John Mark Hicks

In my previous post, I repoduced two responses to a question asked by J. Wesley Smith of Lynchburg, TN, in 1905.  He asked:  “Is it right to make a knowledge of baptism for remission of sins a test of fellowship?” David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate, answered in the negative and George W. Savage, […]

If the life and ministry of Jesus is our pattern, then we all fall woefully short in every way. Moral Patternism. We rarely have a difficult time hearing that we are imperfect in terms of morality since we are well aware that we fail to image the character of Jesus in so  many ways–internally and […]

 Patternism and a healthy theology of grace are not mutually exclusive.  A previous post noted that Alexander Campbell did not make his particular understanding of the apostolic pattern a test of fellowship. The “ancient order” was not a soteriological category for him. Rather, it was a  matter of communal sanctification, a matter of growth, development and […]

It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns.     It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith. That is my summary of what I thought was the sentiment of Cecil May, Jr.’s concluding comments in his February 3, 2009 Freed-Hardeman Lectureship […]

Cecil May, Jr.–Dean of the V. P. Black College of Biblical Studies at Faulkner University–is a kind, loving Christian gentlemen in the best sense of that term.  He was the first to ever interview me for an academic position just weeks before Sheila died as he was about to become President of Magnolia Bible College.  […]

Tennesee and Texas:  Mac Ice has provided another illustration of the tension between Tennessee and Texas on his blog. While looking into the writings of C. E. W. Dorris, a founding elder of Nashville’s Central Church of Christ in 1925 as well as a student of both Lipscomb and Harding at the Nashville Bible School, […]

A “God of technicalities”? The first article I ever published in academia was “The Sabbath Controversy in Matthew: An Exegesis of Matthew 12:1-14″ which appeared in the Restoration Quarterly 27.2 (1984) 79-91. I have now uploaded this on my Academic page. At some point in the future, I may reflect in personal terms on how that study subsequently impacted […]

When you feel forsaken or rejected,  when you feel like a failure or a piece of dirt, when you feel inadequate or deficient, when you feel unloved or unchosen, hear the word of the Lord through Isaiah the prophet Isaiah 62:2b,4,5b …you will be called by a new name        that the mouth of the LORD […]

Psalm 143 O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy…. Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you… So my spirit grows faint within me, my heart within me is dismayed… I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done… Let […]

Tonight I was blessed to listen to Terry Smith teach a class at the Woodmont Hills Family of God.  He asked each of us to meditate on a story about Jesus from one of the Gospels, and then asked some of us to share that story.  While it was helpful to hear what stories impacted […]