Sam Emadi
The Conversation Behind the Conversation: How Ecclesiological Assumptions Shape Our Complementarianism
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning | 12.10.2019Behind many of our complementarian debates are significant differences about how we view the church.
You’re Not a Healthy Church Unless You Care About Titus 2
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning | 12.10.2019If your church doesn’t encourage women teaching women the Bible, then it’s not fulfilling Scripture’s vision of a healthy church.
3 Ways Baptism & the Lord’s Supper Ought to Shape our Monday through Saturday
By Sam Emadi | 08.12.2019For too many Christians, baptism and the Supper are exclusively about personal professions of faith, and personal expression of one’s obedience to Jesus.
7 Well-Meaning Objections to Church Discipline — And How Pastors Ought to Respond to Them
By C. Greggsen, S. Emadi | 07.05.2019Let’s briefly consider some of the “good-faith” objections to discipline we’ve encountered and how we try to help church members understand the theological principles undergirding discipline.
Mailbag #84: I Live too Far from A Healthy Church. What Should I Do? . . . Among Baptists, What’s the History of a Plurality of Elders?
By S. Emadi, S. DeMars | 05.31.2019— I live in an extremely rural area where we have many churches but none that are healthy. What should I do? — Many Baptist churches now have multiple elders. I understand the biblical case for this, but what’s the history of a plurality of elders among Baptists?
Metaphors and Membership: How Biblical Metaphors for the Church Require Church Membership
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Church Membership: Following the Lord Together | 05.07.2019If you’re looking for the words “thou shalt be a church member” in Scripture, you won’t find them. But if that troubles you, let me encourage you to think a little differently about how to arrive at biblical conclusions.
Two Prooftexts for Church Membership
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Church Membership: Following the Lord Together | 05.07.2019As a professor of mine used to say, “there’s nothing wrong with a prooftext… as long as the text proves what you say it does.”
Mailbag #78: Can a Church Require Too Many Meetings? . . . Should the Church be Involved in a Pastor’s Decision to Leave? . . . Reformed Theology in the Church’s Teaching Ministry
By C. Humfrey, M. Livingston, S. Emadi | 03.22.2019Can a church require too many services? How can pastors shepherd their flock while transitioning out? How should pastors teach about Reformed theology?
Episode 74: On Ecclesiology for Calvinists (with Sam Emadi)
By J. Leeman, M. Dever, S. Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Ecclesiology for Calvinists | 02.05.2019For this episode of Pastors’ Talk, Jonathan interviewed Mark Dever and Sam Emadi about our new Journal, Ecclesiology for Calvinists.
Teach, Wait, Repeat: How Calvinism Fuels My Commitment to Congregationalism
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Ecclesiology for Calvinists | 02.05.2019We’ll consider how our theology shapes our polity, how polity shapes ministry, and how ministry is fueled by our conception of God.
Book Review: Salvation with a Smile: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, and American Christianity
Review by Sam Emadi | 01.31.2019One key takeaway from the story of Joel Osteen’s ministry is the way that he and other modern mainstream prosperity preachers have altered the prosperity gospel to fit more with America’s secularizing worldview.
An Open Letter to Baptist Pastors Considering Open Membership
By Sam Emadi | 01.14.2019Baptism is an authorized declaration of the credibility of someone’s confession, not just a private judgment about whether we think someone is a Christian.
Practice Charity, Pursue Credibility: How to Respond to a Child’s Profession of Faith
By C. Greggsen, S. Emadi | 01.07.2019In every case, a church ought to be careful, weeding through words to attempt to discern the motivation behind a profession of faith―in other words, its credibility.
Bad Biblical Theology Leads to Bad Sermons
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: What's Wrong With Gospel-Centered Preaching Today? | 11.19.2018All of us—not just preachers—should beware bad biblical theology. But what exactly does bad biblical theology look like?
Understanding Our True Citizenship
By Sam Emadi | 9Marks Journal: Church Life: Our True Political Witness | 04.17.2018According to Scripture, our conversion isn’t an isolated, private act. Conversion involves a change of citizenship from one kingdom to another.
