Woody's Words

Is Sunday worship attendance necessary? By David Woodbury Social media and the magazine Others, have been giving us glimpses into many of the innovative and exciting new ventures being developed to connect with our communities. A cursory glance at the reporting would indicate that there is an increasing number of peripheral groups and activities being established that take mission to the community; a move in the right direction. However, at a time when Sunday meeting attendances have dramatically declined, we may need to examine the necessity for attending religious services each Sunday. Can the operation of these new ventures be a replacement to the traditional Sunday gathering of believers?   It may well be that some see such a traditional gathering as redundant, obsolete and out of touch with today’s community. Does the traditional gathering of believers each Sunday have a scriptural basis, and can we justify it from a biblical basis and church history? The firs

THE LURE OF FORBIDDEN FRUIT Romans 7:1-25 By David Woodbury Now, dear brothers and sisters—you who are familiar with the law—don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? 2 For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. 4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have

PRESUMING ON GOD’S GRACE ROMANS 6:15-23 By David Woodbury 15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. (Romans 6:15-18 - NLT) The heart of God is broken when Christians trade on his mercy and grace, living their lives as do many non-Christians and presuming that no matter what their actions, God will forgive. One of the great dangers of living under grace is the temptation to abuse it, to presume of God’s grace, referred to by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as cheap grace. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship , he makes a

HE BREAKS THE POWER OF CANCELLED SIN ROMANS 6:1-14 By David Woodbury 1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.  (Romans 6:1-6 - NLT) Here again, Paul is having one of his imaginary debates in which he discusses the proposition that if we keep on sinning grace will be multiplied. He concludes that such a proposition is intolerable in the life

LAW AND GRACE Romans 5:12-21 By Davis Woodbury Adam and Christ Contrasted 12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. 13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, ev

HANG IN THERE! Romans 5:1-11 By David Woodbury Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith , we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.   Romans 5:1-2 (NLT) Paul commences this chapter with the word therefore and is linking back to Romans 4:23-25, and can be taken as   – as a consequence of – because of this: 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. He now moves on to one of the benefits of justification by faith; we have peace with Go

DO WE NEED CHURCH UNITY? By David Woodbury     One of the clearest memories of my childhood is that of a school scripture lesson when I was around eight years of age. The Scripture teacher decided he would introduce The Apostle’s Creed as a regular part of our lesson. It was my first encounter with the creed and as the class recited it I stumbled when we came to the line: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church . As I wasn’t Catholic this all seemed a bit odd to me. Only later did I come to understand the word c atholic referred to the universal, world-wide church and not the Roman Catholic Church. Church unity is a perennial discussion that seems to go nowhere. Those outside the church level criticism at the Christian church for being so divided along denominational lines and perhaps in part, we seek unity in response to that criticism. Many Christians believe that unity of the church is biblical but are concerned that such unity may extinguish their w