This is part two of my thoughts on what slander is and how a Church can biblically deal with slander and the slanderer. You can read part one here. Slander is a deeply harmful sin condemned throughout Scripture. It involves speaking false or malicious statements with the intent to harm someone’s reputation. This behavior is contrary to the gospel, undermines love and unity in the church, and...
In this article, I want to explain why slander is such a grievous and destructive sin in the Christian community. In part two of my thoughts on the subject, I will trace out the biblical response to slander when found within the leadership of a local church and how the church should discern its next steps. What is slander? Slander is depicted in five distinct ways in the Old Testament and five in...
“There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.” Proverbs 11:24-25 I read the above passage multiple times– during my time of reading a chapter of Proverbs a day– and it has really stayed with me. It has been applied...
This is a very broad topic, and this one post cannot entirely deal with it. I have three points in this write-up: What are spiritual disciplines? Why spiritual disciplines? How can I develop spiritual discipline? Before I go on, I will mention some books that will do you much good, should you decide to study this subject further. These books are the foundation for all I will discuss in this post...
God has given us many gifts and we are called to manage these gifts well for the sake of the one who has given them to us. We will be looking at three of these gifts – money, time and family – and how we should manage them. The biblical word for managing God’s gifts to us is called stewardship. A steward in the ancient world was a person who was given the responsibility and authority to rule over...
My observation of you and conversations with you the last time we were together have prompted me to write you this letter. Before I go on, I need you to know that my aim is not to be judgmental; I am writing this because of the love I have for you and the fear and sadness that your ignorance of these things causes me. As a professing Christian, you should know: Christian worship is different from...
Growing in Christian maturity is an important goal for the Christian life. The passage in 1 Timothy 3 is usually emphasised as teaching the qualifications for pastors. However, understanding the context of the letter helps us to understand why Paul gave those qualifications to Timothy, which was that much of the current leadership of the Ephesian church had gone astray and Paul had sent Timothy...
When a child is growing up in this part of the world, one of the first things that the parents teach him or her is to say “Thank you” for every gift or service offered to them. If a family member gives them a shirt as a gift, the parents go on to ask the child, “What are you supposed to say?”. If the child does not know, they will teach him or her by telling them, “Say, thank you”-then, the child...
It doesn’t take more than a couple of scrolls on social media to get a glimpse of THE LIFE—the cool influencers who are always on their way to some outing, travel vlogs and flashy outfits, relationship talk that highlights the freedom to hook up randomly and date casually, even with multiple partners. Then you begin to wonder why your life seems so boring compared to others. You begin to feel the...
Hymns have always been commonplace in Nigerian Christian circles, and they still are. Even with the continuous shift of Christian culture from holiness toward worldliness, there are still some things professing Christians have in common, hymns are one of them. This is largely because a lot of us grew up singing these hymns in Sunday School and church service, so they have been a part of us ever...