Blog - Page 122 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Church and the World of Business

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:46-05:00March 17th, 2011|Categories: Culture, Leadership, Lordship of Christ, Wealth|

I have personally engaged in a number of attempts to connect the field of business with the redemptive mission of Christ. The typical evangelical approach to applying one’s faith to vocational activity is admittedly facile. It primarily emphasizes personal piety and evangelism within the workplace rather than a genuinely kingdom centered perspective regarding divine calling, or vocation. This approach is utterly inadequate in transforming culture or in effectively bearing witness to the in-breaking of God’s reign in Christ.

What is needed is for men and women in the world of business to see their activity as a redemptive instrument in service of the kingdom. This is scarcely heard of in modern evangelicalism, much less encouraged. In fact, most churches and pastors have little or no idea how to actually do this in practice. Business leaders seem to threaten many pastors if the truth is known. This is why I find serious business leaders checking out on the local church again and again. They are not giving up on […]

Praying for a New Pentecost in Rome

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 16th, 2011|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Renewal, Roman Catholicism|

Bridge building is the one metaphor of true ecumenism that has stood out in my experience over the years. Having recently returned from Rome I call tell you that the “Eternal City” is a place of many bridges. Everywhere you walk there are bridges connecting this place and that, crossing the Tiber here and there and uniting people and churches.

Catholic Deacon Nathaniel Bacon, who convened the meeting I just returned from in Rome, wrote a few years ago:

In the modern age of instantaneous social networking, however,
this role can be obscured, and at times appear obsolete. Nonetheless, those people whose lives connect us to others in deep ways offer us an invaluable gift—they open us to the presence of the Holy Spirit in one another. The entire ecumenical enterprise might be summed up as one of bridge-building.

Ecumenism presents the Christian with a myriad of frustrations and large disappointments. I know this personally as so many of […]

God Is God and Reveals Himself to Those Who Desire Him

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 15th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology|

Recently I preached on the prophet Jeremiah. In reading through The Bible in 90 Days my assignment on February 27 was to preach from the whole of this book. Actually, we read the last third of Isaiah and all of Jeremiah that week so I told the congregation that if I simply read my text it would likely take five hours. So in twenty-five to thirty minutes I tried to give a big picture view of things. It was a challenge!

I began by giving an overview. I said you cannot understand a book like Jeremiah unless you know that God is Yahweh (Exodus 3;14). The word means, “I Am Who I Am.” The ten commandments make it clear that the name of God, and his character, are essential to divine revelation and worship. God will not share his place with tribal gods and national divinities who are represented by the moon, the stars, the sun, animals, fearful objects, etc. Baal, a god who often proved difficult to […]

C. S. Lewis: An Inspiration for My Blogs

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 14th, 2011|Categories: Apologetics, Personal|

Several months ago a reader of these blogs wrote me a gracious email encouraging me in my work and mission. He added that he had recently read C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity once again and as a result of this reading he had realized that the posture Lewis was teaching from was one that he rarely saw these days among Christians. He further noted that as he read Lewis he realized the numerous times he acknowledged that his own explanation might be inadequate, thus his argument might not help everyone who read his work. Lewis openly stated that people should not be bothered by either of these problems because it is the reality of the thing that he wrote about that really mattered much more than the clarity of human understanding.

My friend suggests, rightly I believe, that C. S. Lewis always seemed willing to do what many people seem unable to handle psychologically.

Admit his personal limitations.
Humbly put forth his best explanations and understandings in an attempt […]

My Relationship with Acton Institute

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 13th, 2011|Categories: Acton Institute, Culture, Economy/Economics, Ethics|

About seven or eight years ago I came across a poster about a small conference on freedom and virtue. This unique event attracted young leaders from many backgrounds and professions. Most were still graduate students. There were thirty students in the group and four teachers. I was allowed to sit on the edge of the circle and observe. I felt like I had wandered in from the cold. As I listened to Catholic and Protestant scholars explain the freedom of markets and governments, all rooted in virtue, I felt as if I was drinking from a fountain that I had been searching for over the course of my whole life. I was frankly tired of political partisanship as a way to change culture. I wanted to connect with people who saw a better way to make a real difference in society without overtly linking their vision and efforts to raw party politics. I also wanted a different paradigm for understanding principles of economic freedom that was not rooted in the modern ideas of socialism, capitalism, etc. (Capitalism is not the same thing as economic freedom and […]

