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Mission: The Fourth Mark of the Church
A number of years ago, when the well-known conference speaker Ralph L. Keiper was preaching at a missions conference in Deerfield Street, New Jersey, he told about a little girl who had come to see him early in his ministry. She was about eight years old. She had been to the church’s daily vacation Bible…
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Sin Boldly
I’m going to start a new category: Graffiti. This categtory will offer some great quotes. I don’t know many that would top the following from Luther: “If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin.…
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Truth: The Third Mark of the Church
by James M. Boice It is a striking thing that nearly all that God does in the world today, he does by the Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of his written revelation. This is true of sanctification. Sanctification means to be set apart for God’s use. So our text tells us that the only way this…
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Holiness: The Second Mark of the Church
by James M. Boice Holiness is the characteristic of God most mentioned in the pages of the Word of God and is therefore, quite rightly, that which should characterize God’s church. We are to be a “holy” people (1 Pet. 2:9). We are to “follow” after holiness. Indeed, without it “no man shall see the…
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Practical (& Humorous) Laws for Young Children
The following are Levitical-style Commandments for families with young children. These “Laws” are taken from an episode of A Prairie Home Companion. Our children are out of the life-stage where these are applicable, but to pass along “wisdom” for parenting – and to get a chuckle – I post these laws here. ******** Laws of Forbidden…
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Joy: The First Mark of the Church
by James M. Boice That most of us do not think of joy as a primary characteristic of the Church probably indicates both how little we regard it and how far we have moved from the spirit of the early Church. For if anything characterizes the early Church it is that it was a joyous assembly. …
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Marks of a Healthy Church
Over the next several weeks the leaders of Walnut Hill Church will engage in a number of discussions concerning the health and direction of our church. These discussions will cover a wide range of considerations. Walnut Hill, though a smaller church is in many respects already a healthy congregation. I believe that if we were to…
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The Beauty of Human Relationships
by Frances Schaeffer This is the fourth of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities. These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. ********* The second reality is the beauty of human relationships. True Christianity produces beauty as well as’…
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True Spirituality
This is the third of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities. These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. ******* The first reality is spiritual reality. Let us emphasize again as we have before: we believe with all our…
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Good Enough!
Are You Tired of Trying to Measure Up? Paula Rinehart wrote the article below for Discipleship Journal. *** One fall evening, after months of recurring chest pain and a rather hectic schedule, I found myself thinking out loud with my husband as we watched the sun sink lower and lower in the Colorado sky. We…
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Honest Answers to Honest Questions
This is the second of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities. These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. ******* The second content is that Christianity is truth, and we must give honest answers…
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A Christmas Reflection
Consider Mary’s response to the angel. The angel has come to Mary and says: “Mary, you are going to give birth to the long-promised Messiah.” This was a unique promise, and unrepeatable. There is something totally unique here: the birth of the eternal second Person of the Trinity into this world. What was her response? But what she…
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Rooted in Sound Doctrine
This is the first of four posts in a series titled Two Contents, Two Realities. These posts are slightly edited excerpts of a paper delivered by Dr. Francis Schaeffer as part of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. As is often true for Schaeffer, his insights are timeless, and as pertinent today as they were a generation ago. …
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What is the Gospel?
Gospel means “good news.” The good news is: you (and I) are more sinful and flawed than you (or I) ever dared believe, yet you (and I) can be more accepted and loved than you (or I) ever dared hope at the same time, because Jesus Christ lived and died in our place. As the…