Categories
brethren church sin study

Church Discipline: What Does the Bible Say About It?

Audio version of the article minus the questions at the end or the bibliography.

Hey, remember when I wrote that mad long article about the local church? I casually mentioned that the right church holds to scripturally correcting its members. I never really explained what I meant by that, so people had questions. Questions like “what does it mean that a church corrects its members?” Or “what does church discipline look like?” Or how does church discipline work? And, does church discipline work at all? I even got “who is allowed to carry out church discipline and why?” Good questions all but, I’ll take a step back to work through the rationale with another crazy long article. Audio to come soon.

Categories
sin

I’ve Sinned; Now What? Eleven Reminders For Dealing with Sin

On this side of eternity we will sin. I’m not saying we must sin. Sin is not necessary to human life but it is part of human life. On this side of eternity we will struggle with it. We will sin.

Indeed, there will be times in lives where we think we’re doing okay, where things seem to be going fine, and then we hear a sermon or see a passage in the Bible, or read an article, or hear an argument where we find ourselves convicted of sin. We wind up convicted of some specific thing that we thought was okay but now we see it is wrong.

Perhaps there is a specific sin that we keep slipping into, like a well-fitting sweater or comfy shoes.  Or the sin we’ve committed a long time ago, before even thinking it was a sin, and now we see it for what it is.  We’ve sinned.

In the blogging vogue, here are eleven things (to limit it to a readable number) to keep in mind in regards to sin.

Categories
rey's a point scripture sin

Should Christians Ever Fear or Be Afraid?

storm

I once got into a discussion with a fellow Christian about some topic. One of us brought up a verse that supposedly proved the point and the conversation was over.

Sound familiar?

Sure it does. You’ve been there too.

Answering the Wrong Way

So let me pretend. I’m going to ask a question and answer it: should you, as a Christian, have fear? Should you, Christian, be afraid?

Categories
christ sin

Against the Divine ‘Attaboy

Here’s the expectation: Christ suffered; don’t expect better. Here’s the expectation: Christ came to save His own and His own knew Him not; don’t expect better. I can say it but I don’t think we really believe it. We live in a place where we go to school to be guaranteed a job. We go to doctors to be guaranteed good health. We invest in our 401K to be ensured with a retirement fund.

All these things that we do with an expectation of a return; we do it just right, we get a cosmic ‘Attaboy.

Categories
human sin

Christian Ideals and the Reality of Sin

I like to look at situation and, no matter how rough, consider what would be ideal. I think that’s important.  In circles with friends or family I have convincingly argued for The Ideal and then stood there as someone asks “That’s awesome; how do we get there?” only to shake my head and respond “I don’t know.” Now the fact is that I do know that the impending ideal of a dawning future reality will establish a system that we, of our own power, can’t possibly implement. But people don’t get that so I want to talk about why that’s important.