The Silent Holocron

We've Moved!

2006-09-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

The Silent Holocron has moved to WordPress! There I can offer you a much improved blog, complete with categories and the like. Don't worry, all of my posts on Blogger transferred beautifully. And it only took about 10 to 15 minutes to transfer 251 posts! All I had to do was back up my Blogger template and I was good to go. The new address is http://stephennewell.wordpress.com. Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls, if you're one of the four or five people who have done so! Now, if only we can get Timmy Brister to follow suit and categorize. *wink wink nudge nudge*

Blog Update

2006-09-07T05:22:00.000-04:00

Just a note: my blog may be moving to WordPress in the near future. I have been playing around with different blog hosts and WordPress is thus far my favorite. You can categorize your posts, personalize your blog easily, manage comments without having to deal with 50 different screens, and lots of other really nice stuff. It even allows you to import your posts from Blogger! This may be the solution many of us have been looking for, as Blogger seems to have been very unreliable as of late. Slow, muddy connections, troubles with Blogger Beta, plodding blog administration, and so on. I already have the blog set up; it merely remains for me to decide if moving to WordPress is the way I want to go. If so, then I must merely import my posts to WordPress and categorize. Then I can really get started making things look like home again. And just like Blogger, WordPress is free. Check it out if you're looking for blog solutions.

Musings on Frank Page's Chapel Message and An $1800 Book

2006-09-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: Timmy Brister has posted on Dr. Page's message here. He also captured for all eternity Dr. Page signing my copy of Trouble With The TULIP! But if anything, he's captured for all eternity that I need to get back in shape. ;-p Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page spoke at Southern Seminary's Tuesday chapel. I made a point of getting up early to go hear him. It was well worth setting the alarm. President Page preached a very convicting sermon entitled "Changing That Which We Can Change" from Philippians 1:12-20. I say it was convicting because I wish I'd heard that sermon about 4 years ago, shortly before beginning my struggles with burnout. It is also convicting in light of the current political silliness in the SBC, as well as the theological silliness going around about Calvinism. What follows are my impressions from his message. I am sure there are others who can offer something more indepth and of more substance, and I encourage you to read theirs as well, should they post. But here are my gleanings. When our circumstances in life appear difficult, can we change them? When we face difficult circumstances, more likely than not we cannot change them, precisely because they have been brought upon us by the Lord. Page drew from Paul's account in this passage three things. What we can change, and ought to change, is our mindset, our motivation, and our methodology.

Mindset

Our mindset, Page said, must be one that sees all circumstances as an opportunity to glorify God. Instead of taking mindsets of despair, jealousy, etc., Paul was encouraged that he had the opportunity to glorify God in the Roman jail in which he was held. His attitude, Page said, was one that said "I will proclaim the Gospel no matter my circumstances." We ought have the same mindset as Paul--no matter my situation, I will proclaim the Gospel.

Motivation

Our motives must constantly be checked, Page stressed. Why are we doing what we are doing? Are we doing it to feel good about ourselves? Are we doing it to push an agenda? Are we doing it because we are aligned with a faction? All these motives are sinful and unbiblical. Page here made a proclamation that brought several "amens:" We are all on the same team. Southern Baptists have got to understand this. Let me write that out with the proper emphasis he gave, in pulpit pounding: "We are all (pound) on (pound) the same (pound) team (pound). Southern Baptists have GOT (POUND) to understand this!" Page went on to say that it is not about our feelings, factions, or agendas, because we are all on the same team. Therefore our motivation must be for His kingdom and for His glory. Paul didn't care about the "whys" and "wherefores" of his opponents. The only thing Paul cared about was that they were preaching the Gospel, though their motives were not pure. We must have the same motivation as Paul, one that simply seeks to see God and His kingdom lifted up through the proclamation of the Gospel.

Methodology

I think this point brought the greatest agreement among the audience. Does what we do in our ministry bring shame and reproach upon the Gospel? If it does we must not do it. We must continually ask ourselves, "Is what we are doing pure and right, and does it bring glory to God?" If it is not and does not, we must get rid of it. The entire point is that we must have first and foremost the glory of God as our goal. Page closed his message with a good summary: "Though our circumstances in life may never change, we can change the way we face them by checking our mindset, motivation, and methodology." Dr. Mohler, after a few remarks, most of which I was unable to follow, led the student in a time of silent prayer which I can only assume was meant for us to reflect and meditate on Page's message to us. I prayed that the Lord would forgive me for the times in which I had not kept His glory as the main thing. I prayed that He would ever lead me to seek His glory in all things, that He would keep me on the path that He has prepared for me.

Trouble With The TULIP

Afterwards, I found Guillaume McDowell and walked out with him. For those of you wondering if he's been thrown in jail for the illegal possession of the bottle of Welch's Grape Juice I gave him, you may rest easy. Blogger has been acting up, as he attempted to switch to Blogger Beta, and it seems the folks at Blogger have royally screwed up his blog access. But anyway, I walked out with him, and mentioned that I was going to get Dr. Page to sign my copy of Trouble With The Tulip. He was tickled to death and so was I! As I reached the end of the greeting line, I thanked Dr. Page for a convicting message and made sure he knew that our church was praying for him. Then he graciously consented to sign my copy of TWTT! That's right, I got a signed copy now! Just a little while ago, I went to enter TWTT into my catalog, and discovered something interesting. Amazon.com still lists TWTT as "out-of-print," but they only have one used copy. That in and of itself is nothing, but it was listed as $1,842.54! A used copy! That is one expensive book! I got a real steal at $14.50 from Lifeway.

Other Stuff

Well, that about wraps up my day. Tricia and I finally bought a bookshelf, and the bulk of my books are now put away, praise the Lord. We also took my desktop computer in for diagnostics and an estimate on the repairs. It mysteriously went kerfuffle back in March or April, maybe even as far back as February, and I've delayed getting it fixed due to finances and that little thing I had to do called getting married. Please pray that I don't lose anything, because I have a year and a half's worth of sermons on it as well as two years of schoolwork and other ministry work that I'd like to save.

Grace Through Obedient Faith: Romans 1:5-7

2006-09-04T19:02:00.000-04:00

The Silent Holocron dedicates Monday space to the sermon that will be preached the following Sunday. Stephen will flesh out each of his sermon points in these posts. To read any Greek or Hebrew fonts that may be present, download SIL Greek or SIL Hebrew as needed from the link in the sidebar. Any feedback you can give on what is posted would be greatly appreciated.

Romans 1:5-7

diH oÆ lbomen crin ka± postolÑn e¸v ÃpakoÑn p°stewv n psin to²v qnesin Ãpr toÂ ìnçmatov aÇtoÂ n oµv ste ka± Ãme²v kljto± HIjsoÂ CristoÂ psin to²v oÊsin n hRðmÛ gapjto²v qeoÂ kljto²v g°oiv criv Ãm²n ka± e¸rÐnj pè qeoÂ patrèv Ómòn ka± kur°ou HIjsoÂ CristoÂ

di ou elabomen charin kai apostoljn eis hupakojn pistews en pasin tois ethnesin huper tou onomatos autou en hois este kai humeis kljtoi Iesou Christou pasin tois ousin en Rwmj agapjtois theou kljtois hagiois charis humin kain eirjnj apo theou patros hjmwn kai kuriou Ijsou Christou

Through whom we received grace and apostleship in obedience of faith in all the nations for the sake of the name of him in whom you are (and you are called ones of Jesus Christ), to all the beloved, called, holy ones of God in Rome; grace to you and peace from God the father of us and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Obedience of Faith

Having named the Son of God in verse 4, Paul then tells us something interesting.  It is through Jesus, the Son of God, that we receive grace.  Not only that, but it is through Jesus, the Son of God, that we receive our calling, the job which God has planned for us from before the foundation of the world.  But Paul, echoing what he will write later in Romans, tells us the way in which we receive the grace that Jesus brings us – the obedience of faith.

What is this “obedience of faith?”  We must remember first what faith is.  Faith is belief and trust in something we know.  Faith is not faith if it lacks any of these three components.  We must know about the object we are to have faith in.  We must believe in the object; that is, we must believe to be true what we know about the object.  We must also trust the object of faith.

What this means is that faith is not a feeling.  Faith is not an emotion that grows bigger and smaller.  Faith is an action.  A classic illustration of faith is given in a chair.  I know the chair is designed to hold my weight if I sit on it.  I believe the chair will hold my weight if I sit on it.  But until I trust the chair by actually sitting on it, I do not have faith that the chair will hold my weight.  Faith must be acted upon, or it is not faith.

This is what is meant by the term “obedience of faith;” that trusting action that is the mark of true faith.  And that trusting action is resting on Jesus Christ, the Son of God revealed by the Gospel.  We could also call this “obedient faith.”

The Result of Obedient Faith

What is the result of obedient faith?  Paul says that we receive the grace of God dispensed through Jesus Christ.  We receive God’s unmerited favor simply by trusting in His Son.  Paul will write in Ephesians 2:8 “By grace you have been saved through faith.”  Faith is the entryway to God’s grace; it is the “narrow gate” of which Jesus speaks in Matthew 7:13-14.  The first and most important result of obedient faith is that we are saved.

Second, Paul says that he received apostleship.  He received the job by which he identifies himself in verse 1.  Each of us receives our task as Christians when we place our trust in Christ.

When I first trusted Christ, I was immediately called to ministry by the Holy Spirit.  Oh, how I resisted it!  I “knew” I did not want to be a preacher.  But God had decreed how I would serve Him long before I was born.  It was foolishness for me to run from His divine call on my life.  Remember, Paul says that he is Jesus’ slave.  I am a slave of Jesus, just like Paul, and I have no right to tell God I won’t do what He has called me to do!

In the same way each of you were given a task to accomplish when you placed your trust in Christ and became His slave.  Why do some of you resist His calling on your life?  You don’t have the right to tell God “no!”

In All the Nations

Paul then tells us something remarkable. Grace is now available to all who exhibit obedient faith anywhere in the world. This is an echo of John 3:16, in which God promises eternal life to all who believe. Grace, God’s favor, is no longer limited to a dinky little backwater nation in the middle of the desert. It has been brought to the whole world in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and all people must do is place their trust in Him.

