A miracle is the supernatural overriding of nature to accomplish an apparently impossible action in accordance with divine will and purpose. Providence is God’s sovereign usage of nature to accomplish actions in accordance with divine will and purpose. Divine actions may be either miraculous, providential or a mixture of both the miraculous and providential; but from the Biblical perspective, no…
Author: <span>Matthew Johnson</span>
Recently, I broke the most important rule for the internet, never read the comments. I was perusing an article in our local news media reporting the recent statistics in COVID-19 cases. The comments contained the usual suspects. The “We are going to die” along with the “There is no virus” sort of things. But about halfway through reading the comments,…
Those who make little of public gathered worship while maintaining that they don’t need “to go to church” because they “are the church” eventually cease to act as the church.
I was raised to hold tightly to the ideology of freedom and liberty. It is an ideology that the Bible commends. My Baptist ancestors were champions for religious liberty, hazarding their lives for it. And I have always lived in a culture that at least on the surface, valued the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of…
This is the second half of part 2 discussing difficult Bible texts and the four legs of interpretation. Part 1 and Part 2a can be found by clicking on those links. The last installment will be a case study in the book of Matthew. These articles are meant to give practical help to the Bible student who encounters hard to…
This is the second part of three articles concerning studying difficult passages of the Bible. In order to be more complicated, I have divided part 2 into two articles. It was just too long of a selection. Today I am writing about the first two legs of Bible interpretation, and the last two tomorrow. Finally, the series will close with walking…
This is part one of a three-part article about interpreting difficult passages in the Bible. These articles do not deal with the spiritual aspects of Bible interpretation (prayer, humility) or the technical part of interpretation (textual criticism, bibliology). Concerning the former, spiritual disciplines are assumed as being the priority; and about the latter, these articles are meant to be for…
To my church family: It is no accident that the name of our church is Grace Baptist Church. However, I think we all have the tendency to pull into the parking lot of the church several times a week where the sign telling us we are people of grace greets us, yet not to give a second thought to what it means that…
I have tried several times since Sunday to write an article expressing my thoughts about the tragic shooting in the Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. But I just can’t seem to say anything that I think would be helpful or profound. My mind was immediately drawn to Ecclesiastes 7:2, where the Wisdom teacher tells us that value of the “house…
A throw-back post…I wrote this poem back in 2009. That was a tough year for me, mostly because as immature as I am now, I was far more immature then. August of 2009 had been two years since I had been called as lead pastor of GBC, our membership had shrunk, church debt seemed insurmountable, division and perhaps even a…