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: 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…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09005 Christians who agree that believers should be baptised sometimes disagree about how it should be done. Should the person be fully immersed in water, or is pouring or sprinkling equally valid? The question is not trivial, because the mode of baptism is connected to the meaning of baptism, and the meaning is not…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09003 Baptism is one of the most visible acts of the Christian life, and it is also one of the most debated. Who is it for? Is it reserved for those who have already believed, or does it extend to the children of believers as well? The answer to this question shapes how churches…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09027 The question of what regulates Christian worship is not a modern invention. From the earliest centuries of the church, believers have asked whether worship should include only what Scripture commands or whether it may include anything Scripture does not forbid. The answer to that question shapes everything from how a service is structured…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09083 The question of whether churches should pay taxes touches on the intersection of the church’s spiritual mission and its existence as an institution within a civil society. Across most Western nations, churches and religious organisations have historically been exempt from certain forms of taxation. But is this appropriate? Is there a biblical principle…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09079 Across Europe, North America, and the wider Western world, churches are emptying at a pace that would have been unimaginable two generations ago. Denominations that once shaped the cultural landscape are now struggling to fill pews, retain members, and find ministers for their pulpits. The decline is not imaginary, and it is not…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09081 Ephesians 4:11 lists the gifts Christ has given to the church: “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers.” The phrasing of the final pair in the original Greek has generated a longstanding debate: are “pastors” and “teachers” two separate callings, or is Paul describing a single, combined role? The answer…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09077 The rapid growth of online church services, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, has raised a question that would have been inconceivable for most of church history: can watching a church service on a screen constitute genuine church involvement in the biblical sense? The question is not whether online ministry has any value. It…