Over our last two episodes we’ve been hearing from Pastor Bob Carden on the topic of healing and walking by the spirit. Today I’d like to play out a sermon by Carden’s successor, Garrett Bova who is the lead pastor now at Align Ministries. Now I realize his message will challenge some of you to Read more about 573 Prophetic Words of Encouragement (Garrett Bova)[…]
This is part two of my conversation with Bob Carden who served as the lead pastor of Grace Christian Fellowship for decades before retiring. (The church is now called Align Ministries, led by Garrett Bova.) Continuing on the topic of healing and deliverance from last week, we begin by talking about evil spirits and pornography Read more about 571 Give God a Shot (Bob Carden)[…]
People need the touch of God in their lives. People are broken, wounded, and sick. Jesus Christ has already come and made available deliverance from sin and its consequences. He did this throughout his ministry and continues to bring healing through his church today. Bob Carden shares about his own journey of faith from Catholicism Read more about 570 My Journey into Healing Ministry (Bob Carden)[…]
Joshua Michael Smith grew up in northern Florida in a Baptist church. In this interview he shares his journey of faith, including how came to Christ as well as how he ended up in ministry training at Word of Life before earning a bachelors at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga. While there, he began questioning Read more about 558 Courageous Baptist Seeks Biblical Truth (Joshua Michael Smith)[…]
This is part 12 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. Acts is an action-packed book full of excitement and wonder. We learn about the early expansion of the Church from a small group of ragged Christ-followers to dozens of house churches throughout major cities in the Mediterranean world. How did Christianity “go public”? The Read more about 545 Read the Bible for Yourself 12: How to Read Acts[…]
This is part 18 of the Early Church History class. I wonder how many Christians in the world today believe the gifts of the spirit ceased in the time of the apostles? I know there are quite a few. Many others, however, believe they are available today and make time for them in their worship Read more about 500 Early Church History 18: The Gifts of the Spirit in Early Christianity[…]
This is part 11 of the One God Over All class. Who or what is the spirit of God? It won’t do to read later tradition back into the scriptures. Rather, we need to see how the bible itself talks about the holy spirit. To get at that answer we’ll take a look at a Read more about 421 One God 11: Spirit of God & Christ[…]
This is part 7 and the final episode in our holy spirit series. Are you on a journey with God or have you arrived? Are you still willing to learn and grow and try new things or have you erected boundaries around your current understanding and practice? Today my guest is Kevin Guigou, a full-time Read more about 381 Bible Fed, Spirit Led (Kevin Guigou)[…]
This is part 6 of our holy spirit series. Today we hear a new perspective on the manifestations of the spirit from Carlos Jiménez who stakes out what he calls an “evidentialist” position. He is neither a cessationist nor a continuationist, but someone who retains a certain level of skepticism towards reports of spiritual activity. Read more about 380 Test the Spirits (Carlos Jiménez)[…]
Today we enter into part 5 of our series on the holy spirit. We’ve seen a couple of perspectives, but my guest today is bringing in a third view to our exploration of this important topic. Growing up with the belief that tongues were the only evidence of salvation, Pastor Victor Gluckin eventually changed his Read more about 379 Gifts of the Spirit for the Common Good (Victor Gluckin)[…]
This is part 4 of our holy spirit series. Today we continue to hear John Truitt and Greg Deuble discuss speaking in tongues. If you haven’t listened to the previous three episodes in this series, it would be good to do that before listening to this one. Also, if you want to get the most Read more about 378 Speaking in Tongues Discussion 2 (Deuble, Truitt)[…]
This is part 3 of our holy spirit series. Do you know what I don’t hear enough of today? Dialogue–honest-hearted, biblically-informed, respectful dialogue. So often we silo ourselves off in echo chambers with our doctrinal comrades, occasionally lobbing malotov cocktails at the other side, never taking the time to understand them, much less ask the Read more about 377 Speaking in Tongues Discussion 1 (Truitt, Deuble)[…]
