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NOT AN “-ITE”

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Influential men

influential menRecently, Pastor Hughes asked me who the most influential men were in my ministry.  I hesitate to give any name except “Jesus”, but that would not be true and it has a ring of self-righteousness to it; so here we go.

The first man on the list is Pastor Harvey Taylor. Pastor Taylor was pastor in Wenatchee, Washington where I was saved at age 17.  He passed on to be with the Lord years ago.

The second was Leroy and Florence Friend of Soap Lake, Washington.  This wonderful family mentored us for the Lord.  they gave me my first copy of C. Larkin’s Dispensational Truth.  I will forever be indebted for their influence and friendship of fifty years.  Their ministry was one of discipleship.

The third person to have a strong and lasting impact on me is Dr. Jack Hyles.  Brother Hyles taught me the value of Soul-winning and made me believe I could do great things for the Lord.  I thank God for Dr. Hyles.

The fourth was Dr. Ruckman, who taught me to rightly divide the Word of God.  He was the one who encouraged me to do some writing.  He has always been gracious to me and I thank him for that.

The fifth person in Dr. Tom Malone, he was pastor and president of Midwestern Baptist College.  Dr. Malone was one of the best preachers in America, he also was a master at teaching young men how to start and pastor the local church.

Brother Hughes stated that he thought Rick Warren would be on the list.  I assured him that he was not. Some of the brethren have spread gossip about me because I believe a pastor can learn some things about outreach and church structure from Warren’s book.  The idea that we can only learn from “our crowd” is foolish and Pharisaical.  However, I am not a Talor-ite, a Friend-ite, a Hyles-ite, a Ruckman-ite, a Malone-ite, or a Warren-ite.  I am a Bible believer; nothing more and nothing less.

(written in 2008)

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS

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A Study in Ephesians
A Study in Ephesians

Introduction:

  This epistle shows the oneness of God’s people in union with Christ:

In It…

1). The church is called a body, with Christ as the head;

2). It is like a building, with Christ as the cornerstone;

3). It is like a wife, with Christ as the husband.

The Author:

The Apostle Paul (1:1).

The City of Ephesus:

(See map).

Its Location:

Ephesus was a great commercial center of Asia Minor. It was located at the mouth of the Cayster River and on the shore of the Aegean Sea. (An arm of the Mediterranean Sea off southeast Europe between Greece and Turkey.). It was about 50 miles south of Smyrna.  Ephesus was noted for the great temple of Diana, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (Acts 19:27).  The site of the city is now covered with ruins.

Its Religion:

The inhabitants of Ephesus worshiped the Goddess Diana. She was called Diana, by the Romans and Artemis by the Greeks. She was the “great virgin goddess” of hunting and childbirth and was traditionally associated with the moon. She was worshipped among heathen nations under various names. (See Hislop, The Two Babylons). She was worshipped as the goddess of fertility. Her most noted temple was that at Ephesus which was built outside the city walls. It was in building about 220 years. It was built of shining marble; was 342 feet long by 164 feet broad and was supported by a forest of columns, each 56 feet high. At the center, hidden by curtains, within a gorgeous shrine, stood the very ancient image of the many breasted goddess. It was made of the ebony tree which was supposed to have fallen from the sky. Behind the shrine was a treasury, where, as in the safest bank in Asia, nations and kings stored their most precious things. The women of Ephesus sold their jewels to help raise funds for the temple. Kings presented columns and gifts of gold from many nations. When it was completed in 323 B. C., it was the most magnificent building ever constructed in the Greek world and was acclaimed one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple, as Paul saw it, stood till A.D. 262, when it was ruined by the Goths. (A member of a Germanic people who invaded the Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era.) (Acts 19:23-41). No doubt the devotion to this temple by the Gentiles was what led Paul to speak of the glorious temple of Christ that is made of living stones and groweth continually.

Paul’s Visits:

(1) His first visit is recorded in.. (Acts 18:18-21).

(2) His second visit, when the Holy Spirit is given to believers, is in (Acts 19:2-7).

