Archive for November 2015
A Worthy Walk – Part 3
Jim Oesterwind Part 1 ♦ Part 2 “You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who…
Read MoreMeditating on God’s Blessings
Beneth Jones To the born-again Christian, Thanksgiving is far more than a designated day in autumn. It is — or should be — a state of being. With Jeremiah we can say, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is…
Read MoreProsperity and Poison
Aaron Blumer Prepare your heart for Christmas … and Black Friday! Last summer our garage acquired a new addition to its collection of lethal chemicals: a bottle of fungicide now adorns a high shelf. The chemical’s intended purpose is to keep the tomatoes alive and prospering, and it has proved to be wonderful stuff. But…
Read MoreThe Qur’an: Another Gospel
John C. Vaughn The Christian doctrines of inspiration and preservation explain the reverence that Bible believers have for the Word of God, but there are also Islamic doctrines of inspiration and preservation that explain the Muslims’ loyalty to the Qur’an. Some unbelievers are quick to argue that the “holy books” of various religions have only…
Read MoreA Worthy Walk – Part 2
Jim Oesterwind Part 1 is here. “You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls…
Read MoreWorth Reading — The Christian Ministry
Charles Bridges’ The Christian Ministry Mark Minnick In 1839, a saintly young Scottish pastor named Robert Murray M’Cheyne took up his pen to write to his dear friend, Andrew Bonar, about a trip to the Holy Land. The purpose of the six-month visit was to inquire into the state of the Jews in the hopes…
Read MoreHome Sweet Home
Ben Strohbehn An architect can design a house. A contractor can build a house. But only God can transform a house into a home. Do you remember the song, “Home, Sweet Home”? Remember how it begins? ‘Mid pleasures and palaces, Though we may warn, Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home. But…
Read MoreIs American Christianity Capitulating to Islam?
Wayne Bley Since 9/11 there have been over 20,000 terrorist attacks around the world.1 In addition, many hundreds of attacks have been interdicted in the planning phase or were found and cleared after being emplaced but before they could be activated. The number of Christians in Iraq has decreased from over 1.5 million before the…
Read MoreIslam on the Mission Field
Anonymous What effects do missionaries feel as the result of Islam on the foreign field? There are varying responses, depending on the field in question. The answer will be influenced by how large a percentage of the local population belongs to Islam and, more importantly, how much of the government is in the hands of…
Read MoreThe Value of Small Churches
Don Johnson Last week we published “The Significance of Small Church Ministry,” where I began to look at the subject of small churches. In that article I was focusing mostly on numbers and their implications. I plan to return to that theme in the future, but today I want to talk about the value of…
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