A Site for the Teaching Ministry of Nick Batzig
It is the common lot of those God has called into gospel ministry to become discouraged on account of the challenges and trials that come from serving as a pastor. I can almost always sense when a brother is weighed down by the pressures, demands, and discouragements that come with serving as a pastor of a congregation, because I have known them throughout my own pastoral service. The apostle Paul intimated the challenges that pastors face in the church when he added to the external opposition he experienced from the unbelieving world the care that he had for the church. He wrote, "apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:28). So what are ministers to do when they feel overwhelmed by the discouragements of ministry?...
We are meant to know that Jesus had to remain silent when he was judged so that we might have our mouths shut before the just tribunal of God. Then, having heard the sentence exacted against the spotless lamb of God, believers might open their mouths in praise to God for all the ways that He has removed their transgressions and the righteous condemnation that stood against us for Christ's sake. The silence of condemnation belonged to Jesus that praise for justification might be ours. ...
Sadly, many professing believers approach the gifts of the Spirit by overvaluing the idea of the miraculous spiritual gifts (e.g., tongues, prophecy, healing) and undervalue the common spiritual gifts (e.g., salvation and sanctifying fruit). Holding faulty views of the miraculous spiritual gifts is usually due to a failure to grasp the redemptive-historical purpose of the gifts. When we come to understand the biblical teaching about the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and the ordinary gifts of the Spirit, we will better value the greater and continuing gifts in the life of the church today....
When each of the Old Covenant signs (i.e., the rainbow, Sabbath, circumcision, and the Passover) are viewed in light of the fulfillment of all that they typified, we come to understand a great deal about the work of Christ...
As we enter a new year with new personal goals and desires, the Lord wants His people to commit to Christian living among the members of the body. We must resist the urge to look to practices and programs in the local church to live out the Christian life or do the work of ministry for us. Our God has given us the enormous privilege and responsibility of diligently living out, daily, our Christian lives in Christ. Let’s commit ourselves to the practice of seeking to live the organic Christian life in the context of the local church to which we belong. ...
The reason why Mary sang a song of humility is because she was focusing on what God was doing to provide the Savior she needed. Mary had been waiting on God to fulfill the promises that He had made throughout the Old Testament era. Mary doesn't speak of herself or her privileges because Mary was focused on her need for redemption. ...
We rightly wonder of the coming of the eternal Son of God into the world in true human form while wrongly neglecting to wonder at the accompanying role of the Spirit of God in the ministry of the Redeemer....
In many of life’s circumstances, we struggle to understand how we will come to attain the promises of God, forgetting that their fulfillment is entirely based on the person and work of Christ. Jesus has secured an everlasting joy, an inheritance of hope for His people through His death and resurrection. Though we do not now see all that he has for us, we wait for him with patience. We are to be a people who trust in and wait for Christ in faith....
While recent developments concerning the state of Israel have given us reason to revisit this subject--it would do us good to be settled in our minds about the fact that all who are united to Jesus by faith have been made children of Abraham and heirs of God (Gal. 3:29). Believers are the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Phil. 3:20). This is the only Jerusalem that ultimately matters. As John Newton put it, "Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion's children know."...
If 2020 has been challenging for pastors, consider the toll that it has taken on the pastor's wife. She is one of the unsung heroes of the church. The pastor's wife sacrifices unmeasurable and unrecognized time and energy to support the ministry to which her husband has been called--often without the support she needs. In many instances, she is indispensable to the ministr...
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The Christian can have the strongest possible confidence that God cannot and will not change. He cannot and will not lie. This means that even when I feel most unstable in my ever changing affections, God and His promise does not change. This gives us the greatest possible encouragement to go to Him, casting ourselves and our burdens upon Him--knowing that He will always u...
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In my first foray into public ministry, I was met with what I deemed to be a highly unusual request. One of the elders of the church in which I was serving asked me to refer to the printed order of worship as a "playbill" rather than as a bulletin. This struck me as strange for a number of reasons--not least of which is that I couldn’t wrap my mind around how doing such ...
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Believers often meditate on the love, the joy, and the peace of Jesus. However, most of us probably do not give enough attention to the thanksgiving of Jesus. One of the things that we can be certain of--concerning all of the sinless perfections of incarnate Son of God--is that Jesus expressed full and unceasing gratitude to His Father for every provision, every kindness, ...
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The more we understand the relationship between Satan and sin--keeping them in biblical perspective and viewing them in light of the person and work of Christ--the better equipped we will be to put sin to death and to avoid the temptations that so easily ensnare us. ...
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Since the preaching of the gospel is the primary means by which God saves His people, ministers of the gospel should concern themselves with pursuing growth in their ability to skilfully communicate the truth of Scripture. Pastors should avail themselves of all the means of growth that are at their disposal. In so doing, we may never become the best preachers in the world,...
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With the potential for the entire world to stream into our minds and hearts by means of the internet, it is safe to conclude that there has never been a time when Christians needed discernment so much as at present....
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I sometimes fear that there is a willful naïveté in the church with regard to the presence and power of Satan. One doesn't have to look far into the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, or the New Testament Epistles to discover the reality of the spiritual forces of darkness and to develop a theology of the assault tactics of the evil one. But it might surprise some to see...
Keep ReadingWith the five hundred and third anniversary of the inception of the Protestant Reformation upon us, it will do us good to remember that the Reformation was not simply a defense of sola Scriptura and the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith alone–it was a reformation in worship and ecclesiology. Since Rome had rooted its sacerdotalism (i.e., priesthood) i...
Keep ReadingA man preparing for pastoral ministry needs not only the scientific tools to learn the multi-variegated aspects of theology--he also needs the skill of experienced men to teach him how to weave them into the fabric of his ministry to a congregation. It is one thing to know the doctrine of God with scholastic and categorical precision; it is quite another thing to know how ...
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