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Disciple replaced by brother
The word disciple, so prevalent in the early part of the New Testament, disappears after the book of Acts. It is replaced by the term brother in the rest of the Bible. Family dominates the self-understanding of the early church. Dhati LewisClick to TweetWebsite: https://research.lifeway.com/2017/02/24/the-church-is-a-family/
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Apokaradokien
Apokaradokia, which is also found in Romans 8:19, is a picturesque word, possibly Paul’s own coinage, which RSV translates ‘eager expectation’ and NIV renders as a verb I eagerly expect. It denotes a state of keen anticipation of the future, the craning of the neck to catch a glimpse of what lies ahead, ‘the concentrated…
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Where the gospel makes strides
As we take Philippians 1:12–18a out of the Philippians’ hands and put it in the modern church, we should be careful to preserve Paul’s perspective on the way God works. We are not likely to find the greatest advances of the gospel within the circles of prestige, power, and wealth so pervasive in the West.…
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Perspective
Philipians 1 When difficult, even life-threatening, circumstances face us, we should take Paul as our example and look for how God might be working in such circumstances to advance the gospel either in our lives or in the lives of others. When fellow Christians tighten the shackles on our wrists rather than seek to alleviate…
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The Sweet dropper
Richard Sibbes, one of the great old Puritan preachers of Cambridge who died in 1635, wrote a whole book (175 pages) on Psalm 42:5. He was called “the sweet dropper” because of how much confidence and joy his sermons caused. He called his book The Soul’s Conflict with Itself, because in Psalm 42:5 that is exactly what you have,…
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Hate speech?
The moral register of today’s cultural climate considers it immoral—indeed, an act of violence—to say “gay marriage is not marriage” or “you were not born in the wrong body.” Those statements are deemed hateful precisely because they demand that someone set aside the sovereignty of his own desires or feelings in light of an external…
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Aware of the failings
St. Paul was certainly well aware of the failings of Christians, even of the wickedness that they could perpetrate in the church’s name, as his blunt letters to various congregations indicate. But he never ceased to present the church—flawed, divided, morally compromised as she was—as the meaning and hope of history. Carl TruemanClick to TweetWebsite:…
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God loves the church
And this is what God has chosen as his primary vehicle for saturating the world with the gospel. In fact, he calls it his bride. God doesn’t just like the Church; he loves the Church. He married us. He isn’t just putting up with us. He wants us. Stunning, isn’t it? So when Jesus ascended into Heaven after his resurrection,…