Church Is For Messy People

We tend to get dressed up for church. Depending on your denomination, getting dressed up might look like wearing a suit and tie or a dress. Or, getting dressed up might look like wearing your best pair of jeans and a collared shirt. We clean up before going to church. We shower and we brush our hair. We want to, at the least, look like we have it together. For the most part, we don’t go to church wearing yoga pants or sweatpants. We don’t roll out of bed and go straight to church.

I distinctly remember one Sunday when a man said to me something like, “When I look around, I see all these people who have their lives together. Meanwhile, my life is a mess.”

MORE Church Is For Messy People

The Creation Debate in a Nutshell | Parchment and Pen

Here is a summary of what we taught at the Credo House for “Coffee and Theology” this past Tuesday night. I hope you enjoy.



1. Young Earth Creationism (YEC)

The Skinny:

Belief that the universe was created miraculously by God approximately ten thousand years ago (or less).

Explanation:

YECs often insist that their view is the only way to understand and remain faithful to the integrity of the Scriptures. For them, options which integrate evolution or an old earth paradigm compromise the clear teachings of Scripture and even the essence of the Gospel message.

MORE: The Creation Debate in a Nutshell | Parchment and Pen

Every Woman a Mother

Motherhood is a high calling for all women — whether single, married, fertile or infertile

In an August 2013 TIME feature, "The Childfree Life: Having It All Without Having Children," writer Lauren Sandler introduces a woman named Laura Scott. At age 14, Scott decided never to have children. She describes her mother as "bone tired," working long hours while raising Scott and her brother. It was a lifestyle Scott didn't want to mimic.

"My main motive not to have kids was that I loved my life the way it was," Scott explains.

Now at 50, Scott is married, has enjoyed a career as an author and filmmaker — currently working on a documentary called Childless by Choice — and says she is "fulfilled."

MORE: Every Woman a Mother

3 Statements on Assurance of Salvation | Challies Dot Com

Today I would like to make 3 statements about a subject that is always relevant to Christians: assurance of salvation. This is an area of great confusion for many believers and an area that can lead to great discouragement. I am going to make 3 statements about assurance and then, Lord willing, follow up tomorrow with a word about the true basis for assurance.

1. It is possible and even normal for the Christian to experience assurance of salvation. MORE: 3 Statements on Assurance of Salvation | Challies Dot Com

Reformation or Revolution? A Review of God and the Gay Christian | Canon and Culture

Imagine a book with a thesis that calls into question 2,000 years of established Christian theology and biblical exegesis. It recasts basic principles of biblical anthropology and human embodiment. It also puts two millennia of faithful obedience to divine revelation on the side of injustice and ignorance. Now, Christians are accustomed to either non-Christians or liberal Christians making claims of this nature, but not from individuals supposedly nestled confidently within the evangelical camp.

This week a book making such claims is hitting bookshelves written by a young author named Matthew Vines.

Reformation or Revolution? A Review of God and the Gay Christian | Canon and Culture

Firing Rome’s Canon - R.C. Sproul Jr.

I remain, even in these feel good days, a Protestant. What I protest is what my fathers protested—the folly of the Roman Catholic church. Such can get you in great deal of hot water these days. Everyone wants to go along to get along. Trouble is, Rome still teaches a false gospel, still calls for the damnation of people like me who preach the true gospel. Now I am happy to confess that explaining the nuances that separate infusion from imputation, distinctions between justification and sanctification can require a bit of theological training and historical understanding. I’m sorry to confess that Christians generally have precious little of either. If we can’t see what the big deal is with a little contemporary modalism, if we want to open the tent wide to welcome in those nice Mormons, what chance do I have for making the case that Rome is outside the pale?

  MORE: Firing Rome’s Canon - R.C. Sproul Jr.

God, the Gospel, and the Gay Challenge — A Response to Matthew Vines – AlbertMohler.com

Evangelical Christians in the United States now face an inevitable moment of decision. While Christians in other movements and in other nations face similar questions, the question of homosexuality now presents evangelicals in the United States with a decision that cannot be avoided. Within a very short time, we will know where everyone stands on this question. There will be no place to hide, and there will be no way to remain silent. To be silent will answer the question.

The question is whether evangelicals will remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the unbroken teaching of the Christian church for over two thousand years on the morality of same-sex acts and the institution of marriage.

The world is pressing this question upon us, but so are a number of voices from within the larger evangelical circle —  MORE:

God, the Gospel, and the Gay Challenge — A Response to Matthew Vines – AlbertMohler.com

Three Tips on Being a Friend of Sinners | Desiring God

Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners. That was the word on the street in first-century Palestine.

The precise phrase — “friend of sinners” — is mentioned twice in the Gospels, in Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34. The naysayers of the day, the religious aristocracy, criticized Jesus as a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

MORE:  Three Tips on Being a Friend of Sinners | Desiring God