Bible and Mission

  Introduction All believers could be thought of as members of God’s household (Eph. 2.19).   Yet individual congregations were, in themselves, ‘Christian households’—an extension of an actual household.   The characteristics of a home are different from other social structures or organizations, and so several characteristics of the home are shared with the church.   Ancient authors wrote on the nature of societies, aware of different practices, customs, laws, and constitutions.   They compared the household’s members, relationships, and dynamics to the city.   Christians, following the Jewish practice of the synagogue, understood a social unit that fit between the household and the city: the church.   Unlike the synagogue, however, the church was a house church, and in this way the relationship between the home and the church was even stronger.   This essay highlights several ways in which the Christian family household was extended into the ch...

Introduction: The Loss of Community How do we develop community, especially Christian community?  This question is the question of our day in a way that it perhaps has never been in the history of humankind.  From the invention of the automobile to Smartphones and Covid, community has been torn from the heart of our modern society. [1]   Church attendance has declined steadily as well.  Those communal institutions, such as schools and universities, have recently become hotbeds of hate, the inevitable result of Progressivism. [2] Many Evangelical churches have contributed to the breakdown of community beyond their shuttering churches during Covid.  As Evangelicals abandoned the mainline denominations in the 1970s-2010 that themselves abandoned historic, Christian theology and ethics, some formed Evangelical denominations.  Many, however, became independent churches, lacking a larger, institutional community structure that co...

Scotland's government has sought to ban so-called 'conversion therapy' for it considers such practice harmful.  Anyone intending to help someone change sexual orientation or gender identity would receive a hefty fine and possibly prison. While the liberal Church of Scotland is in general agreement with the proposed ban, the Roman Catholic and 'other' churches are not because of religious freedom and the rights of parents. Indeed, opposition to 'conversion' itself seems to be at issue.  The Good News of the Gospel is good news because God's salvation has come to us, making it possible for us to convert.  It has come to us in proclamation by ministers of the Gospel, to be sure, but the Gospel itself is the news that God has sent Jesus Christ to deliver us from our sins and the power of sin over our lives.  The Good News is that we are being converted. Paul's explanation of conversion involves the necessity that some are sent to those who do not kno...