Dan Greenfield

Category: Theology

  • He Got Saved!

    (Continuing from yesterday…) The diligent and faithful use of the word of God, as the rule of judgment, would have an influence peculiarly important in regard to those who have just begun to attend to the subject of religion. Take the case of a sudden conversion. One who has long…

  • Why Did Jesus Pray?

    “But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray” Luke 5:16 Jesus provides a pattern to follow on how a believer should live while on this earth (cf. Rom 8:29). In addition to studying how he prayed, it is perhaps even more basic to learn why he…

  • Hail and the 7th Bowl of Judgment

    I’m teaching a class on the Book of Revelation for Great Lakes Bible Institute, and tonight we’ll be looking at Revelation 14-16. The close of chapter 16 details the seventh bowl of wrath, and the last verse reads and huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven…

  • The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

    One hundred and ten years ago Reuben Archer Torrey (1856-1928), then Superintendent of the Bible Institute of Chicago (later renamed Moody Bible Institute) wrote: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is in many respects the most important fact of Christian history. It is the Gibraltar of Christian Evidences, the Waterloo of…

  • Pi Day

    Just when I thought there was a day for everything, via Susan Polger’s Chess and Information blog I learned that today is…Pi day. Evidently the instigators of this use this day (March 14, or 3.14) as an opportunity to celebrate math in schools, and perhaps other reasons as well! The…

  • Prayer Meeting, Part 2

    The first installment of this series is here. Attending Prayer Meeting Provides an Opportunity to Refocus Your Life. When you gather to hear the Word of the Lord you look straight into the mirror of his revelation (Jas 1:23-25). Take every such opportunity to look intently into that mirror and…

  • The Prayer Meeting, Part 1

    I have been burdened for some time—at least two decades—about prayer meeting. Too many Christians don’t attend. Maybe it’s because my parents made this a priority in my life, but I could never imagine skipping any meeting of my local church. With this in mind, I’ve had some thoughts simmering…

  • Israel, the Church, and Separation

    Does the Lord’s patience with apostate Israel, Babylon, Nineveh, etc., give evidence that faithful believers should stay in “troubled”  denominations? Many professing believers point out that Jesus still frequented the temple despite its being controlled by those who eventually killed him. In other words, shouldn’t someone stay in a bad…

  • Am I Elect?

    Good counsel from George Whitefield concerning ascertaining whether one is of the elect– That great man, Dr. Isaac Watts, who was called the sweet singer of Israel, says, ‘We should go first to the grammar school of faith and repentance, before we go to the university of predestination.’ Whereas the…

  • Whitefield the…Arminian? Say It Isn’t So!

    Preeminent evangelist of the first Great Awakening, George Whitefield (1714-1770), has grown to be a “hero” of sorts for me over the last decade. His life has challenged me to be more active in the Lord’s harvest field, especially since my family gave me Dallimore’s two volume biography of the…

  • The Place of Prayer in Public Worship

    1 Timothy 2 addresses some essential aspects of public worship in the proper order of the church. That public worship is the focal point of this chapter is clear from vv. 8-12. God says that much prayer must occur when God’s people assemble, and that such prayer plays an essential…

  • A Fitting Start

    God’s intended purposes (“administration,” oijkonomian, v. 5) are never accomplished by “strange doctrines” (eJterodidaskalevw, 1 Tim 1:3). God’s intended purposes involve a heart that produces genuine love, a correctly guided conscience, and genuine faith (v. 5). It is only by biblical instruction (paraggeliva, vv. 5, 18) that one may “fight…

  • Invitations

    Today I spent some time studying church covenants. In the process I came across a totally unrelated but interesting little tidbit from Leon McBeth’s The Baptist Heritage. While relating the beliefs and practices of the Sandy Creek Church, McBeth notes some differences between General and Separate Baptists. The distinctions between…

  • Prayer Meeting

    They suffered countless ailments on each prayer meeting night,From whooping cough to measles, to deafness and poor sight;But strange to say their ailments come not at other times,For minstrel shows and movies, they have both health and time.The Bible Union Baptist, January 1928, p. 7

  • Future Expectation And Present Employment

    Paul’s point in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 is that because the Thessalonian believers are Christians, they will not suddenly find themselves present during the time of God’s end-time wrath, because “God has not destined them for wrath but for obtaining salvation” (5:9). The imminent event believers should expect is not wrath…

  • Love & Holiness

    These two characteristics are often pitted against each other. This should not be. Both are essential. While I believe wholeheartedly that holiness is God’s governing attribute, this far from excludes the exercise of love. In fact, one of Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonians demonstrates that in the Christian life love…

  • The Necessity of Gospel Preaching

    Yesterday I focused on God’s sovereignty in salvation as evidenced by election (1 Thess 1:4). Listen to Paul’s words from the next chapter: They [the Jews mentioned in vv. 14-15a] are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they…

  • Election as Our Motivation for Thanksgiving

    At Orwell Bible Church, which I pastor, each week we put out a little booklet called, “This Week’s Walk with the Lord.” Most of my thoughts on biblical passages that I record here are the result of my daily Bible reading from that booklet. This morning I read 1 Thessalonians…

  • The Holiness of God

    I’ve either listened to or participated in a few discussions revolving around whether holiness is God’s fundamental, governing moral attribute. Some who do not agree with this position believe that God’s holiness is not a specific attribute but rather is his over-arching characteristic, the sum totality of all that he…

  • God’s Infinity and My Praying

    During tomorrow night’s Bible study on prayer I’ll be walking through the doctrine of God and drawing some applications for prayer. When I considered God’s attribute of infinity – that he is not limited by time or space – I was struck by the implications of this for prayer. I…