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Thomas Boston, commenting on "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," says:

It is a sign men have no spiritual hunger when they are more for religious disputes—than the practice of piety. Some men feed only on difficult questions and controversies (1 Timothy 6:3, 4). These pick bones—and do not feed on the meat. They have hot brains but cold hearts. Did men hunger and thirst after righteousness, they would propound to themselves such questions as these, 'How shall we do to be saved? How shall we make our calling and election sure? How shall we mortify our corruptions?' But such as ravel out their time in frothy and useless theological disputes, I call heaven to witness, they are strangers to this text. They do not 'hunger and thirst after righteousness'.

God describes the Church in many ways, and each of these is for our benefit. Each of them expose the beauty, practicality, and blessing of God's design for His Church.

Here is a good list of New Testament Metaphors for the Church.

This past Sunday, we considered Matthew 13:24-43, where Jesus is teaching about the kingdom of heaven. In this passage, Jesus gives three parables: 1) the wheat and the tares, 2) the grain of mustard seed, and 3) the leaven. He explains through these what the kingdom of heaven is like and what those who hear should know about it.

You can listen the sermon through this audio player:

A simple concordance search on families does not tell you everything you need to know about what the New Testament teaches about family life. But the New Testament presents many expressions of family life:

• A spiritual father mentoring young men Timothy (2 Tim. 1:2), Titus (Tit. 1:4), Onesimus (Phm. 1:10)
• A husband and a wife, Aquila and Priscilla, laboring together in the gospel and ministering to the great preacher Apollos (Acts 18:26), and risking their necks for the apostle Paul (Rom. 16:3-4).
• A father crying out for his demonized son (Mark 9:24)
• A father grieving over his dead daughter (Mark 5:22-23)
• A woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11)
• A woman with five husbands (John 4:18)
• A young man falling asleep during a long meeting, falling out a window to his death and then brought back to life (Acts 20:9-12)
• Children being converted in households at the preaching of the apostles – Philippian Jailer (Acts 16:31) and Cornelius (Acts 10:24, 44)
• Brothers seeking to follow the Lord Jesus – Nathanael (John 1:45-50)...

There is an interesting discussion about the youth group at James MacDonald's Harvest Chapel over at TeamPyro.

The White Unto Harvest conference is only 8 months away! Due to many requests and in an effort to provide an affordable way to register, we are now offering a monthly payment option for conference registration. Instead of paying the full family or individual registration cost up front or waiting until the last minute, you can still get your registration in early while paying the registration cost in smaller increments up until the conference. The monthly payment amount is automatically determined by the number of months remaining before the conference.

Much has been said about the importance of strategic friendships among men and women in the work of the Kingdom of God, to which I would whole heartedly agree. But what about strategic friendships for our children? How should this look? How should this play out?

In this article, I would like to take a different approach and look at the value of strategic friendships in our children’s lives, in a biblically-ordered church setting, where peer culture and age segregation are not the norm.

The subject has been on my heart. So last week, I sat down with my two oldest daughters, Naomi (17) and Anna (15), on separate occasions for a daddy/daughter talk on the subject of friendship. I simply asked...who are your best friends? The answers they gave were both without hesitation, that their mother and one another were their best friends. This was a fact I already knew because it is both verbalized on a regular basis and demonstrated in practice daily...

The Baptist Standard recently released an article about family integration, Divided the movie, and A Weed in the Church.

If you have not seen Divided the movie and would like to show it to your friends, you can view the movie for free at www.dividedthemovie.com.

Spurgeon answers the question in this way:

There is an allusion here to the prize which was offered to the runners in the Olympic games, and at the outset it is well for us to remark how very frequently the Apostle Paul conducts us by his metaphors to the racecourse. Over and over again he is telling us so to run that we may obtain, bidding us to strive, and at other times to agonize, and speaking of wrestling and contending. Ought not this to make us feel what an intense thing the Christian life is--not a thing of sleepiness or haphazard, not a thing to be left now and then to a little superficial consideration? It must be a matter which demands all our strength, so that when we are saved there is a living principle put within us which demands all our energies, and gives us energy over and above any that we ever had before. Those who dream that carelessness will find its way to heaven have made a great mistake. The way to hell is neglect, but the way to heaven is very different. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" A little matter of neglect brings you to ruin, but our Master's words are "Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many, I say unto you, shall seek"--merely seek--"to enter in, and shall not be able." Striving is wanted more than seeking.

Excerpt from a sermon. Published on Thursday, July 8th, 1915. Delivered by C.H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.On Thursday Evening, June 16th, 187

Charles Spurgeon, in a sermon, asked his congregation this question:

You will be going Home soon and when your Master says to you, “Did you do any sowing for Me?” you will have to reply, “No, Lord, I did plenty of eating. I went to the Tabernacle and I enjoyed the services.” “But did you do any sowing?” “No, Lord. I did a great deal of hoarding. I laid up a large quantity of the Good Seed.” “But did you do any sowing?” He will still ask—and that will be a terrible question for those who never went forth to sow! 

