Churches of Christ

teacher (in the school of theology) or book author. Thus, don’t give-in to false doctrine which compels you to speak in tongues. Your first encounter with the Holy Spirit might not necessarily lead to speaking in tongues. For instance, when Jesus Christ was baptized with the Holy Spirit, He did not speak in tongues. Do not feel intimated if you can’t speak in tongues. There are other wonderful gifts the Holy Spirit can manifest through you. However, the presence of Holy Spirit in a church does…

am I? When I read Tenny 's explanation of 'The Millennial Views ', I thought to myself what view am I? I also pondered, just how much do I really believe and understand the book of Revelation? First, I do believe it was a revelation from Jesus Christ which God gave to him. There are so many variations of what is the truth. However, God tells us at the beginning of Revelation that he is the author. Therefore, God is the author, Jesus is the Revelation and John is the literal writer. It is…

on International Religious Freedom’s watch list for the third time. Venezuela is supposed to have freedom of religion and choice of what the citizen’s can believe in. Although, recently the country has faced vandalism to religious buildings, like churches, mosques, synagogues and holy places of worship. The Venezuelan government has done nothing about this, and hasn’t prosecuted anyone, which in effect made them get put on the watch list. By doing nothing after the vandalism, it in a way was a…

Pentecostalism is not a church in itself, but it is a movement that includes many different churches incorporating the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a normal part of the “Full Gospel”. The Pentacostal movement began around 1901, a time when church officials declared that the church had gotten way from the bible being understood in a literal sense and started believing the Word of God to be taken in a figurative sense, instead. Freeonlinebible.org states that upon its emerging in the early…

response to problems that were found in the Catholic Church. Many people started to break away and form new Christian churches. The 1500s were times of alteration in and transformation of the church, and of social and political structures. Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian and many other denominations of the protestant church are prominent in today’s society. However these types of churches did not always exist, and to understand the Protestant movement we must take a closer look at the 16th…

Following the death of Christ, and the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the Church was under persecution from those who would rather see the message of Christ be extinguished. No greater persecutor of Christians existed than may be found in the example of Paul, “Going from houses to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison” (Acts 8:2 New International Version). Following Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul once again emerged as a prolific character in the history of the…

phase of art was mostly characterized by religious expression. Arts were mainly concerned in showcasing the ideas of the church through art rather than accuracy. Most pieces of art at the time featured religious subjects such as depicting the life of Christ. Many of the practices that where featured in early Christian art were further explored during the Byzantine period. For example mosaics had began to rise in popularly during early Christian art the Byzantine period went out of it’s was to…

Luke portrays Christ as an entity of the people in the birth narrative, wholly excluding the magi from the story, only shepherds go to see Christ as an infant born amongst the animals. Later, Luke depicts Christ, not as a figure who teaches on a mountain out of reach to some, but as a leader who shares lessons “on a level place” (Lk 6.17). Jesus is also shown…

Laws legalizing gay and lesbian couples gives the churches and other religious groups some conscience protection to refuse to marry them. Legal grounds are murkier for religiously affiliated organizations than it is for hospitals, schools, and other social providers that may not grant benefits to the spouse of an employee in a same sex marriage or providing adoption and other services to gay and lesbian couples that are routinely provided for heterosexual couples. Religious communities are…

Andrew Walls, former missionary and lecturer was the founder of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non- Western World (University of Edinburgh). He also was the founding editor of the Journal of Religion in Africa. Walls was one of the first people to document a southward gravitational shift of the Christian Church. He first wrote about it in his essay “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture” which was published in 1982 The aim of this paper is to assess and critique Walls’…