Blog - Page 231 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Preaching on Pentecost Sunday

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 13th, 2008|Categories: Homiletics/Preaching|

This past Lord’s Day (May 11) was Pentecost Sunday. For many it passed with little or no recognition of this great truth of our Christian faith. But for me, and the congregation of First Reformed Church in South Holland (where I am preaching regularly until the new pastor is installed on June 15,) it was a great day to worship God the Holy Spirit in the fullness of joy.

I preached from the Lectionary and thus the Gospel text was John 20:19-23. This text seems not to be appropriate to the feast of Pentecost since the events presented here happened on Easter eve. But it actually fits perfectly with John’s great theme of “sentness.” This is connected to the Spirit’s power coming upon the disciples (corporately) in order to give witness to Christ and thus to speak with authority and power. This is John’s emphasis here without doubt. I think we sometimes get caught in a bind of trying to create a “harmony” […]

1968: A Year in Crisis

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 12th, 2008|Categories: The Church|

This past Saturday morning a conversation was hosted by the history department of Wheaton College in conjunction with alumni weekend at Wheaton. This event, with the title: "1968, a Year in Crisis: Evangelical Churches Then and Now," featured three highly regarded scholars and authors:
Dr. Nathan Hatch, the president of Wake Forest University, Dr. Mark Noll,
professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and Dr. John Piper, the highly esteemed author and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Each man spoke for about ten minutes, outlining their thoughts about the year 1968 and then about what has happened to evangelicals over the past forty years since that tumultuous time.

Interestingly all three of these highly gifted men graduated from Wheaton College in the spring of 1968. This was the same year in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, […]

Israel's 60th Anniversary

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 9th, 2008|Categories: Israel|

My good friend, Jim Tonkowich, the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), wrote a news release yesterday on the birth of the State of Israel, which occurred on May 14, 1948. Jim’s statement about Israel’s past and future reflects my own view of things there quite well. I believe this type of balanced perspective is called for when various confusing voices are raised regarding this important modern democracy in the Middle East.

Since I know Jim very well, and respect his comments profoundly, and because I serve on the IRD Board, I am pleased to share his statement with my readers:

Today the nation of Israel is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its independence, according to the Hebrew calendar. On May 14, 1948, as Great Britain relinquished its mandate over Palestine, Jewish leaders there proclaimed the modern state of Israel. U.S. President Harry Truman, overruling many of his top advisers, was the first to recognize […]

Jeremiah Wright is Your Brother

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 8th, 2008|Categories: Race and Racism|

Like him or not Jeremiah Wright is your brother in Christ if you are a Christian. I know, some readers will choke and fume and react and then say, "That is simply not possible." I am really not talking to you because you have already determined who is and is not a Christian based upon what you hear and read, not upon the New Testament criteria themselves. (It is not your vocation, I can assure you, to make these kinds of determinations in the first place but never tell that to a person who "knows" that they "know" who is and is not a Christian!)

The biblical criteria are simple: (1) Confess faith in Christ the Lord who is risen (2) Be a baptized follower of the Savior in the fellowship of his Church. Since none of us lives the life of Christ with even the remotest perfection then all such standards should be jettisoned by people of real charity. Wright, by […]

Be Sure to Check Out Transformissional Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 8th, 2008|Categories: Missional Church|

Some of my readers know that I write on two different blog spots. Today I posted an article on the Obama campaign that asks a question that nags at me day-in and day-out as this election season unfolds. What should we make of all these young people flocking to the election this year? This is an impressive phenomenon. How should Christians respond? Check it out at www.transformissionalchurch.com.

What is a "Bible-Centered" Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 8th, 2008|Categories: The Church|

My wife and I go for exercise on many mornings. We walk, ride our bikes, etc. We pass by a lot of churches in the process. Today we saw a church which proclaimed by its slogans beneath its name: "A Christ-centered, Bible-centered Congregation." I asked my wife: "What does it mean to you when you read the phrase "Bible-centered?" She answered me as if she had been listening to me talk about this for some long time, which in fact she has.

I find this phrase puzzling at best and sectarian at worst. First, where in Church history, do we find a church that would use such a term until the early 20th century in America? The phrase is reallt code language for something like "inerrancy" or "a high view of the Bible" and the like. It is much more likely that it means, "the Bible is believed here, not like in those other churches that are not Bible-centered." Christ-centered I understand, to […]

Who is Brother Yun?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 7th, 2008|Categories: Missional Church|

Early last year (2007) I read a remarkable book, The Heavenly Man. It is the story of Brother Yun, a persecuted Chinese house-church pastor who escaped to the West in 2001 and now lives in Germany with his wife and two children. A new book by Brother Yun, Living Water, will appear in July. The man and the first book have been attacked by several sources, mostly from within the house-church movement inside of China. They see him as a fraud. If you read the book you will
understand why. All of this underscores the real danger of public
ministry for anyone who has been used by God at all. Other Christians
delight in attacking the credibility of a servant of the Lord whom they
do not like or trust. Some Chinese underground leaders clearly do not
trust Brother Yun. The Internet includes a number of articles and
responses about this man and his ministry. I have read a great deal of
this material our of real interest. I […]

The Coming Great Depression?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 7th, 2008|Categories: Economy/Economics|

I wish I had a dollar for every prediction of a coming great depression that I’ve heard over the first four months of this year. The forecast is gloomy and the general individual person lives in some state of fear about the future. The cost of a gallon of gas is clearly higher than ever and prices are rising in other markets as well.
But Lawrence Kudlow, an economist that I happen to profoundly respect, suggested yesterday that President Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country in the end.

About a month ago, the president told reporters, "We’re not in a recession—we’re in a slowdown.” Then at a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the "R" word over and over, Bush still refused. (Sometimes his refusals are aggravating in how stubborn he seems to be at points.) But last Friday, after the most recent jobs […]

A Time for Burning: The Missional Church and Race

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:56-05:00May 6th, 2008|Categories: Race and Racism|

A Time for Burning was called by The New York Times, “A glowing beauty.” It is a genuinely gripping film, produced at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in 1966. It poignantly captures the mood of those times in ways that would still open the eyes of many who either did not live in the 1960s or who have too easily, and far too quickly, forgotten that era.

The award-winning director of A Time for Burning is San Francisco filmmaker Bill Jersey, who earned his B. A. at Wheaton College and his M.A. in film at USC. This controversial film, which was actually rejected by the three major networks, examines the issue of race through the lens of two primary characters, one of whom is the Rev. William Youngdahl, the pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska. The other is a local black barber who tells Youngdahl, in a moving scene that should shout at any Christian who cares about the […]

Where Oneness Lies Between Catholics and Protestants

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:57-05:00May 5th, 2008|Categories: The Church|

Last evening ACT 3 hosted one of our regular ACT 3 Forums. This time we were invited to have this event in a Roman Catholic Church. For those who have read my work for sometime this should not come as a surprise at all. For others it will provide one more
means for attacking my position about the Church. I am not concerned about the attacks (I once was and they troubled me but God has granted me grace to move on). I am concerned about the pursuit of the one Christ to whom we all will bow and give an account about our love for his people. His Church is one, not two. This truth obliges me to be an active part of that reality, not just a disinterested thinker.

This morning I pondered again the relationship between Catholicism and Protestantism, at least orthodox Protestantism. (I have to still agree with J. Gresham Machen when he said real liberalism was not […]