To “think” Kingdom as well as to know the facts about it, because He said “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. . .”[Phil. 2:5]. His “Kingdom” is more than just a well-constructed, long-range plan for His world and His Heaven, it is a way of thinking which will affect everything we say and do in personal, family, church and political relationships.

Roy Blackwood, The King and His Kingdom, 3.

For it is not the prerogative of the church to define either its status or activity. It is Christ’s church, not humankind’s. It is Christ, therefore, who declares both that his church shall have a government and what the nature of that government will be. This he has done through the inspired Scriptures. The principle of “Scripture alone” (as opposed to the prelatic Scripture plus tradition) must prevail for determining both the type of government and how it should function. Thus as in the worship service, so also in its structure and government, we have the “regulative principle” of Scripture.

David W. Hall & Joseph H. Hall, Paradigms in Polity: Classic Readings in Reformed and Presbyterian Church Government, 4.

Theodore Beza once pointed out the strategic nature of good church government by considering it as Satan’s chief opposition: Satan “hopes that it is easier to overthrow it [i.e., the government of the church] than to overthrow the foundation which is doctrine.” Why, if Beza is correct, is church government vulnerable, and what makes it so necessary? Moreover, how has the history of church government pointed out that necessity? That is the focus of this introductory essay. Beza is surely correct in his contention that laxity in applying biblical principles of church government leads eventually to erosion of doctrine in the church. Therefore, we ought ever to be assiduously conforming church polity to biblical norms.

David W. Hall & Joseph H. Hall, Paradigms in Polity: Classic Readings in Reformed and Presbyterian Church Government, 3.

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The Cannibals! you will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the room exclaiming, “After that I have nothing more to say!”

John G. Paton, The Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 56.

Q. How do minsters murder other men’s souls?

A. By entering into the ministry without God’s call, which renders their labor unprofitable; by neglecting due pains for their people’s instruction and conversion; by preaching error, or truth in a wrong manner; by administration of the sacraments to the ignorant and profane; and by their loose and carnal example, Jer. 23.

Q. How do ministers murder men’s souls by a wrong way of preaching truth?

A. By preaching the law as a covenant, as it might and should be obeyed by us to render us welcome to Christ as a Savior; by insisting chiefly on circumstantial points; by preaching to a multitude as if they were all saints, or in such a manner as makes saints discredit their relation to Christ, or forget the duty of the present times, Ezek. 33. Jer. 23.

Q. How do magistrates murder other men’s souls?

A. By not providing their subjects with schools, and a pure gospel ministry; and by not punishing, but encouraging error, superstition, and gross immorality, Mic. 6:16.

John Brown of Haddington, Questions and Answers on the Shorter Catechism, 249-250.

Jesus is both the leader of our praise to God and the appropriate object of our worship and praise.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 300.

No matter the denomination, tradition, or church polity, what we Christians do together in corporate worship shapes our understanding of God, ourselves, his world, and how we are to live.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 285.

A believer is a sinner who is loved by God. When he realizes this, he enters the sphere of God’s love. He himself becomes loving.

New International Dictionary of NT Theology, Vol. 2, 545.

In the New Testament love is one of the central ideas which express the whole content of the Christian faith.

New International Dictionary of NT Theology, Vol. 2, 542.

The human mind does not quickly lose its habit of worrying and needs urging to keep pace with reality instead of dwelling on the nightmares of the past.

Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, Volume 21: Revised Edition (Word Biblical Commentary), 156.