DISCIPLE

  “ I sometimes smile when I hear ministers state the assumption that a new type of building will create a worship atmosphere.  In my late adolescence I occasionally worshiped with those known as 'Plymouth brethren'. Meeting in the barest halls, adorned only with signs carrying Scripture verses, they had the most worshipful services that I have ever attended. No organist in whispering conferences, pushing or pulling stops. Greeting, giggling, whispering, and coughing were all hushed by the miracle drug: reverence. Children were quieted. People tiptoed to their places in the circle to sit with bowed heads or read their Bibles. The keen anticipation of the movement of the Spirit of God in leading one of the assembled men to announce a hymn, read the Scripture, or to offer prayer was sensed in these moments of deep reverence, which sharply contrasts with the hubbub of many Protestant services."   quote from John Drakeford, cited in an article i...

A. W. Tozer Many of our best-known preachers and teachers have developed ventriloquial tongues and can not make their voices come from any direction. They have surrendered the traditional categories of religious thought. For them there is no black or white, there is only gray. Anyone who makes a claim to having "accepted Christ" is admitted at once into the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the glorious company of the apostles regardless of the worldliness of his life or vagueness of his doctrinal beliefs.      I have listened to certain speakers and have recognized the ingredients that went to make up their teachings. A bit of Freud, a dash of Émile Coué, a lot of watered-down humanism, tender chucks of Emersonian transcendentalism, auto-suggestion á la Dale Carnegie, plenty of hopefulness and religious sentimentality, but nothing hard and sharp and specific. Nothing of the either/or of Christ and Peter and Paul. None of the "Who is on the LORD'S side...

In a day when “progressive” is a word of commendation used to applaud a man, a method or even a local church, the idea of “going backwards” seems incongruous and wrong.    Recently, all articles in a religious magazine referred to the distinction of' believers as Conservative and Progressive.” We hope that the writer would not suggest that “conservative” and “progressive” were mutually exclusive. Yet as one read that title it was clearly implied that to be “conservative” one cannot be “progressive.” Certain words have a euphony and they sound well together, but they are totally unrelated. It is like asking which fruit one would prefer for dessert, “peaches or leeches.” Their poetry does not conceal their real nature. The implication that to be conservative was to be different than progressive is of course a false assumption.    It is a shocking thought to some that the time has come - indeed it is past time - for the assemblies of God's people to go ...