Growing In Grace

Over the past few years it seems that many churches have tried to call us back to the power of the early church. I recognize that there are entire 'movements' and church 'styles' that have been attempting to get back to the early church. Some of these are probably great, but some do not appear to be so biblical in there attempts. As w e read of the incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the amazing growth of the early church we must ask, "Why isn't that stuff still happening today?" Lately four of us at my church have been rotating and teaching through the Book of Acts at our Sunday evening service. While reading and studying Acts I have been blessed and amazed by the reminder of the incredible impact the early church was having. Acts is typically known as the Acts of the Apostles, but I prefer the name suggested by some commentators, "The Acts of the Holy Spirit (through the early church)" because it gives us a much fuller picture of what ...

After my last post "Are We Biblical Relativists?" I received a few questions and concerns and so I wanted to clarify a few things. One question was that it sounds like I am removing the Holy Spirit's leading us by taking this view of the Bible. If you read the article, you will notice that I was very careful not to address the Holy Spirit's role in this issue (apart from His inspiring the writing of Scripture). My concern was/is how we approach reading our Bibles. What are our presuppositions, or what things are we taking for granted when we read our Bibles? Are we looking at it as a guide book, instruction manual, history book, etc? I wrote, "In my first post I argued that the Bible is primarily a written account of God's plan of redemption. God's chief concern in giving us the Bible was to reveal Himself to us as the Creator come to be our Savior." My point was and is that our view of the purpose of God's Word will shape how we use it . If the...