Capitol Ministries Weekend

As with Thanksgiving and Christmas, this week I would like to provide you with a slightly different Bible study. What follows is an outline on how to lead a devotional at Easter with your family. I encourage you to lead this important ministry function in your home. It is critical to train yourself to lead your family spiritually for several reasons. First, such is incumbent upon the husband. Being obedient to Scripture in this regard will inure personal blessings from above. Secondly it helps to assure that e Faith is passed down in your family lineage. Easter is an important time you can build your family culture: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” states Joshua in Joshua 24:15. Thirdly, this is a time to confer with your family. You need them to be 100 percent behind your huge familial sacrifices of time and energy in order to serve your district in D.C. Your family needs to be supportive in order for you to remain healthy and effective — and our country especially needs believers to remain effective here. Your leadership at Easter represents a sacred time to inure, assure and confer with your family. Don’t miss these special opportunities! 

America's greatest theologian, the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards taught: "The way to the volition is through the intellect." Indeed, the Scriptures teach in this regard that salvation — which is nothing less than a volitional commitment — is dependent on and informed by the intellect. In this week's passage for study, we will observe the important scriptural differentiation between intellectual assent only — versus that intellectual understanding that is the pathway to a volitional commitment of the will to Christ. To think that being married to Christ is nothing more than a mental acknowledgement of His existence is, scripturally speaking, a woeful error! Hopefully by the end of the study you will have a clearer and better understanding of this distinction. May God bless your time as you ponder this study.

Some view pride as a virtue, but Scripture is clear that the believer is to detest it. Charles Bridges states in his excellent commentary on Proverbs, "On no point is the mind of God more fully declared than against pride." Unfortunately, in our increasingly backward culture, pride is often valued as a prized commodity. The Apostle Paul heralds in stark contrast to self-importance, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live…" (Galatians 2:20). The biblical orientation of one’s thought life more than suggests that we get our minds off of ourselves and focus instead on the one who saved us! Biblical thinking at this point — this mental exercise of exchange — is the only way to truly and completely mortify personal pride. Listen on, my friend.

Jesus' ministry with His disciples was limited by time as He would soon ascend into Heaven. It is comforting, and only known through studying and applying this truth of the Scripture, that God has empowered all believers with the Third Person of the Trinity. May the profound truths about the Third Person of the Trinity help to further mature you in the faith and strengthen your thinking, conscience, and ensuing actions.

The legitimacy of the Christian faith rests on the finished work of Christ on our behalf. His conquest over sin is authenticated by His rising from the dead. Therefore the resurrection is the crux of Christianity. In contrast to other major religions of the world — all of which are works-based soteriological systems — it follows that without the resurrection an individual remains in his or her sin, unacceptable to a holy, righteous God. It is this biblical understanding of faith — which Scripture refers to as the faith — that I want to concentrate on this week in our study...

Scripture is the foundation upon which all good reasoning is built. It is the only reliable foundation for all logic and good judgment. It is the only trustworthy basis for the beginning of thoughts, ideas, actions and practices. The Word of God is intended to be the mind’s bedrock, its compass. As important as the aforementioned is however, a distinction must be immediately made between two close English words: Rationalism and rationality...

This small New Testament book not only contains walloping large implications to cultural formation, but it also holds critical truths relative to one’s personal growth in Christ — truths that are unsurpassed in terms of importance! I will spot three of them as we work through an overview of this wonderful epistle.

The study of epistemology uncovers what an individual relies on and what informs his thinking as to what’s right and wrong. Are his presuppositions valid? As we get older we subconsciously rely on our ingrained epistemological habits; we assume their validity. But again, are they right?

What follows is the biblical formula for GROWTH, and it stands in dire and stark contrast to the world's notions of how to achieve that.

God designed marriage between a man and a woman to be an emulation of His very nature! To lose the husband-wife model of marriage is to lose an archetype of His otherwise invisible attributes, His eternal power and His divine glory.