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"For the first time in its history, Western civilization is confronted with the need to define the meaning of the terms 'marriage' and 'family.'" So states author Andreas J. Kostenberger who, with the assistance of David W. Jones has written God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. This sense of crisis and the need for definition sets the stage for this book and its central thesis--that the only way out of our present cultural confusion is a return to a biblical vision of marriage and family. As Kostenberger observes, "What until now has been considered a 'normal' family, made...

If you are a parent who struggles with what kind of bible to purchase for your children then you and I have a lot in common. For a few months I have been debating what kind of bible to purchase for our seven year old daughter Hannah. I cannot recommend to you enough the ESV Children's Bible. Spanning the ages of elementary to junior high, this is unlike many children's bibles that you see on the market today. Absent are the many cheesy and shallow applications of biblical truth to a child's life. Present is a strong gospel presentation at...

The Church: Activities Til I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. --1 Timothy 4:13 In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of the work and quite literally wear our people out as well. I have heard more than one pastor boast that his church was a "live" one, pointing to the printed calendar as a proof-- something on every night and several meetings during the day. Of course this proves nothing except that the pastor and the church are being guided by a bad spiritual philosophy....

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 8 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Tell me I pray thee wherein thy great strength lieth." - Judges 16:6 Where lies the secret strength of faith? It lies in the food it feeds on; for faith studies what the promise is-an emanation of divine grace, an overflowing of the great heart of God; and faith says, "My God could not have given this promise, except from love and grace; therefore it is quite certain his Word will be fulfilled." Then faith thinketh, "Who gave this promise?" It considereth not so much its greatness, as, "Who is...

Her skin was flawless, her manner graceful, her laugh infectious। Further, she came from an upper-middle class Christian home। She had attended a Christian college। Her boyfriend went to her church. When she sat with my wife and me, however, her glance was anxious। And her hands twisted one another. Her shoulders bent under troubling weight. How else does one look after having had an abortion? "We sat in the clinic," she said, "and we saw others from my college।" She and her boyfriend had huddled together in the outer room of the abortion trade. There had been none of...

For some Christians, one of the thorniest problems in the Bible is the apparent contradiction between Paul and James.  It's enough to make anyone committed to complete inerrancy wither. In Romans, 5:1-2, Paul writes, "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God." James seems to say just the opposite, "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone."   This appears...

A caller to our weekly radio program asked a question that has come up before: Are Roman Catholics saved? Let me respond to this as best I can. But I need to offer a qualifier because I think this is going to be somewhat dissatisfying for some because I am not going to say a simple "aye" or "nay." My answer is: It kind of depends. The reason I'm saying that is because of certain ambiguities. My point is this, I think that in the area of the doctrine of salvation, Roman Catholic theology, as I understand it, is unbiblical...

The Department of Defense announced today the death of four Marines who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Sgt. Michael Toussiant-Hyle Washington, 20, of Tacoma, Wash. Lance Cpl. Layton Bradly Crass, 22, of Richmond, In. Pfc. Dawid Pietrek, 24, of Bensenville, Ill. Pfc. Michael Robert Patton, 19, of Fenton, Mo. All four Marines died June 14 while supporting combat operations in Farah Province, Afghanistan. They were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Requesting prayer for the family, friends, and loved ones of Sgt. Michael Toussiant-Hyle Washington, 20, of Tacoma, Wash. Requesting...

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry         www.carm.org Location:  Home > Religious Movements > Oneness Pentecostal Debate Topic: Is water baptism necessary for salvation? On Tuesday, May 13, 2008 I debated a Mr. Roger Perkins on "Is water baptism necessary for salvation?". Mr. Perkins is a oneness believer and an ex-pastor in the oneness movement.  Mr. Perkins holds the position that water baptism is necessary for salvation.  I deny that assertion and maintain that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.Mr. Perkins opened with a 15 minute speech.  I followed with the text below, which I read...

Baptism Verses with responses On May 13, 2008 I was in a formal debate with a oneness believer who said baptism was necessary for salvation. Following are my notes I prepared for that debate.  I put htem here as an additional help to readers.If you would like to read the opening paper I read at the debate, please see Matt Slick's Opening Statement on Baptism. Matthew 28:19-20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I...

