How would you like your meal?

One of the reasons Christians attend church is to recieve good teaching from the Word of God! 

In Matthew 4, when Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit.  He had fasted for forty days and at that point Satan came to the Lord.  He said, "if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."  Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

The Word is like food in that it nourishes our soul allowing us to grow in the Truth.  It is how God communicates with us.  God has given us everything we need in His Word.  Unlike in the apostolic era, where the ministry needed to be authenticated by signs and wonders, prophets, personal revelation, and so on, we need to study, rightly divide, and meditate on the Word daily.  The word is Inerrant, Infallible, Inspired, and completely Sufficient!

So then, if the word is like food, than the preaching and teaching we recieve on Sundays is somewhat like eating out!

When I eat out I look for a restaurant where I know the food is of good quality and the establishment is operated rightly!  If just about every meal is just empty calories, it's time to find a new place to eat before you become to weak and fall over!  If the food is poison, once I've recovered, you won't catch me there again, at least while the kitchen staff is the same!

If the Word is like food, What is your pastor feeding you?

Is your Spirital Food Processed? Are the sermons always Topical?  Are you learning from the Word of God or only from the Bible teacher?  Topical sermons are good, just not all the time.  From time to time a Pastor will sense that his flock is dealing with some particular situations or circumstance and needs to bring a topical teaching to his congregation.  However, if the sermons are always topical you are learning from the Bible Teacher instead of the Bible. 

Is it Whole, Organic Spiritual Food?  Does your pastor teach expositionally?  Expositional preaching and teaching takes a given section of scripture, interprets it using historical and grammitical hermeneutics, examines the original intent and audience and bridges the principles into present day application.

Like physical food, you need to balance your diet spiritually as well.  To be healthy you must eat whole, fresh food alot, but it's okay and even healthy to have some of the processed stuff once and a while!  Comparably, to be spiritually healthy you need good expositional teaching and studying, but it's good to have some topical teachings thrown in there once and a while.

The Bible:  It's not about what it means to you, it's about what God meant when He wrote it!!

Eat up!  In the grips of Grace! Brian

Balance without Compromise: Contending for the Faith in Love

God’s Children are clearly commanded to contend for the Faith in the Bible. The Greek word used, epagonizomai, is the same word used to describe the actions of a wrestler in a competition.

{3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude 1:3-7}

We should be offensive and defensive towards False Teachings.

However, we are to Be Loving; {for these are the two greatest commandments; Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-30}

Although it is okay to judge a man’s actions, if done in love and by God’s truth not our own standards; it is not okay to judge a mans heart. So while we MUST rail against the False Teaching and errors on essential doctrine, we must remember that if the person is a professed believer, we must hope the best for that person in love.

We are NOT to compromise the essentials, but should love all of our brothers and sisters in Christ even if we differ on secondary, non-essential doctrinal issues. We should approach a brother or sister who may be reinforcing bad teaching, in hopes that they are not aware of their error.

I’m not by any means using the old cliché, “hate the sin, not the sinner”, but what I am saying is that we should be growing in all the fruits of the spirit, and should be very careful not to sin against others and God when we contend for the faith.

{13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. 14 let all that you do be done with love. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14}

"BioLogos" a biblical critique

According to their web site, Biologos is a foundation promoting a perspective on the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound. The problem is that for a while now, Pete Enns (pictured on the right) and Biologos have been attacking the Inerrancy of the Scriptures. Pete Enns doesn't believe that the entire biblical text is inerrant. Like a physical structure, the Theology of True Christianity is founded on several foundational truths, which if altered, can cause wrong belief! Jesus warned that the way is narrow. It greives me to see people being lead into potential heresy because of teachers like Mr. Enns. Please pray that God would change Peters heart and he would understand his errors.

We cannot comprimise the Truth, our lives depend on it!!

For more on Biologos, Pete Enns, and their attacks on the Word, and some refreshing truth to help you keep it all in perspective...CLICK HERE-check this out-CLICK HERE!

Open-air Preaching Documentry

Open-air preaching, also referred to as street preaching has a bod name in some circles. I understand why this has happened. Like anything else, you have good and bad. There are however good street preachers out there and we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water!

Here is a trailer for a new documentry about Biblical Open-air Preaching called "Go Stand Speak!"

Enjoy!

The One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven

Here's a very important message from Mark Cahill on the importance of evnagelism. I also recommend Mark's book of the same title. This video is about 28 minutes.

New Pages on TRUTH Blog!

Check out our new pages by clicking on the links running across the top of all TRUTH Blog pages! If you have suggestions for stories and articles email them along.

A Quick Laugh!!