics, Social Issues, and the Church
How much should the churches and their pastors be involved in politics and social issues? The points of view on this have changed dramatically in my own life-time due first of all to the rise of the Moral Majority in the early 1980s and now again with the obvious secularization of American culture, including government, […]
Separation: A Christian Perspective (Pa...
In the second part of this article I want to apply the Biblical doctrine of separation to seven areas of our Christian lives. We continue to focus on how we can be in the world without becoming part of the world. John Newton, the English pastor and song writer, wrote the following answer in a […]
Separation: A Christian Perspective (Pa...
The Bible teaches a doctrine of separation. Biblical separation is not a mere occurrence as politeness or rudeness. Separation is something that is commanded by God in the Scripture and something that was lived out by prophets, patriarchs, and apostles, as well as the Son of God Himself. To be “holy” as God is holy, […]
New Testament Heralds
This article appeared in the Spring 2003 (Vol 13, No. 1) issue of The Baptist Preacher’s Journal Introduction Perhaps the most seldom used title in the Bible for the minister is “Preacher.” It translates the noun form of the word kerux (kerux) which means “a herald.” Though the English word “Preacher” appears four times, one […]