Text
Jun, 24, 2021 0
The topic of discipleship immediately brings my childhood to mind. I was fortunate to be discipled by my parents. My parents’ lives modeled incarnational discipleship. The activities of the week and the family conversations around the table pointed each of us toward Christ. If there was a formal…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
The breathtaking panoramic view from the mountaintop defied words. My family and I visited Alaska a few years ago and experienced something incredible. We rode a train from a small village up a steep mountain grade all the way to the summit. From that vantage point, we could see the snow-capped…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
Jewish tradition refers to Deuteronomy 6:4-5 as the Shema. Shema is a Hebrew word that means “hear” and is the first word in this Jewish text: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Jesus, of…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
Last spring, as I walked through our garden, I was thrilled to see the fast-growing tomato plants and the size of the fruit they produced. After several weeks of tending, weeding, and watering, the day came when the tomatoes were ripe and ready to pick. Walking carefully through the tomato vines, I…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
Regeneration is an act of God who, by grace, gives new life to those who are dead in sin.1 The worldwide body of faith identified as the Church of the Nazarene accepts that God graciously livens those who have been spiritually dead in sin. Essentially, regeneration addresses the idea that a person…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
James K.A. Smith opens his wonderful and ground-breaking book on worship and formation, Desiring the Kingdom, by inviting readers to imagine that alien anthropologists from Mars come to earth to study every aspect of humanity. Because they are especially interested in what humanity worships and…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
My great grandfather was a sharecropper in Southeastern Alabama, near the Georgia state line. He rented a small piece of land to work, and in return, he would give a portion of his crop to the landowner at the end of each year. My great grandfather decided he wanted a better life for his family…
Jun, 24, 2021 0
Reinhold Niebuhr once stated that original sin “is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.”1 By this he meant that we only need to look at human history to believe in the reality of original sin. This doctrine goes all the way back to the garden of Eden where we encounter…
Jun, 21, 2021 0
Discipleship is a lifelong journey. Thankfully, God provides help for us along the way. The sacraments are specially ordained means of grace that serve as resources for enduring and victorious Christian living. That is, they are means of God’s sanctifying grace.
Baptism
Baptism is normally…
Jun, 21, 2021 0
The term sanctification is not a distinct word in the Greek New Testament. The meaning of sanctification, expressed by a number of words, is related to holiness. The adjective “holy” refers primarily to God. The holiness of God the Father is evident everywhere in the New Testament as represented in…