1 Corinthians 9:19-23 John and the Tardy Taxi Driver: I once heard the true story of a man from the United States who flew to another country on business. (We’ll call him John.) John was told that when he arrived at the destination airport, the friend of a friend, who was native to that country,…
Loving Our Neighbors in a Fallen World I recently ran across The Third Option (Simon and Schuster, 2018) by San Diego pastor Miles McPherson. The Third Option is an examination of race and racism informed by McPherson’s experiences as a self-described mixed-race individual who identifies as black, who has placed his faith in Jesus Christ,…
Psalm 2:10-12 The nations are raging. Protests have broken out across the world, raging against racial injustice. Protests have broken out across the U.S., leading 40 large cities to impose curfews to curb the violence. 62,000 National Guardsmen have been deployed, and more than 4400 people have been arrested.1 The “Antifa” (“Anti-Fascists”) are using the…
Guidelines for Worship in California on July 6 told worshipers of all kinds that that singing and chanting should not be allowed inside the church. Places of worship must, therefore, discontinue indoor singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower. Of course,…
[The following is a statement from John MacArthur and his church leadership on worship restrictions. His statement reflects what we have said here (Choosing Our Battles Biblically). These are not constitutional arguments, they are biblical ones. Gathering is a biblical command. Singing is too. So is observing the ordinances. Wearing or not wearing masks is…
How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered not a word. I Kings 18:21 Life is full of decision making. Christians and non-Christians make decisions differently because each have a different life authority. Those who are unsaved make decisions…
The interpreter of the New Testament faces an apparent contradiction when he reads that Cornelius was a “devout man, and one that feared God,” although he was clearly not yet regenerated, and then hears Paul affirming that “there is none righteous, no, not one. . . . There is none that doeth good, no, not…
One issue dominates the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians. It’s contention in the church. The Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli wrote: How does it happen that we Christians who are united by such powerful agencies have much greater quarrels than unbelievers? And how does it happen that in a Confederacy in which until now a fraternal…
Psalm 2:4-9 We began part 1 of this brief series by observing that society is in an uproar; “Why do the nations rage?” (Psalm 2:1). As we noted, “Civil unrest is brewing and the heat of this summer could easily light the fuse on the powder keg of societal problems.”1 And during these two weeks,…
Without whole faces to look at, its easy to interact with people around us in a much more detached way. Believers cannot afford to do that. We need to be diligent about seeing the hurt in the eyes of those around us. The pundits say that in an election year, everything is about the election.…