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Studies -
The Church
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Written by William Dicks
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Tuesday, 03 November 2009 07:50 |
Introduction
All of us hold to things that are precious to us, just like Gollum in J.R.R Tolkien’s monumental work The Lord of the Rings held the “one” ring as precious to his own heart. Precious, the ring, finally led Gollum to his death.
In our own lives we also have things or persons that are precious to us. Our children, family, property, education, the right to the exercise of religion, the right of our children to grow up in smut-free and moral environments and many more.
However, more and more so-called democratic governments all over the world are starting to infringe upon all these preciousnesses in our lives. Today, these governments are enacting laws that make immorality legal. Things like pornography and homosexuality, and these governments are even starting to think that speaking out against such immoralities should be seen as hate speech, punishable under the law! Now that is turning justice on its head!
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Studies -
The Church
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Written by William Dicks
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Tuesday, 03 November 2009 05:19 |
The church growth gurus have long claimed that what is necessary for the church, is to become relevant to the world. According to them the church should be in the business of discovering the felt needs of the community and ministering to those needs in culturally acceptable modes. This means that if the community is very entertainment oriented, then the church should gear itself to minister to the community through entertainment and that the gospel should be presented in an entertaining way. In this way we can make the gospel more acceptable to the world in order to make it easier for them to accept it. It is said that the church needs to speak to the world in culturally understood language and that the language of the Bible is not easily understood by the world. The question is: “Is it right that we become so relevant to the world and making the gospel so acceptable to the world that we actually take the truth out of the gospel?”
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Studies -
The Church
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Written by William Dicks
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Thursday, 29 October 2009 12:55 |
The question that many Christians ask is "why the big deal about church history?" Many in today's evangelical church, from the conservative to those on the outskirts of evangelicalism like the charismatics, cannot see what is so important about knowing a little about church history! The claim by so many Christians today is that they do not need those that went before us, since they can simply be led by the Holy Spirit and let the Spirit guide them in the interpretation of the Bible.
History—the story of those that went before us—is "the story of those whose heirs we are…a long preface to our own life stories."1 The reason we can see so far is that we are standing on the shoulders of the giants that have gone before us. Only the conceited, the arrogant, see no need for church history. The conceited, the arrogant, are those who trample on the memory of the giants who have prepared the road on which we travel.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 29 October 2009 13:08 |
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Studies -
The Church
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Written by William Dicks
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Monday, 02 November 2009 06:22 |
 We’re a family that enjoys Christmas. Every year we decorate the house with Christmas trees, tinsel, flashing lights, candles and all kinds of ornaments. This year is no different. The same can be said of my wife’s family. They also love decorating their houses. The only difference this year--in our own home--is that I did not help. I had to work on the day the house had to be decorated.
At the end of my working day I walked into the decorated house and it hit my like a ton of bricks. Where is Christ? Yeah, I know He lives within my heart. I am saved by grace alone through faith alone in the work of Christ alone! Yet, with regard to the decorations in the house, where was He? There is a Santa on the wall unit… Santas on the wall unit. Santas on the Christmas tree…Santas everywhere! But…where is Christ? Is this not the season we celebrate the birth of Christ? Then how is it that we decorate our houses with an incremental amount of Santas, tinsel, lights and other trinkets every year, but Christ is hardly anywhere to be found? Sure, we do have a scene of the birth of Christ; however, it is tiny and lonely in comparison to the rest of the Christmas garb!
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Last Updated on Monday, 02 November 2009 06:50 |
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Studies -
The Church
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Written by William Dicks
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Wednesday, 28 October 2009 06:04 |
1. Introduction
What is The Reformation and what is a Reformer?
The term Reformer is used to describe those men who desired to reach back to the foundations of the Word of God and the true Gospel of Jesus Christ in light of human traditions and ecclesiastical corruption. A reformer’s intention, when applied in this way to church history, was particularly seen in the reformation of the corrupted Roman Catholic Church.
The phrase The Reformation refers to that great restoration of the Biblical gospel and the resulting schism with the Roman Catholic Church that was initiated by Martin Luther on 31 October 1517, when he nailed his 95 theses of contention with the Roman Catholic Church.
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