Theological Treatises

  How To Sincerely Enjoy People who May  Not  Initially Be Inclined to Like you Very Much   Dedicated to dearly-loved lost people   On a somewhat regular (sometimes-annual) basis, the details of which are not pertinent to the goals of this little article, Lesley and I place ourselves in a situation wherein we end up spending a couple of weeks with a number of people, whom beforehand we did not know at all.  It almost always turns out that the vast majority of these people are not professing Christians, and they do not share our heartfelt values and passions.   Sometimes, when they discover that I am (or was, in my case) a pastor of a Presbyterian church, they might be a bit "put off," or maybe feel a little uncomfortable.  In some instances, this is not the case at all; and they are happy to engage issues and questions surrounding religion (and the like).   Our experience, on the whole, among these people has been very positive, enc...

  Love  Through  The Church   Dedicated to Spirit-filled church members   Is there anything  more  important for the church and even the world,  than  love?  This is a loaded question; but the most- savory  answer, is, "No."  Love is  premised  on living, regenerative  faith  in the gospel and Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. . . . But  true,  supernatural love is the ultimate  goal  of faith.   Almost everybody in any religious organization is going to talk about "love."  This is to be expected; and it is actually quite natural.  Human beings are created in the image of God; and God's very nature is that of love (1 Jn. 4:16).  Therefore, we should anticipate hearing a lot of verbiage relative to love.   But, what I would like to suggest, is that  authentic  love is a whole lot less  experienced,  than it is  chatt...

  Ministering To The Poor   Dedicated to all the God-lovers of Christ's church   One of the things I would like to achieve in the writing of these various papers, essays, and/or treatises, is to address themes that I have not seen covered by earlier writers (even the great ones of the church).  This is not meant to imply that these issues indeed  have not  been addressed--but simply that I have not come across them myself.   Today, I would like to talk about the important principle of  "ministering to the poor."   First of all, some Biblical definitions are necessary.  Sometimes the Holy Scriptures refer to  financially  or  materially  needy people as "poor."  Two splendid New Testament examples will suffice to prove this point.  The first one comes from our blessed Savior's lips, as His words are found in Jn. 12:8a, which renders this: "For the  poor  you always have with...