A Shepherd is never lonely in his flock.

Hopefully a blog to reach the world.

The Church.

‎”If the church is a building, then we must be bricks in it; if the church is a body, then we are its members; if the church is the household of faith, then we are part of that household. Sheep are in a flock, and branches on a vine. Biblically, if we are Christians we must be members of a church.” - Dever, Mark. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004. Print. Pf162


“Always be ready” -1 Peter 3:15

(Source: youtube.com)

We love because He first loved us.

—(1 John 4:19)

(Source: newheight)

A Growing Issue

worldview-thinker

    “As each generation of believers comes forth into the world, so grows the challenge to help the faithful gain a solid footing in the historical faith. Without that footing, we will be tossed to and fro by the winds of culture, and quickly exhaust ourselves in serving God and neighbor.” -Galli, Mark. “Nurturing Mind and Soul.” Christianity Today December 2011:7.

    The young minds of our modern society are in the middle of a war that has been ongoing since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Ever since man began to think about the world around him, apart from the God of the Bible, relying on logic and reason, the battle over the affections of the mind and heart has been waging. In this world of, “What’s right for you may not be right for me, but that’s okay,” there has never been a better time for Christians to know and understand what it means to have a Christian worldview. 

    Nancy Pearcy explains in her book, “Total Truth,” just how important it is for people to fight to know and understand worldview; specifically a Christian worldview. She writes, “…one of the most important reasons for developing a Christian worldview [is] to protect against absorbing alien philosophies unaware. Like so many young people, I had learned my Bible but had no clue how to relate biblical doctrine to the realm of ideas and ideologies. When I first encountered the broader intellectual world beyond the circle of family and church, I was an easy target. I had no conceptual tools to ward off challenges to the faith” (Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth. Wheaton, Illinois, 2004 p124).

    Today the battle for people must now include worldview. The evangelist is no longer aided by people having previous knowledge of God, Jesus, or even the Bible. As more people graduate from higher learning, they are better equipped to fight off the evangelists using reason, logic, and science.

   With so much advanced opposition how will souls be won? By preaching Christ crucified. “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1Cor. 1:20-25).

  Many have shied away from using logic and reason to share Christ because they think it can’t be done. But now, more than ever, it must be done. Today’s modern mind must be challenged to think about God. Not about just any God but the God of the Bible.

   So how then will people share the gospel with their neighbor? By the ministry of prayer and word. In today’s world many Christians are not being equipped for discipleship, they are not experiencing doctrinal training, and are never challenged to study and understand theology. No wonder Gallup studies show that most people can’t answer who said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” or identify where Paul’s conversion happened. 

   This is not a call to pastors to pick it up and teach theology and Apologetics to their congregations. This is a call to the layperson sitting in the pew, week after week, to strive to know God through study and prayer. It used to be the highest calling to study theology for any person, now it’s often abandoned in the pursuit of having a day off from work. The apostle Paul, who was converted on the road to Damascus, reminds us of the great call for all to study God’s word and to go preach it to all in Romans 10:14-17,where he writes, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

   So today, “obey the gospel.” Seek to know God by reading your Bible, study theology and doctrine, pray to God, and evangelize your neighbor.

Christianity Without Discipleship Is Christianity Without Christ -Jonathan Parnell

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship.

An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ.

With an abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of formal knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into practice; but it can never be followed in personal obedience.

Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

The Cost of Discipleship, 1937, (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 59, paragraphing added.