Written by Pastor Joel
News and daily life lessons about religion and politics, culture worldwide.
“The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.” -Thurgood Marshall This quote struck me when I came across it while doing research on a project. We might think that a country is great because of its might, or because of its money, or because of its magnificence. […]
Part Two As our church has been studying the Sermon on the Mount, one of the works I have referred to is Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ significant book, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. (5) Concerning Matthew 5:43-48, Lloyd-Jones makes the following introductory statement: We come now to verses 43-48 in which we […]
We are grateful to report that the second edition of The Church that John the Baptist Prepared is now available from Bible Baptist Theological Press. With over 800 pages and over 1500 footnotes and nearly 200 sources cited, this is a comprehensive resource critical for any theological library. You may order directly from us […]
The famous quote, “teamwork makes the dreamwork,” is attributed to John C. Maxwell, a Christian author and clergyman. The full quote from his 2002 book is, “Teamwork makes the dreamwork, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and bad team.” In First Corinthians 3:6, the Apostle Paul told the […]
A Consideration of William Hendriksen’s Note on Personal Pronouns in English Translation Dr. Joel R. Grassi, Th.D. In this article, which is part of a larger forthcoming work, we examine a note by a translator and commentator on the Gospel of Matthew. The cover of the book and the note under […]
(I wrote this years ago for a class I took at Dallas Theological Seminary. I shared it recently with our church and am making it available here.) Postmodernism, which might be termed post-Enlightenment thinking, is a worldview, whether secular or Christian, that is committed to pluralism and averse to the concept of one truth. […]
Peace Disturbed (This post was originally shared with the community on June 24, 2020.) This week when I was walking past FIT near my office I saw this quote painted on the wall: “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” – James Baldwin This made me think of Matthew 10:34 – “Think not […]
I recently wrote a review of Bart Ehrman’s book Armageddon: What the Book of Revelation Really Says. My review is subtitled, “How This Book Failed to Help This Pastor and Why Atheists Cannot Trust Bart Ehrman.” The complete review is available here: A Review of Bart Ehrman’s Armageddon_ What the Book of Revelation Really […]
“Many people owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.” -C.H. Spurgeon This quote made me think about you, each one of the precious saints who make up the Commonwealth Community Baptist Church. Tremendous difficulties? We got plenty. What a year this has been! But as the quote goes, we can have […]
Is the resurrection even relevant anymore? (1) Perhaps we should ask, “Was the resurrection ever relevant?” Postmodern cultures, whether ancient or modern, have always stumbled over God’s sovereignty over life and death as revealed in Scripture. (2) What does the story of the resurrection do for a society that has pretty much seen, heard, and […]
People often raise objections to theism in general or a point of theology in particular because they do not understand it.
Many Bronx residents are not surprised to learn that the northernmost borough of NYC has its own flag, but few are familiar with its history, and perhaps even fewer are aware of the spiritual message and Biblical parallels that can be appreciated from it.
The Bible makes several statements about the nature of man, what is sometimes termed the doctrine of anthropology.
Notice Job 3:11-16, particularly verse 16. Here the man Job is in the midst of cursing the day he was born. He is wishing that he would have been born dead. He asks why his life on earth could not have ended on the day it began. And by the time he gets to verse […]
As everyone in our church knows, this past Christmas season we completed a detailed study of I Timothy 3:16.
Our church is known as the Commonwealth Community Baptist Church of the Bronx. Sometimes people will refer to our church simply as “Commonwealth.”
