As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Hi everyone-
I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about the elder position, and we started discussing I Timothy 3, where the qualification is ‘able to teach’. I have no doubt that the desire to teach is there for someone who should be an elder, but the effectiveness is what we kicked around. If someone loves to teach, is great in small groups, but can’t get out of his way in a pulpit (for whatever reason) when he’s called on to preach…is he still qualified?
“Winkler has been busy leading the newly restructured organization and re-engaging leaders from NCC member communions in the council’s work.” RNS
What do I mean by “detailed” stand. I do not mean inclusion of heaven and hell and judgment. It is a given that almost all good churches would include those things in their doctrinal statement. But by fairly detailed, I mean a specific view on the Millennium and by very detailed an even more specific view about the timing of the Rapture in relation to the Tribulation (for those of us who believe in the Tribulation).
From Voice, Sep/Oct 2014. Used by permission.
I am thrilled to be a witness of the rediscovery of biblical counseling! “Now in order to rediscover something, it must have been lost,”1 says David Powlison. Unfortunately, that is true. Powlison explains:
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, American Christians basically lost the use of truths and skills they formerly possessed. That is, practical wisdom in the cure of souls waned…. The Church lost that crucial component of pastoral skill that can be called case-wisdom—wisdom that knows people, knows how people change, and knows how to help people change.2
As a result, Christians sprinkled man-centered psychology with a few Bible verses and called it “Christian psychology.” The outcome has been confusion, hopelessness, and the abandonment of biblical faith. John MacArthur is right when he says Christian psychology “has diminished the Church’s confidence in Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and preaching as means through which the Spirit of God works to change lives.”3 It is sad to think that God’s Church could lose something so basic and essential as the skill and conviction to use Scripture to help people work through their problems. Yet that is where the American church is. Those who embrace psychology as the answer are in the majority by far. There is no reason to pretend they are not. But to know that God is, in our lifetime, calling His people back to His Word as a working manual for life is exciting to say the least. This is what is referred to as biblical counseling.
“For many months, we have labored under the awareness that our church discipline of a year ago was a failure in many respects, not the least of which was the complete lack of biblically required restorative component, which wronged the brothers that we were attempting to help” CT
Discussion