Congregations should practice church discipline for staff and members, says a theology professor who believes the practice is “meant to produce joy.”

Jeremy Kimble, assistant professor of theology at Cedarville University and elder at Grace Baptist Church in Cedarville, Ohio, was recently interviewed by Dallas Theological Seminary professor Darrell Bock on the podcast “The Table.”

In an episode posted online on Tuesday, Bock asked Kimble about the concerns some have with the concept of church discipline, namely that it can create “a pretty grim congregation.”

“Everyone’s keeping an eye on everyone to make sure that they’re dotting all their i’s and crossing all their t’s. And there’s the danger of almost a kind of legalism setting in the atmosphere, and almost an oppressive kind of environment,” said Bock.

Kimble responded that he felt it’s important for church discipline to be done with a proper recognition of “what sin actually is,” noting that with sin “we reject what is life giving and pure and good, for what is going to produce death and destruction.”

“If we can get back to that doctrine of sin, we can then start saying something like, ‘Discipline is done for progress and joy in the faith.’ It’s not meant to produce a, as you said, a grim, austere kind of environment….

A caravan of nine buses carrying migrants arrived at the southern border this week.

About 350 migrants are the first group to reach the U.S. border after weeks of travel through Central America and Mexico. The caravan members will rest and then line up to request asylum.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it is closing lanes at crossings near Tijuana so military can install barbed wire and barricades.

“CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading toward the border of the United States,” said Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement.

As the groups have traveled, President Donald Trump said he would deploy military to the border and sign a presidential proclamation that would suspend asylum. He called the caravans an “invasion.”

According to the Department of Defense, there are 2,800 troops stationed in Texas, 1,500 in Arizona and 1,500 in California.

At U.S. ports of entry, migrants are able to walk up to the port and request asylum in person. According to USA Today, only 100 asylum seekers can be processed per day.

In April, a caravan of about 400 migrants presented themselves at a port of entry to request asylum. Of that, 122 tired of waiting and entered the country illegally.

In total, some 5,000…

A 99-year-old man living in a Communist country where some have no conceptions of the Gospel of any kind has said he wants to follow Jesus, a pastor and missionary revealed.

Jordan Standridge, pastor of evangelism at Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Virginia, wrote in The Cripplegate website on Tuesday that he met the man in question during a mission trip to a communist country last week, which he didn’t name.

Standridge explained that the trip took him to a remote part of the country, where people were largely isolated from the outside world.

“As I entered the first house and sat in the chair to begin, we were told by the father and daughter that they had never spoken to anyone about the Gospel before. The daughter was in her seventies and the father was 99,” the pastor shared.

“As we talked, it seemed as if the scales were falling from his eyes as the realization of his own sin, filled his eyes with tears. It was like talking to the thief on the cross. He simply asked God to forgive him of his sin and give him a new heart,” he continued.

“At the end of our time together, when I was writing some verses in his new Bible and writing down his name, the translator asked his daughter if she would read it to him, she said, ‘He reads better than I do! He’ll be…

Harvest Bible Chapel recently informed their congregation that the church’s Chief Information Officer defrauded the church. While the email to the congregation did not reveal the amount, the police report filed with the Elgin Police Department alleges that he stole more than $270,000 from the church. 

In the October 23^rd email, the church told their members that they “discovered evidence that a non-ministry member of our staff who worked in operations defrauded the church of an amount of money. If the evidence proves true, this would lead to a criminal charge being filed, and a preliminary report was filed today with the Elgin police department. 

The police report identifies the staff member as “Jeffrey Parkham,” the church’s Chief Information Officer. However, The Christian Post looked over the church’s previous social media postings and found that the former staff member’s name listed as “Jeff Parham.” When contacted about the discrepancy, the church replied there would be “no further updates or comments on anything due to ongoing investigation.”

The church told the congregation that “the amount of money in question appears to be less than 1% of our annual budget and the time period appears to be less than a year.” The police report said the staff member’s actions began in July 2017. The church also reported that “We are looking to lay…

The question about why some people are healed and others are not when people pray is one John Piper struggles with. 

In response to a question from a Desiring God podcast listener about the sovereignty of God and how much confidence believers in Jesus should vocalize when praying for someone to be healed, the renown theologian pointed to Jesus, who was the “perfect pray-er.”

Even in the hour of Christ’s most anguished desperation, in the garden of Gethsemane before he was crucified, Christ prayed “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

“Clearly, it was not sin for Jesus to add that qualifier. He didn’t sin,” Piper explained.

But the interplay between divine wisdom and the confidence He says those who believe ought to display in prayer is somewhat of a mysterious puzzle.

“We have strong promises from Jesus, in John 15 and John 16 and Mark 11 and elsewhere, that whenever we ask and believe that we have what we asked for, we will receive it. The other piece is Jesus’s words ‘nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.'”

For example, he went on to say, in Matthew 7 Jesus asks his followers if they “who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who…

Nationally syndicated Christian radio host Hank Hanegraaff announced last week on Facebook that after 20 months of battling the deadly disease, his cancer has gone into remission.

In a Facebook video posted on Thursday, Hanegraaff told his followers that he heard the one word he was not expecting to hear so soon: remission.

Hanegraaff said, “The bottom line is I heard a word that I didn’t think I would hear – at least this soon. And that is the word remission.”

The Bible Answer Man host continued saying, “So, for the first time since I started this battle with cancer 20 months ago, I am finally in remission.” 

“It’s been an interesting journey,” he added.  

According to CBN News, Hanegraaff was diagnosed on April 15, 2017, with a form of cancer called mantle cell lymphoma, and according to the video he spent most of 2017 undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

Hanegraaff told listeners that doctors attempted to do a bone marrow transplant on him, but doctors were unable to collect enough cells to perform the procedure. At this point, he said, “we really didn’t know what to do, so we did nothing.”

But then, as the radio host put it, “By God’s grace,” he was admitted into a clinical trial.  

Hanegraaff proclaimed that “Through that clinical trial, I have achieved remission. It has been an extraordinary journey,” he added.

Hanegraaff…

Israel’s Defense Minister resigned his post on Wednesday, citing his opposition to a recent ceasefire with militants in the Gaza Strip. He also called for new elections because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “capitulating” to terrorists. 

In announcing his resignation, Avigdor Lieberman slammed the government’s response to the latest round of attacks from Hamas. He favors direct military action against Hamas.

Lieberman pulled no punches in his public criticisms of Netanyahu’s leadership. In announcing his resignation, he said “The question is why, as far as I’m concerned, what happened yesterday, the cease-fire yesterday, with the negotiations with Hamas, amounts to a capitulation to terrorism. There’s no other way to describe it. It has no other meaning, it is simply a capitulation to terror.” 

He also detailed a number of areas of disagreement with the Prime Minister. He said, “It is no secret that over the past few months, there have been disagreements between myself and the Prime Minister. For instance, my opposition to the [decision] to permit fuel from Qatar to be allowed into the Gaza Strip. I did not want to permit Qatari fuel in [to Gaza]. I thought that this is a mistake. Only after the Prime Minister made a formal written order was I forced to allow Qatari fuel into the Strip.”

Lieberman’s resignation will withdraw his party from the…