The Greek word ekklesia means “called out,” and a survey of its New Testament uses shows it applied to the local congregation (in several senses), to the one universal church, and to the household assembly — but never to a denomination. Doctrine often turns on a…
The word “Christian liberty” is used in two almost contradictory ways. One use invokes it as a shield against accountability — “I have liberty in Christ; don’t bind your traditions on me.” The other use names the profound freedom Christ actually purchased: freedom from the guilt…
The problems that multiply with the number of preachers are not primarily doctrinal in the obvious sense — they are structural and character problems that arise when the preacher’s role is not well understood or well executed. A church with a clear understanding of what a…
The consequences of sin extend further than any human being can trace them. They begin in the ruin of the individual who sinned — the loss of dominion, the weakening of every capacity, the severance of companionship with God. They spread outward to the earth itself…
The Christian life is lived under the figure of warfare — not physical warfare against human enemies, but spiritual warfare against the enemies of the soul, supremely the internal enemies: undisciplined thoughts, bodily passions, the self that must be mastered and crucified daily. God cannot use…
This warning from the Lord establishes the terrifying possibility that one can acknowledge Jesus verbally and intellectually yet be rejected at the judgment for a lack of obedient action.
Burdens are not all curses; God uses some to strengthen us, commands us to share others, and invites us to cast on Him the ones no man can carry — and wisdom is knowing which burden is which. We treat every burden as an enemy to…
A sermon by Ed Rangel from Romans, exploring Scripture and its application to Christian life and faith.
The church is glorious because Christ is its glorious Head, it wears the glorious names God gave it, it carries out God’s glorious work, and it moves toward a glorious destiny as the bride of the Lamb — and everything that divides or rebrands it dims…
The same office is named by several scriptural words — overseer, elder, shepherd, ruler, leader — and its qualifications, twenty in all from Timothy and Titus, are not impossibly high but are largely the marks of a mature Christian, attainable now as they were then. Many…