Jesus Warned About The Dangers Of Traditions

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. (Mark 7:7-9,13 ESV)

This passage is one of the more severe rebukes Jesus ever delivered. Notice his rebuke isn’t because they don’t worship; instead, he says they worship in vain. And it’s significant that this rebuke was triggered by the seemingly innocent tradition of washing hands. But Jesus said when we hold to the tradition of men, we leave the commandment of God. The word leave comes from the same root word as divorce. Which means, we are separating ourselves from God’s truth in order to embrace our traditions. And by separating ourselves from God’s truth, we are forfeiting His true purposes for us.

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Does The Bible Tell Us To “Go To Church”?

Faithful church attendance is extremely important to many professing Christians. So much so that regularly attending a Sunday church service is commonly viewed as the number one trait of a good Christian. But does the Bible actually tell us to “go to church”? And do the services we’re encouraged to attend actually look like what the Bible reveals about God’s people meeting together?

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What Was The Gospel Jesus Preached?

If we want to accurately represent Jesus, then our message must be consistent with his message. If we claim to be following Jesus, we can’t be proclaiming something different than he proclaimed. It’s extremely important that we clearly understand what Jesus preached and that we are dedicated to proclaiming the same message.

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The Downside Of Topical Preaching

Topical preaching is the most common approach to ministering God’s word. This means the speaker chooses a topic they want to preach on, and then they select scriptures that will be utilized to present their topic to their audience. In some churches, each sermon will be based on different, random topics, while some churches will do topical series, where several sermons will focus on a particular topic. But both of these methods utilize topical preaching, with the speaker choosing the topic they want to focus on.

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Are We Saved Just By Believing?

The Bible tells us, that without exception, all people are lost, meaning that our sin separates us from a holy God ¹. But the Bible also proclaims that the lost can be saved and restored to right relationship with God. Since it’s dealing with man’s eternal state, the Bible provides a lot of information regarding salvation. Yet, it’s scary how some people pick and choose among the scriptures and teach things about salvation that are not consistent with the gospel that God proclaims in His word.

If we can’t clearly communicate God’s plan of salvation for the lost, then nothing else we’re saying or doing has merit. At stake are people’s eternal destinies, so we must get this right.

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God’s Ways Accomplish God’s Goals

When reading through the New Testament it jumps out how passionately the early church engaged in prayer and teaching the word. In the book of Acts, it says they devoted themselves to teaching and to prayer. The word devoted means to persevere, to be constantly diligent and steadfastly attentive to. Prayer and teaching weren’t things they occasionally squeezed in among a variety of other activities. Prayer and teaching were front and center, and they constantly engaged in these spiritual activities.

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What They’re Not Telling You About Tithing

While listening to sermons on tithing, I’ve heard preachers say that the way people spend their money is one of the best indicators of their true values, and I believe there’s a lot of truth in this statement. But let’s switch it around and apply this statement to the church instead of the individual. I don’t think anything reveals the true values of the institutional church quite like the way it spends money.

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Do Sunday Sermons Fulfill God’s Plan?

Most Christians consider preaching to be a fundamental requirement of the church, and the Sunday morning sermon is commonly revered as the most important event that takes place in the church each week. While it’s clear that the Bible strongly endorses the ministry of God’s word, is the church’s traditional notion of preaching consistent with the way preaching is presented in the Bible?

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The Danger Of Cherry-Picking The Scriptures

The Bible has a lot to say about the love and goodness of God, and these truths are incredibly positive and reassuring. But it’s a mistake to isolate scriptures that are personally encouraging, and treat them as if this is all the Bible has to say about God; as if he is always this way and cannot be any other way.

The definition of cherry-picking is to choose and take only the most beneficial items from what is available. This approach to the Bible is a temptation that is quite easy to fall into, but it results in a distorted view of God himself, and an inaccurate assessment of where we personally stand with him. If we value an honest and healthy relationship with the Lord, we must persistently seek and welcome everything that God says to us throughout the scriptures.

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Jesus Said Some Scary Stuff

If a doctor knows his patient has a life threatening disease that can be successfully treated, is he being negative if he tells them their condition, or is he negligent if he keeps quite? If someone knows there are dangerous road conditions ahead, are they being negative if they warn fellow travelers, or are they negligent if they keep quite? I think everyone would agree that in these life-or-death situations, the right thing, the responsible thing, would be to speak up and clearly communicate the truth.

However, in matters of eternal life or death, we don’t seem to have the same clarity. Today’s Christian culture seems to operate from a deep conviction that above all else God wants us to say positive things. This misconception has rendered the church impotent when it comes to speaking life-or-death truths that desperately need to be heard.

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