DISCIPLE

  1 . Appeasement     To conciliate or pacify by making a sacrifice of a moral or spiritual principle.   * The world made this mistake with Hitler. Chamberlain announced, “Peace in our time” and then Germany attacked. The same mistake was made with Communist Russia, and others since then. Israel has not achieved peace with Arab nations by making concessions to them – land for peace. Appeasement in the churches only allows the leaven of evil or rebellion the time it needs to put down roots, and spread and affect more people, making more difficult and painful the work of cleansing, discipline and correction that must inevitably be done anyway. Nothing is gained by appeasement, and in the long run more is lost.   2. Compromise      To come to an agreement by concession or       consensus; yielding; or conceding.   * This is the idea of democracy, the will of the majority, but it is not set forth in the Bible as a Scriptural pattern to follow. Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22) was a demo

  Higgins, A. J. The Challenge Isn’t everyone gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus? If you have ever tried explaining to one of your friends that you are part of a group of believers who do not take any denominational name but gather to the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have probably been confronted by this challenge. In their sincerity and simplicity, many take Matthew 18:20 to apply to any and every time that two or three believers meet. It hardly matters whether it is over coffee, pizza, or a Bible. And it certainly applies to when they “go to church” and meet with other Christians. But what does it mean to be gathered to the Lord’s Name? Is it applicable to any gathering of believers at any time? To any group who meets for whatever purpose? The Context A reading of Matthew 18 will make it clear that the context for the Lord’s statement in verse 18 is a local church and