Americans had won the war with England, written a Constitution under which they would be governed and eleven states had approved it. Virginia and New York approved it with the understanding that a Bill of Rights would be added. The Baptists in those states were the major promoters of a Bill of Rights to guarantee them and others added protection that they believed was missing from the Constitution. The two recalcitrant states were North Caroline and Rhode Island who rejected the Constitution. In fact, neither state joined the Union until the new government was in operation (under the new Constitution)....

A Protestant church in Georgia has added a drive-thru service, says the Post Bulletin. By the time the Rev. Norman Markle started his sermon, everyone was still in their vehicles -- just as planned. The 150-year-old New Hope United Methodist Church is offering a drive-in service, hoping to attract new visitors with an unusual worship experience. "Maybe they don't have a church or don't care to get dressed up to go to church; let's find a way to eliminate all that," Markle said. "People go where they're comfortable." The service has all the markings of traditional worship -- hymns, a...

The Church: Commotion, Not Devotion ...and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice. --1 Kings 19:12 "The accent in the Church today," says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, "is not on devotion, but on commotion." Religious extroversion has been carried to such an extreme in evangelical circles that hardly anyone has the desire, to say nothing of the courage, to question the soundness of it. Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard...

Thank the Calvinists for one of the most thoughtfully provocative moments of the 2008 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. (Of course, if you’re a Calvinist, you’ll say: “No, thank God. That moment was preordained from before the foundation of the world.” Just a little theological humor.) The moment happened while messengers considered the sixth of nine resolutions they passed this year. Resolution Six addressed “regenerate church membership and church member restoration.” It exhorted churches and pastors to “implement a plan to minister to, counsel and restore wayward church members based upon the commands and principles given in Scripture.” But Tom...

God Owes Us Nothing07/07/2008 - Alan Kurschner    Imagine if every Evangelical pastor started with that premise in the role of God's grace in our salvation. Imagine if every Evangelical affirmed this with their entire heart. Recently I was listening to a lecture by Dr. Paul Lim on the extent of the atonement. He commented that years ago students approached their grade from the perspective of a zero with the aim of increasing the points to a letter grace of D, C, B, and hopefully an A. He said this is not the case anymore since students today assume that they...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 7 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Brethren, pray for us." - 1 Thessalonians 5:25 This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader's memory upon the subject of prayer for ministers, and we do most earnestly implore every Christian household to grant the fervent request of the text first uttered by an apostle and now repeated by us. Brethren, our work is solemnly momentous, involving weal or woe to thousands; we treat with souls for God on eternal business, and our word is either a savour of life unto life, or of death...

Rudyard Kipling realized that when nations rise to wealth and power, just like ancient Israel in Deuteronomy 8, they are inclined to forget God. He immortalized this reality in his poem 'Recessional,' written on the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s reign. Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget —lest we forget! What is true of nations is equally true of the Church. Easily and quickly we forget where we came from and what...

After graduating from college, Lois left the US for another country. She was going to see that Dan was converted to Christ, no matter what. He had dated her off and on, arriving from his home abroad to her place for a day or two’s visit. He told her he loved her. She loved him. But she was a Christian. He was adamant in not being a Christian. She would see him saved. Yes, she would. It would be her mission. So she left her parents, home church and all that was familiar. At first she had nowhere to “camp...

By John Piper July 2, 2008   Since there are some Arminians who are more godly than some Calvinists and some Calvinists who are more godly than some Arminians, what is the correlation between true knowledge of God and godliness? The best of both groups have historically admired the godliness of those in the other group. Whitefield, the Calvinist, said of Wesley, the Arminian, “Mr. Wesley I think is wrong in some things; yet I believe...Mr. Wesley, and others, with whom we do not agree in all things, will shine bright in glory� (Wesley and the Men Who Followed,...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 6 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil." - Proverbs 1:33 Divine love is rendered conspicuous when it shines in the midst of judgments. Fair is that lone star which smiles through the rifts of the thunder clouds; bright is the oasis which blooms in the wilderness of sand; so fair and so bright is love in the midst of wrath. When the Israelites provoked the Most High by their continued idolatry, he punished them by withholding both dew and rain, so that...

