Posted Friday, Jan 27, 2012 Jeff Ballard
It is not too hard to understand why Paul would give specific instructions to Timothy regarding the necessary qualifications of an elder. As the leaders of the church go, so goes the church. That is, the church body will inevitably reflect its leadership. In order to have a ...
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Posted Thursday, Dec 22, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
"And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34)
Simply put, Jesus is the greatest gift the human race has ever known. We can see this throughout the narrative of the birth of Jesus, but perhaps it is nowhere clearer than in the angel Gabriel's announcement ...
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Tags: christmas
Posted Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 Jeff Ballard
When the Apostle Paul began his indictment of the whole human race he wrote, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and ...
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Tags: thanksgiving
Posted Friday, Oct 28, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
How ought we to measure the success of a church, or even the success of the Church (universal)? Well, to answer this question we need to first understand what the mission of the Christ’s universal Church is. That is, we can’t even begin to define the criteria for success ...
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Tags: mission
Posted Friday, Aug 26, 2011 Jeff Ballard
As Joe mentioned last week, we’ve recently been discussing the doctrine of justification here at College Park Church. Why, you might ask? The reason is that there has been vigorous debate even within the evangelical community recently on this crucial biblical teaching. ...
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Tags: justification, forgiveness, luke 7
Posted Friday, Jul 29, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
Last month, I wrote a post called “The Gospel and Anger.” I tried to show that at the heart of the Good News is an objective reality in which God’s just anger toward us sinful people is turned away when we place our faith in Jesus, the One who absorbed God’s anger at ...
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Tags: gospel, anger
Posted Friday, Jun 24, 2011 Jeff Ballard
THINK|online is dedicated to demonstrating the relevance of theology to all of life. As followers of Jesus, we are to bring the knowledge of God to bear on everything we think, speak, and do. When David wrote, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. ...
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Tags: gospel, anger, colossians 3
Posted Friday, May 27, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
While the initial firestorm has died down since Rob Bell’s Love Wins was published in March, the controversy continues on. Michael Wittmer, who spoke at College Park’s THINK|10, published In Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins in April. More ...
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Tags: humility, erasing hell, love wins
Posted Friday, Apr 29, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
What is sin? It is not a particularly popular topic, but it is essential to understanding the central storyline of the Bible, what is wrong with the world, and what is wrong with ourselves. Quite frankly, our thinking about sin typically consists of oversimplifications and ...
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Tags: sin
Posted Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011 Jeff Ballard in Category Theology
Editor’s Note: From 2006 – 2009 I had the privilege of studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where Dr. D. A. Carson, our guest speaker the weekend of March 4 - 6 for THINK|11, is research professor of New Testament. I took two excellent classes from Dr. ...
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Tags: think, d. a. carson