The New Apostolic Reformation – Part Two: What is the NAR?

What is the NAR? This group, presided over by C. Peter Wagner, (history here: http://www.icaleaders.com/about-ical/history-of-ica/) believes that we have entered a second Apostolic age. The first age was with the original apostles and lasted into the second century.Now, according to their own pronouncements we have entered a second age where God is doing a new work in […]

The New Apostolic Reformation – Part One: Why Talk About it at All?

I have been praying for months about blogging on this topic. I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours researching and studying. I have read NAR materials written by their own prophets and apostles. I have also studied other theologian’s opinions on this movement. All of this has been done in an effort to […]

A Reflection on Current Church Culture

Every now and then you have that rare moment of reading something that sticks to you like a 5th grader’s spit wad sticks to the ceiling. That was my experience as I began reading Frank Turek’s new book, Stealing from God – Why Atheists Need God To Make Their Case. The book itself is an […]

Cheap Grace and the Problem of Sin

It’s interesting to me how much we hear about grace these days in contrast to how little we hear about sin. How can the two be so separated? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian who lived in Nazi Germany during WWII. He wrote a book entitled, The Cost of Discipleship in which he identifies […]

Issues of the Soul Part 3: Body and Soul or Body, Soul and Spirit?

This final installment of Issues of the Soul, will consider how the aspect of the human soul fits with our understanding of human nature as a collective whole. There are three traditional views on the matter: Monism, Dichotomy and Trichotomy. We shall now turn our attention to understanding all three. First, Monism is the view […]

Issues of the Soul Part 2: Where Does the Soul Come From?

Now that we have an understanding of what the soul is, we must turn our attention to the question of where the soul comes from? This is an interesting river to swim in, and there are three veins of thought on the subject. These are Pre-Existentianism, Creationism and Traducianism. However, only Creationism and Traducianism are […]

Issues of the Soul Part 1: What is the Soul?

Some of my favorite verses in the Bible are passages that talk about the soul. For example: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…” (Psalms 42:1-2, 5 NASB). Another favorite is Psalms 103 that reads, “Bless the […]

The Battle of Busy – How to Avoid Ministry Burnout

I’m addicted to being busy, or at least I was. I’m currently in a process of recovery. It’s an aspect of both my personality and my approach to ministry over which the Holy Spirit has been convicting me. In order for you to understand the depth of this struggle in my life, let me provide […]

Hell, That’s Not Fair

The idea of a real place called Hell makes a lot people uncomfortable. It can also be a very personal and emotional subject, and has recently received a lot of attention from differing perspectives in books like Love Wins by Rob Bell and Erasing Hell by Francis Chan. While I do recognize the precarious nature of […]

Understanding Jesus – Part 3

Don’t miss out on the first two parts of this series. For our final installment we’ll look at some specific examples of the human and divine natures of Christ in the incarnation and we’ll also look at the self-consciousness of Jesus. Some Careful Distinctions Regarding the Incarnation 1. Jesus’ human nature – Ascended to Heaven […]