(3) His third visit is when he addresses the Ephesians elders (Acts 20:17-35).

The Date: The most probable date for the writing of Ephesians is A.D.  64.

The Place Written:  Written from Rome while Paul was in prison.

(See Eph. 3:1; Acts 21:15; Acts 27-28)

The Purpose of the Book:

To show that all believers are seated in heaven in Christ and are to walk worthy of Christ. Romans, the first doctrinal letter, sets forth the true relationship of the believer to Christ in death, burial and resurrection. Ephesians, the second doctrinal letter, pictures the believer as sitting together with Christ in heavenly places. It contains the highest of church truth, but not church order.

The Key Words:

(1) Together: 1:10; 2:5; 2:6, 21, 22; 4 16.

(2) One: 1:10; 2:14,15,16,18; 4:2,4,5,6,7,25,32; 5:21,31,33.

(3) In Christ: (Eph. 1:1, 3, 6, 12, 15, 20; 2:10, 13; 3:11; 4:21).

(4) In Heavenly Places: (Eph 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10).

(5) Riches: of Grace: (Eph 1:7; 2:7); of Glory (Eph 1:18; 3:16); of Christ (Eph 3:8).

The Key Verses:

Eph 1:10, Eph 2:6, Eph 2:14-22, Eph 4:3-16, (especially Eph 4:13)

The following outline will give an overview of our analyses of this epistle.

OUTLINE:

  1. 1-3; THE BELIEVERS PERFECT STANDING
  2. The  Salutation To Believers
  3. The  Standing Of  Believers
  4. The  Sagacity Of God Toward Believers
  5. The  Sealing Of  Believers
  6. The  Supplication For Believers
  7. The  Spiritual Death Of  Unbelievers
  8. The  Spiritual Resurrection Of  Believers
  9. The  Strangers Who Became Fellow-Believers
  10. The  Slaying Of The Enmity Against Believers
  11. The  Special Revelation For Believers

 

 

 

MINISTRY AND BUSINESS

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YOUNG PASTORS DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MINISTRY

MINISTRYKen Blue

“Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.  But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6:3-4.

I went to Bible College to learn the Bible and be a preacher. One comment by our Homiletic’s professor stands out in my mind more clearly than any other. He said, “Preaching is about 1/10 of the ministry”. That comment offended me, and I didn’t believe it. I loved to preach, so he can’t be correct in that comment.

When Joyce and I started the Open Door Baptist Church in 1969 we had an empty building with about one hundred empty chairs. Back then everything was about soul winning and preaching however, before that year was over, we had over a hundred in the morning service and all in the same room.  We had a problem, and something had to change, and change quick!

We had to get the nursery age out of the preaching service so, I had to find a place and a worker for that problem. The girls’ bathroom became a place and my wife became the worker but that did not completely solve the problem. The six through eight year olds were bored, restless and distracting. There was an unfinished room in the back of the building.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Preaching is about 1/10 of the ministry”[/perfectpullquote]

This room would work, but we needed a teacher. We found a faithful lady, so that problem was readily solved. However, now it was time to move to a new location if we were to continue our growth.

We found a local school where we met for about a year but, we had to set up and take down all the chairs. So someone had to be appointed for this task. In addition, we now needed ushers, money counters, book keepers and expenses paid. I had no idea that we needed to be incorporated in Washington State. This was “business” that was required by law, and Bible College forgot to tell me about these things.

Moreover, for the first three years I was the song leader, so it was my task to select songs everybody knew. In time, God gave us someone to play a piano, but at that time, we did not have one, so that became another order of business. In addition, I also directed our small choir and taught the teachers next Sunday’s lesson…..Whew!

More and more I needed the help of others. In a few years there where hundreds of ministries that needed to be attended to, and someone had to attend them and I was learning that my professor was right.

There are many gifted preachers who can’t tie their own shoes, thus they can never build a growing church. Then, there are men gifted in management, who are not the best of preachers. Guess who builds a growing church? The one who learns how to manage the business side of the ministry!

