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Lost Son, not Lost Sonship

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originally published in the November/December 1998 edition of Grace in Focus Luke 15 is the classic NT chapter on repentance. Here, if anywhere, we should meet the fundamental teaching on NT repentance. As we saw in our study of Luke 15:1-10 (last issue), the first two parables of the chapter—The Lost Sheep and The Lost
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Are You Edifying the Body?

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And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
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When Assurance of Salvation Is Fleeting

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Today I received an email from a friend. He gave me a link to an article entitled, “When Assurance of Salvation Is Fleeting.”[i] It was a Feb 15, 2017 blog at The Gospel Coalition (TGC) by a man named Jason Helopoulos. The first two headings of the blog give you a good idea of the
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Why Holding A Minority View Isn’t Necessarily Bad

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Today, the society we live in is bombarded with polling data as if to prove that the majority is always right. Often, the polling data in elections doesn’t accurately predict the outcome. The polling data can be wrong! The majority of the pollsters can be wrong! Even in technical areas like science or medicine, the
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How Much Do You Bench?

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Imagine someone came to you and said you could be saved if you bench pressed 750 lbs, but you only had one chance to do it. Could you? You might try, but I doubt most of you could even lift the bar off the handles. Now imagine if they came back to you and made
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Sacrificial Love

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By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little
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The Fund Raising Faith Barrier

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For a short time early in my Christian life I followed Bill Gothard’s teaching that even adult children are to obey the wishes of their parents. As a result, when I graduated from college, I sought my parent’s permission to go on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. They said no. They wanted me to
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Keep the Big Picture in Church Ministry

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A good friend of mine—we’ll call him Steve—graduated from seminary 40 years ago. He pastored at a church in Colorado for four years, then left the ministry, never to pastor again. Instead he went into secular work. While he enjoyed that career, I’ve often wondered what might have been. This man is a genius and
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Triune Love

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Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. he who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8 (NKJV) The prominent Roman Catholic theologian, Hans urs von Balthasar, was once asked why there was a
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Why We Should be Wary of Adding Extra-Biblical Rituals to our Worship

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by Philippe Sterling1, originally published in the Jan/Feb, 2010 edition of Grace in Focus as “Return to Ritual, Pt 2”2 What are some reasons for not returning to the rituals of historic Christianity? A. MOST LITURGICAL PRACTICES ARE NOT DERIVED FROM APOSTOLIC TEACHING. The return to liturgy from the “historical church” may be inconsistent with
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