Blog - Page 139 of 318 - John H Armstrong

The Church Must Eschew Techno-Mastery For Biblical Mystery

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 11th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, The Church, Unity of the Church|

We live in the age of ever growing technology. The very fact that you can read my words via this post, view the attached video through YouTube and benefit from numerous advances in ways to learn is evidence itself. The problem here is one that does not appear so obvious to many in the church. Technology can never become a substitute for incarnation and the worship of a God who is not bound to such technology.

Having a wrist watch is generally helpful. (With cell phones even the watch is less needed these days!) But being bound by your wrist watch is to be enslaved to a tool. It is considered polite and important to be “on time” in our culture. To this end the watch can help you. But when you must have a $5,000 Rolex, purely as a symbol of power and status, something profoundly wrong has happened in this equation.

The church often thinks that spiritual and congregational “excellence” equals the best that technology can offer. We then substitute the technological method for human presence or weakness, since the human will […]

Paul Cedar & the Mission America Coalition

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 10th, 2010|Categories: Evangelism, Missional Church, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church|

One of the great joys of the mission of ACT 3 is getting to know Christian leaders as friends and sharing my vision and life with these leaders. I am the one who always gets the greatest blessing from such meetings. This was true again on a recent trip I made to southern California, where I enjoyed a long lunch with Dr. Paul Cedar, the chairman and CEO of Mission America. Paul has previously served several churches as pastor and was the president of the Evangelical Free Church in America. He is a warm and encouraging person who loves Christ and people. He has a vision of the church living and praying as one. He is, in spirit, a missional-ecumenist!

Yesterday I mentioned the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, October 16-25. The First Lausanne was convened in 1975 in Lausanne, Switzerland. This first meeting produced the important work called The Lausanne Covenant. It helped to bring evangelicals together in a whole new way. It also centered their vision on Christ and his kingdom. The Second Congress was held in 1989 in Manilla. Various […]

A “Sleeper Film”: As It Is in Heaven

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 9th, 2010|Categories: Film, The Christian Minister/Ministry, The Church|

Some films I come to love are sleepers. You hear nothing about them except by word of mouth or by sheer accident. Such is the 2004 Swedish film, As It Is in Heaven, written and directed by Kay Pollak. Nominated for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 77^th Academy Awards in 2005 As It Is in Heaven is both romantic and funny yet provides a critical, and fair, look at religion and the tendency to be dour and joyless in the faith.

The lead role features actor Michael Nyqvist as Daniel Daréus. He is a successful and renowned international conductor who burns his life out through perfectionism. Through it all Daniel’s life aspiration is to create music that will open people's hearts. (This is indeed the real theme of the movie to the end!) His own heart, however, is in bad shape, both physically and emotionally/spiritually. After suffering a heart attack on stage at the end of a performance, he shocks his fans and […]

Son of Hamas

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 8th, 2010|Categories: Books, Islam|

The popular Christian biography/memoir, Son of Hamas, is a genuinely moving story of betrayal, courage and true conversion. The young author, Mosab Hassan Yousef (now living in California), has given us an inside account of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But his conclusions will unsettle hopes for a lasting peace. When he decided to leave his role as a undercover agent for the Israeli secret service, Shin Bet, he told his friend:

“We’re fighting a war that can’t be won with arrests, interrogations, and assassinations. Our enemies are ideas, and ideas don’t care about incursions and curfews. We can’t blow up an idea with a Merkava. You are not our problem, and we are not yours. We’re all like rats trapped in a maze. I can’t do it anymore. My time is over” (236).

Mosab Hassan Yousef has been converted to living faith in Jesus Christ as his Messiah and Lord. His story is nothing short of remarkable. I read the book in only a […]

Martin Luther King, Jr. on Conscience and Consensus

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 7th, 2010|Categories: Civil Rights, Leadership|

It is no secret that I did not grow up in a cultural and Christian context that had a deep appreciation for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, I still remember wondering why he so passionately opposed the war in Vietnam in the last two years of his life. I was recently reminded of this by watching a video of King’s interview on the Mike Douglas Show. (This video is available on Netflix as streaming video if you are a subscriber. The Mike Douglas Show was a syndicated daytime TV show that aired from 1961-82.)

