-
10 The Church’s Mission
Churches are Heaven's appointed agencies for the salvation of men. For, though it would be false and profane to say that men could not be saved outside the churches, and without their aid, yet, as a matter of fact, but few are converted and saved aside from associated Christian effort, as represented by the churches, or the zeal of personal piety, as nourished and stimulated by them. The mission of a Christian Church, therefore, is to a "world lying in wickedness," to men "dead in trespasses and sins," as the bearer of glad tidings to "prisoners of hope," and herald of the great salvation to lost men. In order to accomplish this, the Church must sustain a suitable spiritual condition, and maintain itself in the…
-
March 11—Morning Devotion
And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord! if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."—Matthew 8:2-3 Behold, my soul, in the instance of this leper, thine own circumstances. What he was in body, such wert thou in soul. As his leprosy made him loathsome and offensive before men, so thy polluted soul made thee odious in the sight of God! He would not have sought a cure, had he not been conscious of his need of it. Neither wouldest thou ever have looked to Jesus, had he not convinced thee of thy helplessness and misery without him. Moreover, he would…
-
Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020
Review Article Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020 I have been recently sent an online copy of Stephen Paynter’s new book, or rather a new version of a work done in 2014, by Academia.edu free of charge. This academic consortium has kindly provided me for several years with many gems both small and large from writers on theology, missiology and church history. It is rarely, however, that I receive works from them dealing solely with evangelical, Reformed issues. This is also the more surprising because Dr Paynter is a software engineer and neither a theologian nor a pastor. The aims of the book Paynter’s aim is to define…
-
The Evangelical Revival Or The Great Awakening
Bible Reading: Romans 10:13-14. In the eighteenth century, an Evangelical Awakening swept through the western world ushered in through the medium of restored preaching. Never since the Reformation had earnest men taken to the highways and by-ways and preached to the multitudes with such power. Hundreds of thousands who had never cared for religion, found themselves drawn to it through the spoken Word. Stop: you might say. The Church is not a preaching factory. Preaching is of use in its right place but church worship, the communion of the saints and pastoral care are essentialities of church fellowship. We understand this and this conference and our Society do not neglect to teach about the inner fellowship shared by the communion of the saints. But our…
-
The Dumbing Down of Doctrine
The Aims of This Lecture: In my paper, I would like to air the perpetual challenge of presenting doctrine in evangelism, pastoral work and personal witness to a people who find doctrine hard to digest, difficult to understand and indeed, an insult to their view of themselves. I will first look at the fact that even in Christian circles doctrine is dumbed down and then at the methods used and reasons given for such an attitude. I will follow this up by defining doctrine as it is found in Scripture and analysing its obvious use in evangelism and Christian edification. Indeed, I hope to show that no evangelism can be done without doctrine as doctrine is the framework and contents of the gospel. We shall…
-
November 18—Morning Devotion
"Good news from a far country."—Proverbs 25:25 From a far country, indeed; for it is no less distance than from heaven to earth, and from beings as opposite as holiness and sin could make-even from God to man, from a rich Saviour to poor sinners! And so remote that had not this good news been sent, heaven must have remained at an eternal distance, as an inaccessible region! And what is the good news itself? The angels who were first sent to proclaim it, called it glad tidings of good things, of great joy to all people. And indeed, such glad tidings it contains, as language fails to describe. It is pardon, mercy, and peace to poor rebels. It holds forth joy, happiness, and everlasting…
