Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, 3rd ed.

by Mark Dever

Publisher:

Crossway

, 2013

Overview

You may have read books on this topic before—but not like this one. Instead of an instruction manual for church growth, this classic text offers tried and true principles for assessing the health of your church. Whether you’re a pastor, a leader, or an involved member of your congregation, studying the nine marks of a healthy church will help you cultivate new life and well-being within your own church for God’s glory.

This classic guide has been recently revised to include a new foreword as well as updated content, illustrations, and appendices.

Key Features

• Presents a guide to evaluating the health of the church
• Useful for pastors, church leaders, or just active congregation members
• Features updated content, new illustrations, and new appendices

Contents

• Mark One: Expositional Preaching
• Mark Two: Biblical Theology
• Mark Three: The Gospel
• Mark Four: A Biblical Understanding of Conversion
• Mark Five: A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
• Mark Six: A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership
• Mark Seven: Biblical Church Discipline
• Mark Eight: A Concern for Discipleship and Growth
• Mark Nine: Biblical Church Leadership
• Appendix 1: Tips for Leading the Church in a Healthy Direction
• Appendix 2: “Don’t Do it!” Why You Shouldn’t Practice Church Discipline
• Appendix 3: The Original 9 Marks Letter
• Appendix 4: Medicines from the Cabinet

Top Highlights

“Expositional preaching is not simply producing a verbal commentary on some passage of Scripture. Rather, expositional preaching is preaching that takes for the point of a sermon the point of a particular passage of Scripture. That’s it. The preacher opens the Word and unfolds it for the people of God.” (Page 44)

“The first mark of a healthy church is expositional preaching. It is not only the first mark; it is far and away the most important of them all, because if you get this one right, all of the others should follow.” (Pages 42–43)

“Simply put, we need churches that are self-consciously distinct from the culture. We need churches in which the key indicator of success is not evident results but persevering biblical faithfulness. We need churches that help us to recover those aspects of Christianity that are distinct from the world, and that unite us.” (Page 32)

“Five words summarize what the Bible teaches us about God: he is creating; he is holy; he is faithful; he is loving; and he is sovereign.” (Page 68)

“But if you establish the priority of the Word, then you have in place the single most important aspect of the church’s life, and growing health is virtually assured, because God has decided to act by his Spirit through his Word.” (Page 43)

Product Details

• Title: Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Ed.)
• Author: Mark Dever
• Edition: Third Edition
• Series: 9Marks
• Publisher: Crossway
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2019
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Church › Marks
• ISBNs: 9781433539985, 9781433539992, 9781433540004, 9781433540011, 9781433578113, 1433539985, 1433539993, 1433540002, 1433540010, 1433578115
• Resource ID: LLS:NNMRKSHLT3RDED
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:52:20Z

About Mark Dever

Mark E. Dever (born August 28th, 1960) has been the senior pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. since 1994 and is the executive director of 9Marks Ministries (formerly known as the Center for Church Reform), a Christian ministry he co-founded “in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America.”. He is known as a Calvinist preacher.