Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

I HAVE BEEN... - The apostle Paul speaks here of a personal experience he had, and continued to have all throughout his ministry.  Paul speaks here of an experience that we all must have, in order to have salvation, to continue in it, and to see the Work of the Lord prosper in our midst.

…CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST – Physically speaking, Jesus was nailed to a wooden structure, on which His arms were stretched out.  Such a position made it very difficult to breathe, eventually bringing physical death.  It was a painful method of execution, which the Romans used to execute the most notorious criminals.

continue

HOW TO PREACH

1 Timothy 4:13 – “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.”

Galatians 1:11 – “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.”

Every church or religious movement has its own style of preaching. In fact, many full-time ministers are just professionals at public speaking and oratory. In Maranatha, the Lord has challenged us to lay aside traditions and avoid imitating the preaching styles we see around us, especially with “celebrity” preachers. Humility is key. The Lord has called us to abandon our fleshly desire to impress the congregation with our public speaking abilities, and focus instead on transmitting God’s message to the church for that day – no more and no less. The preaching in all our Maranatha churches – thousands of congregations – is rather uniform. We operate as a Body. We do not permit preachers in our churches to deviate from the pattern the Lord has showed us – it is a simple matter of obedience to His Word. Our entire goal is to do what the Lord wants, not what man wants. The following are some guidelines that we give to our newer preachers about the expectations we have in our churches.

continue

Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Church historians usually date the death of Paul at the year 68 or 69, during Nero’s main phase of persecution against the Christians. This assumes that Paul obtained an acquittal from the charges pending against him at the end of the book of Acts, and that he made one or two subsequent missionary journeys.  Early historical writings suggest that Paul died (beheaded by the Romans) in the city of Rome, and today there is a large Catholic church supposedly built on top of Paul’s tomb.  The earliest historical writings about the death of the Apostle Paul, however, are from hundreds of years later.  No one from his generation wrote a biography of the Apostle Paul describing his death.   continue