My advice to the novice pastor is three things. Learn all you can about soul winning, (I mean getting them saved, baptized and in the church membership). Learn how to recruit, delegate and manage the total ministry and learn how to rightly divide the Bible and how to teach it. Bathe all this in prayer, depending on the Holy Spirit.

You must learn how to manage as well as preach, but if management is a weakness of yours, then find someone in the church you can trust, and let them help you in this area. “Preaching is about 1/10 of the ministry” but, “Pastoring” takes both preaching and management.

A ONE STRING MINISTRY

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ADVICE TO YOUNG PREACHERS

ONE STRING“One of the evils of such a course is to beget in his mind a monstrous development of that particular truth. He soon loses the symmetry and proportion of a Christian man, becomes too much a man of one idea, loses sight, in a great measure, of other branches of reform, and is in danger of becoming censorious, towards all others in whose minds there is not the same monstrous development of that particular truth. This is a dangerous state of mind, exceedingly injurious to his own piety and usefulness, and dangerous to the Church of God. Such men are found not infrequently to be loudly denunciatory in respect to all Christians and ministers who are not swallowed up, as they are, in that particular branch of reform. They go up and down through the Churches lecturing, making their particular topic a test question, and measuring every thing and every body by the importance they attach to the particular branch of reform in which they are engaged. To them it appears that no body else is doing any good–that nothing else is at the present time of much importance, and that little or nothing can be done for the salvation of the world, until that particular branch of reform is perfected. These brethren seem not at all aware of the state of mind in which they are. They seem not to consider that they have so long dwelt upon the bearings and influence of one branch of reform, that it has in their mind grown out of all proportion as compared with other branches of Christian reform. I beseech you, brethren, take heed lest you come to be among the number of those of whom I am speaking. Do not understand me as speaking against agencies or agents, for no doubt these agencies need to be prosecuted. But I would earnestly warn you against being drawn away from the whole work of the ministry to engage in them, without a manifest call from God. And if you should be called to engage in them, I beseech and warn you to be on your guard against the tendencies of which I have been speaking. Without being at all aware of it, many of the lecturers of different societies have diffused a very unhappy spirit through the Churches, and wherever they go, they seem to plant a root of bitterness, and to get up a kind of faction, and to embitter the minds of certain classes of professors of religion against the Church in general, and the ministry, and in short against all who have not a single eye to that particular department of reform.” Charles Finney

I DARE YOU TO USE BIBLICAL INSTRUMENTS!

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A Challenge to use Biblical Instruments

Biblical Instruments

ByKenBlue

We live in a day when pastors pick a verse from anywhere, and make it say anything they like. This is seen when one conveniently overlooks certain things in the verse and chooses only those that support his agenda.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of musical instruments. Why is that? You know the answer. I dare you to.

Let us consider some Biblical instruments we are called upon to use to praise God:

  1. Trumpets- 2 Chron. 7:6. Are you searching for trumpet players? Why not?
  2. Harp- I Kings 10:12. Got any harp players? Why not?
  3. Psalteries- I Kings 10:12. A stringed instrument.  Why not?
  4. Cornet-I Chron. 15:28. A wind instrument in the trumpet family. Got any, why not?
  5. Cymbals- I Chron. 15:28. A percussion instrument. Can’t find any? When did you look?
  6. Timbrel- 2 Samuel 6:5. “An ancient percussion instrument similar to a tambourine.  [Diminutive of Middle English timbre, drum, from Old French.”  American Heritage Dictionary.]
  7. Tabrets- 2 Samuel 18:6. In the percussion family.

These are a few Biblical instruments found in Scripture. Yet you will not find them in Baptist churches. Perhaps if we added them, those churches that sound like funeral homes could be revived. Why aren’t they used? The answer is because the pastors are cowards. They fear their members and the wrath of fellow pastors. Come on Pastor, don’t be a chicken. Many Baptist churches dare not use anything other than the piano or organ, and then wonder why the music sounds like a Catholic Monastery. Biblical instruments fall into three categories; wind, stringed and percussion. I dare you!