Two new books on Counseling and Community in the Church



	Friends: We wanted to take a moment to tell you about the release of two new 9Marks books, both of which we think will help pastors and church leaders in their ministries. Churches and pastors labor over building an attractive "community" but all too often that "community" is built on foundations other than gospel. This kind of community results in something that would likely exist if the gospel were true or not. To that end, Mark and Jamie wrote The Compelling Community to refocus pastors' efforts to center their church community around God and the gospel. As the title makes clear, this book is aimed at all pastors—not just biblical counselors—so that they can think through how they can better counsel their members in times of personal crisis. With this book, Reju and Pierre have given the church a gift that will help countless pastors and church leaders shepherd their people more like Jesus. *You can buy both of these books from our website here before* they're available on Amazon and other outlets.** We pray you find them useful. Thanks so much for your time! We are honored to labor alongside you. 9Marks Team

Garrett Conner

Pastor- La Plata Baptist Church

9400 Old Stagecoach Rd.

La Plata, MD 20646

www.laplatabaptistchurch.org

http://pastorgarrett.blogspot.com/

The cross shows the seriousness of our sin, but it also shows us the immeasurable love of God. - Billy Graham

Comments

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form. The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts. But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

There are, in fact, two quite distinct ways in which the New Testament speaks of crucifixion in relation to holiness. The first is our death to sin through identification with Christ; the second is our death to self through imitation of Christ. On the one hand, we have been crucified with Christ. But on the other we have crucified (decisively repudiated) our sinful nature with all its desires, so that every day we renew this attitude by taking up our cross and following Christ to crucifixion. The first is a legal death, a death to the penalty of sin; the second is a moral death, a death to the power of sin. The first belongs to the past, and is unique and unrepeatable; the second belongs to the present, and is repeatable, even continuous. I died to sin (in Christ) once; I die to self (like Christ) daily. It is with the first of these two deaths that Romans 6 is chiefly concerned, although the first is with a view to the second, and the second cannot take place w...

F.F. Bruce: ...know their father's will...

The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

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