Maybe you want to be in a family-integrated church—it's a disaster to build a church around that. God-glorifying churches are built around God, the Gospel, His Word, and obedience to His ways. When churches form around anything smaller than these things, they are headed for trouble—with God and man. Churches built around homeschooling, family integration, fatherhood, entrepreneurialism, community, taking dominion, adoption, abortion—whatever—will always dishonor the name of Christ by setting their gaze on what might perhaps be fruits of obedience to the Word of God, rather than God Himself. While I am an advocate of age-integrated discipleship in the church, I have seen churches make this the central consideration. This is always a mistake. The central consideration of discussion is the centrality of God in the church.

How can you know you are saved? Jesus answers this question in Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, where He speaks to the multitude by way of parables. The first is the parable of four soils - the wayside, the stony soil, the thorny soil, and the good soil. Which one of these grounds are you? Have you born fruit - some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty?

A preacher has a number of responsibilities and hopes for the congregation. Here are a few of them:

1. Represent the words of God to them accurately, so that they can compare everything in their lives with the truth of Scripture

2. Give them a vision of the majesty of God

3. Help them find their greatest delight and happiness in God

4. Instruct them in the flow of history and their place in history

5. Show them the world as it really is

6. Equip them for the work of the ministry

7. Explain and dissect their problems in the light of Scripture so they can see who they really are...

You must go forth to sow! You cannot sit at your parlor window and sow wheat—and you cannot stand on one little plot of ground and keep on sowing there. If you have done your work in that place, go forth to sow elsewhere! Oh, that the Church of Christ would go forth into heathen lands! Oh, that there might be among Christians a general feeling that they must go forth to sow! What a vast acreage there still is upon which not a grain of God’s Wheat has ever yet fallen! Oh, for a great increase of the missionary spirit! May God send it upon the entire Church until everywhere it shall be said, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”

from Charles Spurgeon's sermon, "THE SOWER" NO. 2842, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, 1888. “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” Matthew 13:3.

Here is Richard Sibbes, the English Puritan, writing in A Bruised Reed:

HOW THOSE IN AUTHORITY SHOULD ACT

In the censures of the church, it is more suitable to the spirit of Christ to incline to the milder part, and not to kill a fly on the forehead with a mallet, nor shut men out of heaven for a trifle. The very snuffers (wick trimmers) of the tabernacle were made of pure gold, to show the purity of those censures whereby the light of the church is kept bright. The power that is given to the church is given for edification, not destruction. How careful was Paul that the incestuous Corinthian (2 Cor. 2:7), if he repented, should not be swallowed up with too much grief. Civil magistrates, for civil exigencies and reasons of state, must let the law have its course; yet thus far they should imitate this mild king, as not to mingle bitterness and passion with authority derived from God. Authority is a beam of God's majesty, and prevails most where there is least mixture of that which is man's. It requires more than ordinary wisdom to manage it aright. This string must not be too tight, nor too loose. Justice is a harmonious thing. Herbs hot or cold beyond a certain degree, kill. We see even contrary elements preserved in one body by wisely tempering them together. Justice in rigor is often extreme injustice, where some considerable circumstances should incline to moderation; and the reckoning will be easier for bending rather to moderation than rigor...

Let me introduce you to Steve Breagy, who has just been hired to serve the NCFIC to work as our church relations coordinator. With the approximately 800 churches that identify with the NCFIC, Steve will be communicating the vision and mission of the NCFIC and coordinating various projects. Steve serves as an elder at Moore Christian Assembly and is a regular NCFIC conference speaker. I first met Steve in April 2005 at the NCFIC Regional Conference in Raleigh. At that time, he was a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary getting his M.Div in Advanced Biblical Languages. Eventually he was installed as an elder at Hope Baptist church, and we served together as fellow elders. Then in July of 2009 we sent him out to plant a church in Southern Pines, NC — Moore Christian Assembly.

He has a delightful family that is very dear to us...

Here is a helpful insight into ourselves, our families, and our churches by R.C. Sproul Jr.

He starts with the following:

Broken homes are created by broken people. That is, before we can offer the balm of Gilead to those living in broken homes, we need to be perfectly clear how they got that way. For all the pressures assaulting the family, for all the allure of the world, and for all the temptations of the Devil, it is the flesh, our own sin natures, that destroy our homes. We are so self-deluded, however, that we have lost sight of how selfdestructive we are. We think we are but victims, when the hard truth is that we are villains.