CHRISTIANITY: All About Christ

“To behold Christ and to make others behold him is the substance of his [Paul's] ministry. All the distinctive elements of Paul’s preaching relate to Christ, and bear upon their face his image and superscription. …The entire Christian life, root and stem and branch and blossom, is one continuous fellowship with Christ.” Gerhardus Vos

(HT: Matthew Morizio)

Filed under: Christ-centred, Christian Ministry, Christianity, Discipleship, Quotes, The Christian Life

10 reasons churches stall

These are the openning lines of each point from Marcus Honeysett’s excellent article. I recommend you read the whole thing here, and here.

1. The church forgets who we are and what we are for. 1 Peter says that we are a royal priesthood (who we are) for declaring God’s greatnesses to the world (what we are for)…

2. The majority of believers are no longer thrilled with the Lord and what He is doing in their lives. When questions like “what is God doing with you at the moment” cease to be common currency it is sure sign of creeping spiritual mediocrity. When a large percentage of believers are spiritually stalled, the church stalls too…

3. The people get happy with not going anywhere because of the comfort and refreshments on offer. Worse still when people get happy with activities, events, service and even good teaching and preaching but are resistant to challenges to radical living and sacrifice for the gospel…

4. When filler-Christians who have no real commitment to gospel vision out number the core of committed believers who do…

5. When a large percentage of the church are used to being passive receivers of ministry from other people rather than being active self-feeders on the Word of God…

6. No life application from the Bible. When preaching, teaching and Bible study become ends in themselves rather than means to an end, something is badly wrong. The aim of no passage of scripture is that we should simply know what it says without the knowledge translating into discipleship and worship…

7. A church becomes afraid to ask radical questions. Perhaps a pastor knows that things are foundationally wrong but knows he will be severely resisted (or sacked) if he raises the issue…

8. Confusing Christian activities with discipleship. The myriad of opportunities within and without the local church to spend time doing churchy things makes it very easy to believe that doing those activities automatically means we are growing as disciples…

9. Not understanding how to release and encourage everyone in the church to use their spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. This stall can take several different forms: the church (or the leader) that expects the leader to do everything and everyone else to do nothing…

10. Moving into maintenance mode. At some point all churches take decisions that tend towards stalling. No church was stalled at the point that it was founded. At the beginning all churches were adventures in faith and daring risk for God. No one actively decided for comfort over risk, but at some point the mindset shifted from uncomfortable faith and daring passion for the Lord to comfortable mediocrity…

Filed under: Christ our treasure, Christianity, Church, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, The Christian Life, The Church, The Gospel, The word of God

Beware of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

From my experience this is true of Christian youth culture in Europe, but not in Africa and Asia.  My thanks to Jason Robertson for this:

Dr. Albert Mohler reports that when Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these:

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”
2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”
3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”
4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”
5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

Notice that the belief system of these youth is very inconsistent.  It is a muddled mixture of both moralism and hedonism.  In short, they are creating a god in their own image, according to their own pleasures.  They want a Divine parent… who will provide for them so they can have fun.

By the way, #3 reveales that “goodness” is completely subjective.  In other words, the god that these young people believes exists is not the righteous God of the Bible but the god of their own imaginations.

I encourage you to read the whole article.

Filed under: Christianity, Culture, Discernment, Moralism, The Christian Life, The Church, Youth

What Does the Church Need?

If Christianity is about public truth delivered through an external Word, then ministry and evangelism require educated leaders who can expound and apply that truth for the benefit of those under their care. By contrast, if Christianity is reduced to personal experience, then its leadership will consist of the most successful entrepreneurs and managers of extraordinary staged events. (Michael Horton Christless Christianity), p. 51

(HT: Erik Raymond)

Filed under: Biblical exposition, Christianity, Church, Discernment, Doctrine, Evangelical, Preachers, Preaching, Truth

Persecution of Christians Across the World

My thanks to James Grant for this:

Where Christians Are Persecuted. The new Open Doors’ World Watch List has been updated and some countries who violate the rights of Christians have changed, but at the top of the list we still see North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

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Filed under: Christianity, Missions, The Gospel, The Persecuted Church

A Christless Christianity

“There really is no place for Christ in many people’s Christianity. Their faith is not actually in Christ; it is in Christianity and their ability to live it out. This kind of ‘Christianity’ is really about shadow glories of human knowledge and performance. It does not require the death to self that must always happen if love for Christ is going to reign in our hearts.”

- Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC; New Growth Press, 2007), 106.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Christianity, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Legalism, Religion, The Christian Life, The Cross, The word of God