Southern Baptists inherited the most compelling aspects of all the Baptist Calvinists that preceded them. James P. Boyce summarized this well. He encouraged every preacher to get theological education in some way, even if it could not be at the Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina. If no other means were available, he advised, 'work at it yourself.' The fathers of the convention did this, Boyce claimed; 'They familiarized themselves with the Bible, and Gill and Andrew Fuller, and they made good and effective preachers. God is able to raise up others like them.'1 But this is the very difficulty that...

For many in our culture, the word "Calvinism" is synonymous with a grim form of legalistic religion that chiefly focuses on the doctrine of predestination -- the idea that God has determined from eternity who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. This shorthand definition was perhaps given additional ground by the famous essay of Max Weber on "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." Weber argued that Calvinism's obsession with predestination led to a "this-worldly asceticism," which caused its followers to reinvest their profits in their businesses rather than to spend them on personal luxuries,...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 5 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Called to be saints." - Romans 1:7 We are very apt to regard the apostolic saints as if they were "saints" in a more especial manner than the other children of God. All are "saints" whom God has called by His grace, and sanctified by His Spirit; but we are apt to look upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same weaknesses and temptations as ourselves. Yet in so doing we are forgetful of this truth, that the nearer a man lives to God the more intensely...

B. Hussein Obama has it in for America’s evangelicals. That is evident in his anathema of evangelical leader Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Evangelicals stand at the direct opposite of B. Hussein’s creed. He is a moral relativist. That is, for B. Hussein there are no moral absolutes. To state it in other terms, B. Hussein defines morality by “situation ethics.” That twosome was quite popular among liberals a few years ago; the term has since faded out as a frequency. However, it means that the specific situation governs the ethic of that situation. For example, if...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 4 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Sanctify them through thy truth." - John 17:17 Sanctification begins in regeneration. The Spirit of God infuses into man that new living principle by which he becomes "a new creature" in Christ Jesus. This work, which begins in the new birth, is carried on in two ways-mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are subdued and kept under; and vivification, by which the life which God has put within us is made to be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. This is carried on every day in...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 3 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "The ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven wellfavoured and fat kine." - Genesis 41:4 Pharaoh's dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry; my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean duties, and...

NEW YORK — The angels are familiar, and the demons with the yellow sulfury smoke rising from their nostrils — but the plot, well, not so much.    The stage version of This Present Darkness, this summer’s Broadway sensation, is raking in profits but has rankled the author and many Christians expecting a faithful re-telling of the book.     "It’s a pale, watered down representation of my novel," says author Frank Peretti who sold the rights to two longtime producers but is now urging Christians to boycott the show.     Renamed ‘Dark,’ the musical depicts demons in Cats-style costumes and 12-foot...

The Church: The Missing Supernatural Afflatus Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. --Luke 24:49 Where adequate power is present almost any means will suffice, but where the power is absent not all the means in the world can secure the desired end. The Spirit of God may use a song, a sermon, a good deed, a text or the mystery and majesty of nature, but always the final work will be done by the pressure of the inliving Spirit upon...

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have condemned sexual predators and are urging churches to flush out molesters using federal background checks. But a simple search on the convention's Web site shows they have yet to purge their own house of predators. SBC's MinisterSearch, a Web database for finding clergy members, contains the names of pastors both indicted and convicted of sexual abuse. Among them is a former Cordova pastor charged in October with rape and sexual battery. "It's a double standard," said David Brown, an abuse victim and coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in...

Pope John XXIII believed Padre Pio, the hugely popular Capuchin monk who was canonised in 2002, was a fraud who had "incorrect" relations with women and whose soul was in danger.... Sergio Luzzatto...has also found documents in the Vatican archives suggesting that Padre Pio may have faked his stigmata, the marks of the wounds of Christ, with acid. Vatican officials say both allegations are already well known.... Followers of Padre Pio believe he exuded "the odour of sanctity", had the gift of bilocation (being in two places at once), healed the sick and could prophesy the future.