Last week John Truitt explained why he believes the gifts of the spirit are still available for Christians to experience. Today, Greg Deuble pulls on his own biblical research and personal experience to present an opposing case. What’s fascinating about Deuble is that he believes in God’s miraculous activity in the world today. However, he Read more about 376 Tongues Have Ceased (Greg Deuble)[…]
Restitutio exists to restore authentic Christianity and live it out today. As a restorationist, it really does matter to me how the earliest Christians practiced their faith. A question I ask myself is if I jumped in a time machine and went back to the late first century and attended a house church meeting, would Read more about 375 Gifts of the Spirit Are Available Today (John Truitt)[…]
This is our fifth and final example of bias in translation. After this episode, we’ll have one more to conclude our class on How We Got the Bible. Today our focus is God’s spirit. Should it have an uppercase ‘S’ or a lowercase ‘s?’ Should pronouns referring back to spirit be masculine (like “he”) or Read more about 352 Bible 23 – Spirit Who or Spirit Which? (Translating the Holy Spirit)[…]
Are spiritual gifts available today or did they cease after the original apostles died? In this interview, I talk to Dr. Sam Storms about his own personal experience with speaking in tongues, his biblical case for why gifts are available today, and how he makes room for them in his church services. Before delving in, Read more about 310 Are Gifts of the Spirit Available Today? (Sam Storms)[…]
In this lecture, you’ll learn what Jesus and the book of Acts have to say about conversion. From Jesus, we will examine his parable of the Sower with special focus on the good soil–those who hear the message, understand it, accept it, hold it fast, and bear fruit. Next we’ll work through all of the Read more about Theology 19 – Conversion[…]
Last time we worked through a ton of scripture, trying to get a multidimensional view of how the bible describes the holy spirit. This time we’ll consider a few scriptures that have confused some into thinking the spirit is really an individual or person distinct from the Father and the Son. This study is pretty Read more about Theology 15 — Challenging the Holy Spirit[…]
How do you think of holy spirit? In this lecture we’ll build up a biblical theology of the spirit, in an effort to comprehend its variegated facets. We’ll consider the Old Testament and the Synoptic Gospels before spending a good deal of time in John, looking at the fascinating way that Jesus talks about the Read more about Theology 14 — The Holy Spirit[…]
Have you ever heard of the Bible Project? It’s a series of videos by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins out of Portland, Oregon. Most of their videos are really helpful. Anyhow, a little while ago, they came out with this video on the holy spirit that got them into some trouble. Watch it and see Read more about What Is the Holy Spirit?[…]
In the first part of this investigation into the holy spirit and translation bias, I limited my focus to relative pronouns used to refer to the holy spirit. In what follows I will broaden my inquiry to include several other key texts and important concepts related to the God’s spirit. First I will discuss in Read more about Translating the Holy Spirit 2[…]
I presented this paper at the 2006 One God Seminar, hosted by Ken Westby and the Association for Christian Development[1] Introduction Trying to pin down a biblical definition for the word “spirit” is like trying to give a cat a shower—it can be done, but only with great difficulty, and one is never sure if Read more about A Unitarian View of the Holy Spirit[…]
Drawing on the work of Peter Scazzero, Jerry Wierwille discusses how we can avoid some of the common unhealthy emotional pitfalls. No matter if you are new to the faith or someone who has persevered for decades, this subject will make you examine yourself to see if there are issues you need to overcome. Access Read more about Interview 1: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Jerry Wierwille)[…]
Download this article Translators have historically held incredible power to influence millions of Bible-readers over the eons. Many impressive developments have occurred in the field of textual criticism and lexicology over the last century. Today we can access dozens of English translations, Greek interlinears, and lexical aids online for free. In no other age have Read more about The Holy Spirit and Translation Bias: A Smoking Gun of Trinity Mischief (1)[…]