The Stewardship Principle in the Epistle to the Hebrews

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 12th, 2011|Categories: Discipleship, Donors and Funding|

A resource that I have come to increasingly cherish, through regular use, is the NIV Stewardship Study Bible. It sounds rather boring doesn’t it? Who wants a whole study Bible just on stewardship? But if you think about it what could be more important, at least for real Christians, than to get a better grasp on what the Word of God says about our being good stewards? Stewardship is a virtual synonym for discipleship in the New Testament so I submit this study Bible is a genuinely worthwhile tool. The Stewardship Council, formed in Michigan in May of 2005, the Acton Institute, now over twenty years old, and the publisher, Zondervan, all three partnered to create this lovely, unique resource. Donors made it possible for every person who attended the Lausanne gathering in South Africa last October to each get a copy of this Bible.

The Stewardship Council seeks to reclaim the privilege of our role as stewards of our gracious and […]

What About Other Religions?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 11th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, Evangelism, Roman Catholicism, The Future|

The historic response of Christian theology to other religions is far more nuanced and careful than the popular expressions of many evangelicals who continue to pronounce final judgment on anyone and everyone who is not a confirmed and practicing Christian believer. This issue is clearly one that should prompt us to stop throwing bombs on one another while we seek to understand the mind of the whole church in dealing with a complicated and difficult question.

Vatican II dealt with this question rather carefully. In the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, all religions are treated in terms of the ethical dimension of faith and practice. We read the following in Nostra Aetate:

From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of history. . . . This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense. . . […]

Is Jesus the One True God?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 10th, 2011|Categories: Christ/Christology, Evangelism, Jesus, Religion|

One of the most often quoted verses in the New Testament is John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This text makes specific what was implied in John 13:36 and again in John 14:2. The journey with Jesus takes one to the Father. This is where Jesus was going and those who follow him will go there as well. But how do we reach the Father? The answer is clear. We reach the Father by believing in the Son. This statement is another one of the “I Am” statements in John. (There are seven and this is the sixth!) The point here is clear, at least to me. Not all roads lead to God regardless of what men may think. The claim to exclusivity here is very clear. And Jesus is plainly inviting his hearers to accept or reject him. His self-description plainly invalidates other ways to the Father.

Before you say this view is too restrictive consider the human condition. The fact that there is any way to God’s grace and love is astounding. […]

A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:47-05:00March 9th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Books, Hermeneutics, Justification and the New Perspective|

I wrote here last April about the Wheaton Theology Conference which featured N. T. Wright. Never have I attended an event with so much electricity about biblical theology and serious dialog. It was a moment of my life that I shall always remember. Both devotees and detractors were present in the audience but more importantly I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit uniting us in the oneness that we share in the Christ who justifies the ungodly in Jesus.

Now we blessed to have the newly published book from that event: Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright (InterVarsity Press, 2011). The book comes at a great low price if you order it before the price soon increases, which it is sure to do after this pre-pub period ends. If you are serious, and I mean really serious, about engaging the profound theological insight and wisdom of this amazing teacher put aside all the books of the conservative/evangelical critics, who […]

The Bible’s Most Frightening Text?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:17:48-05:00March 8th, 2011|Categories: Biblical Theology, Jesus, Lordship of Christ|

I am amazed at how people often respond to various tests in the Bible. Some in the Old Testament are filled with terrible warnings and clear promises of divine punishment for breaking God’s law and covenant. But for all of these difficult and terrible texts none has ever compared, at least to my mind, with the words of our Lord in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not everyone who says to me, '”Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

The obvious seems quite obvious here. It is one thing to profess Christianity and quite another to possess Christ as one’s Lord. On the final day only one’s personal relationship with Christ will really matter. But that relationship is more than profession in the here and now, it is a life […]