“You will be required at times to set before your congregations things that they may not wish to hear — doctrines they don’t agree with, ethical demands they are unwilling to submit to” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 193).
The Heart of the Law
INTRODUCTION:A very popular mistake among Christians is that of contrasting love and the law, as though we had to pick and choose. Will we live according to love, or according to the law? But if we must love, isn’t that a law, a great commandment? And if we keep the law truly, won’t we realize …
A Different Gift of Tongues in Acts
“Skim a few chapters of the Book of Acts, and notice how often the preaching of the Word issues immediately in controversy and therefore in debate. It is truly noteworthy how often this happens” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 186).
Boldness, Not Bombast
“Lest you get the wrong idea, let me say that I am not saying you should all learn how to ‘shout up a good camp meeting’, or adopt a kind of phony, thundering pulpit style that is not you. It is actually more subtle than that. You want to be ‘natural’ in the pulpit (most …
Governmental Tax Cheats
INTRODUCTION:When considering the subject of our duty to pay taxes, the Bible seems plain enough. But a lot rides on where you place the emphasis—where do the italics go? Governments exist by covenant, and governments like ours explicitly claim to exist by covenant. The word federal comes from the Latin word foedus, which means covenant. …
A Crisis That Never Fades
“The message of the apostles was the God himself precipitated the historic crisis for the whole world, and for each and every person, by bringing Jesus back from the dead” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 113).
An Armed Deacon of God
INTRODUCTION:We are taking care to work through this passage of Scripture deliberately and slowly, and there are at least two reasons for this. First, the issues involved are complex and important, and are even more complex and important in our day than they usually are. Second, the misunderstandings that surround this portion of Scripture are …
Ministers Losing True Ministry
“Your problem is that your preaching did not effectively bridge the distance between your people and Christ’s work. Instead you hurdled it and ended up on this side. You may have become (no matter how unwittingly) a pulpit proclaimer of practical ethics or a sermonic psychologist. But you are no longer — in any vital …
Life in the Historical Realities
“It is vitally important that the subjective realities of the Christian life always be kept in the closest contact with the objective realities of what God has done for us in His Son. It is the job of preachers and preaching to make that connect clear” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 102).
In Good Company
This morning reading through John 9, I noticed an odd juxtaposition I had never noticed before. In the exchanges between the Jewish leaders and the blind man’s parents, and then the blind man himself, something curious happens. “These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if …