In the Word, not the World

Today marks a turning point in my blog ministry.  I’m renaming my old blog, “Mature Manhood of Christ,” as “Equipped with Words.”  I believe that this will be a better fit for the message of the blog.  The Bible states that Jesus is the living Word of God made flesh and that through the Word we become full and mature in our faith.  Rooted in the Word, we are unable to be tossed about by deceptions, false teachings and doctrines.  The Bible also states that we are equipped by the Word for every good work and that we are to put on the Word as a sword, to stand against the Devil’s schemes.

While there wasn’t really anything terribly wrong with “Mature Manhood of Christ,” I believe that it gave somewhat the wrong message – this isn’t a blog intended for only men, and in today’s society, “mature” can mean a lot of things; and not all of them good.  Equipped with Words is not only about holding tight to The Word; it’s also about being equipped with our words – the words we use in ministry and evangelism and apologetics – so that as men and women mature in our faith, we are able to be imitators of Christ, equipped for every good work.

New posts will be coming at a regular basis, at least once a week.  I plan on talking about theology, reviewing and discussing current and classic Christian literature, and just generally discussing anything related to living for Christ in a secular age.  Join me each week!

For His glory,

Mark

Why we write, when we write…

Sarah posted a blog about our frequency of writing on our blog and why we feel called to write a blog.  I have posted it below:

Not only do I write for this blog, but I also like reading several blogs.  Some are about homemaking, some are about homesteading, and some are about Christian topics.  When Mark and I talked about starting a blog, we talked about what we wanted to write and why we wanted to write.

Out in the “Christian” sphere of books and blogs, there is a spectrum of ideas and beliefs.  Most of the problems stem from if you believe the Bible is true and what percentage of it you believe is true.  The other set of problems comes from incorrectly interpreting the Bible by either pulling verses out of context or not correctly interpreting them from the style that they are written in.  That’s how you can call yourself a Christian and believe completely opposite things from someone else who calls themselves a Christian (among other reasons).

One of our foundational beliefs is that the Bible is 100% true and that we believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.  That means that we believe that every word in the Bible, as it was put together with 66 books in the original language, is true and that if the style it was written in speaks of it as an actual event, then we believe that it truly did happen sometime is the past.

Because of this belief, and the many beliefs that are not lined up with ours, we wanted to start a blog.  We wanted a place to encourage other Christians to be built up and at times to be challenged to a deeper walk in their faith.  And we do this all for the glory of God.  We do it because it is what He has commanded in His Word.

This is also the reason why we do not write regularly.  We’ve read all the articles that say if you want a successful blog, you must write regularly.  While we would love to do that, and hope to someday get ahead of schedule so that we can post on a regular basis, that is not where we are in our life.  And we would rather have an unsuccessful blog in terms of number of hits to our sites than post information that was written in haste just to make a deadline.  Usually in haste is where mistakes will be made or unclear writing will make it seem like we are saying something that we are not.  While these will still happen because we are human and make mistakes, we do not want to be careless in what we write.  Also, we both read every blog post that is added to either of our blogs.  Sometimes this too adds a delay of when a post is added.

What we also want to say is that we appreciate everyone who does check into our blogs for our posts.  And if you are a person who doesn’t want to check to see if there is a new post to either of our blogs, then look to the right of this webpage for the “Follow by Email” box; if you enter your email, you can get posts sent directly to your email when we put up a new one.  And it’s really easy to unsubscribe to it at any time.  Just click the “unsubscribe” at the end of any of the emails you get from our blogs.

Also, we will begin with new posts to each of our blogs this month.  We have a little lull in our schedule right now that we intend to start writing again.  And we are preparing for when things get busier within the next few months.

Thanks for your understanding of our reasons for the sporadic writings.  And we absolutely love your comments, even if you don’t agree as long as it is respectful.  We hope that you find our blogs an encouragement and at times a challenge to live more for Christ each day.

through His grace alone!

Sarah

Judgment Between Men

(It’s Sarah here.  I just want to apologize for this post being several weeks late.  Mark had it written and ready for me to post a while back, but I just haven’t had the time to get around to it these past few weeks.  Again, my apologies!)

We understand that true justice, and judgment, comes from God.  We are not given authority to judge between saved and unsaved; to give ultimate judgment of a man’s soul.  However, Man is still able to make judgments on people – commanded to, in fact.  In this he is not commanded to judge between eternal condemnation or redemption, but for smaller matters.

Who gave you the right?

Who has the authority to judge someone else?  This is a very important question.  In the court of law, there is the plantiff and the defendant.  Each of them believes themself to be correct and the other person to be at fault, but neither has the authority to actually make a ruling.  Nor do their lawyers, when it comes down to it.  It is the judge alone who has the authority to make a ruling on the court case.  But even then, the judge only has that authority because it has been given to him by the government and by the law.  It is the power of the government and the law that pronounces judgment, wielded by the judge.

We need to look at Christian judgment in the exact same way.  The question is not “Who should I judge” or “When should I judge,” but rather “Do I even have the authority to judge in this matter?”  Christians do not automatically have the authority to judge because we’re such great and holy people.  We can be just as broken and sinful and limited as the world.  Only God has the authority to judge.

A response to sin

Before I get into the heart of the matter here, I would like to clear the air first about a large misconception about judgment that I feel is hindering a lot of Christians.  It seems to me that Christians are labeled as being ‘judgmental’ for nothing more than believing the Bible to be accurate when it describes what constitutes a sin.  Christians are shamed by non-believing critics for saying that socially acceptable forms of sexual immorality, drunkenness, lying, and coveting (and more) are indeed sins.  Because it is God’s Word that tells us that these actions are sinful, it is his judgment we are affirming, not our own.

Nor is it judgmental for the Christian to merely recognize a sin in others.  After all, we are all sinners; we have all transgressed against God in some way.  We humans have eaten the fruit of knowledge of good and evil and have the capacity to see sin for what it is.  Judgment, reproof, correction, and the like are not the act of recognizing a sin.  Instead, they are one’s response once they have first recognized the sin.

To illustrate, I’d like to revisit the verses I used last week, beginning with Jesus’ words:

Who am I to judge?

Christians, like any other minority (and believe me, we are a minority) are subject to many different stereotypes.  We are seen as hypocrites; overly pious, self-righteous people who look down at everyone else for being an awful sinner.  We’re viewed as being overly judgemental for having a definite black and white view of right and wrong, a view which clashes against worldly thinking on several accounts and doesn’t adapt to fit modern thinking.  And, unfortunately, cases of a few hateful extremists have done nothing but to cement this view amongst non-Christians.

Knowing Him

The last point of my series is an extremely important one, and on it hinges the validity of all others.  It is impossible to be a disciple of Christ if you do not know Him.  At first glance, this seems like a completely obvious and almost unnecessary statement.  Think about it for a moment, though:  what does it really mean to ‘know God’?  Can a living man ever truly know Him?  And if two people believe two separate creeds but both believe they are Christian, can they both know Christ?