David Cox

Biblical NT Church: Service Elements

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church services

I must repeat, and insist that God has given us the precept of “Church,” and we are not at liberty to set what God has given us aside to do some other thing we want to do. If we examine the New Testament, we see what a church is, and we see it functioning quite well. (“Well” in the sense that the NT church does what God wants it to do. We have no right to insert our desires and purposes into what is God’s work.) A typical church in the New Testament has various service elements which we would do well to understand and imitate. As this series goes on, we will come back to these service elements and re-examine them and meditate on them. For now, we start by defining the Service Elements briefly.

Click on tag: Church-Definition to see the entire series.

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Seven Marks of a Good Sermon

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Seven Marks of a Good Sermon

By Pastor David Cox

Seven Marks of a Good Sermon deals with using or engaging Scripture, connecting to people’s lives, emphasizing the gospel etc.

Seven Marks of a Good Sermon is my reaction from reading this article from Lutheran Seminary of the same name. It is written by Homiletics Professor Michael Rogness and Assistant Professor David Lose. I greatly dislike the reference to the preacher as a “she” since 1 Timothy 3:2 requires a bishop or pastor to be a man.

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What is the Priesthood of Every Believer?

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What is the Priesthood of Every Believer? explains this neecssary and essential Bible doctrine and how it works.

The short definition is that God has ordered every single believer (saved person) in this dispensation of the New Testament to be a priest before God, offering sacrifices and serving God and the body of Christ.

1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Revelation 1:6 (God) hath made us… priests unto God

If words mean something, then God declaring us to be a royal priesthood should mean something. We are not under the Old Testament rule and structure of things. In other words, we (all male believers) do not go to the temple in Jerusalem to offer a sacrifical lamb. The temple is closed as far as offering animal sacrifices, and a non-Jew would not be allowed in to sacrifice anyway. Moreover, under the Old Testament law, no Israelite was allowed to offer sacrifice in the temple except with the help or mediation of a legitimate Jewish priest. Messianic Jews try to mix New and Old Testament such as forcing the New Testament believers to obey the Old Testament law, and that is just not possible today.

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