Who on earth has tornadoes in January? Welcome to Alabama. The early morning hours were pretty eventful this past Monday as twisters blasted part of Center Point and Clay into rubble. Trussville and Moody also suffered damage. Because our church family is spread out over a wide area, some were up all night while others slept with no knowledge of what was happening. A few of our folks had damage from falling trees, others sacrificed shingles to the wind, and some were without power for a few days, but we’re all alive and well, thank God! We are truly a blessed people. As it was last April, Monday morning was a reminder of the fragility of life.
The apostle Peter warned, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10). We had warnings on the news that the storms were coming, but frankly, I didn’t expect the degree of damage they brought. …

Tucked away in a stack of material “to be read later,” I came across a fascinating tract first published in 1953. It is a collection of articles appearing in the Gospel Advocate that same year by Earl Irven West, noted author and historian of the Restoration Movement. They bear the title, “Congregational Cooperation, A Historical Study.”
West carefully documents the thinking of Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell on the subject of local churches organizing themselves into functioning bodies for the purpose of doing the work of the “church universal.” He then traces how such thinking evolved over the next several generations. It’s quite enlightening.
Historically, brethren have generally adopted one of three methods of cooperation:
                1) Cooperation meetings on state and district levels, in which delegates of various congregations met together, elected officers, selected a traveling evangelist and accepted pledges for his financial support. The was the method advanced by Alexander Campbell, even though he acknowledged no biblical pattern for such action, and which led to the founding of the American Christian Missionary Society in 1849.
                2) State meetings, in which a local church was selected to accept funds from other …

In the four centuries preceding the advent of Christ, conservative Jews, later known as Pharisees, developed a series of rules and regulations governing Jewish life and custom. As the Pharisees grew in influence and political power, their rules came to supplant the actual Law of Moses in their minds. Their teaching became known as the “oral law” or “the traditions of the elders.” Repeatedly they criticized Jesus and His disciples for violating it, and Jesus condemned them for elevating the words of men above God’s.
To be fair, it should be stated that the forebears of the Pharisees truly intended to honor God. They set out to draw up guidelines which, if followed,  should have kept people from sinning. They viewed their work not as a usurpation of divine authority but as a helpful guide to personal obedience and righteousness. However, in any kind of religious fellowship, things change in succeeding generations. Original piety and diligence, often in the face of persecution, give way to social acceptability and a comfortable orthodoxy. In time, the teaching of forebears is refined into traditional beliefs used to maintain the status quo. This evolution can …