What Were You Thinking?

Sanctification is a transformation of the believer into the image of Christ. If believers are going to please God, they must involve themselves in the process of spiritual transformation. The goal of this article is to suggest some basic truths regarding Biblical transformation as expressed in Romans 12:2. Paul asks two questions. First, into what…

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A Sure Bet?

Bryant Northern had the world at his fingertips as a walk-on guard with a full scholarship at basketball powerhouse University of Louisville. He dreamed of dead-eye jump shots, March Madness, even a pro career. But the six-foot-tall Northern also had a hidden problem, one more common than Americans may want to admit— a problem that…

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Making Entertainment Choices

FrontLine — September/October 2018 | VOLUME 28 | NUMBER 5 Prove It! Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21–22 I have a secret passion. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and as a child of the 1970s I became a rabid Phoenix Suns fan.…

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Recovering the Lost Art of Worship

The thoughtful Christian is compelled to admit that in our time there is very little true worship of the Lord. We have our so called worship services, but often even in such services, little time is given to worship in the traditional Scriptural sense. Ask the average Christian what worship is, and you will get…

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Prayer and the Glory — The Glory! — of God

John 17 might be the least explored peak of all the Bible’s grand vistas. And for good reason: the high priestly prayer is marvelously interwoven. Using only elementary vocabulary, Jesus staggers human capacity to articulate theology with phrases like, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father are in me, and I in…

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Gluttony: A Matter for the Waistline or a Matter of the Heart?

Perhaps you come to this article with a little reticence. If weight and health are issues for you personally, you may fear that this article was written by some kind of health nut with a supercharged metabolism who is eager to heap shame on top of your lifelong struggle. If weight is a problem for…

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Teach Us to Pray

FrontLine  | July/August 2018 When setting out to put together this issue of FrontLine, we regularly encountered an objection from prospective writers. Not, “Sorry brother, I just can’t make any more commitments at this time,” but, “Brother, I just don’t feel adequate to write on that topic.” I sympathize with this objection. Who really feels…

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FrontLine: Membership Matters

FrontLine May/June 2018 | VOLUME 28 | NUMBER 3 Membership Matters Church membership, graphically portrayed here as a flock of sheep under their shepherd, is one of the most important and practical areas of theology. Church is where almost all the rest of the “-ologies” are put into practical function. Paul declared that the church—and…

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Closing the Generation Gap

FrontLine March/April 2018 | VOLUME 28 | NUMBER 2 For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. Ecclesiastes 2:21 Is this verse just…

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Using a Blog in Ministry

  Platforms for Written Communication In the fourteenth century BC, neighboring statesmen and Egyptian pharaohs used clay tablets to exchange messages. We call these the Amarna Letters. Today people continue to exchange written messages but use different platforms. We’ve moved from clay tablets to scrolls to parchments to bound books to newspapers to e-readers. The…

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