Acts 15:24 (KJV) Dissension in Doctrine

Acts 15:24 (KJV)

Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:

Nothing much has changed. 

People, being as they are, there were those who had accepted Christ as Savior but then began teaching things the apostles didn’t. They were teaching that except the Gentiles get circumcised, they could not be saved. This created what the Bible says was “no small dissension.”

Our text tells us that they were not commanded to teach the things they taught. That didn’t stop them though. We learn through the epistles of Paul that they never did stop. All that could be done was to use the Word of God, have reputable witnesses to the truth, and persist in preaching and teaching the right way.

Paul was not hesitant to confront their error. He just never made them the focus of his work. Jude did get “in their face,” but even he ended on a positive message.

Judaizers exist even today. But we have many others who also preach and teach things they were not commanded. Stephen Anderson and his followers, I believe, fall into this camp. They make themselves out to be independent Baptists but they preach and teach things contrary to what Baptists are known to preach. We can’t stop them. But we can warn against them, and we can preach the Bible with purity. We won’t prevent everyone from following their false doctrines, but we can lead some into what we believe are the true doctrines of the Word of God.

#DoctrinalPurity #BiblicalTruth #ChurchControversy #FaithfulPreaching #StandingForTruth

Dissension in Doctrine: Staying True

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Acts 15:24 (KJV) Dissension in Doctrine

Jonah 4:4 (KJV) Anger and Redemption

Jonah 4:4 (KJV)

Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

One of the lessons I believe we can see in the Word of God is the difference between the sentiments of men, even believing men, and of God.

There can be no doubt that perhaps even well-intentioned men have done some very wicked deeds in the name of God.

- What the Jews did to Jesus.

- What the Catholics did to Anabaptists.

- What happened in England after the founding of the Church of England.

- What Protestants of all sorts did to those who disagreed with them.

- What the Puritans did in New England.

None of this was of God. These were angry souls just as Jonah was. They were wrong. They may have believed in God, but they were wrong to be angry with those who did not believe as they did.

The book of Jonah contrasts the heart of a man with the heart of God.

- God longs to save.

- God longs to forgive.

- God longs to place men on a path to eternal life.

To desire anything else is to display an evil heart.

#HeartOfManVsHeartOfGod #DivineMercyVsHumanJudgment #GodsLoveVsHumanAnger #ForgivenessVsRetribution #DivineDesireForSalvation

Anger and Redemption: God's Heart of Compassion:

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Jonah 4:4 (KJV) Anger and Redemption

Jonah 2:1 (KJV) The Turning Point

Jonah 2:1 (KJV)

Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,

“Then Jonah prayed.”

They had asked him to pray in the storm. If he did, we do not know. The Bible is very clear that we do not have a record of every word of the conversation between Jonah and the men in the boat.

Jonah was in flight away from God. He was opposed to the will of God.[1] He was apathetic to the danger the men in the ship were in on account of his sin. He was further apathetic about whether he lived or died. Mind you, he never jumped out of the ship or volunteered to do so. If he was the trouble and if removing him would solve their problem, they would have to take the action. He wasn’t going to do it for them.

But in the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed. For the first time in the whole account, so far as we can see, he was in his right mind. In the belly of the whale, Jonah was finally in his right mind.

No matter where we’ve been. No matter how far down our sins have taken us, it is possible to come to a right mind. And pray. 

                      

#JonahPrayed #RightMindPrayer #TurningPointPrayer #FindingHopeInPrayer #PrayerAfterDespair

The Turning Point:  Finding Clarity in the Belly of the Fish

[1] That he should preach in Nineveh and that they might repent.

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Jonah 2:1 (KJV) The Turning Point

Obadiah 1:2-4 (KJV) Small but Strong

Obadiah 1:2-4 (KJV)

Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised.

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?

Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.

Esau reminds me of the little man with big pride.

The implication is that they are the size they are by God’s design. Esau may have desired to be one of the great nations like Egypt or Syria. It just wasn’t going to happen. But though they were little and there was nothing to change that, they had their strengths. God never makes any of us alike, but He never favors any over another. Esau’s trouble was they mistook their strengths as being bigger and more unreal than they were.

I’ve met a lot of those with the little man big pride trouble.

• They might be small but they are fast.
• They might be small but they are strong.
• They might be small but they are smart.

I’m not arguing against any of that. I’m just saying that those strengths must not be lifted in pride.

There is always someone who can bring us down.

God can always bring us down.

Instead of being lifted in pride at our strengths, it would be so much better to be humbled in appreciation to God for them.

#LittleManBigPride #StrengthsAndPride #HumbledByStrength #GodsDesign #AppreciatingStrengths

Small but Strong: Strength and Humility

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Obadiah 1:2-4 (KJV) Small but Strong

Acts 13:1 (KJV) Beyond Rome

Acts 13:1 (KJV)
Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

 

Albert Barnes writes of Manaen, “He was, therefore, a man of rank and education, and his conversion shows that the gospel was not confined entirely in its influence to the poor.” The commentaries have much to say about this. Manaen, some say, was the son of Herod’s nurse. I read that the Jewish writers often refer to one Manahem being in the court of Herod.

 

The point I wish to make is that the gospel was not confined to the illiterate, poor, or untraveled. God saw to it that the Word of God was not only received among the wealthy but also among those of influence. Rome - the seat of world power at the time - had many who knew Christ and had the ability to spread the gospel message to unimaginable regions of the world.

 

It is a short-sighted view that cannot see the gospel outside of the Middle East before the end of the first century. We have indications of this message already finding its way deep into Africa, far into India, and west into the British Isles while the Apostles were still alive. What reason is there to reject the possibility of the gospel reaching regions even far more remote than those before the end of the first century?

 

And so, we are not forced to conclude that all Christianity came out of Roman Catholicism. Indeed, we believe that the purest forms of Christianity are not Protestant because they were never part and parcel with Catholicism, Roman or otherwise.

 

#GospelInfluence #ChristianityAcrossSociety #InfluenceoftheGospel #GospelBeyondSocialBoundaries #SpreadofChristianity

Beyond Rome: Tracing Christianity's Global Reach

 

To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 6300 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

Acts 13:1 (KJV) Beyond Rome