Top 50 Stories on The Aquila Report for 2023: 11-20
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 11-20.
In 2023 The Aquila Report (TAR) posted over 3,000 stories. At the end of each year we feature the top 50 stories that were read.
TAR posts 8 new stories each day, on a variety of subjects – all of which we trust are of interest to our readers. As a web magazine TAR is an aggregator of news and information that we believe will provide articles that will inform the church of current trends and movements within the church and culture.
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 11-20:
What all those times of worship at our General Assemblies have had in common every year was enthusiastic congregational singing, from metrical psalms to classical hymns to contemporary songs. All of that made the recent article, that was so critical of the singing at the Assembly, to be so very disappointing.
With this in mind, it’s hard to believe the numbers are exaggerated. In fact, the situation could be much more dire. The question Evangelicals must answer is this, “Can Christians continue to support Israel’s wholesale slaughter of civilians without losing their soul?” The question should be answered with all haste because a genocide is taking place right before our evangelical eyes. Evangelicals need to come to terms with the reality that the modern nation state of Israel in not biblical Israel. Zionist Israel is a secular political entity unrelated to biblical Judaism.
Stanley dismissed Biblical texts against homosexual behavior as “clobber” verses and said, “If your theology gets in the way of ministry—like if there’s somebody you can’t minister to because of your theology—you have the wrong theology.” This is not a misunderstanding. This is a trajectory that points to the Unconditional Conference and two speakers married to other men on the platform. This is a clear and tragic departure from Biblical Christianity. The conference has not been held yet. No doubt there will be a good deal of conversation once it has been held.
First, the kingdom of God and the institutional church are wrongly equated by 2K advocates. There is a rough consensus among New Testament scholars that the kingdom of God is a much more comprehensive reality than the institutional church, and this misidentification of the church and the kingdom has all sorts of unfortunate results, such as confusion over the nature of “kingdom work” and the silencing of Christians from speaking to societal issues.
We need to be aware of what the main things and the plain things are so that we can set theological alarms in our hearts and minds. Because these false teachers creep into our churches, our ministries, and our Christian schools, we need pay attention and measure everything we hear by the standard of God’s Word.
Shannon seemed to be an eager and vivacious woman trying her best to live up to manmade commands without experiencing a life built on Biblical Truth. As with so many young men and women who have shared this experience, Shannon has chosen to identify as a victim seeking truth and wisdom from within herself. She sees God, if there is one, is a complete killjoy who wants to squash your dreams and thwart your liberty. Shannon, now free from this bondage, has begun her crusade to liberate everyone else.
When biologists claim that sex is binary, we mean something straightforward: There are only two sexes. This is true throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. An organism’s sex is defined by the type of gamete (sperm or ova) it has the function of producing. Males have the function of producing sperm, or small gametes; females, ova, or large ones. Because there is no third gamete type, there are only two sexes. Sex is binary.
Briarwood Executive Pastor Bruce Stallings released this statement to AL.com: “It is with a deeply heavy heart that I communicate to you that our Lord has called Pastor Reeder home through a car accident. Please pray for Cindy, Jennifer, Ike, Abby and their entire family as well as our staff and church family as we all grieve this tremendous loss together. But we do not grieve without hope because we know our pastor is with His Savior and has been received by grace with – ‘Well done My good and faithful servant.’’’
12 Rick Warren Knows Exactly What He Is Doing
Rick Warren and Saddleback have done us the service of showing their hand. They want to persuade us to abandon what the Bible teaches and follow them in another direction. How will we respond in New Orleans?
In early 2020, Saddleback pastor Chris Clark and his wife, Elisa, co-founded a Saddleback chapter of Embracing the Journey, a ministry for parents of LGBTQ children, with long-time Saddleback members, Doug and Shauna Habel. By the end of 2021, an ETJ newsletter revealed that Saddleback was hosting four ongoing ETJ support groups and one small group.
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Antichrist Blesses Same Sex Couples
The claim is that when same-sex couples ask for a blessing they are actually asking–in the mind of Francis–for help. He said, ““when one asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.” This is not what is being asked and surely it is not how the document will be interpreted.
