Tag: Christianity
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Easy Chairs & Hard Words – Part 1
by Douglas Wilson We join a conservation in progress; it is between a young theological questioner who grew up in a typical Evangelical church, and an older pastor from a more historical theological tradition. ***** I stirred nervously in my seat, and cleared my throat. I was not at all sure I wanted to ask…
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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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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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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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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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Balance of Truth
True Christianity consists of a proper mixture of fear of God, and of hope in his mercy; and wherever either of these is entirely wanting, there can be no true Faith. God has joined these things, and we ought by no means to put them asunder. He cannot take pleasure in those who fear him…
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Tough Questions from a Pre-Teen Girl
The following are answers to questions asked by a then-12 year old girl. This young lady had had a very, very difficult life, but was very bright and determined. At the time she wrote the note to me asking these questions, she had only recently come to live with her father – a godly man. Now a teenager, she has…
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Desiring God
If you are not already familiar with his work, I want to introduce you to John Piper. In particular I commend his book Desiring God. This book is a modern day classic. And in my mind it an almost indespensible aid to gaining a Biblical perspective of the Glory of God. Well, indespensible might be a bit of an overstatement. But, it is…
