CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Teachers/Disciplers

The Promise of the Cross

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By Faythe A. Dobbs. The event of the cross is unique in that it is an accomplished fact; yet it bears a promise that was looked to with expectation before it happened, and now we also look to this promise. Promise, in one sense, is an agreement to do (or not do) something. Because of the cross and Christ’s work there, I can put my trust in Him.I agree to join in covenant relationship with Him. Promise, in another sense, means to give a basis for expectation. What can we expect as a result of the cross for our lives?

The word cross itself evokes thoughts of suffering and pain. During this time of year especially, we think of Christ on the cross. And when we hear the verse about bearing our own cross, it is hard to respond enthusiastically. But how many of us see the cross as a way to joy? Certainly Christ saw the cross as necessary to the attainment of joy. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus “who for the joy set before him endured the cross.”

How do I personally envision the cross? Is there promise in the cross for me, or is my focus on an event that happened 2,000 years ago with little eternal significance? Sometimes I can empathize with C. S. Lewis who, soon after his conversion, said, “The irrational dead weight of old skeptical habits, the spirit of this age and the cares of this world steal away all my lively feeling of the truth.” And I might add -joy! So what present promise does the cross hold for me? I have enough trouble just picturing the event itself. It is hard to put my twentieth-century self- with its sanitized, Americanized mindset – back to the scene at Cal

Easter Celebration ’89

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In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul wrote: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter …” (verses 1-5). Christ died and was raised. Why did Christ die and for whom? We have learned the answer to those questions and can recite them like catechism. But often the truth is obscured because of its familiarity.

Let’s look at this in perspective. The Christian message is a global message because Christ’s people are globally located. They are among every tongue, nation, tribe and people. Though we might find stronger pockets of God’s people in certain places from time to time, they are scattered across this planet. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son …” (John 3:16). With that statement, John was reminding us that the Gospel is universal.

Paul says that just as Jesus’ death had global ramifications so does His resurrection from the grave. Both the crucifixion and the resurrection are the highlights of Christ’s great redemptive drama enacted for our salvation. Both events remind us that Christianity is a missionary religion.

Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world. He also came forth from the tomb to seal world

Adjustment after the Death of a Spouse

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Marriage tends to shape and form our whole identity. Before the death of my spouse, my whole life context was marriage. My spouse was involved in every aspect of my day. My decisions, plans and even idle notions – all were integrated into my married lifestyle.

Because anyone who is married becomes “com

Ministering to the Divorced

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By Tom Jones. “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Alien Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.

So began Ralph Ellison’s remarkable novel about being black in America. So also might begin the personal story of countless men and women who have found themselves divorced in the church. They, like Ellison’s invisible man, have felt themselves to be unseen, unknown, untouched. In most cases the church is not guilty of deliberate or even conscious blindness toward the divorced, but the blindness has been real nonetheless. More than anything else this special blindness has come in the form of benign neglect. But benign or not, neglect feels painful to the neglected.

My own divorce is now sixteen years behind me; yet I can still feel the pain of the church’s neglect. Because the church did not reach out to me with meaningful ministry, my personal loneli