Him We Proclaim

One Bible question I often get is, how can so many Christians who have the Spirit living inside of them read the Bible and come up with differing doctrines? If you ask this question, maybe this will help: "Some would challenge the call to humility in reading the Scripture by arguing that the Spirit shows us what the text means. He is our teacher. But when two "Spirit-instructed interpreters" argue for mutually exclusive positions, a problem arises. Who brings the correct message taught by the Spirit and how do we decide? We would argue that this question emphasizes the Spirit's teaching work at the wrong place, by stressing understanding of content. John 14-16 describes the work of the [Spirit] as a ministry of convicting the world and instructing the saints through encouragement. In other words, the Spirit works in our hearts to convict us of the truth of what we read in Scripture and to encourage us with regard to how we apply what is said. There is a differenc...

Today to kick off our family morning, Patrick practiced his climbing skills in the back yard! He did great climbing our mango tree, and went up 3 times! It was pretty exposed, so it gave me a good excuse to break out our rope and harnesses!

In the last 5 years, a new buzzword came into play in the evangelical church in the USA: "Missional" It was an adjective to describe being "On Mission". This new phraseology carries a strong, yet vague sense of purpose. We are "on mission"--we have have a job to do! We all have a mission--are you on your mission? But since this mission is the same across the church, we just did away with the article (on a mission, on the mission) and new power language was born: On Mission! When I saw this trending, I was concerned with the vague concept with which it so strongly thrust forth for three reasons: 1. I've said it twice, I'll say it again--it's vague... What does it mean?  Well, I think the best way to articulate it is the following: Be always ever focused on making disciples via the strategy of multiplication no matter where you are... I think... The strength of this vague concept is that church members were challenged to be 'on mission...