Are You a Worship Service Participant or Just a Spectator?
The alarm clock rings. And rings again. And again. Mom and Dad stumble out of bed and cajole sleepy kids to scarf down their breakfast and find shoes. Kids dawdle, Mom and Dad frantically grab coffee mugs, and somehow everyone makes it into the car. By the time you get…
Grace and Truth
The beginning of Jesus' ministry is generally regarded as His baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. By the time Jesus stepped into his baptism line, John had built a truly massive ministry. (Matthew 3:5) The Lord had commissioned him to preach a message of forward looking repentance to…
Praised, Yet Awful: A Review of Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?
In my discussion earlier in this series of Paul's seminal statement, Ye are not under the law, but under grace I mentioned Philip Yancey's influential book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" I alluded to the fact that it, along with a few other original works and a whole bunch of…
How to Get Grace
Thus far in this blog series on grace we have examined what grace is, where it begins, how it ought to impact our treatment of one another, and how it becomes the atmosphere in which we grow. We have also examined some of the important doctrinal questions surrounding grace, namely…
The Destruction of Legalism
Note: by Joe Cassada Welcome to the fourth and final article in this series within a series. If I may, I’d like to preface this last post with a word of thanks to Tom Brennan for entrusting me with the important task of addressing a complicated issue – one that,…
Strong Faith – Weak Faith
“And being not weak in faith…he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith” (Romans 4:19, 20 excerpted). Abraham, known as the “father of faith,” experienced interludes and intervals of weak faith during his one-hundred-seventy-five-year sojourn on this earth. However, as he progressed in…
The Detection of Legalism
This is the third in a four post mini-series on legalism set within the context of this series on grace. These are by Pastor Joe Cassada of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri. In the last two posts, I warned that two popular understandings of legalism will…
Continual Coming
“...that men ought always to pray, and not to faint..lest by her continual coming...” Luke 18:1, 5 First Thessalonians ends with a short series of short sentences, one of which is “Pray without ceasing.” What that does not mean is just as obvious as what that does mean. The Holy…
The Definition of Legalism
This is the second in a four post mini-series on legalism set within the context of this series on grace. These are by Pastor Joe Cassada of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri. Previously, I mentioned that two popular understandings of legalism fail to take the battle…
The Danger of Legalism
Note: In planning this blog series on grace I felt I wanted to cover the subject of legalism in some depth. I have asked my good friend, Pastor Joe Cassada, of the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Maryland Heights, Missouri, to address this topic for us. This is the first…