The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:1-6 says, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all…” (NKJV)

Paul penned this during the first century A.D. when it was not popular to be a Christian under Roman rule. The Christian community was under persecution, yet Paul exhorts believers to pray for all men, including government authorities. He does not distinguish between those who were favorable toward Christianity and those that were not! We may be entering a season when Christian values are trampled upon as never before in the history of our country.

So what is a Christian to do? Christians need to heed the teaching of Scripture, and that begins with praying faithfully for our government officials. We need to pray that God will work in the hearts and minds of these officials, so that we as Christians can lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence, and that we can freely spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our fellow citizens.

We also need to work within the system of our government for good laws that uphold Christian values as taught in Scripture. Many Christians have become almost nonexistent when it comes to involvement in the government of these United States. They fail to realize that the United States is a Constitutional Republic, a democratic form of government which is a government of the people. It means that we Christians, as citizens of this country have as much say-so, and right to be involved in the process as anyone else. The separation of church and state does not mean that Christians are to not be involved in the government or stay out of politics, but that the government is to stay out of the “religion” business. So Christian, write letters, make phone calls, send emails to your Congressman, Senators and President, consider running for office, and by all means, vote. In other words, get involved!

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:13-16, that Christians are the salt of the earth and light of the world, so start being an influence and light for the glory of God! Also, continually remind yourself of the words of Isaiah 33:22, “For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us;” (NKJV).

For further input on this subject, read Albert Mohler’s blog-November 5th (www.almohler.com).

Grace Baptist Church will celebrate Home Coming, Sunday, October 5th! The guest speaker for this occasion is Lewis Nelms, the founder and director of Gospelink Missions. Nelms will present the Gospelink Missions ministry in the 10 a.m. hour, and preach in the 11 a.m. morning service. A covered dish meal will be enjoyed after the morning service. Come join us!

We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thankdsgivng, but it was probably in late September or early October, so after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested. It was also a time during which Plymouth Harbor played host to a tremendous number of migrating birds, particularly ducks, geese, and Bradford ordered four men to go out “fowling” . . . The term Thanksgiving, first applied in the nineteenth century, was not used by the Pilgrims themselves. For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion. Since just about everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones, there was certainly much about the gathering in the fall of 1621 that would have made it a proper Puritan thanksgiving. But as Winslow’s description makes clear, there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival-a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games. . . Neither Bradford nor Winslow mentioned it, but the First Thanksgiving coincided with what was, for the Pilgrims, a new and startling phenomenon: the turning of the leaves of summer to the incandescent yellows, reds, and purples of a New England autumn. . . The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year. Eleven months earlier the Pilgrims arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, fearful and uninformed. They had spent the next month alienating and angering every Native American they happened to come across. By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive. . . During the winter of 1621, the survival of the English settlement had been in the balance, Massasoit’s decision to offer them assistance had saved the Pilgrims’ lives in the short term, but there had already been several instances in which the sachem’s generosity could have gone for naught. Placing their faith in God, the Pilgrims might have insisted on a policy of arrogant isolationism. But by becoming an active part of the diplomatic process in southern New England-by sending Winslow and Hopkins to Sowams; by compensating the Nausets for the corn; and most important, by making clear their loyalty to Massasoit at the “hurly-burly” in Nemasket-they had taken charge of their own destiny in the region.

The quotes above are from Nathaniel Philbrick’s bestseller, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Nathaniel Philbrick does a great job of telling the story of the Pilgrims’ voyage and settling in the new world. This work is not written from a Christian worldview, nor is it an attempt at revisionist history, for Philbrick well documents what he writes with most of his information coming from the writings of the Pilgrims themselves. The book is quite an eye opening read though, one that will both inform and hold your attention.

Overall, Mayflower, is an interesting and worthwhile read, especially during this season of the year.

