Provoke

From this morning reading

Dr John King — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:39:06 +0000

Theodore Cuyler
” I have found in theology the true things are not new and most of the new things were not true…”

Dr Mclaren:
If preachers instead of defending God’s word, instead of propping up the cross of Christ would simply point men to that cross more souls would be saved

A church or a social club?

Dr John King — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:01:53 +0000

This story is apparently true, it is told of a town on the Florida Coast where the sea was dangerous and shipwrecks all too common. The men of the town, concerned for the lives of others, built a boathouse to act as a life-boat station. Time and again while the men were out on dangerous rescue missions, their wives would gather at the boathouse, waiting anxiously for their return. To keep busy, and distract their minds from the danger, they began to use that time to decorate the boathousea few chairs here, curtains there.

A kitchen was installed, and a lounge area. over many years the lifeboat station became the social centre of the town, a more-and-more comfortable place for people to gather whether or not a rescue was in progress.

Then, one day, the klaxon sounded to indicate a ship in distress and no-one responded. Why should members of a social club risk their lives for those in peril on the sea? Surely it is a part of a pastor/preachers job is to remind the people that we are not a social club but a life-boat station.

C.S.Lewis – The house that God builds

Dr John King — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:49:01 +0000

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Thought on Sovereignty

Dr John King — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:00:58 +0000

The doctrine of sovereignty brings great comfort to the believer.
Becasue with every issue or challenge faced, you can have the confidence that God in His grace has prepared a way threw. And this safe passage isn’t based upon my ability to pray, my ability to give, my ability to stand, my ability to quote scripture back at Him. But is based solely upon His character, upon His love for and His hand of extended grace toward me.

Gen 15

Dr John King — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:19:49 +0000

Genesis 15:11
And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

God told Abraham to do something very specifically yet it was Abraham who had to protect the very thing that God had asked him to do.
An assignment given, is an assignment that needs protecting

Reflections on the Gym and the Church

Dr John King — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:56:35 +0000

I’ve been training people at a gym up the road from church for sometime now…it’s great way to meet people and share my faith…and pay for my habit (flying).

I recently started to notice a lot of similarities between people at the gym and people at church.

People at the gym turn up week after week and do the same thing, and expect a different result.
It’s the same in church life. Around and around the same mountain people go week after week, year after year, never changing and never dealing with their stuff.

People at the gym practice bad form like a liturgy. Not only do they do exercises that have no positive impact on their body shape, they do them poorly. They just turn up and do something, because it’s the habit.
Same with church. So many people walk through the doors on Sunday with no intent to listen or change, they just turn up because that’s what they do.

Most people who came to the gym don’t come with a plan.
If they do turn up…that’s it..they just turn up. They don’t know what they are going to do, what they are supposed to be working or doing.
Most Christians treat their spiritual walk the same way. Day to day they pick little promises from there promise box and have no plan for personal spiritual growth.

Most people at the gym do not connect what they do outside with their lack of growth inside the gym. They eat rubbish, they never rest and they do no other physical activity.
At church people turn up and do their 60 minutes, walk out the door, and feast on a diet of bad books and bad movies and bad friends for the rest of the week.

Most people in the gym don’t like being corrected. They are hopeless at what they are doing, they don’t know what they are doing, they have never been shown how to do it right, and yet they refuse help that is offered.
It is the same in church in America. For some reason, people think that the pastoral team is sitting around home trying to think of nasty things to say to them, instead of believing that all their pastors want to do is help them.

This why you need a good trainer or a good pastor, someone who will willingly and lovingly speak correction for your benefit. No one wants to stay stuck, we all want to grow and develop…but we can’t do life alone

Reformed Theology by Micheal Allan

Dr John King — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:54:58 +0000

If we cherish the gospel and trust the Bible, we will expect to grow and to change. if we savor justification by faith alone and see our need for God’s Word as our final authority,
we will pursue the reformation and renewal of our theology by this very Word. if we depend on grace as our spiritual oxygen, then we will turn to where it is delivered and dispensed with fervency and faith.
Most important to remember, though, is not our need to change. the most crucial news is the best: God is still in the business of reforming us, both as individuals and as communities. We not only have a need, we have great hope because God has given great promises. the Father will continue to shed light on his Word. the son will continue to teach as our ascended prophet, priest, and king. the spirit has been given to remind us of what Jesus taught, and he will dwell within the Christian and empow- er the body of Christ.

Disruptive Grace – George Hunsinger

Dr John King — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:54:25 +0000

Grace, strictly speaking, does not mean continuity but radical discontinuity, not reform but revolution, not violence but nonviolence, not the perfecting of virtues but the forgiveness of sins, not improvement but resurrection from the dead. It means repentance, judgment, and death as the portal to life. It means negation and the negation of the negation. The grace of God really comes to lost sinners, but in coming it disrupts them to the core. It slays to make alive and sets the captive free.

Concerning Doctrine

Dr John King — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 18:42:35 +0000

BB Warfield (concerning controversy over doctrine):

” he that declines controversy ‘on principal’ or from motives of convenience or prudence, has thereby renounced his confidence in the truth”

Thought

Dr John King — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:18:01 +0000

Truth doesn’t need to be protected or defended , it needs to be herald and proclaimed