The Fool Who Would Be Holy > Church purpose versus church growth
Church purpose versus church growth
Ian Johnson
June 2, 2020
Human beings are made in God’s image, a picture of his complex unity. Body and spirit must be united to form a soul. Each of the faculties of the soul and parts of the body together form a single, unified person.
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Complex unity, Emotions, Free will, God's Existence and Nature, Human Rationality, Language and Speech, Logical thinking, Meaning of Unity, To be in his image, Unity
bodr, Body of Christ, complex unity, Emotions, faculties, God, God is one, mind, soul, Spirit, unified person, will
Ian Johnson
June 1, 2020
God is a complex unity–Three in One by nature–and is also one with us who believe, by adoption. He is not an absolutely simple unity, as is often taught. This false teaching comes from early efforts to make the Gospel more acceptable to the upper classes of Roman society by introducing Neoplatonist philosophy into it. But it instead destroys the Gospel by making God incapable of having any real unity with his children.
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Heresy, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Social control and statecraft, To be in his image, Trinity, Unity
Christian theology, Christianity, complex unity, complexity, Divine Simplicity, God, gospel, mindful consciousness, Neoplatonism, Nous, Platonism, Three in One, Trinity, Unity
Ian Johnson
May 17, 2020
If Jesus is not human, like us, we also lose the promise of the Holy Spirit, the invitation to live by the direction and power of the Spirit like Jesus did while he was here, and everything that flows from that. Fully discussing this topic will require several posts. While Jesus lived among us bodily, he did not rely on…
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God Speaks to Us, God's Existence and Nature, In prayer, Jesus the Son, Leaving Our First Love, Peril of Seeking Power, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Son of Man, Trinity
baptism, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, crucifixion, God the Father, growth in grace, Holy Spirit, human nature, humanity, humility, Jesus, Jesus Christ, manipulation, meaning of Christmas, Nativity, personal growth, power, prayer, Spirit, temptation, unselfishness
Ian Johnson
May 11, 2020
Jesus is fully human. When he was born as a man, that man was in every way like us, except that he was without sin… The fact of Jesus’ full humanity is important because without it we have NOTHING–no life, no forgiveness, no peace with God, no promise of God’s kindness or guidance, no power, no resurrection, no hope.
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Adoption, God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, Heresy, His Children, Jesus the Son, Peril of Seeking Respectability, Reconciliation, Regeneration, Salvation, Show us the Way of Truth, Son of Man, Trinity, Victory
adoption, antichrist, believing God for, deceiver, deceiy, disguises, faith, father of lies, frredom, God the Son, Holy Spirit, human, humanity, humanity of Christ, idol, Jacques Ellul, Jesus, Jesus Christ, lies, lying, new birth, regeneration, Son of God, Son of Man, spirit of error, spirit of truth, spirits, Truth, victory
Ian Johnson
May 8, 2020
Jesus called Himself the whole vine—which includes each of the branches—not just the root or the trunk of the vine. Thus, we are one with Him as the branch is one with the vine. We are each a part of Him, just as he is the life of each of us…. if we live in Christ and His words live in us, anything we ask will be done for us, because the Father is glorified when we bear fruit.
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God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, Meaning of Unity, Reconciliation, Restoration of God's Image, Social control and statecraft, To live in unity, Trinity, Unity
alive to God, Christ, Christian theology, crucified, dead to sin, doctrine, easy yoke, hypostatic union, individual union with God, Jesus, oneness, orthodox, orthodoxy, resurrection, Trinity, true vine, unequal yoke, union, Unity
Ian Johnson
May 4, 2020
All of our questions about the oneness of the Church, as a present reality, are answered if we truly recognize Christ as its Head… However, our choice for or against the truth does not affect the reality that Christ died to make us one with Himself and with each other. His work is done, and our oneness is a present, completed truth that should influence all of our conduct.
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Church purpose versus church growth, Meaning of Unity, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Purpose of the Church, The universal Church and local churches, Through the church
Body, Body of Christ, Church, diversity, functions, head, Holy Spirit, invisible realities, Jesus, leader, leadership, life, members, one in Christ, one with Christ, oneness, power, Unity
Ian Johnson
May 3, 2020
This post will draw no conclusions, but will simply briefly raise a question: is the Church acting in oneness one of the conditions that must be met before the Lord returns? This question arises from two independent lines of scriptures. First, in Matthew 24:14 (NASB), Jesus stated that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole…
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Purpose of the Church, To live in unity, To see God's glory
apocalypse, Christian unity, Christianity, glory of God, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of the heavens, Love, oneness, Second Coming, To live in unity, Unity, world
Ian Johnson
April 30, 2020
How a dream about the word “dirge” led me to recognize two of the major problems of modern Western churches: our insistence on hiding problems to preserve our “witness” rather than dealing with them in the Spirit (hypocrisy) and our one-way, “fact”-intensive teaching style.
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Discipline or Correction, Emotions, End of the Churched Society, God Speaks to Us, Heresy, Historical Background, Human Rationality, Illness as a Consequence, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Purpose of the Church, Restoration of God's Image, Restoration of our Relationships, The place of visions, Through others, Through the church, To live in unity
actor, Christian education, Christian witness, Common Good, Common Problems, Death, Dirge, Emotions, empathy, Fear of Death, Grief, how to teach, hypocrisy, hypocrite, Negative emotions, One Body, positive sales atmosphere, Sales, Sunday school, sympathy, witness
Ian Johnson
April 29, 2020
Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. Hebrews 12:1-3. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves…
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Emotions, Events and Signs, God's rationality, His Friends, Islam and Christianity, Personal Background, Through others, Through the church, To be his ambassadors
Asian, Asperger Syndrome, Brazil, changing attitudes, Christianity and Islam, God, God at work, Hispanic, Iran, Jesus Christ, Linguistics, Love, Perspectives class, Prejudice, Spanish, Thailand, Voice of God, Xenophobia
Ian Johnson
April 27, 2020
He wants to talk us through doing his will, instructing us every step of the way, as we learn to trust him. He is the one with the whole picture. Learning to hear his voice and trust him is the whole point of our friendship (the word “relationship” is entirely too sterile) with him on the present earth. This is what restores his image in us. Accomplishing his work is only a by-product.
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A God who Speaks, Conversation with God, God Speaks to Us, On speaking terms again, Personal Background, Prophecy, Restoration of God's Image, Social control and statecraft, The Bible, The place of visions, To be in his image, Trusting sight over God's words, What is God's Word
Asperger Syndrome, Creativity, Friendship with God, Futiity of Politics, Hearing God, Learning to Hear God, Trusting God, Worship