For the Sake of His Name

Why has God allowed His grace to be dispensed? So that the name of the one who dispenses His grace is glorified. That is the meaning of the phrase “for the sake of his name.” God has given His grace to all who place their trust in Christ for one reason only – to bring glory to His name in the person of Jesus. He didn’t do it for me or for you. He did it solely for Himself.

Realizing this, we should be stricken to our knees in awe that He condescended to allow one such as ourselves to be the vessels by which His name to be glorified! He did not have to choose us to be vessels of glorification, yet He did! Praise be to His glorious name in all the earth!

In Whom We Are

Next, Paul says that we are in the one whose name is being glorified. We are in union, in relationship, to the one whom we have trusted. If there is any doubt in the reader’s mind, Paul quickly reminds us that we are the called ones of Jesus Christ. We are His slaves, and as such are joined to Him in a way that cannot be broken.

The Beloved, Called, and Holy Ones

Now Paul addresses his intended audience.  Having given such a great pedigree for himself and his brothers and sisters in Christ, he turns to a specific group of those brothers and sisters.  He calls them the beloved, called, holy ones of God.

Each of us who have trusted Christ is loved by God.  John 3:16 tells us that only those of us whom have trusted God experience His love in Christ.  If God loves the world through Christ, then the only way for us to experience that love is also through Christ.  Trust in Christ brings us the rich experience of the love of God that cannot be had through any other avenue.  Those in Rome had experienced the rich love of God in Christ.

Remember, each of us who have trusted Christ is called to perform a specific task for the Lord.  Those in Rome were no different.

But Paul also calls them holy.  The word I translate “holy ones” here is usually translated “saints” in our Bibles.  What a remarkable thing!  Each of us who have trusted Christ are holy ones, saints!  We are holy not of ourselves, but by virtue of the grace we have received through our faith in Christ.  What a contrast to the Catholic Church’s idea of a saint, so-called through manmade designations!  It is not the declaration of a church, a priest, or a Pope that makes us holy; it is the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Greetings of Grace

Paul greets those Roman Christians by wishing that they continue to receive from God grace and peace through their trust in Jesus. What a wonderful way to say “hello!” This kind of greeting is one that wishes only the best for the other person. We as born-again believers must desire nothing but the best for our brothers and sisters in the faith. Nothing could be better than God’s favor and peace!

Have you ever had God’s favor and peace? I tell you today, the only way to have grace and peace in your life is to place your trust in Christ. I have shown you that Jesus is the Son of God by whom God saves us. I have shown you that anyone can be saved if they would simply trust in Jesus. You know what I have told you. Do you believe it to be true? If you do, would you trust the truth I have shown you? If you are a beloved one of God, you will trust Him. All you must do to trust Him is repent of your sins and believe in Christ, and you will experience the love of God that saves sinners. Don’t wait! Trust in Christ today!

Introducing Deaf Ministry: Sobering Statistics

2006-09-01T18:05:00.000-04:00

Last time, I promised to provide some statistics about Deaf ministry that would, quite frankly, shock you. I will not give a lot of introduction to these facts; instead, I will let them speak for themselves.

There are an estimated 250 million Deaf individuals worldwide.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports 35 million Americans have hearing trouble. Of this number, at least 1 million (or more, estimates vary) are what we would call Deaf in the sense in which I am a minister.
In Louisville/Jefferson County alone, Census figures estimate 14,000 deaf individuals. Add the "hard of hearing," and this number jumps to over 69,000. Many of these, however, are older people who have lost their hearing. The actual number of Deaf individuals is more likely between 7,000 - 8,000, according to estimates given to me by the local Department of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Many of these Deaf individuals cannot be found. A canvassing survey undertaken by my church, Louisville Baptist Deaf Church, in the 1990s was only able to uncover about 400 names.
Of the worldwide and American numbers, according to the organization Deaf Missions, less than two percent (2%) of Deaf individuals claim to be Christians. This means that, percentage wise, there are less than 200 Deaf Christians in Louisville. The actual number, to my knowledge, is at or slightly greater than this percentage.
The majority of these Christians either do not regularly attend church, "church hop" in order to be with friends as much as possible, or are not active in the churches of which they are members.
Bob Rhoads of Campus Crusade for Christ reports that in 2005, 42 out of the 65 Deaf churches in the U.S. did not have a pastor.
In Louisville, there is only one Deaf church, and it is blessed to have two pastors, myself and our Senior Pastor Tim Bender.

In contrast, there are hundreds of interpreting ministries in hearing churches all over America and the world. They are little more than gateways for many Deaf; that is, they are little more than seed-planters. It is the Christian Deaf community and those hearing who have dedicated themselves to Deaf ministry that typically are used by God to water and harvest. Why is this? Culturally, Deaf people have responded, generally, that hearing churches have tried to make Deaf ministry fit a hearing mold. I will give an example that truly rankles me these days to illustrate this point. Today in our circles there is a growing disdain for contemporary worship methods, particularly images, which extends to Powerpoint and videos. I'm sorry, but in Deaf ministry nothing could be more disastrous. Deaf people are a visual people. They typically learn visually. It is not enough to simply tell a Deaf person something; one must show it to them. The majority of Deaf individuals are not functionally developed enough to grasp abstract thought; these people need to be shown examples, things that can be seen, grasped and understood. Even those who (like myself) are functionally "advanced" require visual representations of concepts from time to time. For an example, I blogged about a theological conversation I had with my wife using condiments as illustration tools in this post. I am one of the very rare Deaf individuals who essentially function as a hearing person, and am blessed in that respect. It is also a curse in my ministry, because it is very easy for me to forget to be representational in my preaching. I do not use enough examples, enough pictures, enough dramatizations in my teaching. J. I. Packer, in Knowing God, writes that images distort our understanding of God by making the infinite into something finite, the perfect into the imperfect, substituting worship of the Creator for worship of the Created. In Deaf ministry, I have to wholeheartedly distance myself from Packer, as much as I agree with his theology on this issue. It is a practical impossibility to eschew visuals. But enough of the soapbox. In the next post, I will detail this general response that non-Deaf ministries are "too hearing."

Photo Friday and Deaf Trivia

2006-09-01T14:46:00.000-04:00

Today's photo comes with a bit of Deaf trivia. Did you know that the huddle, a staple in modern football, is a Deaf invention? The concept of the huddle was first started at Gallaudet University in Washington, D. C. Gallaudet, the only "Deaf" college in America, fielded a football team in 1896. The quarterback, Paul Hubbard, needed a way to relay the plays to his teammates in sign language without the other team seeing what he was signing, and thus stealing the play. He gathered his teammates around him in a circle so that he could relay to his offensive teammates plays that came from the sideline without giving them away to the defense. This caught on, leading many to erroneously name later hearing football legends as the "inventor" of the huddle (such as Amos Alonzo Stagg and Bob Zuppke). In other interesting Deaf inventions, we also invented the umpire's signal for a strike in baseball. This led to the development of the umpire's signals in general. The next time you watch football or baseball, take a minute to thank God for his Deaf creations!

Weird-O-Cron™

2006-08-31T06:36:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the return of the Weird-O-Cron™! This installment: FERRET LEGGING!!! Ferret legging is the oldest sport involving an animal where competitors are not riding. Ferret legging is described as: A sport practiced in Yorkshire, England. It was first brought to light by Donald Katz, in an article entitled “King of the Ferret Leggers,” in the February 1983 issue of Outside magazine. The sport involves putting two angry ferrets inside one's trousers, having first tied one's trouser cuffs firmly to one's ankles, lest the ferrets escape. The competitor then cinches his belt tightly, and the clock is started. Competitors cannot be drunk or drugged, nor can the ferrets be drugged. In addition, competitors cannot wear underpants beneath their trousers, and the ferrets' teeth cannot be filed or otherwise blunted. The record-holder at the time of Katz' article was Reg Mellor, a 72-year-old retired miner from Yorkshire. Mellor's winning time was five hours and twenty-six minutes of "keepin' 'em down." It was Mellor who instituted the practice of wearing white trousers in ferret-legging matches "to better show the blood." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is truly weird.

Declared the Son of God - Romans 1:2-4

2006-08-28T22:11:00.000-04:00

All righty, Romans 1:1 was a success. I’ve yet to hear how this helped our interpreters, but hopefully it did a great deal of good for them. In keeping with posting the upcoming Sunday’s sermon, let us move now to Romans 1:2-4 and the topic of the day, “Declared to be the Son of God.” Once again you'll need SIL Greek font (see sidebar for permanent link) to read the Greek parts. Feel free to critique in the commnts!

ê proepjgge°lato di tòn profjtòn aÇtoÂ n grafa²v g°aiv per± toÂ u³oÂ aÇtoÂ toÂ genomnou k sprmatov Dau±d kat srka toÂ érisqntov u³oÂ qeoÂ n dunmei kat pneÂma giwsÀnjv x nastsewv nekròn HIjsoÂ CristoÂ toÂ kur°ou Ómòn

“Which he promised before through his prophets in holy writings concerning his son, who became flesh from David’s seed, who had been declared Son of God in power according to a spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord”

Having given us an explicit statement of who he was and what he was doing here (unlike Stockdale, who couldn’t), Paul now turns to the what of his mission, the Gospel. Today I would like for us to learn what Paul has to say about the Gospel in verses 2-4.

A Promise From the Lord

Paul first tells us that the Gospel is something that was promised a long time ago (though fortunately not in a galaxy far, far away).  This is signified by the word proepjgge°lato. It contains a preposition at the beginning of the word, pro, which gives the meaning “before.”  We see this in words in modern usage such as “prologue.”  The remaining word is translated “to promise” or “he promised,” in this specific configuration.  So we arrive at “he promised before (or beforehand).”

