In Matthew 16:11, Jesus asks His disciples: “How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?” While they were preoccupied with their physical hunger and a forgotten grocery list, Christ was concerned with the spiritual contagion of false doctrine. For the modern professing believer, this verse serves as a sobering call to spiritual discernment and a warning against the “leaven” of a...

It is difficult for Americans to conceptualize or strongly to imagine a king and a kingdom, which then includes the King, Jesus Christ. The whole idea of a king smacks the American idea of freedom. The king would take control in a kingdom, which means an American person subjects himself to that king, something apparently in contradiction to freedom. To most Americans, freedom means you do what you want to do or choose to do. At this point, it would do well to consider that Americanism is...

The New Testament defines the church, not an abstract global entity, but a specific assembly that grounds a believer’s spiritual life. A biblical mandate for assembly warning against “the forsaking of the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10:25) establishes the physical gathering as the non-negotiable rhythm of the Christian life. Because the church is “the house of God, . . . the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), it is the believer’s primary...