Orphan Sunday: Our church and Orphan Care
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”- Jesus The very existence of orphans shows us that something has gone terribly wrong in creation. It’s been estimated that there are 143 million orphans in the world. Just for perspective, that’s almost half the population of the United States. In other words, that is 1 orphan for every 47 people in the world. As Christians we understand that the orpha

The Gospel of Mark
Mark’s account of the gospel is action oriented. Mark shifts scenes rapidly. The Greek word euthys which means “immediately” is the standard link[2] between the different scenes of Jesus life and ministry. “The Gospel of Mark is a succinct, unadorned yet vivid account of the ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.”[3] Simply put, “Mark gives us a vigorous and lively account of Jesus’ life.”

The Literary Nature of The Gospel Accounts
When reading or teaching through the gospel accounts one must recognize their literary distinctiveness. One important characteristic about the genre ‘gospel’ is that superscriptions to these historical narrative accounts are worded “the gospel according to”, add the authors name. (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) This implies that there is ‘one gospel’ in four versions. Also of importance, the gospel accounts are ‘two level documents.’[1] The term gospel is a translation of the Greek word euangelion which means ‘good news.’ In the New Testament the word can either ref

Baptist churches and Membership Covenants
This post was developed with Derek Radney What is a church covenant? “What is the purpose of a membership covenant and why is it so important to the local church?” This is a great starting point. Membership covenants function to promote church health and bolster the reputation and witness of the local church within the body and in the community. Within the church body, the importance of a membership covenant seems pretty obvious. Professor Chuck Lawless concluded after researching church membership patterns, that many church leaders f

Uncovering Idols (Part 3): Beauty Magazines and the Idol of Image Projection
Note: This is the last  post taken from the manuscripts of a series I preached titled “Uncovering Idols.” Human beings were created to “image” God. Because of sin we cannot properly “image” God. But the Spirit conforms us to the ‘Image of Christ’ and we are enabled to do what we were created for. Introduction Idolatry is difficult to uncover in our society because it is so subtle, so covert. We don’t necessarily worship idols formed from wood and stone. Our idolatry is hidden in our hearts. Remember that “an idol is anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more