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 2 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Our heart shall rejoice in Him." - Psalm 33:21 Blessed is the fact that Christians can rejoice even in the deepest distress; although trouble may surround them, they still sing; and, like many birds, they sing best in their cages. The waves may roll over them, but their souls soon rise to the surface and see the light of God's countenance; they have a buoyancy about them which keeps their head always above the water, and helps them to sing amid the tempest, "God is with me still." To whom...

A New Creation By Michael Horton, Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and the University of Coventry, Associate Professor of Apologetics and Historical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and chair of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. This article was published in Modern Reformation magazine, Volume 12, Number 3, May/June 2003. Maureen O'Hara and Walter Truett Anderson have recently underscored the growing suspicion that the therapeutic industry is in bad shape. Based on her own experience as a San Diego psychotherapist, O'Hara introduces us to a few of her patients. The names have been changed. Jerry feels overwhelmed,...

 Suits allege clergy misconduct Two Baptist ministers apologize after women bring forth accusations Two Denton-area Baptist ministers have apologized in the wake of lawsuits filed by women who allege the ministers molested them as teenagers. Reynolds Larry Reynolds, pastor of the Southmont Baptist Church in Denton, and Dale “Dickie” Amyx, pastor of the Bolivar Baptist Church near Sanger, were accused in separate lawsuits filed in June of molesting girls who sought their counseling when the girls were 14. Each also was accused of continuing to sexually exploit his position of trust with the girls for several years.  Different women made...

Jeff had so many Operating Under the Influence breakings of the law that he spent too many years of his young life behind bars. “I’m the black sheep of the family,” he said one Friday evening when I visited him in jail. Many of my Friday evenings were spent in that ugly visitors’ room. But it was worth it. At least that’s what Jeff told me. He had no other ones to call on him except one young woman, Yonna. “The rest of my family made something of themselves, but the bottle got to me over and over again.” However,...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - July 1 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "In summer and in winter shall it be." - Zechariah 14:8 The streams of living water which flow from Jerusalem are not dried up by the parching heats of sultry midsummer any more than they were frozen by the cold winds of blustering winter. Rejoice, O my soul, that thou art spared to testify of the faithfulness of the Lord. The seasons change and thou changest, but thy Lord abides evermore the same, and the streams of his love are as deep, as broad and as full as ever. The...

The Church: A Model for Other Churches ...so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. --1 Thessalonians 1:7,8 I would like to see a church become so godly, so Spirit-filled that it would have a spiritual influence on all of the churches in the entire area. Paul told some of his people, "you became a model to all...

Motorcycle. Massages. Pimp. Husband. Sons. Travel. It went on and on for years — ten years, in fact. Sarah and her husband, Dick, went all over the country on the back of their motorcycle. He the pimp. She servicing various men here and there. Then were born to them two sons. Yet they continued moving around from one place to another. Dick was lazy. Though he had a college degree, he did not want to report to work anywhere. There was no 9-to-5 job in his future. Dick depended on Sarah to provide the income. She was steady at it....

In 2006, Baylor University published the results of a survey indicating more Americans claim affiliation with Christianity than with any other religion. In fact, the report claimed that “82 percent of Americans are Christians” (see Tooley, 2006). Sadly, the vast majority claiming Christianity as their religion, have no respect for what their law (the New Testament) or their lawgiver (the Christ) teach. One year after Baylor University published their findings, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans. Seventy percent of those surveyed answered in the affirmative that “many religions can lead to eternal life” (Van Biema,...

Thank the Calvinists for one of the most thoughtfully provocative moments of the 2008 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. (Of course, if you’re a Calvinist, you’ll say: “No, thank God. That moment was preordained from before the foundation of the world.” Just a little theological humor.) The moment happened while messengers considered the sixth of nine resolutions they passed this year. Resolution Six addressed “regenerate church membership and church member restoration.” It exhorted churches and pastors to “implement a plan to minister to, counsel and restore wayward church members based upon the commands and principles given in Scripture.” But Tom...

