Jay Dharan is the theological editor at ROE, and also the founding contributor at Beacon of Truth, an Evangelical ministry aimed at promoting the supremacy and sufficiency of the gospel.

Attending a Charismatic Sunday service recently, I was introduced to, probably one of the worst songs written on God. The song listed the different names of Yahweh like Yahweh-Jireh, Yahweh-Shalom etc and had a brief explanation of what these names mean to us. What made this song detestable in my eyes was first of all, the way the song was sung, was so below anything that could be called proper reverence to God. For the tune was at best a nursery rhyme. Secondly and more seriously, the words especially the interpretation of these names by the writer was pitiful. The interesting thing is that this song is not an odd one out. There are many songs sung today which follow the same method of interpretation when it comes to understanding these names of God. I stood there baffled over the song being sung with much enthusiasm by believers around me. I started prayerfully thinking over what is wrong here. The thing that struck me was that every single name of God is interpreted in the song within the context of our felt needs.
Therefore Yahweh-Jireh is always about God being the provider for our earthly needs and Yahweh-Shalom is always about God bringing peace in the midst of the storms of this earthly life. However if anyone cares to know how these words are used in the Canon of Scripture, then it would be clear that this is not the emphasis of Scriptures. What illumined my mind that day was the fact that if these names are understood in the broader canvas of the Canon, then we would see how all of these names are pointing to Jesus Christ. In other words, if these names are to be properly understood, then they are not to be interpreted with in the context of our felt needs, but rather in their redemptive historical context.

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Tags: Jay Dharan, Jay M Nair

“O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”—Matthew 14:31.

It seems as if doubt were doomed to be the perpetual companion of faith. As dust attends the chariot wheels so do doubts naturally becloud faith. Some men of little faith are perpetually enshrouded with fears; their faith seems only strong enough to enable them to doubt. If they had no faith at all, then they would not doubt, but having that little, and but so little, they are perpetually involved in distressing surmises, suspicions, and fears. Others, who have attained to great strength and stability of faith, are nevertheless, at times, subjects of doubt. He who has a colossal faith will sometimes find that the clouds of fear float over the brow of his confidence. It is not possible, I suppose, so long as man is in this world, that he should be perfect in anything; and surely it seems to be quite impossible that he should be perfect in faith. Sometimes, indeed, the Lord purposely leaves his children, withdraws the divine inflowings of his grace, and permits them to begin to sink, in order that they may understand that faith is not their own work, but is at first the gift of God, and must always be maintained and kept alive in the heart by the fresh influence of the Holy Spirit. I take it that Peter was a man of great faith. When others doubted, Peter believed. He boldly avowed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, for which faith he received the Master’s commendation, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” He was of faith so strong, that at Christ’s command he could tread the billow and find it like glass beneath his feet, yet even he was permitted in this thing to fall. Faith forsook him, he looked at the winds and the waves, and began to sink, and the Lord said to him, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” As much as to say, “O Peter, thy great faith is my gift, and the greatness of it is my work. Think not that thou art the author of thine own faith; I will leave thee, and this great faith of thine shall speedily disappear, and like another who hath no faith, thou shalt believe the winds, and regard the waves, but shalt distrust thy Master’s power, and therefore shalt thou sink.”

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Tags: C.H. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon

(In the late 1600s Benjamin Keach wrote an allegory entitled The Travels of True Godliness, which is similar in style to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. In this article Keach portrays the Christian faith as a male character named True Godliness.)

True Godliness being a great stranger to most men and indeed known but by few, I shall in the first place, before treating of his travels and of the entertainment[1] he meets with, give you a description of him. Many persons are subject to so great an error as to take Morality for him; some have mistaken Counterfeit Godliness for him; and others, either through ignorance or malice, rail and ignominiously[2] call him Singularity[3] , stubbornness, Pride, or Rebellion. These last declare him not fit to live, being a seditious[4] disturber of peace and order, wherever he comes. Yea, such a factious[5] and quarrelsome companion, that he is indeed the cause of all those unhappy differences, divisions, troubles, and miseries with which the world abounds. I conclude, therefore, that nothing is more necessary than to take off that mask which his implacable[6] enemies have put upon him and clear him of all the slanders and reproaches of the sons of Belial[7]. When he is thus made to appear in his own original and spotless innocency, it will be seen that none need be afraid of him, or be unwilling to entertain him, or ashamed to own him and make him their bosom companion.

