Rhetoric: The Christian Speaker and Non-verbal Communication
For the preacher, teacher, or leader, speaking well in public is vital. Of course, public speaking is verbal, but it’s also non-verbal. In fact, the majority of public speaking is non-verbal. Albert Mehrabian states, “Only 7 percent of a speaker’s message comes through his words; 38 percent springs from his voice; 55 percent comes from his facial expressions.”[1] Thus, the Christian speaker must concern himself not simply with what he...
Book Review: Remodeling Youth Ministry
by Ben Campbell “For too long, YFM (Youth and Family Ministry) has suffered from pragmatic solutions to eternal problems,” concludes Talbot.[1] For the past forty years, the goal of youth ministry has been to gain students through entertainment. The time has come for a reformation and a remodeling of youth ministry. In Remodeling Youth Ministry, Christopher Talbot does an exceptional job of communicating the need to return to a...
Thomas Helwys and Sola Scriptura
The foundational theme of the Reformers’ work was sola scriptura, Scripture alone. Each Reformer exhibited a strong commitment to look to the Scriptures for the truth about all of life. They rightly believed that the Roman Catholic Church’s problems stemmed from its departure from the Word of God as its rule in faith and practice. However, every Reformer struggled between their commitment to sola scriptura and their cultural context....
English General Baptists: The Arminian Anti-rationalists (Part II/II)
In Part I we considered scholarly claims that, of the Reformed, Lutherans, and Arminians, only seventeenth century Arminians were genuinely open to the new rationalism. We’ve selected two representatives of the English General Baptists (Arminians) to consider the merit of such claims. In Part Two, we’ll consider the writings of Thomas Grantham and Thomas Monck on how one acquires religious knowledge and compare them to the views of...
English General Baptists: The Arminian Anti-rationalists (Part I/II)
Early English General Baptists’ firm adherence to the authority and supremacy of Scripture as the rule of faith and practice defies notions that all seventeenth century Arminians were rationalists.[1] That Arminianism as a whole was inclined towards rationalism has become a common critique from even renowned scholars. For example, Richard Muller contends that “of the three major systematic models arising out of Protestantism, the...
Sola Fide (Faith Alone): The Past, Present, and Future Hope of the Gospel (Part II/II)
by Kevin L. Hester This is part two of two. See part one here. Implications of Sola Fide The distinct understanding of salvation embodied in Sola fide continues today in those committed to their reformation heritage. The history of this thought is an interesting story surrounding a particular reading of Scripture which led to an event that would usher in the modern world. But that was 500 years ago. What relevance does it have for...
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