Does your church doctrinal statement take a detailed stand on Eschatology?

Ed Vasicek

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).

Discussion

You Can Become Competent to Counsel

Paul Tautges

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.

Discussion

Housing allowance weighed by appeals court

SharperIron

“Three entities of the Southern Baptist Convention have joined other religious organizations in urging the Seventh Circuit Court to reverse the ruling of [a Wisconsin judge], who said the allowance violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.” BPress

Discussion

The Synagogue and the Church: A Study of Their Common Backgrounds and Practices (Part 5)

Douglas K. Kutilek

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at [email protected]. Read the series so far.

Chapter Five: The Public Service in the Synagogue and the Church

An interesting Greek inscription discovered in Jerusalem is reported by Meyers:

Theodotus, son of Vettenos, the priest and archisynagogos, son of a[n] archisynagogos and grandson of a[n] archisynagogos, who built the synagogue for purposes of reciting the Law and studying the commandments, and as a hotel with chambers and water installations to provide for the needs of itinerants from abroad, which his fathers, the leaders and Simonides founded.1

This inscription, besides mentioning three successive generations of “rulers of the synagogue” in one family (on which title, see below), it also addresses two of the three major purposes for the synagogue’s existence: reading the Law and studying the commandments. Only prayer of major synagogal public activities is not mentioned. Hospitality shown to travelers was considered worthy of note as well (following Abraham’s example in Genesis 18?).2

Discussion