I have seen as many nutcase leaders in small churches as I’ve seen in mega churches. We need to stop our culture of treating these pastors like the Kingdom of God depends chiefly on them. Pastors need to do away with the doctrine that conflates the kingdom of Christ and the institutional church as one and the same.
Read MoreChrist has one kingdom and one people and total authority over everything in his Kingdom (which is everything on heaven and on earth). It's a Heavenly Kingdom, not an earthly one, but the Heavenly Kingdom's rule doesn't stop at the pearly gates (Matthew 28:18).
Read MoreLamentablemente, muchos de nosotros leemos el Nuevo Testamento como si no hubiera un apocalipsis inminente a punto de ocurrir y como si una época de la historia, el fin de los tiempos, no estuviera a punto de tener lugar en ese momento. Tratamos las exhortaciones dadas en esas condiciones como paradigmáticas para toda la historia de la iglesia. Ignoramos el contexto histórico y pactante de la iglesia del primer siglo. Olvidamos que el Antiguo Pacto cubrió más de 4.000 años de la historia de la iglesia en una variedad de etapas de la historia redentora, y el Nuevo Pacto cubre 66-69 años de una etapa única (algunos dicen 96 años) de esa historia que, según Hebreos 8:13, el Antiguo Pacto aún no había desaparecido completamente, pero estaba a punto de hacerlo muy pronto.
Read MoreEl diseño inicial de Dios en la creación sí incluía una conexión entre la bendición y la prosperidad material para toda la humanidad. Esta conexión no era un defecto. No se introdujo como resultado de la caída, sino que era anterior a la misma. Por lo tanto, no hay nada en esta dinámica que tuviera que ser rectificada por Cristo o su nuevo pacto.
Read MoreUnfortunately, many of us read the New Testament as if there wasn’t an imminent apocalypse about to occur and as if an epoch of history, the end of the age, wasn’t about to take place at the time. We treat exhortations given under those conditions as paradigmatic for all of church history. We ignore the historical and covenantal context of the first century church. We forget that the Old Covenant covered 4,000+ years of church history in a variety of stages in redemptive history, and the New Covenant covers 66–69 years of one unique stage (some say 96 years) of that history which, according to Hebrews 8:13, the Old Covenant was yet to fully vanish, but was about to very soon.
Read MoreGod’s initial design in creation did include a connection between blessing and material prosperity for all humanity. This connection was not a defect. It was not introduced as a result of the fall, but predated the fall. Therefore, there is nothing in this dynamic that needed to be rectified by Christ or his new covenant.
Read MoreEl estado de degradación moral en América y la marginación del cristianismo es exactamente lo que se esperaría dada la gran cantidad de teología, organización y práctica de sus iglesias.
Read MoreWhat is voting? Can the Christian reconstructionist vote for the lesser of two evils? Is Donald Trump the clear lesser of two evils? What about third party voting or not voting at all? How does localism fit into all of this?
Read More“Romans 13 talks about the continuing role of proper civil government echoing Genesis 9:6 and the sword of government to punish the shedding of innocent blood, but it should not be understood to be granting unlimited power unto it. An interpretation along these lines is neither demanded by consistent interpretation nor is it in alignment with a comprehensive understanding of civil government taking into account the whole of scripture.”
Read MoreWe as God’s people have an incredible opening to teach the nations about the beauty of Christ and the soundness of his law through this coronavirus ordeal. The more this heavy-handed statism manifests itself through the coronavirus lockdowns, the more this false kingdom is being exposed as being devoid of all moral substance.
Read MoreTribalism leads people to condemn certain behaviors in others while ignoring those same behaviors in themselves or for members of one's own tribe. It leads people to extreme paranoia regarding the possible motives of those not in their same tribes while exhibiting an obstinate inability to truly listen to others and grasp the meaning of what is being communicated.
Read MoreIn an encouraging development, the Chalcedon Foundation has released a superb new lecture series (start here) by Martin Selbrede on a much needed topic - abuse and the church.
Read MoreThe morally degraded state of affairs in America and the marginalization of Christianity is exactly what you would expect given much of the theology, organization and practice of her churches. Brothers and sisters, we as the Church of Jesus Christ, are not in the business of planting, advancing and sustaining mini-temples. We are in the the business of planting, advancing and sustaining Christian civilization.
Read MoreAll attempts at reaching heaven from earth without Christ are nothing more than doomed Tower of Babel projects.
Read MoreThis Christmas remember: The Messiah has appeared. His mission, accomplished. Tomb, emptied. Death, defeated. All authority, his. Nations, inherited. Prince of Peace, coronated. Kingdom, inaugurated. Holy Spirit, out-poured. New Covenant, established. Mt. Zion, arrived. Serpent, bound. Great commission, instituted. The Abrahamic exile? Ended.
Read MoreLong ago, the Mormon’s actually recognized the true nature of the song, so they decided to change the lyrics. Hey at least they are consistent.
Read MoreChristians keep getting tricked into believing the misguided notion that the most effective gospel presentation is one where we convince the unbeliever that our message of good news won’t upset the present order of the world, but will help the unbeliever escape evil in the world to be whisked away to the mystical land of clouds and harps. We keep believing for some reason that this will allegedly remove obstacles to the acceptance of Christ.
Read MoreStubborn, pernicious evils are sometimes disguised by clever rhetorical tricks that conceal or seek to distract from the truth.
This was the case recently with the responses I received to an article I wrote a couple of weeks back critiquing Douglas Wilson who seems determined to improperly tie a commitment to biblical inerrancy to his peculiar views of US chattel slavery.
Read MoreI’ve recognized the harm of misused buildings, misallocated budgets, empty lectures from pulpits, ritualism, gospel reductionism, kingdom reductionism and so forth. I’ve been sounding the alarm. But until we learn to discern between baby and bath water we will just be a noisy gong. When defending the use of buildings, liturgy and pulpits as not obsolete or bad in and of themselves gets you called a papist, well I don’t know what else to tell you. You’ve jumped the shark.
Read MoreDouglas really wants you to believe that if you don’t have a category for the “righteous” US chattel slave owner who should have been welcomed into Christian fellowship, you’re prone to heading away from biblical fidelity and tail spinning into to left-wing, liberal, la-la land.
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