Paul then tells us who the promise was made to.  The promise of the Gospel was given to the prophets of Israel, who in turn wrote it down in what would become the Old Testament.  Given that the entire Old Testament contains prophetic references to the Gospel, we can say that every biblical writer was in this respect a prophet.  The Bible is not just a history book or a book of legend (as some in the world would have us believe); it is a promise which has been handed down to successive generations over three to four thousand years.  The promise is still given today to all who do not believe, and is realized and lived out by all who have placed their hope and trust in it.

Paul now is ready to tell us what the promise is about in which we are to hope and trust.  The promise is about God’s Son.  This son was to become flesh.  That means it was to become a human being.  Not only that, His Son was to be born from one of David’s descendants.  To a first-century Jew, the name David would evoke images of none other than the great King David of history.  That meant that God’s Son would be descended from the royal line of Israel, from an anointed ruler.  Perhaps this is a reason why messiah translates “anointed one,” because just as their greatest king was an anointed one, so the final ruler of history was to be an anointed one as well.

Declared the Son of God

Having told us who the promise is about, Paul now looks to tell us how we would know the promise would be fulfilled.  Paul uses an interesting word to describe this prophecy’s fulfillment.  He says the Son of God would be toÂ érisqntov, declared, to be what he is.  He would not simply show up and assume his mantle.  He would make himself known to Israel and the world.  The Greek word used here is an Aorist middle participle, and is translated roughly as “the one who had been declared.”  So the Promised One would also be a Declared One.  Such a pronouncement brings to mind the story of Jesus’ birth, with an angelic announcement that he had been born.  What a declaration!

But Paul says the promise was specific about how the Son of God would be declared.  He would be declared in three ways:

1.  In Power.  The Son of God was to be declared in power.  This son would wield incredible power.  The Jews considered this power to be largely political, one that would bring freedom and autonomy to their oft-oppressed nation.  But the Old Testament, according to Paul, painted a different picture.  The Son of God’s power would be a spiritual power, one that would bring to an end all rebellion against God and would bring God’s people into a right relationship with Him.  Certainly, as the Son of God, he had vast material power that no ruler could possibly stand against.  But as Paul would later explain in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

2.  According to the spirit of holiness.  An interesting turn of phrase once again.  Instead of simply saying “Holy Spirit,” Paul brings us a brand new term.  It is never seen anywhere else in Scripture.  The Son of God would be known for his personal holiness.  But I would like to make a distinction here.  As flesh, this person could never be holy on his own.  As God, this person could be infinitely holy.  As God, this person certainly had access to the benefit of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, and as such the Son of God’s spirit would be one of marked holiness and virtue, not of himself, but by way of the Holy Spirit who led him.  He would be the standard by which God declared, “Be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26).”  Since we sinful, fallen humans could never reach this standard, the Son of God, having access to the Holy Spirit, demonstrates that our personal holiness comes not from ourselves but from God.

If we want to translate this as “Holy Spirit,” we need look no further than Jesus’ baptism, where the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.  “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:16-17)."

3.  By resurrection from the dead.  The final declaration of the Son of God would be the most magnificent of all.  He would be raised from death.  Immediately this tells us that the Promised One would suffer death, but even death would not be enough to defeat the promise of God.  Everything that God had promised would come to pass, even though it meant the Promised One had to die.  The fact that God had declared it so means that it was 100% necessary for the Son of God to die.

And God declared this long before we were born, as we saw in Romans 1:1 and Galatians.  The Son of God did not die because of anything you and I have done.  He died, quite simply, because God said so.  It was God’s holy plan for His Son to die and be raised, that His name might be declared and glorified.  It is foolish for us to presume that God reacts to what we have done.  Rather, it is God who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-11); history has no choice but to obey His decrees.

Jesus Christ our Lord

Finally, Paul reveals who the Son of God is.  We have been breathlessly waiting on the edge of our seats for the identity of such a spectacular individual.  Surely he is the greatest of all people!

The Promised One, the Declared One, says Paul, is Jesus who is called the Christ.  Even the Roman authorities knew who he was, having written about it by the time of the writing of Romans or soon after.  What an offensive notion!  Not only to Romans, but to Jews as well!  A man who was crucified as an instigator of rebellion, condemned by his own religious authorities as a heretic, is the Son of God?  Outlandish!  Hogwash!  Pass the Guinness!  If Jesus is the Messiah, I’m a knock-down drag-out rip-roarin’ drunkard!

“But wait!”  Paul says.  “Listen carefully to the Gospel.  He fulfilled each of these declarations perfectly.  He performed miracles, witnesses to which are still alive.  He was a person of unimpeachable holiness.  None could rightly accuse him of impropriety or sin!  Not only that, the Holy Spirit himself came down upon him when he was baptized, and a voice from heaven outright declared Jesus to be the Son of God!  There are still witnesses alive to that as well!  And if you were to go to his tomb today, you would find it empty.  That in and of itself, while unremarkable, is made to fulfill the promise because he is truly risen.  He appeared to me.  He appeared to James and Peter.  And he appeared to 500 others, many of whom are still alive!  I tell you, Jesus is the Promised One, the Declared One, the Son of God in whom we have salvation!”

I can imagine, in the eye of my mind, people silencing their snickering to listen a little more closely.  Maybe he isn’t really crazy.  Maybe he’s telling the truth.  “We will think on these things,” they might say.  A few might stay after the sermon to ask more questions.  Still more might be convinced, and by the power of the Spirit place their trust in Jesus.

Is that true of you?  If you belong to God, there is no doubt in my mind that you are convinced.  You believe what I have just told you.  You believe what Paul has written.  You believe the promise which God gave to his prophets all those thousands of years ago and passed down to me.  I haven’t done anything to convince you of the truth.  You know it is the truth because of that same spirit of holiness that resided in Jesus.  That same spirit of holiness, if you belong to God, is calling you to trust Him and His Son today.  All you must do is repent of your sins.  Confess them, turn away from them, and place your trust in God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  It really is that simple!

If you belong to God, you will do this.  Just ask Him for the faith to believe and trust in Jesus.  Will you do that today?

It's Football Time In Tennessee...er, Kentucky!

2006-08-27T22:53:00.000-04:00

All righty, folks. The Deaf Jedi's top 15 rankings return! These are my preseason top 15 for the 2006-2007 season. Read 'em and weep. Or laugh. Or both.

Texas. They gotta lose to get toppled.
Ohio State. If not for Texas, they'd be #1.
Auburn
LSU. The Miami game says it all.
USC. Downward spiral to mid-rankings this year.
Oklahoma
Notre Dame. Tough games early could spell disaster.
West Virginia. Loss to Louisville will ruin their season.
Louisville. This is the BCS year. Maybe even a Heisman year.
Florida State
Miami
Georgia. Only because I hate ranking Florida in the top 10.
Florida. Spurrier may be gone, but it's still a good clean hate.
Michigan
Tennessee. Last year was an abberation. Cutcliffe puts things right on Rocky Top. Look for a top 10 finish, top 5 not out of the realm of possibility.

And there you have it folks. Once again, the Top 15 will be updated weekly. Agree or disagree with my pics at your peril. Preferably in my presence over a decanter of Welch's Grape Juice.

Book Review: The Man of Sin

2006-08-26T03:02:00.000-04:00

Since it is 3 AM on what is supposed to be my night off from UPS, and I very sadly cannot sleep even if I try, I'll go ahead and post this book review and see if it does the trick. I recently finished The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist by Kim Riddlebarger. You may have noticed some preliminary remarks on this book that I made in this post, where I stated that I found this book disorienting. In fact, I think I even used the term "dazed and confused." 236 pages later, that assessment still stands. The Man of Sin seems geared towards someone who has at the very least a basic familiarity with amillennial theology. It assumes a strong amount of grounding by the reader in interpretive methods and church history. Fortunately, this assumption is not so great that someone like me, having only read premillennialist works, can sit down and forge through it. And forge through I did. If nothing else, Riddlebarger's book will make one think. I believe that is his thrust all throughout the book; that is, he desires simply to cause the reader to rethink what one believes about the end-times and the Antichrist in particular. In that respect alone, Riddlebarger succeeds. I definitely have more to think about. A failure of this book is in the way it treats amillennialism over and against other millennial views. Riddlebarger seems to bounce off walls (and not in an energetic, yappy dog or hyper child way) in his treatment of differences between amil and other views. It's almost as if he is sitting in a room with various pieces of theology that are contra-amillennialism taped on the walls and throwing darts randomly around the room, at which point he attempts to show how the amil view is superior. Engaging in such eschatological rabbit-chasing, while informative and interesting, only confused me when trying to follow the argument Riddlebarger was attempting to make in most of the chapters of this work. But I must admit the cause of such confusion may well be my unfamiliarity with the point of view in which this book is presented. Riddlebarger's strongest contribution in this book is a historical overview of the Antichrist in the church. I enjoyed this chapter immensely and learned much about how the church has viewed the Antichrist through the ages, from Nero to the Papacy, on to today. After this is his final chapter, a summary of all the information in the book, stating Riddlebarger's conclusions as to what the evidence shows. This chapter, more than any preceding one, helped me to understand what Riddlebarger wanted to accomplish in writing the book. If I were to go back and reread the book after finishing this chapter, I am certain that Riddlebarger's presentation would be much clearer to me. All in all, this is a very strong book, disorientation aside. It is the first scholarly work on Revelation (outside of commentaries) that I have read, and I am very pleased that it has done what I hoped--it has broadened my theological horizons. I would suggest that anyone considering reading it first gain a basic understanding of and familiarity with amillennialism, postmillennialism, premillennialism, and preterism before delving into The Man of Sin. Then and only then should you consider reading it. Until then, go ahead and purchase it if you like. The cover will at least look good on your coffee table until you're ready to read it!

Photo Friday

2006-08-25T16:32:00.000-04:00

Photo by Sandra McCampbell. Sandy took this photo at our wedding rehearsal dinner at Tricia's uncle's house in the country. She used our digital camera, a Kodak EasyShare P850. It was taken sometime after sunset, when it was nice and dark. That camera represents the most "advanced" camera either of us have ever owned. I hope one day to be able to afford a camera that is a bit more towards the professional end of things.