We now know that the FBI targeted Dr. King with wiretaps and wanted to convince the public that he was a Communist. There is absolutely no truth to this charge even though J. Edgar Hoover spent a considerable amount of time trying to prove it. Dr. King’s life had been threatened a number of times and he quite clearly knew that he might someday be martyred. If you lived through […]

The Marriage Pool

By John Armstrong|2010-10-06T04:00:00-05:00October 6th, 2010|Categories: Marriage & Family, Race and Racism, The Church|

The Economist recently reflected on the “skewed sex ratio” that often results in there being more women who desire marriage than available men. The exact opposite problem exists in China where girls are more often aborted. Research shows that most people marry someone of the same race who lives relatively close to them. If this is true then what is happening in the African-American community in America is an incredibly complicated social problem with massive implications.

One in nine black males between 20-29 years of age are behind bars. Add to this men who have been imprisoned and are now free and the number is much higher. Not only are incarcerated men not able to marry but ex-cons rarely make it in marriage either. Removing so many men from the marriage pool thus has enormous implications.

The Economist asks, “Could it be . . . that mass incarceration is a symptom of increasing social dysfunction, and that it was this social dysfunction that caused marriage to wither?” The magazine says, “Probably not.” One study concludes that a higher male imprisonment has lowered the likelihood […]

Worldly Lifestyles or Christian Freedom?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 5th, 2010|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Church History, Culture|

For as long as I can recall I have listened to Christians debate the concept of worldliness and worldly lifestyle. A recent flier that invited me to a Christian conference, with a host of speakers and topics, put this point clearly when it said:

A cultural divide is certainly entrenched among evangelical churches today, many adopting charismatic, worldly-entertainment style music, while others stand firmly with traditional, reverent worship. And what is true of worship culture has extended to the everyday activities of individual Christians, those in contemporary churches tending to embrace much more worldly lifestyles and aspirations. There is a great need for clear definitions and explanations of the biblical doctrine of separation from the world as universally held and practiced by Bible believers for centuries, until recent decades.

Some of the offerings at this large conference include the following:

We are commanded in our evangelism to call souls out of the world […]

Has the Church Traded Methods for Worship?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:18-05:00October 4th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism, The Church|

Because we have reduced the church to our programs most of what we now do feels much more like a business that needs to be well-run that a family that needs the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit. I do not believe we will value unity in the Spirit until we give up this approach that plagues nearly everything we do in the contemporary Protestant church.

Only the Son of God Has the Authority to Truly Forgive Sin

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:19-05:00October 3rd, 2010|Categories: Biblical Theology, Roman Catholicism, The Church|

In Matthew 9:6 it is said that only “the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” But in Matthew 16:19 Jesus says that he will “give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven” to Peter. And, he adds, “Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”

How do we sort out what seems like a contradiction? Either Jesus does, or does not, have all authority in these matters of grace and forgiveness. My Catholic friends believe that he gave this authority to Peter, and then through his leadership to the apostles. Through these bishops this power was passed along through the Catholic church as the sacramental body of Christ. This is one of those areas where I profoundly disagree with my brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church but my disagreement is often one of nuance more than irreconcilable doctrinal differences.

The ambassadors of Christ are given the power to proclaim […]

Single Life

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:19-05:00October 2nd, 2010|Categories: Marriage & Family, Sexuality|

Yesterday I referred to the church’s great need to teach celibacy, not simply as a requirement before marriage but as a calling that is given to some because of their unique place in life. I know that many will say, “This is not fair. If others can enjoy sexual experience then why can’t I?” The problem with this response is that it misses the whole point of the kingdom of God and the call of Christ upon our lives.

A friend recently reminded me that almost all of us read the Scriptures with our preconceived notions firmly fixed in our minds. As a result the teaching of Jesus doesn’t shock us since we already have simplistic ready answers to texts that are problematic. When it comes to this issue I can’t think of any text for which this is more true than this one:

Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. […]