If the church was worth [Christ’s] blood, is it not worth our labor? The privilege of serving it is established by the preciousness of the price paid for its purchase.
John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 178
Tag Archives: Church
The State of the Church
According to the state of the pulpit will always be the state of the congregation and of a church.
J. C. Ryle
Who Is Really the Abnormal One?
The church has lost the cutting edge necessary to slice through the fabric of humanism and present a Scriptural alternative. It has gotten so bad that in some circles the person who thinks and acts Biblically is considered radical within the church itself.
Jay Adams, Solving Marriage Problems, p. 81
The Stumblingblock Over Which Everyone Stumbles
In every case the problem lies here, that no one accepts that it is over Jesus that He stumbles. Everyone who stumbles claims that he stumbled simply over some unnecessary aspect of the Church’s teaching about Jesus.
D. T. Niles, The Preacher’s Task and the Stone of Stumbling, p. 16
Are You Frustrated with Your Church?
If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.
. . . let [the pastor or zealous member] nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein, (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 29.
Life Is Worship 