Deaf Jedi Archives, Final Tally

2006-08-23T22:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I catalogued the final book sitting in the stacks tonight. The final tally: 275 books. Count 'em (I did), two-hundred seventy-five books. I will admit the actual total is 276 - I am missing my copy of Boice and Ryken's The Doctrines of Grace. What did the current value of all these books total? I'll put it this way: it is over $5000. I could make a down payment on a car or put a nice dent in my student loans for the money I and my family has invested in these books. Which author tallied the most books? Surprisingly, R. C. Sproul with five titles. Next is Mark Dever with four, though one is his "9 Marks" booklet. Donald Grey Barnhouse also had four, but that is his 4-volume Romans commentary. No author had more than three titles in this listing. Theology was the largest category, with Doctrine making up its largest sub-category. The next largest category was Counseling. I was a Pastoral Counseling student, so that should not take any of you by surprise. Christian Living came in a surprising 3rd. Many of the books we buy apparently cannot be relegated to theology proper, but it is worth mentioning that the bulk of those books were purchased outside of class needs for personal or church usage. Taking into account that I consider much of what is stocked on the shelves of Christian bookstores to be nothing more than FLUFF, I was surprised to see this category be as large as it is. Biblical Studies (including languages) and Church History follow next. Well, that was an interesting look over the past month. I have 275 different books to keep me company over the next year or so. I will not be reading the counseling books except for those that are by Christian authors (i.e. Larry Crabb), unless someone can convince me otherwise. I hope that those of you who have not yet catalogued your libraries will take the time to do so. It is an invaluable tool to have (especially for insurance purposes!), and keeping track of your books can prevent double purchases and help you find books you know you have but have gone suspiciously missing!

Romans 1:1, Part 2

2006-08-21T17:32:00.000-04:00

As promised, below is my sermon outline for Romans 1:1, to be preached this coming Sunday. I'm doing it in manuscript form so you can see how I am going to attempt my argument rather than just giving you the usual bullet points. I'm also changing the title; after I wrote this out I realized that "The Designated Hitter" didn't really enter my mind at all. No decision yet on what the title will be; I'll get there eventually. Anyway, with no further ado.... Romans 1:1 - "Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, one called an apostle, one set aside to the gospel of God" (Deaf Jedi Translation - DJT) This verse is an important verse for all of us. It is the first time in the Bible that Paul talks directly to us, his readers. And Paul chooses to tell us three things about himself: 1) he is a slave of Jesus; 2)he has been called to be an apostle; and 3) he has been "set aside" to the Gospel. Today I would like for us to look at what Paul is tellilng us about himself.

Paul the Slave

Paul calls himself a "slave" of Jesus. Why does he do that? First of all, the Greek word translated "slave" is also translated "servant." Together, this tells us that Paul is someone who is under commitment to serve. That commitment is something he cannot break even if he wanted to. He is a slave, and because he is a slave, he does not have any rights whatsoever. The only rights Paul has are those granted him by his master. Paul will tell us later in Romans that he has had two masters in his lifetime: sin and Jesus. What happened was that Jesus came and bought him from his former master, sin. He is still a slave; he simply serves a different master now. In the same way, Paul will tell us later in Romans, all of us are slaves. We are slaves first to sin, and after God saves us, we are slaves to Christ.

Paul the Called One

Paul also calls himself "the called one." He is a person who has specifically been chosen. Not only that, Paul says he was chosen to do fill a specific job, that of an apostle. An apostle is someone who has been sent to deliver a message. So Paul is telling us that he is a slave who has a specific job, to deliver messages for his master. God has chosen Paul to deliver messages for Him. In the same way, Paul will tell us later, each of us has been chosen by God to do a specific job. These are, firstly, our spiritual gifts, which Paul briefly talks about in Romans 12:3-8. He also talks a lot about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14. Secondly, God has chosen each of us to do certain things with our lives. Paul was a tentmaker by trade (Acts 18:3), Luke was a doctor (Colossians 4:14), some of the apostles were fishermen, tax collectors, or accountants. You might be a minister, you might work at the post office, some of you work with me at UPS, some of you are stay-at-home moms, and some of you are fortunate enough to be retired! But God has chosen that role for each of you, just like He chose Paul to be an apostle.

Paul the Set-Aside One

Lastly, Paul calls himself "one set aside." What does he mean by that? Well, remember that Paul first says that he is a slave. Then he says he is a slave who has been given a specific job. Now he tells us what that job is. He has been picked to deliver a specific message, the Gospel. In the same way, each of us is to use our spiritual gifts in a specific way. I use my gifts to teach, preach, and counsel. Some of you use yours to encourage, to support, to speak the truth, to love, to speak wisely, and so on. Each of you use your spiritual gifts to do a specific thing, and no one uses them the same way. Pastor Tim usually uses his preaching gift to encourage and challenge you in the truth; I usually use my preaching gift to teach doctrine and show you the truth. We have the same gift, but we use it in two different ways. We also do our worldly jobs differently. Before I was promoted, I had the same job as some of our Deaf people at UPS, but I did it in my own way, just as they did their job in their own way. If you watched us side by side you could tell that we did some things differently. But each of us does our job in the way that God has decided that we will do it, not the way we want to do it or someone else wants us to do it.

"At The Same Time"

I want to draw your attention to the words "set aside" for a moment. Did you know those are the most important words in the entire sentence? In the Greek, the word that we translate "set aside" also tells us that Paul is a slave, a called one, and has been set aside at the same time. They are one and the same! Paul is a slave who is an apostle who has been set aside to preach the Gospel. To Paul, these three mean the same thing! Not only that, but the Greek word used here tells us that God is the one who made Paul a slave, called him an apostle, and gave him the job of preaching the Gospel. Paul will tell us in Galatians 1:15 that God had already chosen Paul before he was born. God decided long before Paul was born that he would become Jesus' slave and would be responsible for spreading the Gospel. The Greek word also tells us that this is happening to Paul every day. Each day, Paul becomes Jesus' slave, is called an apostle, and is given the job of preaching the Gospel. This is what we mean by the word sanctification. Every day Paul had to recognize that he belonged to God and had to obey God's will for his life. You and I are also slaves, called ones, and set apart ones at the same time. Just like God is at the same time Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we show a picture of that by being Christians, disciples, and witnesses. You and I also were chosen by God before we were born. Even before God made the universe, He chose you to play a part in His work. He saved you by His grace in Jesus' death on the cross. He commands you to obey Him in all things. Won't you give up trying to do things your way? God has already taken care of everything; all you must do is obey Him. How can you obey Him? Repent of your sins and trust Jesus as your Savior. If you are not a Christian, I ask you to trust Christ today. All you must do is repent of your sins. Ask God to give you faith to believe, and you will trust Jesus. When you trust Jesus, you will discover what God has made you to do in this life! If you are already a Christian, when you repent of your sins and trust Jesus, your sins are forgiven. You are restored to a right fellowship with God. Your bond with the Lord becomes deeper and stronger, because you have trusted Him to make you holy. The Bible tells us that now is the perfect time to repent and believe. Will you obey what God has said and trust Him?

The Designated Hitter: Romans 1:1, Part 1

2006-08-20T02:01:00.000-04:00

The Silent Holocron, beginning this week, will devote Monday space to the following Sunday’s sermon.  I feel this will help not only me as I tweak the sermon prior to Sunday through any feedback you may feel led to give, but it will also help our voice interpreters by allowing them to prepare beforehand.  You’re getting the first one a day early, just because I feel that dang good.

In an attempt to see if Blogger for Word does the trick with my Greek fonts, I’m going to post my Greek work for next Sunday’s sermon using that tool.  You may need to download the SIL Greek font to read this work.  I hope many of you don’t.  But oh well.

Next Sunday I will begin preaching through the book of Romans.  Being in a Deaf church is conducive to the type of exposition Romans requires, because I cannot successfully lump large blocks of text together in a sermon.  More on that in my series on Deaf ministry.

But with no further ado, let us examine the Greek text of Romans 1:1.

PaÂlov doÂlov CristoÂ HIjsoÂ kljtèv pçstolov fwrismnov e¸v eÇagglion qeoÂ

Transliterated, we have:

Paulos doulos Xristou Iesou kletos apostolos aphorismenos eis euangelion theou

Translated, we have:

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, one called an apostle, one who is being separated to a gospel of God

This is a very powerful verse.  Once we leave behind the book of Acts and begin to really get into the meat and potatoes of the New Testament, we encounter this statement from Paul.  There are three major words in this verse:

doÂlov- This noun can be translated either servant or slave.  It has traditionally been translated as “bondservant.”  The construction it begins is describing Paul as one who is enslaved to Jesus.

kljtèv- This is an adjective that can either refer back to “Paul” or to “slave.”  I believe the context of the verse points this adjective back to Paul, given that it begins a second construction in the phrase.  This construction is also descriptive, naming Paul as “a called one,” and specifically “one called (to be an) apostle.”

fwrismnov- Now we arrive at what I believe to be the most important word in the verse.  This is a Present Passive Participle translated "one who is being separated" or "one who is being set aside," used descriptively of its noun, “Paul.”  Here are some bullet points that I hope will underscore why I think this is the most important word in understanding the verse:

The present participle indicates simultaneous action. This means that Paul is at the same time a slave, a called one, and one who is being separated. There is no distinction between the three.

This simultaneous action means that Paul was enslaved, called, and set apart at one moment. In lay terms, the moment Paul was saved, in that instant he was also the Apostle Paul who preached the gospel.

The present tense indicates progressive, continual action. This means that Paul is constantly being enslaved, called, and set apart. This is an every day occurrence for Paul, not a one-time event.

This means that, in Paul’s mind, his salvation, sanctification, and service is something that happens daily; and not in the Catholic sense of works (confession, Eucharist, etc.) – it is a work of something outside of himself, as we will see in the next bullet point.

The passive voice indicates the subject is being acted upon by something outside of itself. This means that Paul is saying very clearly that he is not the one who enslaved himself to Christ; he is not the one who called himself to apostleship; and he is not the one who set himself apart to the gospel. Someone else did.