Worship: What's Missing Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. -Psalm 95:6 Christian churches have come to the dangerous time predicted long ago. It is a time when we can pat one another on the back, congratulate ourselves and join in the glad refrain, "We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing!" It certainly is true that hardly anything is missing from our churches these days--except the most important thing. We are missing the genuine and sacred offering of ourselves and our worship to the God and...

PLAY VIDEO: Former Lay A former Colorado Springs lay pastor at a church, charged with sex assault on a child, was in court Thursday. A preliminary hearing was scheduled, but Jon Moore waived it. The 51-year-old is accused of sexually assaulting a teenager. The allegations span over three years. The two met at Lighthouse Baptist Church near Austin Bluffs and Academy.  On his way into court, we asked Moore about the charges against him. He didn’t want to answer any of our questions.Moore used to work as an assistant to the preacher at Lighthouse Baptist. He’s charged with sex...

Glenn was faced with 20 years in prison. I met him while on staff at the jail. I noted Glenn carrying a Bible to his stint at the laundry. “Why are you reading that?” I asked as the devil’s advocate, having never conversed with Glenn prior. “Because it helps me,” he said low-key. “Good,” I responded, then went my way. On another day, I asked Glenn the same question. Still on another day. Then I finally whispered to him: “I am like you—a believer.” That opened up our friendship that has lasted now for years. “Though faced with 20 years...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - June 29 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." - 1 Thessalonians 4:14 Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They "sleep in Jesus," but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass....

Chapter I. The foundation of the whole ensuing discourse laid in Rom. viii. 13 -- The words of the apostle opened -- The certain connection between true mortification and salvation -- Mortification the work of believers -- The Spirit the principal efficient cause of it -- What meant by "the body" in the words of the apostle -- What by "the deeds of the body" -- Life, in what sense promised to this duty. That what I have of direction to contribute to the carrying on of the work of mortification in believers may receive order and perspicuity, I shall...

Learning Self-DisciplinebyJohn MacArthur Adapted from The Pillars of Christian Character by John MacArthur. © 1998 by John F MacArthur, Jr. Used by permission.  For many years, I have had the privilege of knowing the renowned classical guitarist Christopher Parkening. By the time he was thirty, he had become a master of his instrument. But such mastery did not come easily or cheaply. While other children played and participated in sports, he spent several hours a day practicing the guitar. The result of that self-disciplined commitment is proficiency on his instrument that few can match.Self-discipline is important in any endeavor of...

...He was born in New York City, and raised in a Jewish home. He graduated from the City University of New York with a degree in Psychology. He then earned his master’s degree and his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Wayne State University. After a year’s internship in the department of psychiatry at Wayne State University Medical Center, in Detroit, Michigan, he followed that with a year of Post-Doctoral study in the department of child psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center, in Syracuse, New York, where he was later on the Clinical Faculty of the Department of Psychiatry, as well as...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - June 28 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Looking unto Jesus." - Hebrews 12:2 It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus." All these...

Worship: The Program For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. --Matthew 18:20 Now, I freely admit that it is impossible to hold a Christian service without an agenda. If order is to be maintained, an order of service must exist somewhere. If two songs are to be sung, someone must know which one is to be sung first, and whether this knowledge is only in someone's head or has been reduced to paper there is indeed a "program," however we may dislike to call it that. The point...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - June 27 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Only ye shall not go very far away." - Exodus 8:28 This is a crafty word from the lip of the arch-tyrant Pharaoh. If the poor bondaged Israelites must needs go out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away; not too far for them to escape the terror of his arms, and the observation of his spies. After the same fashion, the world loves not the non-conformity of nonconformity, or the dissidence of dissent; it would have us be more charitable and...

Worship: In Need of Worshipers But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. --Acts 6:4 Well, we have great churches and we have beautiful sanctuaries and we join in the chorus, "We have need of nothing." But there is every indication that we are in need of worshipers. We have a lot of men willing to sit on our church boards who have no desire for spiritual joy and radiance and who never show up for the church prayer meeting. These are the men who often make the decisions about the church budget...