Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09089 Church discipline is one of the most misunderstood and most neglected aspects of New Testament church life. For some, the very phrase conjures images of harsh judgementalism, public shaming, and spiritual abuse. For others, it has become so unfamiliar that the idea of a church confronting a member’s sin seems incompatible with the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09091 Leaving a church is one of the most difficult decisions a believer can face, and it is also one of the most frequently made for the wrong reasons. The consumer mentality that characterises much of Western Christianity treats church involvement as a service to be evaluated and discarded when it no longer meets…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09008 The New Testament commands the church to observe the Lord’s Supper but does not specify how frequently. This has led to considerable variation across Christian traditions, from daily celebration in some Catholic and Orthodox settings to quarterly or even annual observance in some Protestant churches. The absence of a specific command about frequency…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09088 Few situations in church life are more painful or more consequential than the moral failure of a pastor. The person entrusted with the spiritual oversight of the congregation, with the teaching of God’s Word, and with the modelling of Christian character has fallen into serious sin. The shock, grief, anger, and confusion that…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09047 Not every organisation that calls itself a church is one. The New Testament presents a picture of the church that has specific characteristics, specific commitments, and specific functions, and throughout history Christians have recognised that certain features mark the difference between a genuine church and something that has adopted the name without the…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09073 The Alpha course is one of the most widely used evangelistic programmes in the world. Developed at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in London, an Anglican charismatic church, it has been adopted by churches across virtually every denomination, including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, and evangelical congregations. Its accessibility and conversational format have made…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09044 The relationship between Israel and the church is one of the most consequential interpretive questions in all of biblical theology. How a person answers it will determine how they read the Old Testament prophets, how they understand the New Testament’s teaching on salvation and the people of God, and what they expect God…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09006 The Lord’s Supper is the second of the two ordinances Jesus gave to His church. It is practised in virtually every Christian tradition, yet the meaning attached to it varies enormously. Roman Catholics believe the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. Lutherans hold that Christ is physically present…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09037 The word “revival” stirs strong feelings in the church. For some, it conjures images of historic movements that transformed entire communities. For others, it evokes the manufactured emotionalism of modern conference culture, where hype is mistaken for the Holy Spirit’s work. The question deserves careful biblical examination, because what Scripture describes and what…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09030 Every church is imperfect, because every church is made up of sinners in the process of being sanctified. The presence of problems, disagreements, and frustrations does not make a church unhealthy. What makes a church unhealthy is a pattern of dysfunction that is systemic, unaddressed, and damaging to the spiritual lives of its…