By Andrew Street The call of God has been neglected. It has been neglected because Christians have been expecting something that is, quite frankly, unbiblical: A dramatic, dynamic, special, specific call to a people and place before they engage in ministry. God calls people at all ages and stages of life. Amazingly, much of the conventional wisdom around God’s call is not rooted in biblical theology, but in personal experiences.  What does God want you to do with your life?  As holiness people...

By Dale Yocum The mere fact that a person has tried to win souls and for some reason has not been successful does not mean that he is defeated or that he is a failure. However, in the story recorded in Luke 5:1-11, Peter had tried and failed, and he was defeated. The disciples caught nothing, and Peter didn’t think they could catch anything, even with Jesus telling them where to go. Many people have this attitude of defeat. They don’t feel there’s any point in their trying. I know there are...

By Eric Kuhns The evangelical world has seen its share of fads and trends. The prayer of Jabez, WWJD, and the Left Behind series all saw their fifteen minutes of fame. Then came the hype about positive thinking, then it was how to be a leader, now the emphasis is on being relevant. Fads come and go. Many people would label church planting as one of those passing fads. In recent years we have been hearing more and more about church planting teams and church planting techniques. Multitudes of...

By Curtis Going Living along the Crystal Coast of North Carolina, it is not uncommon to see ships from around the world anchored in a local port, having sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver their cargo to the United States. In order for these large ships to safely arrive at the docks, they must follow a specific channel, but many times, these ships are coming from parts unknown. In spite of modern GPS technology, they do not know exactly where the channel lies, so a channel pilot will...

By Everek R. Storms The Scriptures contain a grand total of 8,810 promises. How do I know? I counted them. I do not guarantee my count to be perfect, but it is the most accurate I know of. The Bible contains eight kinds of promises. There are 7,487 promises that God has given to man. This is about 85% of all the promises in the Bible. There are also 290 promises made by man to God. The majority of these—235 of them—are to be found in the Psalms, such as, “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my...

Larry Grile John the Baptizer came on the scene in Judea with a powerful message. He claimed to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3-5. He told the inquiring crowds, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah” (Jn. 1:23). He was the forerunner and herald of the Messiah. His message was a call to repentance for the nation of Israel in preparation for the Messiah and His kingdom. His method was a baptism with water, familiar to the...

B.D. Cummins And He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor…” (Isaiah 59:16) God wondered! Can you even fathom it? The God Who created the universe, the heavens, sun, moon and stars; and created the earth, the animal kingdom, plant life, and mankind, looked down on His creation and “wondered!” God Who is Sovereign and Who knows all things, wondered! The Sovereign God Who is never surprised because He knows all things, and He knows “the end from the beginning,” yet...

Vance Havner Whatever may have happened to it since, the Christian way did not begin as a broad boulevard. Our Lord said the gate to eternal life was strait and the way narrow. He said that few find it and from that to the faithful few in Sardis (Revelation 3:4), the New Testament does not give us the impression of a popular, all inclusive movement.  The early Christians were a persecuted minority group in a pagan world. It was said of certain worthies, “They were narrow. In other words, they...

Frances Stetler A love for Christian education is nearly in the Stetler DNA. My parents sacrificed much to teach in Christian schools, and, when going to a Christian school was still rare, my mother left the house every school day at 7 AM (with three small boys, a toddler, and a baby) to ride the city bus, taking my brothers to the only Christian school in the city. She had to ride the bus into downtown Cincinnati, transfer buses, and travel to the western side of the city; then she retraced...

Curtis Going The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther once said, “I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt…” Many years later, the famed theologian Francis Schaeffer further fleshed out Christian thought on the education of young people when he said that “Isolating the student from large sections of human knowledge is not the basis of a Christian education. Rather...