What are the advantages of preaching consecutively, chapter after chapter, all the way through a book of the Bible? There are five reasons…
The essence of Christmas is the mysterious, glorious and profound claim that God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. To this astounding truth one might be compelled to ask: did it have to be this way? Was there any other way for God to redeem us? The second chapter of Hebrews gives us three reasons why God had to become a man:
Next Saturday (April 19, not tomorrow) is Record Store Day. This annual celebration of independent record stores has been taking place since 2007, and gives special attention to the vinyl record, which happens to be the main reason independent records stores are still in business. As music consumption moves away from CDs and increasingly toward MP3 downloads or direct streaming, there has been a movement back toward buying records the old fashioned way. Vinyl sales have been on the increase for the last few years, and show no signs of slowing down.
Below is the second post from Pastor Bob in an ongoing blog series designed to help Christians think through the issue of homosexuality in a careful and Biblical way. For more on the reason for this series, click here.
Question 2: Are homosexuals welcome at your church?
Below is the first post from Pastor Bob in an ongoing blog series designed to help Christians think through the issue of homosexuality in a careful and Biblical way. For more on the reason for this series, click here.
Question 1: How can we know whether homosexuality is a sin when there are so many interpretations of the Bible?
Starting next week, I will begin a multi-part blog series that will seek to answer common questions about and objections to the traditional Christian position on homosexuality. Some of you might be sick of hearing about this issue, which is totally understandable, so let me offer three reasons why I think this is a good idea:
There has been much talk lately in our denomination (PCA — Presbyterian Church in America) about its current state of health as a result of an article written by former Covenant Seminary President Bryan Chapell titled, “The State of the PCA.” The article is actually a “slightly edited” version of an address that Chapell is giving at the PCA’s General Assembly in Chattanooga this week.
In my blog a few weeks ago about being Presbyterian, I mentioned that a distinguishing mark of our tradition is that we adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) (the Heidelberg Catechism is good too). As a follow-up to that idea, I thought it might be helpful to take this a step further and consider some good reasons why a church should be “confessional” — that is, why it should hold to an established confession of faith.
Are you curious about Christianity? Perhaps you were not brought up in the church, and you want to know more about the claims of Jesus. Maybe you come from a Mormon or Muslim family, and yet you are interested in orthodox Christianity. Or perhaps you’ve strayed from the church, but now feel a tug to go back. You want to know the basics of Christianity, but don’t know where to start.
This is not an age when it is popular to belong to a particular church denomination. Most Christians shun such distinctives, mostly because denominational boundaries have become a symbol for the stereotype that Christians simply can’t get along with one another. Sometimes I am asked if it wouldn’t be easier if we just took the word “Presbyterian” off our sign in front of our church. Maybe it would be better if we just called ourselves, “New Life Community Church.”
