The regular meeting of the saints for prayer and worship and life shared together in fellowship and concern for one another has traditionally been seen as a foundational spiritual discipline for the church. As Dutch Catholic humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) argues, this pattern was demonstrated in the New Testament, as seen in Acts 2:42-47, where…

In the prayer for deliverance in Psalm 122, Wolfgang Musculus (1497-1563), a reformer in Strasbourg, Augsburg, and Bern, finds much material for reflection. Pausing on verse 22, he looks towards the future age, where all of God’s people are gathered together to worship the Lord, all kingdoms and churches in perfect union. The Unity of…

Evangelicals have long recognized reconciliation with God as the fruit of divine forgiveness. We have sometimes been less articulate about the social implications of Christ’s reconciling death. Life in the world daily witnesses to the fact of world injustice and unimaginable evil. Closer to home, family conflict, broken relationships, and interpersonal strife punctuate our lives…

In contemporary society, the Church is frequently depicted as being hopelessly divided against itself, and this depiction is not entirely unwarranted. There is ample evidence that the Church is fractured by conflict, with the inflammatory and hurtful comments throughout many websites as but one ripe example. There is a reason why Christ commanded his disciples…