Category: study

If you remember a commenter stated that water baptism is
necessary for salvation. It seems that by salvation he meant both justification
and regeneration in that he believed water baptism was (a) necessary for the
forgiveness of sins and (b) that you are raised to life by means of water baptism.
We’ve worked our way through several baptismal accounts and have been eroding
at his foundation (simultaneously addressing some other baptismal concerns and
God-willing reflecting a Bible based study). At this point though my commenter
brought up the (in)famous 1 Peter text as undeniable proof of baptism that
saves us.

Last night our church baptized over 20 people [This posted on Tuesday but brother Russ is referring to Sunday night.-rey].
Embarrassingly, I have not been keeping up with Rey’s series on baptism, so I’m
not sure whether he has touched on this. However, I came away from this service
with a couple of thoughts that might contribute to what he is saying:

Last time I touched the book of James I was taking a small
look at personal patience (or perseverance) and the joy a believer can have in
trials. Today I’d like to look at corporate patience in the work of
the Lord and what that has to do with the individual.

Rey pointed me to a post at The Happy Husband that is rather
interesting. How to minister to your minister….that’s actually a harder
question than many may think. First, and probably foremost, because most of the
pastors that I’m acquainted with would have a hard time telling people what
would be encouraging to them. Its not that we don’t need encouragement nor that
it doesn’t feel good to us to be lifted up, but I think that many of us are
sensitive to the fact that we don’t want to manipulate the feelings of those
that God has given us in order to bring glory to us. It’s a fine line that a
pastor walks – being human and needing support and yet wanting all the glory to
go to God. So, if you go to your pastor to ask him (I’m going to use the
masculine throughout this whole post since something like over 90% of pastors
are men…realizing that some of the readers may have women pastors – its more
because I have a terrible habit of not matching up my pronouns and plurality
:)…if you go to your pastor and ask him how you can encourage him, don’t expect
a very detailed listing – he’ll probably never tell you what would really water
his heart.

MCF is throwing another blog party and since I haven’t
participated in any for quite a while I decided to bring another bit of my own
stuff. I will surely be late and (once again) no one will bother tasting
it—much less look at it—but so what. I’ll go, wanna join me?