This is why it is important to understand that it is faith, not human works, that brings us to Christ. It is the electing and providential work of God – not human effort – that saves us, determines our calling in life, and how we will fulfill that calling.

As you can see, this word theologically loads what otherwise could be a ho-hum introduction to the letter.  We could also say of this word as indicating Paul has been “designated” to the Gospel.  Paul is a slave who has been designated to deliver a specific message.  He is the “designated hitter” that God has inserted into His lineup!  More on that tomorrow.

Now, a slave does not have the right to designate his assignment, much less to whom he will be indentured.  This means there must be prior planning on the part of the one whom has procured the slave.  One does not just buy a slave indiscriminately.  There must be a plan in place for the slave before it is procured, and the slave-master, when looking over the market, would be thinking of the exact job description.  All that is left for the slave-master to do is procure the slave that he thinks best fits the purpose for which he is procuring the slave.

What this tells us is that Paul is indirectly referencing – hold on to your hats, now – election.  God owns all the slaves.  All of us agree with this (I hope).  However, as the master, He may select any slave for any specific purpose in His mind.  He goes to the slave-market that is the world and redeems certain of the slaves for the purposes that He has, and sets them to their work.  God does not have to redeem every slave; indeed, the master only selects those slaves of which He has need.  He has selected some and passed over others.

How arrogant must we seem, to God, to beat our chests and proclaim that we have a choice of whether or not to accept Christ?  We are slaves, and Paul will make that abundantly clear in later chapters of the book.  And as slaves, we have no legal rights whatsoever.  We do not even have the right of free choice.  This is why election is necessary – God must choose us before we could ever hope to choose Him.

With that, I will stop.  Tomorrow I will unveil my sermon outline and show how the discussion above relates to each point.  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.  Enjoy!         UPDATE 5:43 PM: Before I forget, SIL Greek font rocks the casbah. Go get it and use it for all your Greek needs. It looks good on Blogger, but of course there likely will be the need to download it in order to view it online. I used it to write Greek research papers in the past, and the current version is even easier to use. There is also a SIL Hebrew font, but I don't currently have the link on hand--I'll have to dig it out. Hearne, look for that first verse of John 3 later this week now that I'm finally satisfied. I hope this offering will appease you until then!

Photo Friday

2006-08-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

Another humorous photo for Friday. When Deaf Cafe is over this weekend, I will try to post a pic from that next Friday.

Eucharistic BlogQuizzing

2006-08-17T05:25:00.000-04:00

My Anglican brother, Ryan Hall found something interesting, a Lord's Supper theology quiz. Here's how I did:

You scored as Calvin. You are John Calvin. You have a Nestorian Christology and separate the Divinity and Humanity of Jesus. You believe only those who have faith are united to Christ, who is present spiritually, yet you call this "Real."

Calvin

94%

Zwingli

56%

Luther

50%

Unitarian

13%

Catholic

Eucharistic theology
created with QuizFarm.com

This is cool. Calvin's theology of the Lord's Supper is one of the most interesting things we could read about. I find myself agreeing with him on many points. For a good, in-depth study of Calvin's thought on this issue, pick up this book: Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper by Keith Mathison. It's worth the price.

Introducing Deaf Ministry - Preliminary Remarks

2006-08-16T21:28:00.000-04:00

Over the past two years, I have been blessed to be the associate pastor of Louisville Baptist Deaf Church. I have been involved in this church for a total of 6 years, one under watchcare and three as a full member before becoming associate pastor. I cut my teeth on Deaf ministry here, under the tutelage and mentorship of Rev. Timothy Bender. Pastor Tim continues to mentor me, and I have done nothing but learn under his loving and gracious pastorate. During my time at LBDC, I have come to have a growing expansion of my world, in both the hearing world and Deaf world. I have been introduced to many "important" people in the world of hearing and Deaf ministry, and have been privileged to interact with many others through the medium of the internet. In a recent casual discussion with a friend, he mentioned a certain pastor with a widely-read blog, and how he had been blessed to have on-going correspondence with him. Later, I realized that I seem to have been placed in such a position that I have no other option but to make people aware about Deaf ministry. I feared, at first, that such thinking was ludicrous. Indeed, as I met certain individuals, it seemed to me that such thoughts meant I was "getting too big for my britches." I've always been one to keep my head down and my eye on the ball. Denominational involvement with the Southern Baptist Convention (hereafter "the hearing convention") has never been high on my list of priorities, and what I had been envisioning called for a heavy amount of elbow-rubbing with many of these people and many more I have never met. I felt that it would be enough for me to focus on my church and the Deaf associations we belong to (The Southern Baptist Conference of the Deaf and Kentucky Baptist Conference of the Deaf, hereafter SBCD and KBCD). Then I had a serious discussion with another friend, who basically started smacking me upside the head! My friend upbraided me like I have not upbraided in some time. Instead of asking whether or not I belonged in such circles of influence, the question I should have been asking was, "What opportunities has Providence placed at my disposal by which I may advance the cause of Christ? If I speak up, will God be pleased to use me?" Furthermore, my friend chided me for being defeatist and negative, and for not trusting that the Lord knew what He was doing by placing me in such circumstances. Now that I have been properly humbled, and have had a week and a half to think and pray over this, I come to you with a new series, long promised but long in the coming. Over the next month or so I am going to write a series of posts, at least once weekly, describing for you what Deaf ministry is all about. And I am putting all of you on notice. I will not be ignored. I will shout it from the rooftops, sign it in the hallways of the church and seminary, call upon the Lord's name to make His way straight that His silent people may come to Him. And I believe many of you are standing in that way. It is my intention to bring you, those in a position to do something about this in your own churches, and perhaps even within our denomination, a first-person perspective of ministry to the largest unreached people group in America and the world. I will not claim "expert" status, but I will rest heavily on the experiences and writings of those who have gone before me in Deaf ministry, and how those experiences have shaped my approach to Deaf ministry. I will welcome you into my world, the world of a believer with a unique perspective on both hearing and Deaf worlds. I will welcome you into the world of Deaf ministry. It is time for our hearing brothers and sisters in the SBC to understand just what they have overlooked. It is time for our Deaf brothers and sisters to partner with them in the Great Commission. This is my vision. This is my goal. I long for the day when the hearing and deaf conventions join forces to effect the greatest outpouring of God's grace on the Deaf that the world has ever seen. It is my fervent belief that this is what God desires. Deaf ministry has been ignored and overlooked for many years. In the next post, I will present you some sobering statistics that will show just how overlooked we are. My mother-in-law calls deafness "The Hidden Handicap." Once you have seen the stark reality of Deaf ministry in my next post, I pray you will be as brokenhearted as I at the horror of the vast unreached "silent sinners."

Gaining Eschatological Equilibrium

2006-08-15T06:02:00.000-04:00

Well, I pulled the next book from the ol' library out. It is The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist by Kim Riddlebarger. So far I have read 66 pages (no jokes please) and I must admit that I am disoriented. Riddlebarger is an amillennialist, and as someone who grew up in dispensational premillennialism, this is quite dazing and confusing. But I am enjoying it--I have a challenge, and I love challenges. Eschatology was one of the first theological subjects I seriously studied after the Lord saved me, and it continues to be of interest, though I have moved on to much more profitable and important doctrines. Eschatology seems to be the initial foray into theology for many new Christians, especially in the past ten years. It also seems to be the area that leads new Christians into a lot of false and misleading doctrine. That alone makes it worth studying and at least attempting to get right. I don't know what to think about the amil position at this point. I have on principle dropped dispensationalism, largely in part to my studies at Southern and my distaste for what I call "Dater Dispys;" that is, those dispensationalists that try to set a date for the Second Coming (Hal Lindsey, Grant Jefferey, anyone?). I see no evidence for "dual-covenants" and the like, for example; though I am sure much of what I learned in dispensationalism has been tainted by the Dater Dispys. It just boggles me that a system that tries so hard to be biblical can fall so short of being biblically correct. At this time, I have retained some of the dispensational viewpoints on eschatology. I am still a strong premillennialist; but I have dropped the notion of a pre-tribulation rapture to the point where I have almost abandoned the idea of a rapture completely. At this time I hold a post-tribulation rapture, which I believe to be entirely consistent with a Scriptural view of a pre-millennial return of Christ. I also hold a dispensationalist assumption that the words of Scripture actually mean something literal; that is, when a prophet describes something, it is entirely possible that what he describes literally does look like that. As such, many of the assertions Riddlebarger has put forth thus far are completely foreign to me, and that is disorienting. Anyhow, I discussed with my wife last night that I wanted to set a goal of reading at least 100 pages a day when I did read, in an attempt to give focus to my books and to absorb and digest rather than picking the book apart 10 pages here, 5 pages there, 20 pages here, 40 pages there. I already had a system in place for school reading where I would read 20 pages at a time and then take a short break, then read an additional 20 pages and then break again. In this way I could read chunks of a book at one sitting and not burn myself out. So I intend to use this system to read at least 100 pages a day from now on. Come on, with 241 books in your library (thus far), you'd want to be knocking in those runs instead of leaving men on base, wouldn't you?

Review: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?

