‘Raccoon’ John Smith on Infant Baptism

Pioneer preacher ‘Raccoon’ John Smith (1784-1868) openly preached simple New Testament Christianity through his life.  This excerpt from his biography teaches an important lesson . . .

Soon after this he went out on Slate Creek and began to preach the ancient gospel among the Methodist and Baptist of that region. An itinerant of the Methodist church was already on the grounds and the attention of the people was soon divided between the two . . .

One day a mother brought her infant into the Methodists that he might receive baptism at the hands of the preacher . .…

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“Make Sunday Mornings Uncomfortable.” That’s the title of an essay by Rebecca McLaughlin on church assemblies. What does she mean? Consider one of her key observations: “An alone person in our gatherings is an emergency.”

McLaughlin writes:

If someone collapsed in your church building, everyone would mobilize. But every week, people walk into our gatherings for the first time and get effectively ignored. They may not know Jesus, or they may have spent years wandering from him. Their spiritual health is on the line, and a simple conversation could…

People sometimes go to great lengths to rationalize sin. That may even include attempting to rewrite history — at least one’s own personal history. A person may create for himself a new version of his past in order to make his present actions seem justified. He may fabricate an alternate history of at least part of his life and adopt it as reality, so that he can feel satisfaction instead of guilt.

For example:

• After one brother’s sinful attitudes and actions lead to his falling out with another, he…

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    Some have strange ideas about spiritual growth. Unless we know what growth is, we will not achieve it. The Bible describes spiritual growth and the means to achieve it.

    There are some who equate growth with the ability to do things publicly. They think that the best church is the one which provides the most opportunities for the members to develop these abilities. An ideal church to them would be one in which every member can do something in the public worship—lead a song, preach a sermon, teach a class.

    Sometimes, when people say, "I'm not ‘growing' as I…

Sometimes, the combination of freedom and stress can lead to a lackluster faith. With less accountability and more deadlines, it can become easy to forget about God, worship, and Jesus’ call to live a holy life. College is supposed to be fun, and challenging, but it’s not worth turning your back on God over. Here are four things to consider when striving to stay faithful in college.

Get Involved With an Assembly

This is a big one. We can’t expect to grow in faith if we are not involved with the assembly of Christians near our university. Thankfully, I get to go…

The standard of what is acceptable in religion for many is whether it satisfies the individual. Many "shop" for a religion that meets their personal preferences, treating the Scriptures as a salad bar-- picking things they like and passing over others. Many declare satisfaction with the course they have chosen in religion without ever considering the question, "Is God satisfied with my religion?" The whole conclusion is not, serve God as you please, but "Fear God and keep His commandments" (Eccl. 12:13). Our purpose in daily activities and in worship should be to strive to please God. Those who truly…

Recently, I attended this year’s Truth Lectures, which had as their theme eschatology, the study of the end times. Many of the lectures addressed preterism, the belief that the prophecies of the Bible all already have happened. In particular, preterists claim that the prophecies about the final judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and the dissolution of the physical universe were fulfilled (in a figurative sense) during the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

I believe that preterists are correct to recognize the importance of the first-century destruction of the temple and the downfall of the Jewish nation. In many ways,…

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Yes, really — there are lies in the Bible. There’s no use in denying it. In fact, those lies are there for a good reason.

The Bible is a collection of divinely inspired books. God, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2), guided men to write down His revealed truth (cf. John 16:13-14; 2 Peter 1:20-21). However, what those inspired men wrote includes history. That history often records statements made by people who were not speaking at God’s direction. Some of those statements were well-intentioned, some were not. And some were just plain old…

“One of Satan’s great deceptions is convincing lost people they are not lost. A second deception is convincing Christians that lost people are not truly lost,” wrote cultural apologist and author, Jim Denison, in a recent post on his web page the Denison Forum.

Universalism is a philosophical and theological doctrine that basically believes and teaches that everyone will be saved and spend eternity with God in heaven, regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs.

In 2018 Michael McClymond wrote a book entitled The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism in which he denounced the rising popularity of…

    Procrastination is the act of delaying some action.  The word comes from the Latin word procrastinus,  which takes the prefix pro meaning “forward” and the word crastinus  meaning  “of tomorrow”.   It has been described as delay or intentional delay.  Many of us procrastinate doing chores around the house, taking the car for an oil change, cutting the grass, doing your taxes, writing a report, studying for an exam, and many other things.

    Delay is mentioned in the Scriptures some 35 times.  Most of the Scriptures indicate a lack of delay or without delay. Examples of this are:

• Deuteronomy 23:21…