Profaning the gospel for the sake of 'contextualization'

Wanting to be relevant, the church has become sick beyond repair! That is, repair driven by the church itself.

Pastors, wanting to 'contextualize' the gospel have turned to profanity ('swear words') in their sermons. These contextualizers, or relevantizers, simply do not believe that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." (Rom 1:16)

Phil Johnson writes about these types:

"See, I think this whole approach to ministry reflects a fatal lack of confidence in the power of the gospel itself. If we really believed the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, why would we think it necessary to dress the message in such shabby rags?"

Preachers such as these simply bring disrepute to the gospel of Jesus Christ and show what they truly put their trust in for the salvation of their hearers!

Providence Theological Seminary: New Covenant Theology based

Providence Theological Seminary was started specifically to educate pastors from a New Covenant Theology perspective, since there was no seminary that catered for NCT.

Providence Theological Seminary from Jerry Downs on Vimeo.

To learn more about New Covenant Theology (NCT), start with this introduction.

Help others see more of your blog

Being on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB) project certainly has its advantages. Every day there is something new to learn, and on other occasions it is a case of discovering that I have done at least some things right. We are now at day 8, and one of the ideas being brought forward is to link between your posts as a blogger. That way, readers of your blog can discover more about your blog without really doing a search.

The Biblical languages in life and ministry

Because this blog includes commentary on the modern church and how it relates to the Biblical pattern, I would like to highlight a blog post by Bill Mounce called "The Biblical Languages in Life and Ministry."

In his post, Dr. Mounce warns ministers especially not to use their knowledge of the Biblical languages from the pulpit in such a manner to seem like the "elite few" who have special knowledge that the people in the pew don't have. He also flips up the coin to the other side to reflect on the value of studying the original languages, which he then leaves us to do!

Tips on making your blog better [31DBBB]

I have been taking part in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project with Paul Steinbrueck. Today's lesson is called "31DBBB Day 6: Must-Read Tips and Tutorials for Bloggers." While the list of blogs to get these must-read tips from are quite exceptional, I am not so sure that all these tips are applicable in every situation. Which of course is an acceptable claim to make. There are very few rules that work in every environment they are tested in. If you are interested in seeing what tips are in the 31DBBB book for this lesson, I have created a Google Bookmark List for the links to these tips. I have divided the links into 5 broad categories: Blog Content, Design, Marketing Your Blog, Miscellaneous, Monetize.

Wazzat! - 2010-05-07

How many can remember this one?

• Comedy Central to launch anti-Christian cartoon series in fear of Muslims
• You may not wear your American flag t-shirt in America! Others may become upset!
• Anti-abortion sentiments in U.S. at a high
• Whoopi Goldberg whoops at death of the unborn
  

So, you've been encouraged to blog! Where to start [31DBBB]

Yesterday I gave you 9 Reasons (or more) why Christians should be blogging. Then, in your mind you thought, "Great, but where do I start?"

Well, the first thing you must do is visit Blogger, and register as a user. If you have a Google account of sorts (GMail, etc) then you will be able to register using your google account. Once you have set up your account and have sorted out your template, you will be able to publish your blog posts using email. Therefore, if you know how to email someone, you can become a blogger.

Before you sign up, you can first see how things are done at the the Blogger site. Here are some links to assist you:

9 Reasons (or more) why Christians should be blogging [31DBBB-2]

Ok, you have probably asked yourself why you, as a Christian, should blog. Perhaps you think you do not know enough, or you have nothing to say. Don't believe that for a moment! You are a human being, with the Spirit of the living God in you; of course you have something to say!

Here are 9 reasons why you should be blogging:

31DBBB started!

With all of us, there is always room for improvement. Hence, I joined the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project (31DBBB). The first day has launched in the form of an Elevator Pitch. To see the result of this, go to the About Theo-Enthumology page on my blog.

Become a better blogger in just 31 days

Yes, the claim is that you can become a better blogger in just 31 days! However, you will need to participate in a practical blogging project for 31 week days. You will get a break over weekends. I am seriously thinking about doing it myself. As you can see here at my blog, there is ample room for improvement!

So, if you are interested in being part of this "better blogger" project, join Paul Steinbrueck at Christian Web Trends as he guides you to becoming a better blogger! BTW, this project starts on 3 May 2010.

My different blog feeds

As most of you know, I maintain several blogs, and of course, it is not necessary to always go back to them to see if I have written anything new. There are two ways to keep up to date on what I write on my 3 blogs.

1. RSS Feeds.
2. Email subscriptions

I have 3 blogs:

• Just thinking... (dealing with Christianity and theology and Christian news snippets)
• BiblioPolit (mostly political in nature, covering South Africa and the U.S.)
• William’s Life & Trials (more of a personal nature)

You can subscribe to them individually or as a combined subscription. If you subscribe to them individually, you will get updates only of the blog(s) you have subscribed to. If you subscribe to the combined publication, you will be updated on what I write at each of them. Don’t worry, I don’t blog every single day at each of them.

RSS Feed Subscription
If you do not know what this is, then don’t bother using it. For this you will need a feed reader. Some browsers can subscribe to feeds these days, but you will have to open your browser’s feed reader to read them. A very good feed reader is Google Reader.

• Just thinking… feed.
• BiblioPolit feed.
• William’s Life & Trials feed.
• Combined feed.

Email Subscription
Receive updates via email to your email inbox! Simply click on the link and you will be taken to a page where you need to enter your email address to subscribe.

• Just thinking… subscription.
• BiblioPolit subscription.
• William’s Life & Trials subscription.
• Combined blogs subscription.

I hope you make use of this! If you like what I write, pass this on to others!

Wazzat? - 2010-04-23

• How about that Thugabe, er, Mugabe
• Obama fights for Muslim women to cover up, but not for those who don't want to.
• Funny, these Islamists blame America, not the Jews, for their own violent attacks against others!

Amazing images of volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland

How would you pronounce the name of the erupting volcano in Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull? E%jaf$alla*&ull?

Anyway, check out these amazing pics of the event. Simply click on the image.

Jennifer Knapp: another Christian artist comes out

Jennifer Knapp, a former Christian artist comes out among rumours to admit that she is a lesbian. Must be fun to stab God in the back, telling Him that He doesn't know what kind of lifestyles these people want to live! Never mind what God demands!

Two years ago, another Christian artist, Ray Boltz, also "came out."

What does it mean to come out? It means that they will now live their immoral depraved lives in God's face and claim that He sanctions it!

All that we can do is pray for these people!

Wazzat! - 2010/04/16

• Historical profiles of Christian apologists
• Douglas Groothuis apologetics course audio feed
• Phil Johnson "On the Piper-Warren Connection."
• Islam poised to take the West without firing a shot!
• So, you think Bono is a Christian?
• Very "old" wasps were no different from ours!

HT: Dan Philips