Salvation is in Christ, and to be in Christ is to be in His body, the church; therefore no one — however good — is saved outside the church, because every saving blessing God gives is found only there. This question makes people uncomfortable, and it…
The sin that struck Ananias and Sapphira dead was not stinginess and not even mere lying to men; it was hypocrisy before God — the loss of the sense that God inspects the heart — and that sin is as deadly to a congregation now as…
The Lord chose twelve very different men to lay the foundation of His church, and in their variety He teaches every congregation that He has a place and a work for every kind of faithful disciple. We are tempted to look at the apostles as giants…
When God’s people borrow the world’s religious vocabulary, they soon borrow the world’s religious ideas; faithfulness therefore requires that we hold the pattern of sound words and call Bible things by Bible names. This is a lesson about words, and someone will object that words are…
All authority in religion belongs to Jesus Christ; therefore His word, and His word alone, settles every religious question, and to refuse to hear Him is to be cut off from the people of God. Every religious dispute, when traced to its root, is a dispute…
Holy Spirit baptism was a specific divine promise, administered by Christ, poured out on the apostles at Pentecost and on the household of Cornelius to open the door to Jew and Gentile — not a general experience to be sought, and not the baptism commanded of…
The New Testament speaks of five different baptisms, but only one is the commanded baptism in force for sinners today; rightly dividing the five guards us from both neglect and counterfeit. A single word can carry several meanings, and nowhere does that cause more mischief than…