'Paul Earnhart' Tagged Posts
SOUND WORDS, FEB. 16, 2025
WHERE DO ELDERS COME FROM? The scarcity of functioning elders (bishops, pastors) in local churches has led some Christians to conclude that they are a rare breed with rare qualities. Otherwise, they reason, why would they be so difficult to come by? Contrary to this rather discouraging view, elders do not have to be imported from outer space. They are generated from ordinary human beings from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation,” and perhaps it will help identify…
SOUND WORDS, JUNE 9TH, 2024
UNTIL WE HAVE EARS Men seldom see things alike. It’s not that reality wears so many faces; it’s just that men choose to look at things differently. Some people in Jesus’ day were sure that He was the Son of God, but they were in the minority. Many very religious people thought He kept the wrong company—prostitutes, well-known extortioners, notorious people. And, after all, “a man is known by the company he keeps.” He said He spent His time with…
SOUND WORDS, MARCH 5, 2023
THE UNTHINKABLE COMMANDMENT With every advancing sentence in Matthew 5 (v.21), Jesus has taken an ever larger bite out of the human ego. Every new contrast between the popular Pharisaic perversions and the real demand of kingdom righteousness has served to heighten the moral challenge. What the Lord at last commands in the sixth and last of these antitheses must have stunned His audience (Matthew 5:43-48). He has spoken the inconceivable when He said, “But I say to you, love your…