Article Archive

Is Christ Preeminent In You?

The outline of the book of Colossians can be summarized in three words: Christ's preeminence declared, defended, and demonstrated. In chapter one, the Apostle Paul declares the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things - the Gospel, the creation, the Church, Christian ministry, and the world to come. In chapter two, he defends the preeminence of Christ against Satan's triple threats of worldly philosophy, legalism, and man-made doctrines. In chapters three and four, Paul sets forth the preeminence of Christ as it is to be demonstrated in the life and thinking of every believer.

In chapters three and four, we shall see that the Christian's conduct, character, home life, work, witness, and service - every aspect of our living and thinking - must be a daily, practical demonstration of the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ to our fellow believers and the watching world. He must be preeminent in all these things, because He must be preeminent in us.

Give No Encouragement to False Teachers

2nd John tells us that granting a false teacher access to your church, home, or mind is to become an accessory to his spiritual crimes.

Give No Access to False Teachers

2nd John verse 10 has a dual focus: False teachers must have no access to the church, or to the believer's home and family - and by clear implication, to our minds anywhere, any time.

The Key Element of Christian Unity

There is a tendency, especially in our postmodern time, for Christians to "love" without regard to truth. True Christian love is not blind; to "love" without regard to truth can have grievous consequences for the individual Christian and the church as a body. Christians must have a complete and well-balanced understanding of agape love.

Guarding Sound Doctrine: The Proper Motivation

The Biblical motivation for maintaining sound doctrine in the church is agape love - love for Christ, love for His truth, and love for our brothers and sisters in the true faith.

'Do Not Receive False Teachers Into Your House'

When 2nd John verse 10 says of a false teacher, "do not receive him into your house," does this mean a private dwelling, or the church, or both?

9. Prayer - A New and Living Way

"...[W]e live in an age of confusion and uncertainty, an age of religious persecution, which may come to our own land as well as to every other land. We may know the trials and the tribulations and the problems of the early church and the early Christians of the first century. Indeed, even with life as it is, what is more important than knowing the way into the presence of God?"

8. The Narrow Way

"There is no charge, perhaps, that is brought quite so frequently against the Christian teaching, the Christian Gospel, the Christian way of life, and the individual Christian believer as the charge of narrowness. . . But not only is that the favorite charge brought against us by people of the world, I am afraid that for many Christians there is no charge of which they are so nervous and frightened as this."

7. Revival of a Backslidden Church

"...[A]n organized evangelistic campaign...is not revival. A revival is a visitation of the Spirit of God, a mighty movement within the whole body of the church. Revival applies and pertains to the church herself rather than to the outsider. The outsider only derives the benefits from it. A revival is...a re-enlivening of the church herself."

6. The Problem of Evangelism

"Are you a phenomenon...where you live? Are you an object of wonder to your neighbors and associates? It is only when you and I, who are members of the Church, are people like this and become phenomena, objects of conversation and of curiosity, that we shall begin to see revival and renewal in the Church."