Biblical Articles

This past year there were several lawsuits against tobacco companies which received a great deal of public attention and generated a fair amount of discussion on radio talk shows. Did smokers have a legitimate complaint? Should the tobacco companies be held liable for...

"INCREDIBLE!" is the only way to describe the contents of Dangerous 'Isms, this year's Power lectureship book. A spiritual buffet of assorted meats awaits the reader of this outstanding collection of information. From beginning to end the reader will be treated to...

On November 10, 1996 we recommended the book Brave New Schools, which has some excellent material in it about current problems with public education. Some have confirmed that the things described in the book are identical to what their children are facing. To give an...

A third argument that "pastor" Melton makes against the obvious force of Acts 2:38 is one which has been often used. Once again, however, it reveals the dishonesty of the one who uses it. The third thing to notice about Acts 2:38 is that the term "for" does not always...

James L. Melton (Internet address>http://www. cyberhighway.net/~nfo/melton/church.htm) continues his attack on Acts 2:38 with the following paragraph: Secondly, please notice that there are NO GENTILES (non Jews, like you and I) in Acts 2:38. Every individual...

Previously, we have seen "Pastor" James L. Melton's attempts to sidestep Mark 16:16. He follows his specious evasions by quoting several Scriptures that emphasize faith. But he apparently does not recognize that faith is often highlighted in the Scriptures because it...

Last week's article mentioned the attack upon churches of Christ by "Pastor" James L. Melton which he has placed on the Internet. When he turns to the subject of salvation, he insists upon so many strange ideas that it would take weeks to respond to most of them;...

Available on the Internet is a document entitled "The Bible versus the 'Church of Christ'" by "Pastor" James L. Melton. The opening paragraph is as follows: This article is a slightly condensed version of a small booklet that I wrote a few years ago. It's [sic]...

The early morning fog was burning off as the passengers made their way to the docks. It was the usual time for boarding, and each traveller had come prepared to find the ship that would safely transport him to the other side of the sea. Expectations were always...

Inspiration. What is it? How does it work? How do you give it to other people? Of course it is somewhat of a subjective thing. Perhaps the answer for each of us lies in asking ourselves what inspires us. What prompted these questions was the plane crash which took the...

A Christian is one who belongs to Christ. He was purchased by the blood of Jesus. After recognizing what sin is and after desiring to be no longer dominated by sin, the believer is buried with Christ into baptism to have his sins forgiven. All become Christians in the...

How many times have you heard the expression quoted in the above title? A corollary to it (from the opposite perspective) is, "Oh, go ahead and try it. Doing it just one time won't kill you." This type of insistence is usually followed with name-calling epithets, such...

For many years now the premillennialists have been exciting and titillating religious enthusiasts with visions of "the rapture." Cars have sported bumper stickers with such sayings as: "In case of the rapture, this car will be driverless." Books have been written...

Michael Medved, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh a week ago, made a valuable observation in a monologue when he talked about the message of Hollywood emphasizing the idea of "following your heart." This is scarcely a new concept; after all, Paris would not settle for...

Recently the newspapers have highlighted the problems of Henry Lyons, the leader of the National Baptist Convention USA. It seems he owned an extra house and perhaps took an extra woman (other than his wife) to it. But then his wife confided that she knew about this...

Religious denominations lack Biblical authority. Jesus died for the church, which is His body (Acts 20:30; Eph. 1:22-23). Denominations were begun by men over a thousand years after the church was established on the day of Pentecost, and from the sixteenth century...

It is true that we live in a world dominated by wickedness and sinful lusts. It is true that those seeking the Lord's way are few. It is true that we are dominated by governments and bureaucracies that seem to allow fewer freedoms each passing year. It is true that...

A great deal of confusion seems to exist over what constitutes "the assembly." Are Bible classes part of "the assembly"? If so, what may women do or not do in them? What is "the assembling" of ourselves together that we ought not to forsake (Heb. 10:25)? A number of...

What is it about some people that inspires such loyalty? Moses, as God's spokesman led the people out of Egyptian bondage, for which they had cried for deliverance. He led them through the Red Sea, and the nation rejoiced at the death of their enemies. But when it...

Leonard Pitts, who writes for the Miami Herald, wrote an interesting column dealing with the controversial subject of homosexuality; it appeared in the Dallas Morning News on June 6th. Although it echoes some of the arguments examined in earlier articles, it is a...

The Southern Baptists' boycott of Disney has generated a number of predictable responses. First, there are the excessively miffed, such as Eric V. Hortsman who tried unsuccessfully to rewrite the story of the Good Samaritan. In his version a Southern Baptist came by...

Many times visitors unacquainted with us wonder why we partake of the Lord's Supper each week--especially when most religious groups do so much less frequently. Also, it is the practice of some to have the Lord's Supper on some other day of the week, a practice we...

Responding to an earlier editorial on capital punishment for the June 22nd issue of the Dallas Morning News was P.D. Sterling. I find that the most important part of the Bible to me is the Gospels. Arcane texts pulled from prophets and epistles are clearly the work of...

On June 22nd the Dallas Morning News published a number of responses to the Timothy McVeigh verdict and sentence for his murdering of 168 human beings in the Oklahoma City bombing. Many of the reactions to the death penalty were predictable, but a few of those...

A new book, called Time for Life, has recently claimed that the average American has 40 hours of leisure time a week. The authors, John Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey, studied 10,000 people who kept detailed hour-by-hour diaries of how they spent their time (Dallas...

At last, a book has been published that deals with one of the most crucial areas affecting the church. That leadership has been lacking in the churches of Christ is all too painfully obvious; a book on this subject like the one produced for the 1997 Bellview lectures...

A second letter appeared on April 20th in The Dallas Morning News taking exception to an earlier article which called the teachings of the Heaven Gate cult "bad theology." This writer's approach, however, takes him in a different direction. All excerpts are from page...

The Heaven's Gate cult stirred up a great deal of controversy for awhile. One person wrote an article to The Dallas Morning News advising people to be wary of "bad theology." Now ordinarily, when a practice involves something this bizarre, a person just might think...

As teenagers attending high school in the early sixties, we had certain rules that were enforced--including some for the way in which we were attired. For one thing, the boys had to wear belts. And our shirts had to be tucked in. These were pretty stringent rules, all...

If the great English author Charles Dickens were writing A Tale of Two Cities today, he might include in his first paragraph of contradictory descriptions this one: "It was the age of apathy; it was the age of overreaction." A great segment of society seems not to...