Blog - Page 32 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Our Judgment: How It Destroys Christian Unity in Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:18-05:00August 5th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Over time I have come to understand that deep Christian ecumenism is essential to the well-being and genuine faithfulness of the whole church. This is true precisely because no one “member” of the body of Christ has gained all the truth for all time. Further, without each other we will continue to miss what God is saying to the whole (catholic) church. The Spirit leads us into truth through the process of listening, receiving and applying. The full and final understanding of all that this means will remain inscrutable to us unless we discover the truth relationally. This means we must learn how to seek it together. My understanding here has to be right since our Lord prayed for the unity of all “those who will believe in me through their (the disciples’) word” (John 17:20). No one who believes the gospel is left out. Since our Lord alone “knows those who are his” (2 Timothy 2:19) we should “love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22). Judging one another because we disagree is dangerous […]

Unity is Always Found in Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00August 4th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

In my book Your Church Is Too Small I try to show how the unity of the church, established in Christ’s love for his Father, leads to a growing relational unity that follows him into his mission to the world. When this love happens in us we have what I call missional-ecumenism. The call to follow Jesus in his mission requires us to actively preserve the unity we already share in union with Christ. This prayer for unity in mission does not mean that we “win” some battles while we “lose” others. What I learned in the early 1990s, after I received this vision of a “big” church, was that all of the great traditions of the Christian faith, throughout the entire history of the church, have vital elements of truth in them. These elements should all be honored and preserved. When we adopt a zero-sum game – in which the winner takes all – then our gifts and diversity become the basis for more division and disrespect. A better understanding of our gifts, […]

A Young Artist – Soul and Christ-centered Faith

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00August 1st, 2014|Categories: Uncategorized|

Steve Slagg, a good friend whose friendship I cherish, did a lot to help me launch some of my newer social media and online development. He is a fellow Wheaton graduate but young enough to be my youngest son. He is also a very talented artist. I highly commend his music. Visit his website and get some free material here. You will very likely enjoy it as I do. You might also consider having a concert with Steve. He is not a “star” but he is a well-kept secret who will encourage your journey of faith deeply as he has my own.

http://youngestsonmusic.com/allsoulsday

Why Love is Vital to Unity in Christ’s Mission

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 31st, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

This week I posted some of the content that I have written for my forthcoming book: Our Love Is Too Small. I have no idea when this book will be completed so I cannot promise a completion date, though I am sure it will not be in 2014. I am blogging parts of my writing in the weeks ahead. This work will likely provide content for some months to come. I will interrupt the flow of this writing now and then but each week on my blog site I intend to post some of the material from my ongoing work. Your comments and suggestions will help me. None of this material is in finished form. This means that none of it has been carefully edited yet.

This video underscores my passion as expressed in these posts from earlier this week. I hope you will watch this short video and pray for me in all that I do to promote love in Christ’s unity. Your support in prayer and gifts helps me and the growing work of ACT3 Network.

Our Lord’s Prayer for Unity in Triune Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 30th, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, Jesus, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

Jesus begins his prayer in John 17 by asking the Father to glorify him so that he could glorify the Father. These words (“glorify”) are too easily passed over. When the Bible speaks of glory it uses the word doxa, a Greek word which comes from the Old Testament Hebrew word kabod. The widely accepted meaning of doxa is “fame and honor,” usually what is given for an extraordinary achievement. It also refers to the “visible splendor of the divine, the shining forth of a transcendent presence.” John’s Gospel suggests that the Father will be glorified in and through Jesus’ accomplishment of the task given to him by his Father (cf. 4:34; 11:4; 17:4). But in both John 11:4 and 12:23 it is evident that Jesus will be glorified by means of his death on the cross. According the the apostle Jesus was glorified in his messianic activities, especially in his signs. John 12:28 makes this clear: “‘Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’” […]

How My Life Journey Took an Unexpected Turn

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 29th, 2014|Categories: Biblical Theology, Love, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, The Church, Unity of the Church|

It was May of 1992, my last Sunday as the pastor of a congregation I had served for sixteen years. I loved the pastoral ministry, at least on most days. But I had undergone a unique call to embark upon a mission of renewal to the church-at-large. So at forty-three years of age I was saying “good bye” to my people. I struggled for the right words in my final sermon. I knew the emotions on this day would be particularly powerful. I was quite unsure what to preach. I decided to finish chapter seventeen in the Gospel of John (17:20-26). I had been preaching through John’s Gospel for nearly three years! (What can I say, I had learned a method of verse-by-verse expository preaching and had not yet realized the problems with preaching such a long series of sermons!)

