Many religious leaders today are alarmed about the lack of growth in our churches. A decline in church loyalty, accompanied by a loss of church membership, seems to be a rather common phenomenon in our time. People act as if the decline of the church is something that cannot be avoided. It is even suggested by some […]
“Tradition. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as . . . as a fiddler on the roof.” So said Tevye, the father of five daughters, in the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, about his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon the family’s lives. What is orthodusty? It is when the vitality of the faith, the […]
Scripture tells us of Satan that he “abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). He hates the truth and constantly wars against it. While he plays a part, no doubt, in […]
The Church’s Witness to the World by PETER Y. DE JONG Pella Publishing Company, Pella, Iowa, Volume II, 1962, 446 pp. The author of this volume must be a prodigious worker. Though he has held some of the busiest pastorates in his denomination practically all of his ministerial li:fe, he has been able to produce […]
“Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” James 1:22 Christianity is a life based on, and produced by, it certain system of truth. It involves certain facts, plus the meaning of the facts, plus experience based on these. We must first of all be bearers of the Word. In the […]
“Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.” (Acts 15:37–39) Paul and Barnabas had […]
Have you ever thought about the origin of the name “Christian?” Acts 11:26 tells us that this was something the followers of Jesus were called from a very early time in the church’s new covenant history, but what is the significance of that name? This title is closely related to the title of our Savior, […]
A master builder crafts a carefully organized cosmos, places people within it, and provides complete instructions for them to live happily. He declares his creation very good—until his creatures begin to challenge his restrictions. When they rebel, he divides them into separate continents and worlds, withdraws to a distant throne room, and develops a plan […]
In 2008, Larry R.*, a MINTS professor and president of the Global Institute for Ethical Leadership, received a call from Greg Hauenstein, the president of MINTS International Seminary. “How would you like to go to Nepal?” he asked. That was the beginning of MINTS’ involvement in Nepal. Through Boca Raton Community Church and Rev. Bill […]
Marie Durand By Simonetta Carr 2015, Reformation Heritage Books 64 pp. $18 “No amount of freedom is worth the compromise of biblical teachings” (p. 52). This maxim is a fitting response to recent erosion of religious freedom in the West. As a reminder that biography can serve as timeless moral philosophy in narrative form, these […]