Copyright https://www.christianity.com 2025, Christianity.com Mon, 27 Jan 2025 02:47:28 -0500 https://www.christianity.com/church/6-things-to-consider-when-church-no-longer-feels-like-home.html https://www.christianity.com/church/6-things-to-consider-when-church-no-longer-feels-like-home.html Tamra Andress https://www.christianity.com/author/tamra-andress/ Finding the right church home is a deeply personal and spiritual journey. Tamra highlights six key reasons why it might be time to consider “church shopping,” including the need for deeper spiritual maturity, a stronger discipleship focus, and a sense of authentic community. If you’re feeling spiritually stagnant, disconnected, or unsure about your church’s direction, it may be time to prayerfully explore where God is leading you next. With His guidance, you can find a church that aligns with your growth and helps you live out your faith boldly. Fri, 24 Jan 2025 16:15:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/christianity-com-does-someone-have-to-pray-in-tongues-to-be-filled-with-the-holy-spirit-raymond-goodlett.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/christianity-com-does-someone-have-to-pray-in-tongues-to-be-filled-with-the-holy-spirit-raymond-goodlett.html Raymond Goodlett https://www.christianity.com/author/raymond-goodlett/ (Transcript of the video above, edited for readability)Whenever I get questions about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, I'll usually start just by showing someone that in the New Testament there are seven passages or texts that deal with that explicitly. One in each of the four gospels, two in the book of Acts: one in Acts 1, where Jesus is speaking to all of them about what will happen in Acts 2. And then there's another part in the Book of Acts where in chapter 11, Peter is recounting what Jesus said. And then finally, the last one is in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13. And so really they're only those seven passages. And so we'll take some time. We'll look at each one of those and you'll find that especially in Acts 1, and when we see the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, I think it's very clear that Jesus says, "in a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit."He says that in Acts 1. And then in Acts 2, we see the Holy Spirit coming. and of course, tongues like tongues of fire coming up and resting upon them. And so it would be right to understand what happened on the day of Pentecost there as the baptism with the Holy Spirit. There's another sense in which the baptism of the Holy Spirit is spoken. And that's in 1 Corinthians 12:13, where Paul is actually saying there, if you look at chapter 12 in 1 Corinthians, he says to them, "I don't want you to be ignorant of spiritual gifts and how these things work. There are lots of different gifts, lots of different workings, but it's all by the same spirit." He goes through these different things and he says, one has faith by the same spirit, another tongues by the same spirit, another healing by the same spirit. And his point is not to pick the gifts apart and say, which one do you have? His point is to say all of these, as he says in 1 Corinthians 12:11, are the work of one in the same spirit. And he goes through all of that to say what he says in verses 12-13. And then he goes down and he says, "now you are the body of Christ. Just as it is that way. So it is with the body of Christ." He's making this analogy and saying in verses 1-11, he's saying, now you have a lot of differences. The Holy Spirit has made you different in very important ways. One has this gift, another has that gift. But then he turns and he says, you actually have some things about you that are the same.In 1 Corinthians 12:12, he says, "For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ." So he looks at the human body and says, "you've got many members, lots of different parts, but there's a unity despite those differences." And he says the body of Christ is just like that. And he says in verse 13, if you want to know how we can be sure that the body of Christ is like this, that there is a unity despite all these differences we might observe in spiritual gifts. He says in verse 13, "for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and all were made to drink of the One Spirit." So in one sense, you'll find this in many places, sometimes the idea of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is taught in such a way that it distinguishes one group of Christians from the next. Here are those who have it. Here are those who do not. In 1 Corinthians 12:13, we're told that in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. It speaks of the baptism with the Holy Spirit in this part of the Bible as something that all Christians have experienced as something initial, which has placed us into the one body of Christ. So it's confirmed at the end of the chapter as well. He gets into some rhetorical questions and he says, do all speak with tongues? Do all work miracles? Do all do this? No, which helps us again, because sometimes you'll hear, well, if you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, then you will definitely speak with other tongues. And yet in 1 Corinthians 12:13, we see that this kind of being baptized with the Spirit is a common and initial experience of all Christians who are entering the body of Christ. And then we're told at the end of that chapter in 1 Corinthians 12, toward the end there, that not all who have had this experience speak with other tongues. So I think that it really, just reading through the Bible in context that way, helps us a lot.www.redemptionhill.com(First published on Christianity.com on August 12, 2012) Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-is-the-fall-of-man.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-is-the-fall-of-man.html Jason Morrison https://www.christianity.com/author/jason-morrison/ www.westwoodbaptistonline.orgwww.christianity.com Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/how-gospel-shapes-understanding-of-racial-reconciliation.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/how-gospel-shapes-understanding-of-racial-reconciliation.html Raymond Goodlett https://www.christianity.com/author/raymond-goodlett/ Racial reconciliations has always been one of those buzz topics, very, very popular things that people are trying to address. I think people look out and they see a need to address that issue. I know within my own marriage it's something that people look at. I'm African American, my wife is white. People look at us and they say, "Well, do you have something to say about this?" I think most times people approach the issue by saying, "We look out at the world and things don't seem right across ethnic lines, and we need to fix it." And then we start coming up with different ways to approach that. And here's what we should do.But in Ephesians 2, there's actually an interesting and maybe overlooked aspect to racial reconciliation. And the way I often put it for people is that racial reconciliation is first a thing to be believed, not first a thing to be achieved. Here's why I say that. In Ephesians 2:14, the Apostle Paul actually says, "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the wall of hostility." And so what you find are these, you look at the tenses of all these verbs, Jesus is our peace. The Apostle Paul doesn't say one day He hopes to be our peace, speaking of the relationship between Jew and Gentile across ethnic lines. He says, He actually has made us both one.And he speaks here in Ephesians 2 about abolishing that hostility which existed between the two, all through the cross. And so when we look at that, He's created in Himself, it says, one new man. And I think you have to take a step back and ask yourself, "Has Jesus actually done this? Has He accomplished this on the cross? Has He succeeded?" If so then we need to take a step back and say then, "We have been reconciled not only to God, but to one another through Jesus' work on the cross." And so racial reconciliation is first a thing to be believed. And only then after we consider that, a thing to be achieved.For more info:www.redemptionhill.comwww.christianity.com Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-did-jesus-mean-by-calling-people-to-repent.