Jimmy Houck

According to one survey, most Christian parents agree with the biblical principle that says, “Parents are the primary disciple-makers for their children (Deut 4:9; Eph 6:4).”  Yet the most prevalent model for family ministry in our churches today is called the segmented-programmatic or educational-programmatic approach. This model follows the secular model of education and groups people together based upon their age and attempts to meet their needs through the work of a minister who specializes in ministering to their children’s age-specific needs.  Unfortunately, this model contributes to the generation gap by making it possible for youth to have very little interaction with Christians outside their own age group. This model may also be accountable for the churchwide problem of parents who are abdicating their responsibilities to disciple their own children in favor of letting the “professionals” do it.
Three different family ministry models have emerged over the past couple of decades in response to concerns with the segmented-programmatic approach: (1) family-based, (2) family-integrated, and (3) family-equipping.  It is the position of this paper that the family-equipping model is the best strategy for my home church because it resolves problems with the segmented-programmatic without creating new problems and because the model is easily transferrable. In order to defend this position, all three ministry models will be briefly surveyed, a plan for implementing the family-equipping model in my home church will be outlined, and two possible objections to the family-equipping model will be examined and answered.

Various evidences from astronomy, biology, and geology have given the scientific community confidence to declare that the world is billions of years old.  The Christian community must decide how to respond to this assertion. The Hebrew word יום is translated into English as “day” in Genesis 1. For those who believe that this word is meant to be interpreted figuratively as an “age,” they see no contradiction between the assertion of the scientific community and the testimony of Scripture about the age of the earth. The traditional interpretation of יום understands the word to refer to a literal twenty-four-hour day. Therefore, the creation week consisted of six literal twenty-four-hour days. If the universe and humanity were formed during the same week, then the age of the earth could not be said to be more than a couple of hundred thousand years. Those holding this view have concluded that the majority of the scientific community is mistaken about the age of the earth. This writer recognizes that this is a difficult position to take and that this position requires biblical and theological warrant.

How can a gospel believing Christian ever defend slavery, much less own slaves? An evangelical Christian living in 2017 finds this question difficult to answer and is often ashamed of our history on this point. J.M. Pendleton’s letters to the Rev. W.C. Buck carry a similar tone of incredulity way back in 1849.  But unlike our current situation in 2017, we find a strong voice defending Christian slaveholders in the writings of Rev. Buck.  The modern reader is shocked to hear Rev. Buck’s defense, but Pendleton’s letters show no surprise. There is frustration and incredulity, perhaps. But Pendleton writes as a man accustomed to engaging with the arguments that the Rev. Buck promotes. So what has changed?
The western modern mind can no longer stomach slavery in the abstract. “Slavery in the abstract” is the concept of slavery itself unattached to historical circumstances and concrete manifestations. When slavery was a real and present concrete reality, the abstract concept was not stigmatized as it is today.

This paper will consider four distinct views (including my own) articulating how God relates to time. As we survey the three temporal views, I will note the problematic theological implications for God’s immutability and foreknowledge. Relevant biblical data for these doctrines will be considered and correlated to God’s relation to time. I will defend the coherence of God’s eternality, and his interaction with the temporal world. It is my conviction that the classical position is correct. The strong basis for foreknowledge and the immutability of God and the coherence of the doctrine require us to infer from the Bible that God is eternally timeless.

There is a minority view within Christian evangelical circles that believes that all remarriage after divorce (for whatever reason) is ethically wrong. The key passage used to dismiss this view is Matthew 19. But this passage alone is not a strong enough reason to reject the minority view because of alternative interpretations which hold some weight.