Pastor David Keuss - Hope without Compromise

Many  years ago E.Y. Mullins, a Christian author, wrote a tract entitled What Constitutes A Call to the Ministry .  There are not a large variety of options for those out there discerning their calls to ministry.  Today Lifeway provides a booklet on the call to ministry, and there is a new book called The Call by Ed Etheridge.  So it's worth looking into other options:  Mullin's work is brief, but here is a short outline of his opinion for our consideration. It may help to remember that this is the same Mullins who was president of Southern Seminary, a large US seminary, (SBTS) in the past. =BEGIN QUOTE: The elements which enter into a divine call may be stated as follows: 1.) An abiding conviction of duty or desire to enter the ministry and serve God in this way. I say it should be a conviction or desire. By conviction I mean a sense of duty.... I have used the qualifying word abiding because the sense of duty should be permanent. They cannot escape....In some cases it is

Franklin Wilson, D.D.  wrote through the American Baptist Publication Society a booklet on Baptist principles.  The name of this work, drum role...: The Final Triumph of Baptist Principles .  It may seem silly to us to hear that kind of title in a jaded not only church culture, but American culture, but given when he wrote it, in the US church life, it was predictive almost.  The size of Baptists went from practically nothing on to become a huge set of denominations today (there lots of kinds of Baptists, unlike Catholics who are in one under the Pope/Cardinals, for instance).  So what did he say?  Dr. Wilson guessed (quiet well) how principles of Baptists should lead to their churches' growth and success over a long-period of time.  Again, keep in mind this booklet was written in 1890!  Keep in mind this has --not-- been the case for many or most denominations. He begins with an example of the massive growth (then) amoung Swedes getting saved/switching polity to the Baptist chu

Benedict de Spinoza - a writer of the past whom many look to for this answer (not necessarily me, but I'm keen to know about him, given a lot of people do look to him (one example, many modern Jews you meet and have coffee with about religion). Fyi:  local readers, this is a personal interest of mine on the side.  This is not something I expect everyone to know about, lol :) Benedict of Spinoza, born in 1632, was part of a Jewish community in Amsterdam. He studied Latin and Cartesian philosophy, Torah, Jewish heritage, and the Talmud. Spinoza was adament that chance is a myth and there is no "such thing as a brute, unexplainable fact," (52-53, The Blackwell Guide to Modern Philosophers ). There are several levels of knowledge, the first being what you are told by report or teacher and you know by remembering. The second being a certain kind of knowledge, knowing something is true, by proportions and certainty demonstrated. The third is why something must b

F or the sake of political edge with his base, the President decided to endorse and support homosexual marriage.  Several articles pasted here cover his change from in 2008 saying marriage was a union between only a man and a woman, and even a sacred institution for him personally before God, to now saying it is just a set of rights between two people. http://www.expatica.com/de/news/german-news/germany-hails-obama-s-courageous--gay-marriage-stance_226561.html http://news.yahoo.com/obama-gay-marriage-support-seen-world-precedent-233515249.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CVFyqtPym4AhnjQtDMD http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/05/10/evolutions-end-president-obama-calls-for-same-sex-marriage/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-insiders/post/a-gay-marriage-political-crisis-not-evolution/2012/05/10/gIQApeNFFU_blog.html?hpid=z2 News agencies tended to believe (on their own part) that President Obama would switch from a God-driven or oriented view of marriage over to a relativistic view of marriage at