2006-08-14T18:15:00.000-04:00

Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? is one of James Montgomery Boice's final books. He wrote it in response to what he believed to be the ignorance of God and neglect of the gospel of grace as the root problem of the church today. Instead of a focus on God and His gospel, the church has become focused on worldly success--large memberships, large budgets, programs up the wazoo, a nosedive in worship. Boice's belief was that only a return to the Word of God can change the state of today's church. Boice felt that the major emphasis of this change should be centered around the five foundational truths of the Protestant Reformation; that is, the modern church must have as its central confession the Five Solas of the Reformation. Sola Scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, and soli Deo gloria must once again become the standard of theology and practice in our churches if we are ever to hope for a second Reformation. By the way, for those reading who don't know what these are, those Latin terms mean Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone, and Glory to God Alone. Boice presents a convincing argument that we as a church have abandoned these five foundational principles. We have abandoned the sufficiency of Scripture; abandoned the exclusivity of the Gospel; abandoned a salvation given, not earned; abandoned trust in God through Jesus alone as the way of salvation; and abandoned the exaltation of the Creator rather than the creature. Instead we have taken on worldly substitutes that are but pale imitations. We have replaced sufficiency with ambiguity; exclusivity with relativism; the free gift with a salvation of works; surrender at our inability with self-confidence; and humble deference and awe with arrogant self-esteem or self-importance. Boice examines each of these five solas individually, building a case for each as the standard for Christian practice. He then moves toward application in the areas of worship and life. Boice does excellently in outlining the failures of modern worship techniques and concepts, showing them to be largely man-focused rather than God-focused. He points out very glaringly the Godward thrust of the old hymns, and challenges the reader to consider worship that has a Godward focus rather than personal enrichment. The final chapter on reforming our lives I found to be somewhat disappointing. While Boice soundly hammered home what is necessary to achieve reformation in our lives--i.e. lives of repentance, lives of faith, and lives of community--but he does little to give the reader practical suggestions of how to achieve this. He is long on theory in this chapter but short on application. I find myself wondering if this chapter was actually published unfinished. All in all, this book is a great precursor to his final book, The Doctrines of Grace. Indeed, they seem to be meant to be read in tandem, this one first and The Doctrines of Grace second. I would recommend this book to all of us; particularly one who is looking to bring about change in his or her church or ministry.

Deaf Jedi Archives Update & Holocron Book Club

2006-08-14T00:53:00.000-04:00

Hey folks, let's talk books. At last count, the cataloguing of my library has reached 241 books. All of these books were purchased during my time at Southern (August 1999-May 2006). The vast majority of these were bought in the campus bookstore or were purchased off-campus as I found them or was hunting for reading, study, and research materials. I have decided not to share the total current value of the books (many are still in "new" condition) because I don't want any of you still in school (especially those of you just starting out) to despair of the cost you could incur over the next four or five years. Again, I remind you that I still have books sitting at home in Tennessee, and I am not counting any works of fiction other than Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. So the actual total (and value) will increase as I get to the end. Some of you may remember that I have challenged myself to read through my library over the next year instead of buying new books. This is intended to save money for me and Tricia as we seek to establish our finances as a married couple. I have only had one or two slips since May, and the second of those slips was a planned one, to purchase the abridged version of Martin Luther's commentary on Romans to assist in preparing to preach through Romans beginning this fall. Now for the Book Club. Today I got an email from Christian Book Distributors (CBD) announcing their 10th anniversary sale. Here's a few things I'm drooling over. Kenneth Wuest's Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, 4 Volumes. On sale for $24.99. The Early Church Fathers, 38 volumes, $199.99. List price is $1100!!!! Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 volumes, $99.99. When I was in college these were the gold standard for Greek research papers. Arthur W. Pink's Exposition on the Gospel of John, $18.99. After reading The Sovereignty of God, I'm convinced one can do no wrong in reading Pink. They also have Calvin's Commentaries (all 22 volumes) for $99, but Tricia already gave me those as a birthday/graduation gift. Dang, we should have waited. Also, I have just finished one of the unfinished books I've been working on: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? by James Montgomery Boice. Look for a review in the next couple of days. And that wraps up the dual update. Enjoy your week, folks!

Thoughts on Billy Graham

2006-08-12T05:27:00.000-04:00

This week I got sent a link to the Billy Graham article that's got everyone up in arms by a church member who keeps up with "Christian news." Knowing this person, she is wondering what I think about the whole deal. Well, I'll tell her exactly what I said over at "Provocatin' Panties." (runs and hides before Timmy hurts him) Yes, I know it's old news by now, but in a Deaf church "old news" has a way of becoming The Big Story until someone (usually the pastor) speaks on the issue and it dies. To begin, I'm among the throng of those scratching their heads, saying "Huh?" Is Graham really denying biblical inerrancy? Is he embracing universalism? What in tarnation is going on? My first reaction was simply, "He's getting old and he's less interested in fighting the good fight." My second reaction was, "They should have kept Joel Osteen a little futher away." My third reaction is the one I should have had first, to stop and pray for the man. Too many of us in recent days have had the reaction of attack. Few have given well-nuanced reactions about this interview; I am blessed to have read several of them including a couple by my SBTS brethren. I don't claim to have the ability of nuance, so I'll try to take a couple of points and just simply react.

He is an evangelist still unequivocally committed to the Gospel, but increasingly thinks God's ways and means are veiled from human eyes and wrapped in mystery. "There are many things that I don't understand," he says. He does not believe that Christians need to take every verse of the Bible literally; "sincere Christians," he says, "can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology—absolutely."

Okay. Nothing worth getting riled up about here, because it is true. Now, before anyone starts accusing me of not believing in inerrancy or whatever, let me ask you if the all of the prophetic parts of Daniel and Revelation are literal or not, or if they require us to think in a nuanced way. And before we start talking about heretics like Marcus Borg, stop and think for a minute. Only the silliest of you would say that I'm not a Christian (or even a "sincere Christian") because I don't agree with limited atonement. I disagree with many of my peers on Scripture and theology on this issue; yet I'm not branded a heretic (except in jest, of course). Hopefully you catch my drift.

Graham spends hours now with his Bible, at once savoring and reconsidering old stories and old lessons. While he believes Scripture is the inspired, authoritative word of God, he does not read the Bible as though it were a collection of Associated Press bulletins straightforwardly reporting on events in the ancient Middle East. "I'm not a literalist in the sense that every single jot and tittle is from the Lord," Graham says. "This is a little difference in my thinking through the years." He has, then, moved from seeing every word of Scripture as literally accurate to believing that parts of the Bible are figurative—a journey that began in 1949, when a friend challenged his belief in inerrancy during a conference in southern California's San Bernardino Mountains. Troubled, Graham wandered into the woods one night, put his Bible on a stump and said, "Lord, I don't understand all that is in this book, I can't explain it all, but I accept it by faith as your divine word."

Now we can begin the head-scratching. On the surface, I think the interviewer has grossly misrepresented Graham on this point. The story referenced here is usually told in Graham biographies to show how Graham rejected the idea that the Bible is not inerrant. As far as his "jot and tittle" remark, I am scratching my head on that one. It makes no sense, given his history. I'd really like to know the context of that remark and what Graham said prior to and after this remark. It is, indeed, troubling; however I would rather wait and hope Graham clarifies his remark. But I do understand that some parts of the Bible can be read figuratively, given the examples the article uses. It never ceases to boggle me when people insist the days of Creation were six 24-hour days when we didn't get a sun until the fourth day. It's completely up in the air how long the first three days were! Was it a 1000 year day? A 1-hour day? We don't know. It's a matter of interpretation. Oh dear, break out the straightjacket, Stephen's lost it! But anyone with a bit of common sense and a bit of study can get a good sense of what is literal and what is figurative. It's my personal opinion that the Bible rarely deals in figuratives unless prophecy is involved; then we tend to have a lot of figurative language to describe what will literally happen. Of course, we do have the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, non-prophetic books all. Three rules of interpreting prophecy and figurative language that I was taught in college and still use when reading prophecy: 1) Could this literally be that way? 2) Could the writer be trying to describe what he is literally seeing/hearing/etc.? 3) Could the writer simply be trying to make a point?

Asked about his son's use of the phrase "evil and wicked" in reference to Islam, Graham says: "I would not say Islam is wicked and evil ... I have a lot of friends who are Islamic. There are many wonderful people among them. I have a great love for them. I have spoken at Islamic meetings, in Nigeria and in different parts of the world." The father's view, then, is different from the son's. "I'm sure there are many things that he and I are not in total agreement about," Graham says. "I'm an old man, he's a young man in the prime of life." Anne Graham Lotz, after expressing her deep respect for her brother's life and work, said: "When Daddy was my brother's age, he was saying some pretty strong things, too, so you have to remember that experience and the living of a life can soften your perspective."

This part of the article is what made me think his age is affecting him. I don't think he really wants to open this can of worms; perhaps he does not see any inroads for the Gospel by engaging in debate over Islam. He stated before this quote that all he wanted to do was discuss the Gospel. And in his ministry, that has primarily consisted of telling people that Jesus saves, not that their religion is false. Yes, I know that debate itself can be an inroad, but for an old man, Graham may just want a little peace and quiet.

When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: "Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won't ... I don't want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have." Such an ecumenical spirit may upset some Christian hard-liners, but in Graham's view, only God knows who is going to be saved: "As an evangelist for more than six decades, Mr. Graham has faithfully proclaimed the Bible's Gospel message that Jesus is the only way to Heaven," says Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross. "However, salvation is the work of Almighty God, and only he knows what is in each human heart."

This is the biggest head-scratcher of all of them. But Graham is exactly right--who gets into heaven is a decision only the Lord will make. I really do wish he'd clarify this comment by reiterating his belief that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. I do think he is right to say that God loves all of us regardless of what "label" we have. If He didn't, He would not have sent Jesus as the ultimate expression of His love. But we know that God's love does not act in a saving manner to everyone. Graham does not here say that it does act in such a way, he simply says it is none of his business. It is God's business alone. And that's true--only God gets to decide who is saved. All we can do is preach the Gospel and let the Lord do His work. Again, I would like to know the context of this quote before passing judgment on Graham as a universalist.

If he had his life to live over again, Graham says he would spend more time immersed in Scripture and theology. He never went to seminary, and his lack of a graduate education is something that still gives him a twinge. "The greatest regret that I have is that I didn't study more and read more," he says. "I regret it, because now I feel at times I am empty of what I would like to have been. I have friends that have memorized great portions of the Bible. They can quote [so much], and that would mean a lot to me now."

This is the best quote in the entire article. All of us can give a hearty "amen." Well, I hope said church member is now satisfied. I'm going to bed.

Friday Photo

2006-08-11T20:50:00.000-04:00

Here's my Friday Photo. For background info on the pic, you need to read Donna Shaw's recent blog here. Pay particular attention to the comment I left. Anyway, without any further ado, one of my favorite photographs of all time. It describes exactly what the squirrels around campus do when we're not looking: For Donna's sake, I hope they're only training to go after those evil, Sith Lord albino squirrels at the University of Louisville.