What I did not know that day, as I recounted in the early part of my book Your Church Is Too Small (Zondervan, 2010), was just how much this final sermon would change my life. I seriously doubt that anyone else was impacted by this […]

Immersed in Divine Love

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 24th, 2014|Categories: Biblical Theology, Christ/Christology, God's Character, Love, Personal, Scripture|

After years of struggle with the truth of divine love I now have an overwhelming sense of God’s great love and mercy toward me. I have come to experience this love through Jesus Christ. He reveals the eternal God to me in trinity; e.g. in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I will later seek to show why the trinity, a most under appreciated and misunderstood understanding of God, is so important to what we believe and how we live in loving, faithful obedience to God. If we are to be immersed in the love of God, and then love him and others with divine love, then we must grapple afresh with this great truth of God’s being, the truth that towers above all other divine truths – “God is love.”

When I am asked to speak about God, or to pray to God, I begin with these words:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does […]

The Sudden Passing of Ecumenist Tony Palmer

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 23rd, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, Personal, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, The Church, The Future, Unity of the Church|

Many of you know by now of the sudden death of Bishop Tony Palmer last Sunday (July 20). This news was stunning to so many of us who knew a little about this wonderful, Spirit-filled, man. I had just begun to develop a friendship for Christian unity with Tony. Though we never met in person we had “discovered” one another and he recently received a copy of my book, Your Church Is Too Small (Zondervan, 2010). We exchanged several different messages and planned on meeting as soon as possible. We shared mutual friendships. I believed God had raised this man up very specifically to build a bridge of unity between evangelicals, charismatics and Catholics through deep friendship with Pope Francis.

I personally chair the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation. (Our next private meeting is September 11-13 @ Mundelein Seminary. A public meeting will be held on the evening of September 11 and information is available on our website.) This leadership role in particular led me to reach out to Tony with great personal interest to understand what the Lord was […]

Our Love Is Too Small – An Update and a Plan

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 22nd, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, God's Character, Love, Personal|

Today I posted an email to over 1,800 readers of my ACT3 Weekly, a regular Monday letter. I would love to have many more of you receive this regular email. You can sign up at www.act3network.com. This allows you to pray for me and to read new material that is not normally posted here on the blog site.

Here is today’s letter in full.

Dear ACT3 Friends–

I am going to take a break from the Holy Spirit & mission series I’ve been doing for several weeks. (I will return to these articles next week and complete two more; July 28 and August 4). This Monday I want to provide an important update for all of you who are my praying friends and faithful donors.

Most of you know that for nearly six months I have been writing a book tentatively titled: Our Love Is Too Small.

I have never undertaken a writing assignment that has been so difficult. Yet this has been some of the most personally rewarding work I’ve ever done. I began writing […]

The Shameful Story of Judah

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:14:19-05:00July 21st, 2014|Categories: ACT 3, Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics, Sexuality|

On Saturday, July 12, I preached the evening vespers service at Lutheran Church of the Master in Carol Stream. My given text was Genesis 38. I think I would never have picked such a story had it not been assigned to me in advance. You can hear my twenty-minute sermon below.

https://soundcloud.com/act3network/the-shameful-story-of-judah

As I grow older I enjoy narrative preaching more than ever. This chapter in Genesis is so obviously narrative, with a clear dose of midrash going on, that it begs for the human imagination to work overtime putting various things together. It also begs another pressing question: “How or why do such lewd and bodacious stories get included in the biblical Canon?” Maybe our views of such things are far too prudish. If some Christians I know oversaw the arrangement of the Canon they would have left a great deal out I feel sure. This story would likely be at the top of their list. In very clear and offensive ways it is perverse to the extreme. I know of nothing else to say about that but it really does beg a […]