False Christian teachings, trends….
This post contains comments from Albert Barnes and John Calvin on Philippians 3:10 – “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” It opens with that verse from 5 different Bible translations, as it is good to look to different translations when one is seeking understanding of a given verse; those readers who did not know that see the benefit of doing so.
The two verses considered in this post are important to understand for encouragement and motivation. I believe that and have been reading through Philippians recently for help on the battle front of my own personal spiritual warfare. If you’re flagging in your own spiritual warfare, his words may also be of help to you.
This post contains 3 videos: a video short, a 17-minute excerpt of the full sermon from which the short came; and the full-length sermon. The Puritan Christopher Love addressed the matter of the Holy Spirit’s work in sanctifying the believer. He focused on two aspects: what the Spirit does to dissuade a believer from sinning; and what the Spirit does to sanctify the believer after he has sinned. Every Christian needs to understand this matter as well as possible such that he/she is receptive to the Spirit’s workings. Highlights are provided for the 17-minute excerpt; a link to some posts in this blog about Jonathan Edwards addressing these matters, but Edwards was not as thorough as Love.
I am preparing a post on backsliding that mentions ‘exercising faith’ and thought I would post this article beforehand. Pastor Colin Smith explains that it is not enough to just possess faith, as those who are born again possess. One must learn to exercise it. He explains what that means. Extremely valuable information to all Christians that may not have looked into the matter; as exercising it is necessary in the Christian fight of faith.
This post contains a 14-minute excerpt of Pastor Hines sermon on the 10th commandment; the whole sermon was also posted for those who might want to hear it. The excerpt is accompanied by highlight points. Pastor Hines message was built around biblical contentment; he closed by relating that to commandment 10.
In my daily reading, 1 Cor. 4-7, I spent time reading commentaries on the following verse. I wanted some clarity about the underscored portion of the following verse. I read several commentaries from the e-Sword Bible app on my iPhone, two of those commentaries are pasted in below: Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry. Barnes treats only verse 18; Henry, 12-20 of 1 Cor. 6. Scripture pasted in for those who would like to review it before reading.
This post contains one commentary explanation of poverty of spirit from Matthew 5:3; it also contains a brief excerpt from two other posts about Jonathan Edwards, the excerpts are extremely relevant to the Matthew 5:3. One of those posts gave glimpses into his struggle for obedience; the other into his analysis of what constituted a truly born again person as opposed to a false convert.
My purpose in posting this article is to explain the concept of effectual calling, as it occurs often in the scriptures. And those who only read bits and pieces of scripture usually don’t understand such terms. Effectual calling occurs early in the process of salvation. Understanding such doctrines is important to having a fuller comprehension of the Christian life: how one is saved; what God is doing in the life….
I recently received a question from a reader who was confused about how to discern biblical from un-biblical preaching / preachers. This post aims at helping such readers. Seasoned Christians who believe in the doctrines that come from the Protestant Reformation, know that Dr. Voddie Baucham is a great preacher. Nate Sala, the creator of this video looks carefully at Baucham’s sermon to show just why that is so. Listeners will gain in two ways from hearing the video of this post: they will hear a biblically sound sermon and get some insight into Baucham’s purposes (and the purposes of biblical preachers); furthermore, they will get a 3-point tool by which they can measure preaching they hear, at their church and elsewhere.
C H Spurgeon’s three sermon points were: the outward appearance of our trials; blessed fruitfulness of trials; and those exercised by trials. It is a 45-minute sermon that mentioned points I had never heard on this topic. The section about being exercised is very beneficial to know if you are in the midst of trials. All Christians will eventually be there. There are sermon highlights, and several term definitions.