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Tags: Benjamin Keach, Keach

English Baptist missionary to India. Born in England in 1761. Pastor before going to the mission field, he spent an active forty-one years serving the Lord in India, including translating the Scriptures.

“Shoemaker by trade, but scholar, linguist and missionary by God’s training,”William Carey was one of God’s giants in the history of evangelism! One of his biographers, F. Dealville Walker, wrote of Carey: “He, with a few contemporaries, was almost singlehanded in conquering the prevailing indifference and hostility to missionary effort; Carey developed a plan for missions, and printed his amazingEnquiry; he influenced timid and hesitating men to take steps to the evangelizing of the world.” Another wrote of him, “Taking his life as a whole, it is not too much to say that he was the greatest and most versatile Christian missionary sent out in modern times.”

Carey was born in a small thatched cottage in Paulerspury, a typical Northamptonshire village in England, August 17, 1761, of a weaver’s family. When about eighteen he left the Church of England to “follow Christ” and to “…go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” At first he joined the Congregational church at Hackleton where he was an apprentice shoemaker. It was there he married in 1781. And it was in Hackleton he began making five-mile walks to Olney in his quest for more spiritual truth. Olney was a stronghold of the Particular Baptists, the group that Carey cast his lot with after his baptism, October 5, 1783. Two years later he moved to Moulton to become a schoolmaster — and a year later he became pastor of the small Baptist congregation there.

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Tags: William Carey

Why the Evangelical Notion of Unity Stifles the Christian Mind

Many of our contemporaries, it seems, have grown increasingly sensitive about the whole enterprise of doctrinal debate. In many quarters, debate over doctrine is seen as spiritually incorrect.” The fear that unity – or at least the appearance of unity – might be somehow compromised has become a form of paranoia in many evangelical circles. A kind of vague and ill-defined veil of unity covers an evangelical movement that has no creed and no unifying doctrine, except perhaps the increasingly distant memory of Protestant orthodoxy and the doctrinal system that claims to be no doctrinal system, dispensational premillennialism.

But as in Hans Christian Andersen’s delightful fable, it seems as though everyone knows the evangelical emperor wears no doctrinal clothes, except the emperor himself, and few are willing to point out the obvious. When differences of opinion arise because men and women of conviction occasionally step forward and dare to proclaim that a particular doctrinal position is biblical, to the exclusion of all other points of view, it is often somehow taken as a kind of personal affront by the evangelical, an outright attack upon his very character and most sensitive feelings. Difference of opinion is seen as something much deeper, almost sinister, something intensely personal, and the resulting “hurt feelings” that occur because the two parties cannot agree is seen as the worst possible calamity. But as long as this veil of unity cloaks the theological nakedness of the evangelical movement, the appearance of unity is maintained. Everyone is kept happy and the boat is not rocked. The enterprise continues on its merry way. Because there is no ultimate basis for doctrinal unity in this movement, the appearance of unity is maintained by silencing any dissent or questioning, thereby permitting the pretense of unity to continue.

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Tags: Kim Riddlebarger, Riddlebarger

Holly D. Dye is the founding contributor and General Editor of Refocusing Our Eyes.

In former times, it has seemed necessary, when one’s faith has been brought to trial, to make a proper defense of it. Although we do not see people being physically burned at the stake for their beliefs, the fires of Internet rumors endeavor to silence, just the same.

For the last 2 years, since leaving the Word of Faith movement, there have been erroneous assumptions, by people of that camp, that I have left the Faith. However, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, I have become more solidified in Christian truths and more passionate in my service to God than ever before. I trust that through this 2-part article, God would grant me the ability to “make a defense to those who have asked a reason for the hope that is in me and that I may be able to do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3.15).

In this discourse, I have no intention of “sowing strife”, as is commonly asserted by WoF[1] leadership toward those who resist their teaching. Although it is certain, offense will surely come, I will attempt, by the grace of God, to present my beliefs within the landscape of scripture and by the brush of simple reasoning.

“To maintain pure truth in the church, we should be ready to make any sacrifice, to hazard peace, to risk dissention and run the chance of division.” – J.C. Ryle

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Tags: Holly D. Dye, Holly Dye