"Cultivated to Blog?"

2006-08-10T20:39:00.000-04:00

Bruce Prescott of the Mainstream Baptist blog claims I've been cultivated by Albert Mohler to blog. Now, my interaction with this particular blog by brother Bruce has been decidedly sporadic. However, I've witnessed over the past year his incessant, unreasonable, borderline hate-filled attacks on conservative Southern Baptists. There are continual unfounded accusations on his blog towards certain individuals in our convention. Now he has touched upon me and others in the SBTS blogosphere. I find his assertion that I and others on this bloglisting are "fundamentalists" to be knee-slapping funny. Especially when one can find jestful statements I've written about "not giving fundamentalists time of day." Even funnier is his assertion that I, and we, have been cultivated by Al Mohler to blog. After the Band of Bloggers fellowship and Russell Moore's tongue-in-cheek characterization of bloggers as "guys sitting around in their underwear," I wonder just where Prescott is getting his information. For the record, I got into blogging only after observing my buds Ryan and Nick start their own blogs. I still don't remember how I happened upon the "Christ-bloggers," as Mr. Frank Turk has labelled us. I do know that I finally found the SBTS blogroll after getting a nod from a fellow student (who will remain nameless until he updates his blog--the last update is nearly a year old) and following the links on his blog. I blog for God's glory, my own enjoyment and for fellowship with distant brothers and sisters, not for Al Mohler. If being a guy who actually believes what the Bible says makes me a fundamentalist, I'd be scared to see Prescott's definition of a conservative.

Welch's Grape Juice

2006-08-09T04:56:00.000-04:00

Former SBC President Bobby Welch continues to suffer "foot-in-mouth" disease. See the story here. This is just another in a line of "Dumb and Dumber" comments Welch has made over the past few months. It really grieves me to see a good man stoop so low, whether unintentional or not.

Photo Friday

2006-08-04T14:28:00.000-04:00

Here's some more pics from the honeymoon: The famed Old Mill in Pigeon Forge. Go eat at their restaurant, it is the best Southern home cookin' you will ever get. It is even better than Cracker Barrell! A mill at a Cades Cove settlement. Another of my favorite pics. Tricia sitting on one of the millstones at the above pictured mill.

There Is Still Good In Him...

2006-08-03T06:12:00.000-04:00

From BP News: ------------------------------------------------------------ TOW TRUCK DRIVER WITNESSES TO DARTH VADER -- For Steve Burdick, a tow truck driver in Syracuse, N.Y., the only thing out of the ordinary on a tow request July 22 was that the car was a $125,000 Ferrari -- something he had never towed before and didn’t even know how to hook up to his truck. But Burdick would soon learn he was towing Darth Vader, or at least the man who played Anakin Skywalker in the last two “Star Wars” movies. Hayden Christensen, a 25-year-old actor, was driving the Ferrari in Bullrun 2006, an elite cross-country tour from New York to Los Angeles, when the transmission broke down on Interstate 81 in Syracuse. “I just thought he had a rich daddy,” Burdick told The Syracuse Post-Standard. “I asked him what he does for a living and he said he was studying to become an actor, so I didn’t think much of it. I asked him if he knows Tom Cruise and he said he did.” During the 240-mile drive to Christensen’s hometown of Toronto, Canada, Burdick, a Christian, asked Christensen if he had given his life to the Lord. The actor told the driver he believed “people came from monkeys,” according to The Post-Standard. The two listened to cassettes by Christian motivational speaker Zig Ziglar called “A View from the Top,” and it wasn’t until they arrived at the border crossing that Burdick realized who Christensen was. “The girls at the border knew him,” he said. “Two of them got his autograph.... That’s when he told me about ‘Star Wars.’” Even though Christensen didn’t show much interest in the Gospel during the ride, Burdick told The Post-Standard he plans to send the actor a Zig Ziglar disc set. -------------------------------------------------------------- Is this not awesome? Let us pray that one day the Spirit will work in Christiansen's heart, and the still small voice of God will whisper to him, "Hayden, I am your Father."

The One Book

2006-07-30T23:20:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Ryan Hall, our esteemed Anglican brother, I bring you a new survey. 1. One book that changed your life: Desiring God by John Piper. Until then I didn't really know what the point of being Christian was. 2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey. The Gospel of personal finance. 3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Bible. This was a toughie, but the Word easily trumps anything in my library. 4. One book that made you laugh: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Irreverent and flat-out hilarious. 5. One book that made you cry: The Valley of Vision. 6. One book that you wish had been written: I agree with Ryan, I wish Frank Herbert had lived to write the final novel of the Dune series. 7. One book that you wish had never been written: Anything by Christian "fluff" authors. It might be okay for spiritual infants, but bad theology is bad theology, and I'd rather not have people getting led astray so young. 8. One book you’re currently reading: The Secret Key to Heaven by Thomas Brooks 9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? by James Montgomery Boice 10. One book you haven't finished but will finish in the next month: The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel

Photo Friday

2006-07-28T21:29:00.000-04:00

Please welcome the newest addition to the Newell family: Newell's Reese's Cup, Reese for short. She's a 3-month old, black and tan, purebred Chihuahua. We got her at the Kentucky State Fair. There's still a bunch of dogs available there if you want one, but hurry, the children are giving their parents "the look." Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen? More pics forthcoming as we go picture crazy with the digital camera. Now for something truly cute, go see Dee Reju's new kid.

A Fed-Ex Plane Goes Down

2006-07-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

Most of you may not know or may not remember, but I was promoted to a part-time management position at UPS last May. This month I have been in the company's month-long training program for new part-time supervisors. This is the final week of training. I've been learning a lot of very interesting and helpful stuff, as well as receiving excellent training. Today, we were given a tour of the ramp at UPS' airport facilities. This is where the planes go from the runway to be unloaded and loaded. As we rode in the van across the ramp, we drove by one of the runways and saw a sight to behold. A Federal Express 727 plane was down in the grass off the runway. In fact, tomorrow's Courier-Journal story about the incident (click here for the story) says the plane actually skidded off the runway onto the grass during an aborted takeoff. Thankfully no one was hurt, and the 727 was able to roll itself into a hangar. They are saying that an engine apparently shut off, causing the aborted launch. But as we drove by, I couldn't help but notice what the photo in the article does not show. Along the building directly behind the plane in the picture is a whole line of UPS planes! The irony was thick. I've got to put in a call to my sister's husband, who works for Fed-Ex, and let him know just who's the best.

Richard Land On The Alcohol Issue

2006-07-25T07:32:00.000-04:00

Richard Land does a much better job of writing on the alcohol issue than Jerry Vines. Read the article here. Since I'm tired of the issue, I'll let others deconstruct it.

Creating the Deaf Jedi Archives, Part Deux

2006-07-24T14:35:00.000-04:00

Well, I have just completed a third stack. So far the total is 56 books, and I've still got, let's see, 14 stacks to go. Cataloguing is turning out to be a fun but tedious process. Thank the good Lord you can go online and find out a lot of this information such as list price and current value. Speaking of current value, the present value of the 56 books I have catalogued comes out to $1,217.00 That is a shocking number to me, because those books represent about 3 or 4 semesters' worth of books purchased. Granted, a lot of the books I have catalogued were not class purchases, but they well could have been. It is a bit scary to me to think I actually own something collectively worth that much. I wonder what the final tally will be once the other 14 stacks are catalogued. I'm reminded heavily of a saying made famous by Erasmus (roughly recalled here): "When I have money, I buy books. If I have anything left over, I buy food and clothes!" As these first three stacks are showing me, that's certainly true of me! So far, no authors have jumped out in the list. No author has more than two books in the catalog. Of course, I expect that to change as I start digging into the stacks, but we shall see. I have not really had a favorite author, nor do I expect to get one anytime soon. "Favorite authors" for me tend to write in the realm of fiction (R. A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, for example). I do know, however, that I posess all but one of Mr. Bruce Ware's books (the exception being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), so if you wanted to say he's a favorite, you could easily do so. That man just...challenges...my mind. Take his classes if you ever get the chance. Well, as I recover from a sinus infection, I'm going to try and make it 5 stacks completed today. Enjoy your day, and any cataloguing suggestions you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Photo Friday

2006-07-21T18:48:00.000-04:00

I promised to put up some pics from our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, and what better time than on Friday? Hope you like my initial foray into the photo crowd! Taken from the top of the mountain in northeastern Tennessee, at Bean Station. Stephen Knight, a lone crusader in a dangerous world, the world of a man who is Deaf elect. Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho...oh wait, we can't do that anymore, right? Tricia at the Pirates exhibit at the Aquarium of the Smokies. A romantic dinner at an authentic Italian restaurant I discovered near our hotel in Gatlinburg. Preaching in Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church. Cades Cove is located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Go there if you get the chance. A scenic overlook in Cades Cove. My favorite photo of them all. This creek ran an old mill at a settlement in Cades Cove. And I will close out with a little Gatlinburg humor:

Creating the Deaf Jedi Archives

2006-07-18T22:19:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed that once again I have missed self-imposed deadlines for posting. Here's why. My wife has become more and more insistent about getting our second bedroom set up (wives do tend to get insistent from time to time, you know), so I have begun the laborious and time-consuming process of finally cataloguing my library, which currently sits on the floor, woefully unorganized, pending the purchase of bookshelves. I took a gander at this Library Thing doohickey some of you guys like to use and found it a bit confusing at first glance. So Library Thing is out until, perhaps, the future. So I palled around with Word and didn't see anything I liked. Then I opened Works and in their database program I found a very nice book inventory template. So I will be filling out this database (unless any of you can turn me towards something just as simple but better) for the next few days. I'll give you a final count (grand total, categoric total, author total, etc.) when it's all said and done. Which reminds me that I still have several boxes of books leftover from college sitting in my dad's garage with the rest of my things. I need to get those up here as well, and then I'll have all of my books together. I have decided not to catalog any works of fiction (with the exception of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and just maybe my copies of The Lord of the Rings). The reasoning behind that decision is simply this: in the event of a fire, which books am I going to replace? Tricia and I knew pretty quickly we weren't going to repurchase any fiction in the apartment, whereas I would set out almost immediately to rebuild my theology and counseling acquisitions. That's significant, because I'm leaving out my Star Wars collection. But I suppose the $8 Puritan Paperback copy of Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor is much more valuable than my mint condition, autographed copies of the novelization to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, each purchased for about $25. That's right, mint condition, autographed by Terry Brooks himself. In about 10 years they'll be worth 20 times what I paid for 'em on the collector's market. But in 10 years' time, I'll be teaching our children the finer points of Divine Providence from having read John Flavel than how to lift rocks using your mind from listening to Yoda, and that is a trade of eternal value. What has this week taught me? A blogging lesson I keep forgetting to learn: don't set deadlines. Just do it at your own pace and have fun. A lesson we all can appreciate, especially as summer winds down and we start to get into the school habit again, for those of us still at Southern.

