A number of interesting natural and unnatural things have happened in the last few days. We have seen an amazing solar eclipse which happens only a couple times in most people’s life time. Some people go too far on one side making such an eclipse a biblical sign from God, and others go too far […]
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Author: Rick Shrader
The Law of Liberty
The “Law of Liberty” has always struck me as a perfect oxymoron. How can you be under the law if you are at liberty? Or how can you be at liberty if you are under the law? Isn’t this kind of like jumbo shrimp? How can you have it both ways? Yet the New Testament […]
Who Needs The Local Church?
This is a day of convenience, quick on-line shopping, and instant everything. It is almost possible for a person to live one’s whole life without leaving the house. If someone can arrange to work from home, the rest is easy. You can do all of your banking online, shop for almost anything and have it […]
Is It Enough To Say I’m Sorry? or, Does
We’ve all heard it and we’ve all done it. We even forced our little ones to say “I’m sorry” to another child who has been hurt in some way. We’ve also forgiven those little ones for things that are serious sins in an adult. A two-year-old may steal another child’s toy three or four times […]
Human Nature, America, and the Church
America and, therefore, the Christian church are experiencing an upheaval unique to the present age but unlike any phenomenon in recent history. Cultural watchers have described it as post-Christian, post-modern, post-morality, slouching toward Gomorrah, God is dead, and also with Biblical terminology such as the great apostasy, the one-world church, the harlot of Revelation, etc. […]
What About Foot Washing?
It’s not unusual to be asked about baptism or the Lord’s Supper but in conjunction with that the question of foot washing as an ordinance of the church often comes up. I usually reply that I certainly believe in foot washing, especially for boys under ten years old! But why is it that I do […]
Biblical Leadership
Not the number of one’s servants, but the number whom one serves, is the heavenly criterion of greatness and the real preparation for leadership. Oswald Sanders What is Biblical leadership? Everyone seems to know these days and yet no one seems to know. All of us who […]
When God Closes the Door
The foremost belief of a sinner who refuses God’s grace is that the consequences of that refusal will never come. Surely anyone who truly understood and believed in what the Bible teaches about heaven and hell would not take such a chance as this. But, of course, the fact is that such a person does […]
It’s Time To Start Again
Well, it’s time to start again. On January 1st no one writing columns really knows how to say anything new. As a pastor who must preach a fresh sermon every Christmas and Easter and all the other holidays, and has been doing it for most of my life, I can tell you I repeat myself […]
Is Christmas Hateful?
Have you wondered why Christ has been banned from the holiday which bears His name, Christmas? Or why Christianity alone is banned in a country which bears the insignia, “In God we trust?” Never mind the fatal inconsistency that in America everything is tolerated except what can’t be tolerated. And what can’t be tolerated? Anything […]