Terry Pruitt's Blog

Frequently Asked Questions About Baptism Salvation Is The Gift Of God Q: Do you have to be baptized to be saved? A: The question is not simply about baptism, but the scriptural teaching regarding ceremonial righteousness. Christians might think of this question in terms of baptism, but more broadly it is a question about ceremonial righteousness. The scripture has a lot of teaching about ceremonial righteousness that must be applied to both Old Testament ceremonies and to New Testament ceremonies. Is a New Testament ceremonial washing more able to save than an Old Testament ceremonial washing? Absolutely not. A male in the Old Testament was considered unclean until he was circumcised. The Old Testament had numerous ceremonies and while the New Testament introduces just a few. Just because the New Testament has fewer ceremonies, one must not treat them as if they are something other than ceremonies. Jewish Christians of the first century would have keep the Old Testament ceremonial law ...

Ever notice that ministry is one of those jobs that has many competing models for what the core duties are? It seems even people otherwise unconcerned with church feel they have a pretty good idea what the pastor's work week should look like. In one of my classes we were asked to talk about somebody who had mentored us. I thought about a retired pastor in my home church in Missouri, Brother Fike. He gave me a fairly simple model of ministry. Preach the Word and care for the flock. The more I read and hear other models I think I keep coming back to this simple model. Some of the other models have been propsed to me and sometimes led me off the path of shepherding those under my care. Other Models Pastor as CEO - This one is appealing since you get to have the dignity of a leader in the business community. You get to read all those leadership books and attend those seminars that business leaders do. Also, people in your congregation know how to relate to the role. Unfor...

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoying Him forever". - The Westminster Confession "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever". - John Piper "Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead". - John Piper We worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship. "Public worship will not excuse us from secret worship." - Matthew Henry Worship: To exalted God. "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". - John Piper "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" - Matthew 4:10 Worship is being preoccupied with the worth of God. "The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of Him". - A.W. Tozer

Worship is simply recognizing how awesome God is. He is wonderful. When we sit in a public worship service, we are taking time to recognize how awesome God is. When the Scripture tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, it means that we recognize just how awesome God is with all our being. I hear from time to time that love is a decision. Well, it might be true that one might see the worth of someone and say, "I'm making a decision to recognize how neat that person really is." Usually though true love actually recognizes the worth of the person for the person for himself and a complex decision cycle simply is not needed. Some people are a struggle to love, because their value is clouded by sin. Regardless, they are valuable. Worship is a special recognition that God is worthy of all our honor, and praise, and loyalty. To worship him is to love him. The Christian church often performs worship services without love being a huge compo...

One of the spiritual disciplines is self-examination. This discipline designed to promote spiritual growth by making one aware of his or her sins, confess those sins, and repent of those sins. Making the Christian aware of sin is difficult because we have blind spots. The Christian may not see certain sins due to a hardening of the heart. Another reason one might find sins difficult to observe is that the Christian has properly repented of the sins of his youth and grown to feel that sinning for the most part except for small sins was mostly indicative of those sins of his or her youth. As a child or a youth one commonly has a different set of temptations than an adult. The adult Christian who has moved beyond childhood temptations or youth temptations may feel that there is relatively little wrong in his life. The secret though is that at the new maturity level, there is a new set of temptations. Having recently gone through a season of my life that was marked by religious pri...

Reposting this from my website. By Terry L. Pruitt Introduction An anachronism is something or an idea that is placed outside its time. In recent years, re-enactors of medieval history have developed an organization called the Society for Creative Anachronisms. This society purposely creates hand made items and events (i.e. jousts) from another time. At other times people stumble in writing a story and place an anachronism in it unintentionally. Some classical scholars believe that some of the cultural items written in Homer's Odyssey are anachronisms. One history scholar claims to find it difficult to enjoy the mystery books and subsequent television series Brother Cadfael because of the anachronistic use of the scientific methods, especially forensic science, which would have been out of character and world view of a medieval monastery. Examples of unintentional anachronisms abound. At one Bible conference the speaker constantly referred to his trip to Israel, and then made the m...

This is a continuation of posting from my website that is going away. Some of the issues addressed in this post are a little dated at this point, but much of it still stands. A Story About An Emerging Future July 12, 2004 By Terry L. Pruitt Introduction: Predicting The Future Of The Church Futurology is a study of current trends in technology or society and how those trends will play out. Writer's like Alvin and Heidi Toffler in Future Shock and Power Shift take an academic look at the possibilities of what is the logical conclusions to certain trends that currently exist. The trend is usually predicted to continue when it comes to technology and social change. Some futurologists would predict that technology like the bar code and scanner system in grocery stores will expand to be included in you future kitchen so that the grocery list can be automated. You could keep an accurate inventory of your refrigerator and cupboard contents in a object-oriented database w...