Posts by Jim Elliff

Posts by Jim Elliff

The New Year Starts: Making Plans?

You may have reason to fear the year now upon us. What is on the other side of the door? Every person has their allotment of trouble, even among believers. Will there be loss, illness, death, aggravation, perplexity? Will those you love come to distrust you? Will you sin badly, ruining your reputation? Will there be economic trials and anxiety over money? Will you lose your job, or worse, your mind? Will you be hurt deeply? Will you be in…

What they Did Before TV

My mother was the youngest of fourteen children growing up on a farm in the first part of the last century. The old home place burned down when she was a girl. It was a typical Southern house divided into a boys’ room, a girls’ room, a kitchen (they ate in the open breezeway during the summer), and the parents’ room. A porch surrounded the entire home. “Mom and Dad’s” room was the gathering place at night. The fireplace blazed…

The Writer’s Desert : A Letter From Jim

Dear CCW family, It is a joy to write to you this Christmas/New Year time. All of us here wish you the best of New Years, filled with Jesus. “To live is Christ” as Paul reminded us. That kind of year has to be worthwhile to live out. This may be the most useful year for Christ of your entire life. Can you say it will not be? Among our team, we who write regularly as well as speak often…

Some Comments on the Wretched Man in Romans 7

Romans 7:13-25 is a difficult passage, but many concerns vanish when chapters 6 and 7 are analyzed together. Four questions are answered that arise in the Jewish mind related to grace and Law (Rom 5:20-21). This is in a section principally addressed to Jew-born believers, but not without benefits for the Gentile believer. Each of the questions are answered by “absolutely not!”. Here they are: 1. Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? Absolutely not!….Paul uses the…

Cremation or Burial? (with “Reducing the Cost of Funerals”)

There is no sin in cremation, that is for sure. And there is no inability on God’s part to raise a cremated body from the dead. But is cremation, a practice most often seen in Eastern religions, the best for the believer in Christ? It is clarifying to note that burial was God’s preferred method of disposing of the body of Moses. God had the power to cremate Moses’ body on the spot, but rather, this gentle and loving phrase…

One Another Commands: the Heart of Christian Fellowship

Be at peace with one another. Mk. 9:50Wash one another’s feet. Jn. 13:14Love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Jn. 13:34Love one another with brotherly affection. Rom. 12:10Outdo one another in showing honor. Rom. 12:10Live in harmony with one another. Rom. 12:16Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. Rom. 15:7Greet one another with a holy kiss. Rom 16:16, 2 Cor. 13:12Wait for one another. 1 Cor. 11:33Comfort one another, agree…

A Different Style of Evangelist: Laborers on the Loose

The disparity between what Christ and Paul did in evangelism and what we do, at least in the West, is dramatic. Let me explain a few of those differences: 1. The first radical departure from Jesus and Paul is our concept of time-specific, meeting-oriented evangelism. You will read in vain in the New Testament to find so many days of evangelistic preaching scheduled for Jesus or Paul and conducted at 7 p.m. in a certain location. You do not find…

The Staying Power of Mental Images

I will only use a short section of Matthew to illustrate the way John the Baptist spoke, which was characteristic of the prophets before him and of Jesus as well as Paul, and almost every other writer or speaker in the Bible. There is something to learn here from him about speech that is crafted to be remembered. Almost all you will memorize and quote supports this proposition: literary images are retained in the mind when mere argument is too…

Light Without Sun

There was light without a sun throughout eternity past, for God, though omnipresent, has always manifested himself in his throne room in unapproachable light. There was light without a sun called forth by God to shine on the watery dark world after it was created. Only later would the sun be given to govern the light. God once gave the world a vivid display of light without sun in the dwellings of the children of Israel on a dark night…

Review of Studies in Perfectionism by Benjamin Warfield

Warfield, Benjamin B., Studies in Perfectionism. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958. 464 pages. B. B. Warfield is known as one of the major exponents of the Reformed view of theology. He studied at what is now Princeton University and Seminary, graduating from the later in 1876. He taught first at Leipzig, Germany but was later the successor to Archibald Alexander Hodge as professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. He died in 1921. During his life he earned several distinguished degrees.…

Not Much to Be Thankful For

Table Mountain reigns over Cape Town, South Africa. When we first got sight of it from the highway, we were unable to take our eyes off of its stately, presiding presence. Its abrupt cliffs, rising up out of Cape Town on the oceanfront etched its postcard beauty in our minds. As you see, I can get rather poetic about it. But . . . Not everybody sees it this way. My first child was with us in the back seat…

The Elderly Mr. Phipp

James, the youth: Is affection necessary for true spirituality? I mean, can’t a man be Christian, yet cold as a stone emotionally? Mr. Brockton: Affection cannot be separated from true religion. James: But are we to strain to be affectionate toward God when it is not natural? Brockton: We are to strain to know God, and that is enough. Mr. Phipp will make my point for me. Hear his story: When the elderly Mr. Phipp lost his wife, he cried…

The Law of Love: New Covenant Primacy

The Law of Moses and the Prophet’s admonitions are all fulfilled in the law of love. “Treat others the way you would have them treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 7:12). The New Covenant responsibility for the believer is similar: “Bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). Or, put another way, “Do not look out for your own personal interests, but for the interests of others” (Phil 2:4). Love…

But I Don’t Feel Thankful

“But I don’t feel thankful.” I can hear this perfectly logical complaint coming from my kids when I make them say “Thank you” for some act of kindness done toward them. Should we really act grateful when we are not? But perhaps the better question is, “How could we be so blind to all that God has done that we would ever be ungrateful?” When the Pilgrims ate the first Thanksgiving meal in 1621, they were being thankful even though…

A Simple Bible Discussion Guide: Five Hard Questions

Me? Lead a Bible study with lots of spiritually helpful interaction? The answer is “yes!” This is a simple Bible Discussion Guide for any group. Using this approach, your study can be as deep as you wish to make it, and cover as much time as you are able to give. Most Bible study groups will want to go through a complete book of the Bible, or a well-defined portion of a book, such as “The Sermon on the Mount”…