God is not the author of confusion (I Corinthians 14:33), but of peace, and godliness, and of order. Today the Roman pontiff, speaking on behalf of Jesus Christ and his church declared the pompous words (Daniel 7:8) that same sex couples in union could be blessed. This is an about-face as he said in 2021 that he would not allow for gay unions to be blessed because “God cannot bless sin.” Surely now he can, according to the one who shows himself to be in the place of God (2 Thes 2:4; Daniel 11:36).
This deceptive heresy (I John 2:22-23; 2 John 7) is confusing at best and outright wicked at worst. It is confusing because so many Catholics–under the postmodern banner of the rainbow flag–will see this as approval. The pope, however, has not approved of gay or same sex marriage or even civil unions, saying merely that they can be “blessed” by a priest.
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Frances Havegal’s Compelling Faith and Witness
She participated in and promoted a wide range of other ministries including children’s Sunday school and Bible clubs, women’s prayer and ministry groups, meeting the material needs of the underprivileged, community evangelistic meetings, and missionary endeavors. Frances was an ardent personal evangelist. She actively sought to use her varied ministry opportunities, both public and private, to point people to Christ Jesus.
We live in a day when more and more people seem increasingly skeptical toward the Christian faith. The positive personal example of Frances Havergal, an eminent nineteenth century English hymnwriter, has a lot to teach us about bearing an effective witness to such skeptics.
Frances Havergal (1836-1879) was a best-selling author of devotional literature, poetry and hymns. She was also a skilled musician who was often asked to sing solos and take a lead in choral ministries. She participated in and promoted a wide range of other ministries including children’s Sunday school and Bible clubs, women’s prayer and ministry groups, meeting the material needs of the underprivileged, community evangelistic meetings, and missionary endeavors.
Frances was an ardent personal evangelist. She actively sought to use her varied ministry opportunities, both public and private, to point people to Christ Jesus.
In April 1872 Frances visited her sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and Giles Shaw, at their country home of Winterdyne near Bewdley, England. One Sunday Frances was unwell so did not attend church with them. When the Shaws returned home from church that day, Giles was surprised to find her at the piano and exclaimed, “Why, Frances, I thought you were upstairs!”
“Yes,” she replied, “but I had my Prayer-Book, and in the psalms for today I read, ‘Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King’,” (citing Psalm 96:10). She continued on to explain: “I thought, what a splendid first line! And then words and music came rushing in to me.”
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The Spirit’s Fruit: Joy
By contemplating the goodness of God, the attributes of God, the acts of God, the promises of God, the Word of God, and especially the gospel of God, we find we can actively begin to increase our sense of joy, and even happiness and contentment, in Christ. Contemplation of the Lord lifts our spirits in such a way that we are, in a sense, drawn nearer to God, and the closer our proximity to the Lord, the greater our sense of joy.
When the Apostle Paul is outlining the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, he lists joy as the second fruit, directly after love. There seems to be a rather compelling reason for this. In Matthew 22:34-40, when Jesus is asked what commandment is the most important, He responds that the greatest and most important is to love the Lord God with all of one’s heart, soul, and mind (vs. 37-38), and then explains that the second most important commandment is to love one’s neighbor as oneself (vs. 39). When one loves in this way, they subsequently find themselves fulfilling the Law of God, since the first four of the Ten Commandments deal with loving God, and the latter half deal with loving neighbor. Since love is the fulfilment of the two tables of the Law, the one who truly loves God and others both fulfills the Law and glorifies God. This, of course, is only possible for the one who has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
God as the Source of Joy
It is in glorifying God that the Christian finds joy because the supreme object of the Christian’s love is God Himself. We delight in obedience to the Lord because we love His Law as a reflection of Himself. We delight when others see our good deeds and thus glorify our God in Heaven (Matt. 5:16) because there is nothing we love more than pointing others towards the true worship of the living God. We delight when God is exalted in our lives because, whether we live or die, we love to live for the Lord (Phil. 1:20-21).
Out of our love for God and neighbor, then, flows a supreme joy that simply cannot be replicated anywhere else, or by anyone else. As a fruit of the Spirit, the joy the Bible describes as belonging to the Christian is peculiarly the Christian’s only. Nonbelievers may be able to experience momentary happiness, or perhaps even sense a glimmer of joy according to the common grace of God, but pure and unadulterated joy comes from God and flows to the believer through the Holy Spirit.
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