Ephesians 4:11-16: Growing the Church with the Word: Part 2
‘Every member ministry.’ Have you ever heard this phrase? This phrase is used to describe a movement in the modern church where every Christian is encouraged to know their gifts and use them in service to God. We welcome such an emphasis as biblical, 1 Cor. 12:7, Eph. 4:16. However, this emphasis has often come at the sacrifice of the formal ministries of the church. If every Christian is a minister then why do we need pastors and preaching? We are in the midst of Eph. 4:11-16 which talks about both leaders and laity, formal gifts and informal gifts,...
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Philippians 3:2-16: True Religion
Introduction: When I say the words ‘mature Christian’ what comes to mind? Perhaps you automatically think of someone older, someone calm and unruffled, but few of us put the words mature and ambition, or mature and striving for perfection, maturity and a desire to suffer together. We ordinarily do not associate maturity with those things we could easily associate with fanaticism. In the portion that we will be looking at today Paul places these things together in his picture of mature Christianity. Phil. 3:15 comes at the end of his description stating, ‘Let those of us who are mature...
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