Jesus said in Matthew 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first of the two great commandments, that Jesus declared fulfilled all the law, but there is an element of this commandment that believers and the church have seemingly lost sight of, and let slip away through their hands so to speak in the obeying of that command. The missing element is, loving God with all your mind. The missing element of loving God with all your mind is the focus of J.P. Moreland’s book, Loving God With All Your Mind: The role of reason in the life of the soul. Moreland’s (1997) thesis is stated as follows: I will demonstrate that a major cause of our current cultural crisis consists of a worldview shift from a Judeo-Christian understanding of reality to a post-Christian one. Moveover, this shift itself expresses a growing anti-intellectualism in the church resulting in the marginalization of Christianity in society-its lack of saltiness, if you will-and the emergence of the most secular culture the world has ever seen. That secular culture is now simply playing out the implications of ideas that have come to be widely accepted in a social context in which the church is no longer a major participant in the war of ideas. In the rest of the book, then, I’ll try to demonstrate how the church must overcome the neglect of this critical area of the development of the Christian mind, perhaps the most integral component of the believer’s sanctification (p. 21-22).

Moreland builds his argument by laying a foundation from history by presenting the influences that have eroded the intellectual emphasis that believers and the church use to maintain in the practice of the Christian faith. He then moves to the fact that Christianity is faith of reason, and that mankind has been created with a capacity of reason and how that fits into his being and the transformation process. Then, he progresses into the things that are robbing the Christian of his reasoning power, and how reason works. Once Moreland establishes that man has been created with the ability to reason, and should be using this capacity, he then applies it to various areas of the Christian’s life such as evangelism and apologetics, worship and fellowship, and then integrating it in our specific vocations and worldview. Finally, he offers suggestions as to how believers and the church can recapture the use of the mind and reason in their faith.

In the analysis of the book, there are both negative and positive aspects. Negatively, one might disagree with the section on Philosophy of Ministry: No Senior Pastors (p. 190). Moreland is not a Baptist and calls for a plurality of elders with no senior pastor to govern the church of which many Baptists would disagree. Another area where Moreland seems to miss the mark, he fails to offer any balancing suggestions in his over emphasis on intellectualism. His presentation is borderline elitism, even though he mentions in passing the fact that this book could be taken that way. Most of what he says is true as will be discussed in a moment, but the spirit in which most of what he writes seems not to take into consideration that many within the church do not have the academic backgrounds nor intellectual ability to achieve what he purports in the book. Yes, he is raising the standard high, but many will only be able to achieve a fraction of what he suggests. The church today, is faced with many illiterate people due to a failing education system that has not taught its students the essentials of reading and writing, but has just passed them along to graduation. Moreland does not address this issue, and the fact that the church may have to provide help to the illiterate by teaching them to read. Then there are others, because of various factors who will not have the intellectual ability to read and comprehend at the level that Moreland seemingly wishes for all to attain.

On the positive side, Moreland’s analysis of the state of the culture and the church is correct, and many have exchanged a once vibrant and balanced intellectual approach that could match the secular intellectuals for a total empirical and sensate approach to the interpretation of the Scriptures and the Christian life as a whole. Moreland raises the standard high for all Christians, but especially for Christian leaders, and this is good. He also has a section in the book on intellectual reading that is valuable and practical.

In conclusion, Love Your God With All Your Mind: The role of reason in the life of the soul, by J.P. Moreland is a very worthwhile read and helpful to the spiritual development and discipleship efforts of any devoted Christian and church.

Grace Baptist Church will celebrate its Home Coming Anniversary, Sunday, October 5th with speical speaker: Lewis Nelms of Gospelink (Missions Organization). Rev. Nelms will speak in the 10 and 11 a.m. hours, and then a fellowship meal will follow the morning service. Come join the celebration!

The Awana children’s ministry is scheduled to kickoff, Wednesday, September 3rd at 7:00 p.m. You will not want to miss this exciting start!

Welcome to the new endeavor of our website! I want to encourage you to check the blog regularly each week for I will be posting various articles, announcements, recommendations regarding books to read and reviews, and a variety of other things that relate to our church  ministry and your Christian walk. I hope this will be another way to help you to grow spiritually and impact the world by being the salt and light of Jesus Christ! By His Grace, Pastor Matt