As Basic as it Gets

Paul’s letter to Titus is full of commands to a young man acting as the apostle’s agent among the congregations in the towns of Crete; commands he intended Titus to pass on to new believers he hoped and prayed would grow in the faith and in godliness as the Lord intended. What should maturing faith look like at various ages and in different contexts? Titus received instructions for young and old, men and women, elders and children alike.

So we read words like “remind”, “teach”, “declare”, “urge” and even “rebuke”. Yes, there had to be a little bit of that too.

Anonymous Asks (351)

“If cessationism is true, then why does God seem to continue to work through Pentecostal churches?”

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “cessationism” is the teaching that the Holy Spirit of God no longer gives some of the spiritual gifts he gave in the early days of the church, the most comprehensive lists of which may be found in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. Cessationists believe the Lord intended certain gifts only to operate in the churches for a short time until the fall of Jerusalem in AD70, and until the completion of the canon of scripture.

Anyway, you’re asking the right person. I happen to be a cessationist, though I don’t usually use the term. My reasons for believing certain gifts are no longer being given may be found here, here and here.

Amusing, in a Slightly Discouraging Way

This YouTube short posted by ConversationswithaCalvinist and uploaded just in time for Easter weekend captures … well, it captures something about the state of evangelicalism in 2025:

BAPTIST: All right, guys, I wanted to check in and see what everybody has planned for Easter weekend.

TORAH BROS: Well, last night, we celebrated our seder. All praise to Yahashua.

BAPTIST: Yaha- what now?

PENTECOSTAL: You guys heard that, he just spoke in tongues.

No King in Israel (4)

Verse 7 of Judges 3 will bring us to the next section of Judges, telling twelve stories of the judges God raised up to deliver Israel over the next fourteen chapters. But before we get to these tales, each with their own lessons, the writer or writers of Judges present us with a historical overview of the entire period, along with a preview of some of the enemies Israel will encounter in subsequent chapters as a result of its sins.

Running like a red thread through this era of spiritual decline is the mercy of God …

Too Hot to Handle: The Weight of Tradition

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Years ago I would regularly come across stories of how this theologian or that one came out of Catholicism and now calls himself an evangelical Christian. More recently I notice some going the other way. Among the reasons usually given for embracing Rome is an emphasis on church history and tradition that doesn’t exist in the same way in Protestant gatherings. Roman Catholicism is thought to have “roots” that go back to the early church.

To seekers of this sort, the value of a church experience is measured by whether their faith community is convincingly in touch with its own past.

Just Church (23)

We’re in the final half of our final chapter in our thinking about Social Justice and the church. Last week, we were working through what the promoter of that ideology is likely to have caused, and what alternatives we have for dealing with her going forward.

It’s natural to think the thing to do is to “forgive and forget”, as the old axiom goes: we simply note the fault, say, “We forgive you”, and reinvite the contentious “nice lady” into the congregation without further delay. But this would be exceedingly dangerous, even disastrous; for unless her repentance is full, honest and genuine, then the deep motivations that led her to campaign for Social Justice ideology and to trade on the church to do it will remain. So we need to take full and fair inventory of what her faults and motives have really been, assess how complete her awareness of her sin is, and make sure she’s really been freed from what led her into it in the first place.

What If Jonathan Had Lived?

“… and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul.”

Jonathan’s death was not as ignominious as the death of his father Saul, whose enemies summarily beheaded him, but his is not the storybook ending the reader expects for David’s most loyal friend and fiercest defender.

Parable Perplexity

Do you ever find yourself looking at a passage of scripture you’ve read a hundred times and realizing you never really processed it? I had one of those moments this morning in Mark 4 as I read and re-read what commentators refer to as “The Parable of the Seed Growing”. This short parable is unique to Mark’s gospel. Perhaps it is so easy to gloss over because it contains similar imagery to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 (and earlier in this same chapter).

Or perhaps other people pay closer attention to detail that I do.

Anonymous Asks (350)

“Does an unmarried couple who have sex become married in God’s eyes?”

Some years ago, I had a late night phone call from an old friend to whom I hadn’t spoken in years. He was reviewing his relationship history. Many of these, frankly, had been sinful and ended in disappointment. The most recent was no exception. Despite professing to follow Christ, he has been initiating and falling into uncommitted sexual entanglements most of his life.

“I’ve been ‘one flesh’ with over thirty women,” he confessed. “Which relationship does God regard as ‘the one’?”

Four Whys

Mark structured what later became the second chapter of his gospel around four questions, all of which begin with the word “Why?” (The other synoptics contain much of the same material, but not within a single chapter.) Two of these queries came from scribes, a third from the Pharisees, and another from the people. As we might expect, three of the four were challenges to the Lord’s authority; the other may have been simple curiosity.

In one memorable instance, they never even got to ask the question. Jesus correctly discerned what they were thinking and answered it before they could express it.

No King in Israel (3)

A public appearance by the angel of the Lord in front of large numbers of people is quite exceptional. Indeed, for God to mete out justice personally to sinners during their lifetimes is also a comparatively rare event. A formal, exhaustive accounting for all the evil men have done awaits them at the end of their lives, as the book of Hebrews tells us. Under normal circumstances, that is where God judges sin.

All the same, throughout human history, God has necessarily overlooked much evil, or else all our lives would be very short ones. The divine standard is not to be applied to men until after death.

Too Hot to Handle: Golden Calf 2.0

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

It’s been years since I paid a great deal of attention to the charismatic movement, but David de Bruyn’s post on The Pentecostalization of Christian Worship at ReligiousAffections.org is a real eye-opener.

Tom: Mr. de Bruyn’s thesis is fairly simple: the current patterns of worship in the charismatic movement are not leading Christians within it anywhere good. Worse, these practices are catching on throughout the evangelical world. I’ve experienced them myself in my early twenties, but never really stopped to analyze the significant differences between the way charismatics engage in “worship”, and the historic patterns of worship across many other Christian traditions. Far more importantly, the charismatic approach differs radically from the patterns of worship we observe in the scriptures.

What did you think of the post, IC?

Immanuel Can: So many things … where shall we start?

Just Church (22)

Chapter 7: What to Do With ‘The Nice Lady’

“See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.”

Bitterness.

The word literally means “acidity”, and refers in scripture to wicked covetousness or wicked resentment. It is associated with cursing and anger. A related adjective is used in James 3:14 of wicked jealousy. What’s clear is it speaks of bitter hatred against others felt to be justified by their advantages.

The result? The defilement of many. That means their being stained so as to be rendered unfit for sacred service. This angry, resentful spirit between Christians can defile them in their relationship with God. The writer to the Hebrews says we are vigilantly to watch over the congregation, and make sure this doesn’t happen.

Because it can. So easily. Especially today.

When Everything Goes Wrong

You’ve just made a major move, one you believe served the Lord’s interests while also having potential spiritual benefits for your family and other relationships. It wasn’t even a hard choice. Work opportunities had dried up locally and you’re too young to retire. All the churches where you lived are dead, dying, or riddled with theological peculiarities. Godly friends suggested a change of location might be the answer. Less-godly friends said you were crazy to leave. More local job opportunities fell through.

Then your landlady mentioned she wants to do a major reno on your apartment, an invasive process that might take weeks or months to complete. It was time. So you took a risk with a job opportunity several hundred miles away, packed up the car and found yourself a new place to unload your furniture, such as it is.