A Governing Principle: Bearing One Another’s Burdens & The Law of Christ In this article I point out that using the Hebrew nation as a prototype, God established the concept of tribes – extended family households – as a model for His kingdom people. I am calling this model “Kingdom Households”, and proposing that this is still a model for God’s kingdom people, the Church, which is His Body. (The Ecclesia which Jesus is building). These are the specific proposals
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of spiritual gifts which I have found useful in my life and ministry. It consists of three components: The categorization of the spiritual gifts into three groups: MOTIVATIONAL gifts MANIFESTATION gifts MINISTRY gifts One’s MOTIVATIONAL gift is the root of one’s MANIFESTATION and MINISTRY gifts. There is a MOTIVATIONAL, MANIFESTATION, MINISTRY CONNECTION.
Before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples….” Since it takes the authority of Christ to make a disciple of Christ, authentic Equipping Ministries will, by nature of the case, share the life of Christ – that is, they are Christ-centered, disciple-making relationships through which Christ is revealed and relationship with Christ is nurtured. In his Letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul tells us that
Another Look at Consensus in the Church It is currently in vogue in certain movements in the Western Church to criticize church leaders for usurping the Headship of Christ in the Church. I agree that, generally speaking, this is a valid criticism. But, I but would like to also point out that people in general usurp the Headship of Christ much more often than church leaders. This makes sense simply because of the fact that there are more people than
The Church has a calling that could be referred to as “The Even Greater Commission”: “… that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 3:10 Jesus laid down His life for a Bride who will love Him more than herself. The Lord purposed to have a Church that would demonstrate the wisdom and power of self-denying obedience in order to put to shame
“The elementary principles of the World” (Galatians 4:1-10; Colossians 2:8-23) have been used as tools by the fallen powers and principalities (2 Corinthians 10:5; Ephesians 6:12) to keep the Church – namely, the first century Church, almost all the various streams of the Church throughout its history, even to the present day Church (including “organic” “home churches”) – under the shadow of the Old Covenant with regards to its worship praxes, and falling short of fulfilling its calling to gather and
Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church. We cannot discern the Body until we first discern the Head. We cannot understand the mystery of the Church until we understand the mystery of Christ. Jesus is building His Church through revelation of Himself. As we pursue the revelation of Christ, He builds His Church. As disciples of Christ, let us pursue REVELATION of Christ as the Head and the Foundation, having that translated into RELATIONSHIP with Christ, with a
Using the scriptural word picture of The Vineyard of the Lord, this article takes a look at the current condition of the Church. In response to this, it then takes another look at the commission of the Church, addressing various aspects of discipleship all in light of the New Covenant, with a particular focus on the Christ-centeredness of apostolic teaching and apostolic fellowship.
Introduction The Lord’s final word at the end of the Old Testament spoke of a “Period of Restoration” before the Day of the Lord in which there would be a “turning of the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers”. PART 1 discusses interpretation of prophetic scriptures, and specifically interpretations of “The Period of Restoration”. PART 2 discusses spiritual “children” and “fathers” throughout biblical history and the present generation. PART 3 contains
“Christendom” is a counterfeit Christianity in the form of a Constantinian Civil Religion. It is a religion which has been taken into the captivity of its surrounding culture. As with the Jewish religion which centuries ago had been exiled in Babylon, any remaining vestiges of our culturalized Christianity are now being utterly shaken to bare bones. This can be very unsettling to all who identify as “Christian”. But it is also absolutely necessary for the counterfeit to fall, so that
