Thanks to Kris’s comment, I’ve now listened to Dr. Rodney Plunkett’s excellent sermon on this subject. I’ve now added his thoughts to my own, thereby moving ever closer to the definitive debunking of the Nadab-and-Abihu argument.
For those not familiar with the Church of Christ argument that God damns who worship in error, you can skip [...]

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It took me a long time to figure 1 John out. It’s just such a different style of writing from, say, Paul or Luke. John is very non-linear.
And he doesn’t explain himself. Well, he explains himself, but indirectly. He seems to change the subject when he’s really tackling the question from another angle to [...]

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Our elders and ministers recently scheduled a 7-hour retreat to consider some of the big-picture church issues. It went well, and so I’d thought I’d share an only-slightly edited version of our agenda, in hopes that other elderships might profit from our experience.
I think it’s in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that Stephen Covey [...]

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Regular readers will recall that I’m a big fan of Patrick Lencioni’s The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. It’s a great book and a particularly useful study for elders and ministers–especially for elders with ministers.
I’m on vacation at the beach, and among my readings has been Lencioni’s Silos, Politics and Turf Wars. It’s another great [...]

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After many years of thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that the cinch point in Church of Christ thought is very simply our understanding of how grace works after our salvation.
We generally start with the assumption that the rules dramatically change after salvation. And to this extent, we’re right. But we assume the [...]

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When we disagree with someone about doctrine, it’s easy to get caught up in the particulars of the doctrinal debate. But once in while, we need to take a step back and look at the tactics we use. It is very possible, of course, to argue for truth in very untruthful ways.
Let’s take a moment [...]

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This is a class for the converted. And it’s not a class on systematic theology. In other words, I’m going to skip lots of really, really important stuff, because I assume the class members are already convinced of such things as why they need to be saved in the first place and who God is. [...]

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As I read each month’s edition of the Gospel Advocate, I’ve been noting some of the issues that the authors consider as “salvation issues” or “marks of the church.” I call these issues a “creed” because that’s the original meaning of the word in Restoration Movement thought.
When the early Restoration leaders said that we have [...]

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The following story is from Science Daily. This is not to pick on doctors. I’m sure the same is true of Christian lawyers and many others who profess Jesus.
 
Science Daily — Although most religious traditions call on the faithful to serve the poor, a large cross-sectional survey of U.S. physicians found that physicians who are [...]

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