TPJ, Author at Timothy Paul Jones - Page 15 of 25

Family Ministry: How Do I Train My Children to Have a Biblical Worldview?

3rd September 2014

One crucial aspect of discipling our children is simply helping them to see all of life in light of God’s glory and God’s story—to see the ordinary things of life, as well as the extraordinary, from the perspective of God’s story. Here are a few practical ways to help your children to see their lives […]

Family Ministry: Providing Parents with a Bigger Vision for Their Children’s Lives

27th August 2014

One of the most important aspects of family ministry, especially in the early stages, is providing the parents a vision for something bigger and better than what they’re doing now. The fact is that most parents are living in a storyline that’s smaller than God intended, because they don’t know who their children really are. […]

Family Ministry: The First Step Toward Launching Your Church’s Family Ministry

20th August 2014

Strangely enough, the hardest first step toward family-equipping ministry for most churches is not an organizational step. The hardest step and the first step, when a church catches the vision for family ministry, is to draw the staff together to make sure that the staff is doing, in their homes, what they’re going to ask […]

PROOF: Who Invented the TULIP? (Part 3)

8th August 2014

Did you miss Parts 1 and 2 of “Who Invented the TULIP?” Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. Where Did McAfee Find His Points in the First Place? Others have explored the origins of TULIP as far back as Cleland McAfee’s 1905 lecture. I find it highly unlikely, however, that this […]

PROOF: Who Invented the TULIP? (Part 2)

6th August 2014

Did you miss Part 1 of “Who Invented the TULIP?” Click here to read it. Tiptoeing through (the History of) the TULIP The earliest name clearly connected to the TULIP seems to be Cleland Boyd McAfee. Born in Missouri in 1866, McAfee became a prominent leader in the Presbyterian Church. He moved to Union Theological […]

PROOF: Who Invented the TULIP? (Part 1)

4th August 2014

Chances are, if you’ve ever heard of the “five points of Calvinism,” you heard them first in the form of a flower—a tulip, to be exact. If your earliest awareness of these points was anything like mine, it began with the fallenness of humanity and ended with the security of the believer, with the most […]

Family Ministry: How a Biblical Worldview Shapes the Way We Teach Our Children

1st August 2014

To have a biblical worldview is to interpret every aspect of our lives—including our relationships with children—within the framework of God’s story. At the center of God’s story stands this singular act: In Jesus Christ, God personally intersected human history and redeemed humanity at a particular time in a particular place. Yet this central act […]

Leadership: Three Crucial Priorities for Shepherd Leaders

30th July 2014

This post adapted and abridged from The God Who Goes Before You, by Michael S. Wilder and Timothy Paul Jones (Nashville: B&H, forthcoming). ________ A couple of years ago, an individual who thought he might be called to pastoral ministry informed me, “I love to teach, and I want to preach—but I can’t stand people.” […]

Family Ministry: Learning to Do Less So That Parents Can Do More

28th July 2014

Parents in your ministry don’t have time to disciple their children—or, at least, that’s the way many of them feel when they look at their weekly to-do lists. According to recent research in the field of family ministry, half of all church-involved parents have simply resigned themselves to the notion that their families are too […]

Church History: Why Does Church History Even Matter?

25th July 2014

Why does it matter if Christians know the history of their faith? Well, imagine trying to sustain a marriage with total amnesia, never fully aware of all the past experiences that you and your spouse have shared. Sure, it’s possible sustain such a relationship—and many people whose husbands or wives suffer from dementia valiantly do […]

Family Ministry: In Praise of Inefficiency

24th July 2014

I saw something beautiful the other day while walking down Breckenridge Lane. In a front yard not far from my home, a young mother was removing a layer of leftover leaves from the fall in preparation for planting spring flowers—an ordinary activity in the middle of an ordinary day. What was extraordinary about this scene […]

PROOF: Win Free CD and MP3 of PROOF!

22nd July 2014

On August 1, 2014, I will be giving away three free, signed recordings of PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace unabridged on compact disc. Here’s how you can win: Anytime between now and August 1, post on Facebook or Twitter any blog article or resource found on ProofofGrace.com. Include the hashtag […]

PROOF: The Pirates are Coming

11th July 2014

PROOF and the doctrines of grace are the theme for this year’s Vacation Bible School at Sojourn Community Church—and it’s all wrapped up in a high-seas pirate adventure! Look carefully in the video, and you’ll see PROOF coauthor Timothy Paul Jones falling to the deck with the rest of the Sojourn VBS pirate crew. Be […]

PROOF: Cutting through the Confusion about What to Call “the New Calvinism” (Part 3)

26th June 2014

For part one of this series on naming the “New Calvinism,” click here. Click here for part two. The Unintended Disembedding at the Synod of Dort All this semantic wrestling does, however, bring up another question—one that I think we might profitably explore further: How did Reformed soteriology reach beyond the historic Reformed churches in […]

PROOF: Cutting through the Confusion about What to Call “the New Calvinism” (Part 2)

25th June 2014

For part one of this series on naming the “New Calvinism,” click here. A Trinity of “Neo’s”: Neo-Calvinist, Neo-Puritan, Neo-Reformed The relatively recent introduction of “neo-Calvinist” to describe the latest resurgence of interest in Reformation theology has muddied the semantic waters even more—but not because “neo-Calvinist” or “new Calvinist” carries too many different meanings (not […]

PROOF: Old Debate, New Day

24th June 2014

It’s an old debate. Calvinism, Arminianism, five points, Reformed, non-Reformed, New Calvinism, Neo-Arminian—and it’s a question worthy of ongoing discussion. The Sojourn Network would like to invite you to Missio Dei Church in Chicago for an important event highlighting this ongoing debate. This is a one-night-only event on Wednesday, August 27th, 2014 and seating is […]

PROOF: Cutting through the Confusion about What to Call “the New Calvinism” (Part 1)

24th June 2014

The mention of Calvinism may provoke revulsion or comfort—but it rarely produces apathy. “Calvinism,” journalist H.L. Mencken opined in 1937, “occupies a place in my cabinet of private horrors but little removed from that of cannibalism.” Mencken included these words in his obituary for J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian theologian who whispered on his deathbed, […]

PROOF: PROOF and Union with Christ

18th June 2014

By Garrick Bailey The New Testament provides extensive witness to the oneness between Christ and Christians. According to Paul, this oneness, through the Holy Spirit, is the foundation for the unity of the church (Eph 4:1-6). Historically, this concept of oneness found predominantly in the writings of the apostles John and Paul has been called […]

PROOF: A Quick Overview of a New Acronym

17th June 2014

PROOF: Planned Grace and the Sovereignty of God

16th June 2014

By Wyatt Graham R. K. McGregor wrote No Place for Sovereignty in 1996, launching a detailed critique of Freewill Theism. In place of Freewill Theism, Wright proposes a reformed model of God’s sovereignty over human freedom. Following the long tradition of Reformed Theology, Wright holds to a theology of God’s sovereignty derived from Scripture and […]