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-did-jesus-mean-by-calling-people-to-repent.html Joel Bradberry https://www.christianity.com/author/joel-bradberry/ Repentance means to have a change of our mind - of our way of thinking about things. It's not just, "Okay, I don't want to sin anymore, so I'm going to change my mind. I'm not going to sin any longer." It really is, it's coming under the knowledge - the truth - to agree that my sin is terribly offensive to God. Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-happens-to-infants-when-they-die.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-happens-to-infants-when-they-die.html Mark Dever https://www.christianity.com/author/mark-dever/ For more information about Mark Dever, visit: www.9marks.orgFor more information about Christianity, visit: www.christianity.com Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-is-sanctification.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/what-is-sanctification.html Andy Naselli https://www.christianity.com/author/andy-naselli/ For more information about Andy Naselli, visit: www.andynaselli.comFor more information about Christianity, visit: www.christianity.com Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/why-does-the-bible-call-christians-saints-.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/why-does-the-bible-call-christians-saints-.html Robert Greene https://www.christianity.com/author/robert-greene/ Who are "Saints" in the Bible?I think it's important for us when we talk about the gospel to realize that the gospel as good news, isn't just information and Paul said it is the power of God to transform us. And so the gospel isn't just information or words. It's actually the power of God that transforms us, to bring us from a state of spiritual deadness to a place of spiritual life. And that gospel has implications. It transforms the way that we understand who we are and how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to other people. How do we relate to God?And so when we begin to look at the different ways that the scriptures describe the life of a believer, that they describe the identity of a believer that comes through the gospel. It begins to paint a picture of how we're to understand ourselves. And it's important to see how scripture does that. And so sometimes we talk a lot about the fact that the gospel makes us saints, that we can all recognize as men and women being created in the image of God, but living life in a fallen world, that we all suffer the effects of sin, we're all suffers.And we all sin and we're all sinners. And our sin affects others. And we cause suffering in other people's lives and sin causes suffering in our lives. And we understand those identities, but the gospel transforms those identities. And as we begin to understand it, we understand rightly that we're saints, that we've been set apart by God. We've been made holy. The holy spirit is working in us to conform our lives into the character and a reflection of Christ himself. And we're a Royal priesthood set apart by God and his grace. We're saints. Paul even acknowledges and in his letters to the church, he even greets them as saints. So it's important to remember that, yes, we sin. Yes, we are sinned against, and yes, we suffer. But because of the gospel, we're saints, because of the gospel, God calls us sons, sons, and daughters, or family. That transforms the way we understand how we relate to him, how we relate to other members of the body of Christ.What does it mean to be a family? How does the family relate to each other? How do we relate to our father? That's important to recognize. They call us ambassadors, that our role here on this earth as followers of Christ, is to be ambassadors. We have a ministry that he's given us to bring this gospel, to proclaim this gospel. And so in every circumstance, we find ourselves in we're to be ambassadors of the gospel. For every conversation we're in, we're an ambassador. An ambassador is a full-time job. It's a 24/7 job. And I think sometimes we forget about ambassadors because we don't interact with ambassadors often, and they're not in our daily language, our daily life, but an ambassador is a very, very particular role. Someone is sent to another place to represent a leader, or a king, or a nation in that place.So anything they do or say is representative of what the king would do or say if he were there and that's our role. So in every time and every circumstance, every conversation, the way that we respond is to represent the way the king will respond if he was here. And so when we remember this is our role. In our discussions with our kids and those disagreements that happened with our spouse in that moment, we're ambassadors. So the gospel fundamentally changes the way that we understand who we are and how we live. And sometimes if we limit it just to information that we have to know, we miss the fact that the power of the gospel transforms us and completely recreates our identity.www.redemptionhill.comwww.christianity.com Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/does-god-send-disasters-as-punishment.html https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/does-god-send-disasters-as-punishment.html Andrew Farley https://www.christianity.com/author/andrew-farley/ Have you ever wondered if 2 Chronicles 7:14 applies to us today? Many misinterpret this verse, thinking it ties modern disasters to our failures. This article unpacks its true meaning in the light of God’s grace and the New Covenant, offering a refreshing perspective on forgiveness and blessings in Christ. Tue, 21 Jan 2025 13:30:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00 https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/christianity-com-can-a-christian-practice-yoga-to-the-glory-of-god-david-powlison.html https://www.christianity.com/videos/video-answers/christianity-com-can-a-christian-practice-yoga-to-the-glory-of-god-david-powlison.html David Powlison https://www.christianity.com/author/david-powlison/ For more information about David Powlison, visit: www.ccef.orgFor more information about Christianity, visit: www.christianity.com Tue, 21 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0500 2025-01-27T02:47:28-05:00