Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11029. Arguments about worship styles have split more congregations in my lifetime than arguments about doctrine, which is a sobering thing for a Baptist minister to admit and an important thing to face honestly. Organ or band, hymnal or screen, choir or worship team, robes or jeans. These questions are not nothing, but they…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11028. Asking how we should worship God is a more dangerous question than it looks, because Scripture contains several accounts of people who worshipped God enthusiastically and wrongly, and it did not go well for them. Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorised fire. Uzzah steadied the ark with the best of intentions. Cain brought an…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11017. Biblical evangelism is the announcement of good news that has already happened. That is what the word means, and getting the definition right settles most of the anxiety that surrounds the subject. Say the word in a congregation and watch the shoulders tighten. People picture doorsteps, awkward conversations and the friend they alienated…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11000. How should Christians pray? It is one of the first questions a new believer asks and one that mature believers never entirely stop asking. The disciples had watched Jesus pray and their request was not teach us about prayer but teach us to pray, which tells us something about where the difficulty actually…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11027. Biblical worship is far larger than the hour we spend singing on a Sunday morning, and that single misunderstanding has probably done more damage to the church’s worship than any argument over music ever has. When Scripture speaks about worship it reaches for words about bowing, serving, and giving God his due weight….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11016. Memorising Scripture strikes many Christians as a relic, something belonging to Sunday school prizes and an age before search engines. Why store what you can look up in four seconds? I want to make the case that this is one of the habits worth recovering, and that the reasons for it are rather…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9114. Touch not my anointed is one of the most misused sentences in the English Bible, and I have heard it deployed to shut down every kind of legitimate question. A leader is challenged about money, doctrine, or conduct, and someone stands up to warn the congregation that they are touching God’s anointed. The…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11026. Asking for recommended books for pastors is a bit like asking a builder which tools he would keep if the van were stolen. The honest answer is that a few things do the heavy lifting and the rest are conveniences, and the danger is buying the conveniences first. I get asked this often…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11015. Private worship is what happens between a believer and God when nobody else is in the room and nobody is going to ask about it afterwards. It is the least visible part of Christian life and, I would argue, the part that shapes everything else. It also carries a good deal of guilt….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9113. What role does the gathered church play in helping believers interpret Scripture? For many evangelicals the honest answer is none at all. We read our Bibles alone, we form our conclusions alone, and we treat the church as the place where those conclusions are occasionally aired. That instinct comes from something good, but…