SoCal Baptist

Page 95, last paragraph, The Right Path, Paul Chappell. You say, "Well, Brother Chappell, did you exegete the Scriptures to her and help her to understand the evils of gambling?" No, I prayed that she would keep on winning, because we were trying to buy property and build a church.

Yes, praying for blood money, thinking about building a church with blood money. Nope, cannot recommend him to anyone. Winning would be the worse thing, that would hook this woman on gambling even more. His mind was on money, coveting money, and he did not care how he got it.

Paul Chappell's willingness to take money from any and all sources has been a matter of public record for some time now; back in 2003 he accepted a grant from the ecumenical Louisville Institute.

http://www.louisville-institute.org/Grants/ggrantpast.aspx?id=6&year=2003

The Louisville Institute's mission statement is found at the link below. In a nutshell, they bring together leaders of American churches of every stripe (Protestant, Catholic, etc.) in order to come up with a vision for the future of Christianity in America. An interesting project for an IFB pastor to be taking part in (and accepting money from).

http://www.louisville-institute.org/About/purpose.aspx


There are many other churches in very close fellowship with Lancaster Baptist, and with Lancaster being the biggest player in this group, the others are likely to follow its lead. I am personally acquainted with one fairly large IFB church (about 500-600 members) that, like Lancaster, is now adopting "conservative" versions of popular CCM songs. I haven't read all of David Cloud's material regarding this as I'm already familiar with the situation, but this is probably one reason why he didn't approach Chappell personally; the issue affects more than just Chappell's home church.

Why do you think that is?

Referring to a couple of previous posts, this is the first I've heard of a Bible believing church not holding Bible studies. Is this common and why is it this way?

Honestly, it seems that most folks are too busy doing other things, and the Lord gets whatever "leftover" time is available.

Regarding the bible study, I guess it depends on what you consider a bible study. When I said Sunday school at our church was more of a "sermon" format, it does lean more toward teaching rather than preaching, but what I meant was that it's one person doing all the talking, and the class size is fairly large. I can't really think of anything that's done in small groups, other than the new member discipleship. Not really sure why that is, but now that I think of it, I think a small group bible study would be a good idea; I'm going to see if I can get a few guys interested.

Any idea why it seems attendance at church Bible studies tend to be very low?

Regardless of the size of the church, it seems most often only a very, very tiny percentage of the membership/congregation attends. Why is this?

Dare I suggest it's prOBably the same reason only a very tiny percentage of membership shows up for visitation?

Well, in the case of our church, we don't have Bible studies. We have our midweek service where we look in depth at scripture with a particular theme throughout the winter months - that's a Bible study, but its with the whole church, and then we break up into our smaller prayer groups.

Our church is like that too. The Wednesday midweek service is well attended, so it's not a small group by any means. Of course, there are Sunday school classes, but those are also fairly large groups and more of a "sermon" format. The closest thing we have to a small bible study (that I can think of) is our Reformers Unanimous program, but again, not quite the same thing. I did go to a church once that had a small men's bible study (that is, the size of the group, not the size of the men ); I ought to speak to some of the guys at church to see if we can get something like that going. The only small group bible study I do on a regular basis is our family devotions.

While you didn't tell me what you were doing it was so OBvious I had to join in and play along. It was a very effective manner to TEACH others on this board and make them stop and really think about what the Scriptures say and just not repeat what they've been taught somewhere.

The only thing your deception has taught me is whose posts to ignore in the future... thank you for the learning experience.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (1Ti 2:11,12)

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak: but they are commanded to be under OBedience, as also says the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (1Co 14:34,35)


I don't think anyone's disputing that silent means silent, but when are women to be silent? It seems to me that the context of both passages above is women speaking when they should be learning. I don't see how this applies to women participating in congregational singing or singing specials (as long as they're not leading men in song).

My church is a very solid King James bible believing church. The women sing. I wonder at what point these types of discussions are unhealthy, promoting discord in good churches. Just thinking out loud here. Any thoughts?

