CHRISTIAN READER

A New Kind of Church

In Matthew 16, Jesus asks His disciples who they thought He was. Peter, as usual, is ready with an answer when he proclaims: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus, in confirming Peter's answer tells him that "flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Jesus continues His point by saying: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it" (Mt. 16:16-18). Although much has been made of this verse by both Catholics and Protestants, neither Peter nor his confession of Jesus as the Christ will be our focus here. I only want to make the reader aware of a simple pronoun: "My." Jesus referred to the church as "My church." The church belongs to Jesus, not to us.

The Right Use of this Present Life

by Brian Carpenter

(This is Part 6 of a series. Click here to begin at Part 1.)

In the quest for the right use of this life and the things of this life, we are often tempted to go to one extreme or the other.  We either despise the things of this world and set up for ourselves (and others) a rigid system that says who can have what and how much. Or else we use our liberty as the pretext for the material equivalent of gluttony.

As Your Strength

The following is the twenty-eighth chapter from Andrew Murray's book, Abide in Christ.

"All power is given UNTO ME in heaven and in earth." (Matthew 28:18)

"Be strong IN THE LORD, and in the power of his might." (Ephesians 6:10)

"My power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

There is no truth more generally admitted among earnest Christians than that of their utter weakness. There is no truth more generally misunderstood and abused. Here, as elsewhere, God's thoughts are heaven-high above man's thoughts.

The Nature and Scope of Biblical Authority

by Leland Ryken

Basic to religious belief is the question of what constitutes the authority for belief. Historically there have been three main views of what constitutes the ultimate authority: the Bible, church tradition, and human reason, either alone or in combination. The Puritans, following the lead of the Continental Reformers, claimed Scripture alone as the final authority for religious belief. "The rule according to which conscience is to proceed, " wrote Cotton Mather, is "what God has revealed in the Sacred Scriptures." "This is the glory and sure friend of a church," added John Lightfoot, "to be built upon the Holy Scriptures...The foundation of the true church of God is Scripture."

The Ages Which Were Before Us

One of the problems with most church history books is that they tend to overwhelm rather than inform. This is largely due to the fact that church history is taught like every other type of history: a long and boring series of names, dates, and events. While this approach is a defeating way to teach any kind of history, it is especially detrimental to church history. Why? Because church history is not primarily the story of individuals, it is the story of Christ building His church on earth. Although individuals are certainly a key (and necessary) component to the church-building effort, they are not the end of the story, they are merely the beginning. A book on church history that fails to ask the question "What was God doing here?" will also fail to teach its readers anything of lasting value. It matters little if modern Christians can rattle off the fact that the East and West divide between the Greek and Latin churches happened in 1054, if they are unaware of why this "great schism" happened in the first place. The "happening" is mostly meaningless without the context of what led up to it.

A New Kind of Gospel

François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, is credited with the famous saying about man creating God in his own image. He worded it this way: "If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor." Many variations of this quotation have been used by various authors over the years to communicate the idea that man has a natural predisposition—the Bible calls it sin—to think of himself as the center of the universe. It was pointed out to me in a sermon I heard in my early days of becoming a Christian that man employs two methods of making more of himself than he ought. The first is fairly obvious: man makes much of himself. But the second is less obvious and more difficult to deal with: man makes little of God.

Delay of Gratification

by Brian Carpenter

(This is Part 5 of a series. Click here to begin at Part 1.)

When my wife was a child, she was told a story about two little girls who magically got to choose between two life scenarios. Have the first half of life be pleasant and easy, but the last part be painful and marked by hardship, or let the first half be marked by hardship and pain and the last half be marked by pleasure and gain and ease. Then the story followed those two girls in their decisions. The moral was that pleasure now and pain later equips you neither to use the pleasure appropriately, nor handle the pain later. But pain now and pleasure later equips you to handle both. She learned a great lesson from that story and has always been miles ahead of me in this area. My own upbringing was more "normal." It was marked by just the opposite approach.



That You May Not Sin

The following is the twenty-seventh chapter from Andrew Murray's book, Abide in Christ.

"In him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." (1 John 3:5-6)

"Ye know," the apostle had said, "that He was manifested to take away our sin," and had thus indicated salvation from sin as the great object for which the Son was made man. The connection shows clearly that the taking away has reference not only to the atonement and freedom from guilt, but to deliverance from the power of sin, so that the believer no longer does it. It is Christ's personal holiness that constitutes His power to effect this purpose. He admits sinners into life union with Himself; the result is, that their life becomes like His. "In Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not." As long as he abides, and as far as he abides, the believer does not sin. Our holiness of life has its roots in the personal holiness of Jesus. "If the root be holy, so also are the branches."

The Authority of the Bible

by D.P. Brooks

How can we account for the amazing vitality and relevance of the Bible? It was written over a period of many hundreds of years by all kinds of people: kings, shepherds, statesmen, farmers, prophets, fishermen. We have writers today who are far better educated than were the biblical writers. Many men in our culture have literary skills far beyond that of most of the humble people who helped write the Scriptures.

Mere Practical Theology

There are few writers from the 20th century that come close to either the amount or the influence owned by Clive Staples Lewis. Although primarily known today for his religious writings, Lewis seemingly wrote something about nearly every topic under the sun during his 50-year writing career. And like G.K. Chesterton before him, Lewis shined most brightly as an essayist. Although he certainly wrote his share of long-form books and novels, his brilliance and eloquence were most readily on display when he limited his writing to fewer than ten pages. God in the Dock, an eclectic collection of some of his essays and articles, is a great introduction to his polemical and apologetic writings, in addition to being a magnificent example of how Christianity should be thought about and lived out in the world around us.