by Skip Tschantz | Feb 18, 2019 | Articles, Mentors Corner
“…but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” Ephesians 6:6 A friend facing a moral dilemma recently said to me “I am struggling with my decision, but I want to do the right thing”. As we talked together in an attempt to work through the issue, I asked the question, “Do the right thing by whose standards?” This seems to be the key question as we face many of the difficult decisions of life and attempt to do what is right. “Do the right thing by whose standards” is the question. It is not that there is a lack of standards. Standards abound all around us. Everyone has their standards because everyone believes in moral absolutes. Meaning that everyone has a point where they declare what they believe to be right and wrong. At some point everyone will say “that is wrong” and in so doing they declare what is for them a moral absolute. The issue isn’t whether or not people believe in moral absolutes, the issue is who gets to decide what the moral absolutes are. That was the issue in the Garden of Eden and it is the issue today. A key distinction of being a Christian is that we affirm the fact that God gets to decide what is right and wrong and, in turn, we get to obey. To do otherwise is to expect to have a relationship with God on our terms as opposed to His. Something He is not anxious to do. As Followers of Jesus Christ we must not succumb to the pressure from the world...
by Skip Tschantz | Oct 7, 2019 | Articles, Testimonies
“…but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” Ephesians 6:6 A friend facing a moral dilemma recently said to me “I am struggling with my decision, but I want to do the right thing”. As we talked together in an attempt to work through the issue, I asked the question, “Do the right thing by whose standards?” This seems to be the key question as we face many of the difficult decisions of life and attempt to do what is right. “Do the right thing by whose standards” is the question. It is not that there is a lack of standards. Standards abound all around us. Everyone has their standards because everyone believes in moral absolutes. Meaning that everyone has a point where they declare what they believe to be right and wrong. At some point everyone will say “that is wrong” and in so doing they declare what is for them a moral absolute. The issue isn’t whether or not people believe in moral absolutes, the issue is who gets to decide what the moral absolutes are. That was the issue in the Garden of Eden and it is the issue today. A key distinction of being a Christian is that we affirm the fact that God gets to decide what is right and wrong and, in turn, we get to obey. To do otherwise is to expect to have a relationship with God on our terms as opposed to His. Something He is not anxious to do. As Followers of Jesus Christ we must not succumb to the pressure from the world...
by Skip Tschantz | Aug 8, 2016 | Articles, Mentors Corner
Responding to Society Keeping the Mission in Focus Being mindful of our mission Titus 3:8: This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men. What is Paul referring to that is good and profitable for all men? Lets look at 2 Corinthians 5 where we see an outline of our mission. 2 Cor 5:18-21 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Our mission is not to impact our culture by changing their moral values, or by legislative or judicial process. Our mission is to be an ambassador through whom God can reconcile men and women to Himself. The Bible doesn’t mandate that we are to impact our culture so that it becomes Christianized. To embrace this view will blur our priorities and weaken our allegiance. Our priority is the gospel and our allegiance is to Jesus Christ and to Him alone. Our calling is not to change society...
by Skip Tschantz | Nov 30, 2015 | Articles, Mentors Corner
Responding to Society Titus 3:1-8 Part 1 – Identifying the Issue This short study on responding to our society may leave us with some challenging questions about our personal application. Certainly it begs the questions: “what about all the garbage that is going on in our society?” Aren’t we to take a stand against the moral decline, the political direction that we may not like and a whole host of other issues? Aren’t we to try our best to change society to reflect Biblical standards? What does a Biblical response look like? What kind of an obligation do we have to our children and grandchildren? These are serious if not daunting questions for the follower of Christ. No one can tell you what your application should look like in the area of stewardship or even the positive commands. The challenge is left up to each one of us to determine how God would have us respond. However, we can gain some valuable insight from Scripture to help us navigate this critical issue. To do this we will look at the epistle of Titus. Titus was ministering on the island of Crete where there were a number of pockets of believers scattered around the various cities of this island. This was an area that was as pagan and godless at we could possibly imagine and the purpose of Paul’s letter to Titus was to give him instruction on how to instruct the various churches in the area of Godly behavior. The epistle basically breaks down into three sections. Godliness in the church – Chapter 1 Godliness in the home –...
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