Theology – Jonathan Homesley

Wine and Wineskins

In the preface to his masterful book on revivals, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace says the following:

Concentration on reformation without revival leads to skins without wine; concentration on revival without reformation soon loses the wine for want of skins.

He’s dead on. Spiritual vigor (revival) apart from the truth (reformation) isn’t spiritual. Truth (reformation) apart from spiritual vigor (revival) is dead. Even the demons believe and they tremble. (James 2:19)

I came across …

Praying for Elders

This past Sunday I spend a considerable part of my sermon teaching on the Biblical role, qualifications, and Lake Wylie Baptist’s need for elders. In the coming weeks, I’ll be authoring a series of blogs to help teach you more about this crucial need in our church, and how God’s Word teaches us to understand and establish elders in the church. For now, I simply want to recap some of my main thoughts from Sunday’s …

What is Baptism?

The following post is written to help facilitate a discussion with baptism candidates of Lake Wylie Baptist church. It is by no means an exhaustive document on baptism.

Ordained by Jesus:

The final chapter of Matthew’s gospel records Jesus commissioning his disciples following the resurrection. Read Matthew 28:16-20

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷And when they saw him they worshiped him, but

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Sermon Manuscript: Love Lake Wylie – Week One

Yesterday we kicked off a three week series on church membership and ministry we’re calling “Love Lake Wylie.” We’re taking seriously— the teaching of the Bible— that we cannot become who God has called us to be without the church. We’re countering the individualism of our culture and declaring something bold: we need one another. We need our church. We don’t just need to be served by the church. In order for us to become …

Sermon Manuscript: 1 Peter 5:1-14

This is the manuscript for the final sermon in 1 Peter series that I preached at Lake Wylie Baptist Church.

1 Peter 5:1-14…

Blog Link: Are Recent Restroom Laws the Same as Jim Crow Laws?

Andrew Walker raises both questions and brings clarity to what may be the hottest topic in American culture. In a post for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention entitled Are restroom laws that respect privacy the equivalent of Jim Crow laws? Walker writes the following:

Jim Crow laws made arbitrary distinctions based on skin color. For example, the color of a person’s skin matters nothing to their hunger or ability

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Sermon Manuscript: Psalm 9

In Psalm 9 David tells us that God never forgets those in need, yet David himself is being pursued and attacked. Is David saying that God is inconsistent? How can David suffer and yet celebrate God at the same time? The following sermon manuscript was preached at Christ Community Church.

Psalm 9 Manuscript…

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE: Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Loveless

Having experienced the Jesus Movement first hand, Richard Loveless set out to fill a gap in evangelical scholarship, a theology of spirituality; specifically, an historical and theological analysis of renewal and spiritual dynamics. Loveless’s historical overview of renewal movements in the evangelical church, and his section on the primary elements of renewal are invaluable.

I’ll be …

Preparing for Communion

This coming Sunday our church will observe one of the two ordinances of the church: Communion, or The Lord’s Supper. Paul tells us about the night that our Lord instituted this ordinance for his church:

²³For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is

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Theological Triage: Which Doctrines Matter Most?

If a man with a broken arm and a woman having a heart attack both walk into the emergency room at the same time which one get’s treated first? Obviously, the person with the life threatening emergency gets preferential treatment. You’d be foolish to admit the broken arm while someone is dying in the lobby. This method for assigning urgency to patients based on their conditions is called triage, and it’s a helpful concept to …