Archives for 2012

The Christian church in America is rapidly changing in form, style and culture. A gracEmail subscriber asks what the future might hold for the church during this 21st century. *          *          * God's kingdom will endure but church structures that do not serve his purposes will gradually disappear (Heb. 12:26-28). I believe we will see a new Church emerge alongside the old -- indeed, it already is in process of being born. The renewed Church of Jesus Christ will consistently worship God as alive and sovereign, proclaim Jesus as Savior, and serve by the Spirit of the Risen Christ as its … [Read more...]

It is easy to become nearsighted in our vision of the Church, focused only on our own congregation or denomination, or the Church in our own country or in the present year or decade or century. God has been at work in his worldwide Church throughout Christian history, I am persuaded, including parts from which we might imagine we have nothing good to learn. The Church in its fullness will incorporate contributions from believers in all times and places, and we can begin even now to appreciate and to share in the diversity of that rich heritage. All Christians can profit, for example, from … [Read more...]

"What should we think of the different Christian denominations and movements or families? Is one of them 'right' and the others 'wrong?'" * * * Christ's universal church has lived through many centuries, utilizing different cultures, forms and styles in pursuit of its mission and goals. The church also consists of sinful humans, and its progress has been tainted with human weakness and sin. Church history includes the admirable and the abominable, but the head of the Church does not forsake his own, and the Church continues despite its adversaries and its afflictions. In time, I believe, … [Read more...]

A Texas sister writes that her church fellowship claims to be the "New Testament church," founded on the Day of Pentecost about A.D. 33. That church went into "apostasy," she is told, but was "restored" in the early 19th century. "But what about the many centuries between?" she asks. "Can anyone show an unbroken line of people or churches linking Pentecost to the present?" * * * Some today do claim to be the only "true church" by pointing to such an unbroken chain as you suggest. That argument has long been used by the Roman Catholic Church as well as by the family of Eastern Orthodox … [Read more...]

Big old houses have always fascinated me. I am excited to explore rooms and to discover unique nooks and crannies. A few years ago, Sara Faye and I toured the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. We spent a full day exploring the Biltmore House which, built by George Vanderbilt in the 1890s, contains 250 rooms, 65 fireplaces and is the largest house in the United States (http://www.biltmore.com ). It is fascinating, isn't it, that Paul refers to Christ's people around the world as a living building, a holy temple, a dwelling-place for God by his Spirit (Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Tim. 3:15). The … [Read more...]

As a child, I naively thought that the particular subgroup of the non-instrument Churches of Christ into which I was born had discovered "the truth" and that all other Christian groups were either ignorant or dishonest because they differed from us. By the grace of God, when I became a man, I put away those childish ideas. I gradually realized that almost all the hymns we sang were written by Christians from other denominations, as were nearly all the biblical commentaries our preachers studied in preparing their lessons. That didn't mesh with the notion that of all God's people, we were … [Read more...]

A brother in the Churches of Christ (who does not see his own fellowship as a "denomination") comments, "I don't know of any major denomination that appeals for the restoration of New Testament Christianity and urges people to drop all human creeds." * * * In addition to Churches of Christ and Christian Churches, the Seventh-day Adventists, Nazarenes, many different "Church of God" groups, plus the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, all claim to have recovered, regained, or even "restored" first-century ground. One Church of God group points with pride to the fact that it was established "in … [Read more...]

Many years ago someone sent me an anonymous poem titled "The One True Church." Although considerably longer than most gracEmails, I think its point is worth sharing here. ______________________ THE ONE TRUE CHURCH One Sabbath morn I roamed astray, and asked a Pilgrim for the way: "O tell me, whither shall I search, That I may find the one true Church?" He answered, "Search the world around; The one true Church is never found. Yon ivy on the abbey wall, Makes fair the falsest Church of all." But, fearing he had told me wrong, I cried, "Behold the entering throng!" He answered, "If a … [Read more...]

Someone recently wrote me an email arguing that only those who belong to his particular denomination are any part of the body of Christ and the universal church of God. How should we respond to such claims, which are made across the "Christian" spectrum? * * * For more than a millennium now, different people have equated the true church of Christ with some particular group found in the Yellow Pages (an anachronism, I know, but you get the point). All such attempts will ultimately fail because they are trying to shrink Christ's spiritual body, God's true church, to a tiny segment of the whole … [Read more...]

A few Sundays ago while my wife Sara Faye was on a women's retreat, I missed Bible class at our Church of Christ to attend a service at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Houston. This is an evangelical congregation whose long-time rector (pastor), gracEmail subscriber Larry Hall, has been a dear friend since 1982 and has occasionally invited me to serve as a guest teacher. I reflected afterward about what part of the service I found most to be a blessing, and concluded that it was the incarnational involvement of the whole person and all of one's senses. One bows upon entering the … [Read more...]