Confessions of a Freed Will Baptist (No, that’s not a Misspelling)
In the Protestant tradition, a defense for the freedom of the will has historically fallen to the Arminians. As a matter of fact, Arminian Baptists in the United States were given the derogatory name free willers by their Calvinist brethren—the name stuck and became the official, and personally owned, name of the Free Will Baptists.[1] Let me be clear: I am proud of my Free Will Baptist heritage, and I proudly own the label today....
A Pastor’s Guide to Wedding Rehearsals
One of the great joys of pastoral ministry is presiding over wedding ceremonies. One of the great headaches of pastoring can be presiding over wedding rehearsals. Well, maybe you do not have to be in pastoral ministry for wedding rehearsals to cause a headache. I have been part of many weddings either as the officiant or as a member of the wedding party, and I have learned that rehearsals are stressful from both ends. They can drag on...
A Free Will Baptist Looks at John Piper’s All that Jesus Commanded
An Overview of the Book While John Piper’s All that Jesus Commanded: The Christian Life according to the Gospels is hot off the press, it is actually a revised, second edition of his earlier work, What Jesus Demands from the World (2006). “The new title,” Piper explains, “is intended to make more clear the relevance of this book for every Christian. It deals with every command Jesus gave and how it relates to Christian living...
Worry and a Good Word
“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad” (Prov. 12:25, ESV). Reflection In Proverbs 12:25, Solomon gives a concrete picture of how the abstract concept of anxiety affects us. The first image that popped into my mind when reading these words was a pharmaceutical commercial for Spiriva, a medicine used to treat certain respiratory problems. That commercial featured an elephant sitting on a man’s chest,...
Citizenship in Christian Perspective
What is the proper relationship between the Christian and the state? Thinkers have not provided a shortage of answers to that question throughout the church’s history. Christians have (and do in different parts of the world) existed as outlaw sects uneasy with the state, as members of the official religion of the state, and everything in between. At this present moment of increasing partisan polarization within the socio-cultural...
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