Many good points in that article, thanks. I agree, and apologize to Jerry for my brash response to him earlier.

Please take notice what I stated, we will not run out of real-estate before Jesus comes. We have to believe that, that is if we believe the Bible, if not them we believe as the atheist do.

And of course burial may well be outlawed, man hates God's ways and His people's ways and all the unbelievers rebel against Him and His ways.

I'd agree with that if burial was a commandment, but it's not. I can see how someone could adopt it as a personal standard based on the example of the patriarchs, but to say that other people hate God's ways because they don't adhere to your personal standards is to elevate your personal standards to the level of God's commands.

I hear ya. When I got saved over 30 years ago, I didn't figure I'd be even close to dying because certainly the Lord Jesus had come for me before then. Now that I'm older, I still have that hope, but I also am well aware that I am not immortal and it just might be he let's me perish before he comes back!

Yes, and none of us have any assurance of tomorrow, so hopefully my post came across as intended, tongue-in-cheek rather than holier-than-thou.

Don't worry about running out of real-estate, nor taking up to much of it, remember, the day will come when all graves will be emptied, and I feel sure that our God would never set the example of burying people in a grave if we would run out of real-estate and or take up to much of it before Jesus' comes for His own.

God's way is not always the cheapest way, and following Jesus does not mean you will have much money nor worldly possession, in fact, following Jesus is a sacrifice that many refuse to make.

In some places they already have run out of real estate. For example, in Taiwan where my wife's grandparents are buried, space is very tight and cremation is mandatory.

I believe it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust either way; cremation just speeds the process up, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it because I don't plan on dying...

The reason that some atheists latch onto this thing with healing amputees is that, according to them, the healing of an amputated limb is unable to be faked; it would be a "non-ambiguous" miracle, unlike other reported miraculous healings that could be attributed to modern medicine. To quote from the Why Won't God Heal Amputees website,

"How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not. That is what we are doing when we look at amputees."

So when they ask why God won't heal amputees, what they really mean is, why won't God reveal Himself in the way I want Him to? Why won't He conform to my expectations of Him? Why doesn't He do what I want Him to do? They don't like God's requirement that we seek Him through faith.

The atheist asserts that he would believe in God if only there was absolute "proof" in the form of a non-ambiguous miracle, but this is a smokescreen and a lie. If they won't hear the Word of God, they won't be persuaded by miracles (Luke 16:31). Without faith it is impossible to come to God, and with faith, the testimony of the living Word of God (i.e. the Bible) is sufficient proof.

BTW, God can absolutely heal an amputated limb -- He created newts and crabs with the ability to regenerate lost limbs. But atheists attribute this to blind natural forces. I guarantee you that if human limbs started regenerating they'd do the same.

I don't know quite what to make of the medical marijuana issue. There are people who abuse it, but the same is true of other prescription drugs (e.g. Oxycotin, which is basically legal heroin). Marijuana does have some proven medical applications (such as increasing appetite in HIV patients), but I think some of its benefits may be overstated by its proponents (such as using it for pain -- as Irishman noted, I agree that it prOBably only "cures" pain by making you OBlivious to it while stoned). Also, medical marijuana is unlike other prescription drugs in that it is VERY easy to get a prescription for marijuana from the "marijuana doctors" here in CA, and the use of marijuana is much less regulated; once you have the prescription you can buy as much as you want, so the potential for abuse is very high. It's sort of a strange arrangement, having doctors who do nothing but evaluate medical marijuana cases and prescribe marijuana. They only collect their fee if they approve you, so they don't have much incentive to deny anyone. It would be much more difficult to get a legitimate prescription for something like Oxycotin if you didn't really need it, since you'd need to get the prescription from a "real" doctor, and you'd only be prescribed a certain number of pills.

In any case, I think the question of whether medical marijuana is valid is a separete question from whether a Christian should use it. I don't have a prOBlem with the law of the land allowing adults to use marijuana for medical or other reasons, or to do just about anything else that only harms themselves, but following the law of the land isn't the only standard a Christian is held to.