Superman Returns, Part 2

2006-07-14T17:34:00.000-04:00

After some reflection, I decided to give Mr. Mansfield's comments on the previous post some face time instead of answering them in the comments.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

He said:

But what did think of the suggested negatives in the film: (1) removal of "American Way" as part of what Superman stands for, (2) his selfish choice to leave Earth for five years, (3) his illigitimate child with Lois Lane, (4) Lois is shacking up with her boyfriend. I'm not so conerned about #1 since he does save the USA at the end regardless of what Perry White says, but 2-4 seem to me to be real sticklers. I don't like these elements of the storyline and feel they unnecessarily demean the Superman mythos. I didn't like Superman's decision in Superman II to selfishly give up his role as earth's hero so that he could be with the woman he loved. Nor did I like the "one night stand" between the two of them. And now, all the negatives of S2 are continued in Superman Returns. People can say that these developments make Superman "more human," but Superman is supposed to lead by example, and to me this Superman does not do that. What are your thoughts?

All right, fair enough. Here's my response. 1. I found that to be slightly off-putting. The liberality of the film industry leaked a bit there, didn't it? But given Perry White's character it actually fits perfectly. As a newsman, he's after what sells, and "truth, justice, and...all that" is what sells papers in Metropolis. I also don't buy the "international hero" junk. More likely they're after international dollars, and "the American way" isn't a very big commodity overseas these days. 2. I don't understand why you call this selfish. Supes may be many things, but he is, fundamentally, someone separated from his home and family. He is similar to many adopted and foster children in this way--he desires to know his roots. He had the opportunity to find out what happened to his home and family, and he took it. That's not selfish--that's the action of a person who cares deeply about his family, from which he has been separated. I submit to you that it is Lois Lane and the rest who are the selfish ones. Especially Lois. What claim do they have on Superman? None. He does not kowtow to Lois' desires, nor should he. Lois had it right the first time--the world does not need a Superman. Only by God's grace do they have a Superman at all. They have no right to make demands of that grace. 3. & 4. I think it is good that they show the consequences of Superman II. Lois has been and probably always will be this paragon of feminism, and in this movie she is suffering the effects of such a lifestyle. It is shown to be bankrupt and unfulfilling. Lois longs for a proper relationship with a man, and that is glaringly obvious all throughout. Even with her boyfriend, she wants all the trappings of a relationship and none of the responsibility. The bankrupt feminist mistake. Supes, on the other hand, illustrates something I've been wishing would be shown. He is not the paragon of virtue everyone makes him out to be. Underneath the suit, super powers, and alien biology, he is still a fallen creature in need of redemption. Sin is inevitable for Superman, inevitable. Even leaders sin, and now Supes can show us what redemption looks like. But somehow I don't think the filmmakers will do that. I think they'll glory in his fallenness. I have to conclude by saying that I did not intend to approach Superman Returns with this mindset, nor will I in the future. Once I read some of the reviews (the non-spoiler ones) out there, I was pretty down for a bit. Then I decided that I didn't care what anyone else thought, it is just a movie and I'm going to make up my own mind. Politics and inane moralizing would be benched for two hours and just allow myself to see the movie as a movie. But I did notice clearly all of your above items but the second. I go to or rent a movie for enjoyment and relaxation, not to ponder the theological value of film. I watch a lot of movies and enjoy many while recognizing it is not these that I receive edification from, but from the Lord. Until the "Christian" movie industry gets its act together and starts producing movies of quality and Biblical fidelity, we need to stop expecting an unbelieving world to produce things enjoyable and edifying to believers. Such things only come from the hand of our Lord. That being said, I'm ready for Spider Man 3 to hurry up and get here.

Superman Truly Returns

2006-07-13T22:54:00.000-04:00

Tricia, my beloved wife (no longer fiancee, yay us), and I went tonight to see Superman Returns. I left in stunned awe. The Man of Steel made a triumphant return to the big screen. There are very few words that can adequately describe this movie-going experience. "Run out TODAY and see it!" will have to be sufficient. Brandon Routh looks so eerily like Christopher Reeve, a few times I could have sworn I was watching one of the originals. It is, however, obvious the directors did everything they could to make the role easy for him to play. He doesn't have a lot of lines in this movie. When he does speak, he is dead on as Clark Kent or as Superman. That's a superb job of shepherding someone acting in what is, I believe, his first movie. Routh can only improve with time. He is a greatly sympathetic character in both roles, whereas Reeve only accomplished that in Superman II. Kevin Spacey is the ultimate Lex Luthor, far surpassing anything Gene Hackman ever did or could have done. He lends Lex the very aura of evil. His presence made the movie really hit home. The character he gave us really brought out the Lex Luthor we know from the comics, and for the younger (and far less aware) generation, made it believable that the Lex from the TV show Smallville would grow up to become the Lex of the movie. It was a perfect contrast to Routh's Superman. This movie did a fantastic job of connecting the Superman of old with the Superman of new. References to the first two movies are everywhere, for those who have seen the originals. At the same time, Superman Returns remains its own story, taking the Superman saga to new, unexplored heights. This movie will drop your jaw, make you yell and cheer, and tear up in all the appropriate places. It is the closest thing to a masterpiece, and for a movie that attempts to continue a 20-plus year old story told by beloved actors, that is a remarkable accomplishment. Someone wrote a while ago that they hated this movie. It was claimed by this person that Supes did not even smile at the audience at the very end. I am here to put the lie to this claim. Yes, he did. Yes...he...did. This movie was everything the old were, and more. I have not been able to shut up yet. Run out and see Superman Returns TODAY.

Blog Update

2006-07-12T14:30:00.000-04:00

You may notice the new template. My "old" one mysteriously failed today, similar to Alex Forrest's difficulty from a couple of months ago. I think I will keep this template until I decide whether or not I want to stay with Blogger or move. I'll get the sidebar put back ASAP. I also need a bit of help. I have been ready to post the first verse of my attempt at translating John 3:11-21 from the Greek; but I cannot find a Greek font that seems to be compatible with Blogger. At least not without having to pay for it. Any suggestions? Specifically, which font and how to code it in Blogger is what I am looking for. Anyway, this disgruntles me. No Greek, now no template. I will do my best to have the Greek up tomorrow; meanwhile I will work in part 2 of Irresistible Grace tonight.

The Doctrines of Grace: Irresistible Grace, Part 1

2006-07-10T15:08:00.000-04:00

Now, at long last, we return to the Doctrines of Grace! In this installment, we will look at the fourth point of the TULIP, irresistible grace.

Definition

Okay, let's get started, as usual, with a definition. Dictionary.com defines irresistible as impossible to resist; having an overpowering appeal. This is an excellent definition; in fact, it conveys exactly what is meant by this doctrine. The grace of God is so appealing to the elect that it overpowers their natural inclination towards sin and turns them towards God. Their inclination towards God's grace naturally causes them to accept God. However, opponents of the doctrine insist that this appeal to the sinner is compulsory if indeed is is that strong. As such, many adherents to Calvinism feel the term "irresistible" does not quite convey what is meant. The term effectual or efficacious is preferred instead. Both are defined as producing, sufficient to produce, or capable of producing an intended result or desired effect. I'm not too sure why some prefer this designation; in my mind there is no real difference. The root idea of both adjectives is of something so attractive that those to whom it is offered desire only to accept what is offered. You might say that it is the flame to which a moth is attracted. What is offered? The thing offered is grace. This is defined as mercy; a favor rendered by one who need not do so; the prerogative of mercy exercised (as by a chief executive) or granted in the form of equitable relief; a special favor. We know these are the definitions we see because the verb is defined as to honor or favor. So then we see that grace is God's special favor, unnecessarily given by His own prerogative. We see further that grace is merciful, equitable relief. Taken together, grace is God's special favor of merciful, equitable relief, unnecessarily given to individuals by His own prerogative. Sound familiar? Yep, we're talking, to some degree, about election (see sidebar for Unconditional Election). And what is that relief from? The punishment of sin--eternal death. What we have, then, is this definition of irresistible grace: the special favor of God, unnecessarily given by His own prerogative, that gives merciful, equitable relief so appealing to those towards whom it is exercised that they in turn want that favor. I will close this installment with a confession of confusion. I am somewhat confused as to what, exactly, is objectionable about this definition. When one properly understands even the simplest part of the doctrine--the definition--it is difficult to imagine opposition. But as we shall see in the following posts in this series, there are objections; all based on, in my opinion, a faulty understanding of irresistible. I will pause here and allow us to digest. Join us later this week for part 2, as we undertake a historical look and biblical support!

An Oreo Cookie Moment

2006-07-07T05:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while convalescing from my very wet 4th of July, I saw a commercial that gave me pause. Just like the Oscar Meyer weiner, they are redoing the Oreo cookie jingle. Unlike the weiner, the Oreo cookie was a staple of my childhood. Many a day went by when I was very small that I found myself singing the jingle to myself, with a very whimsical look on my face. "Ice cold milk and an Oreo cookie, they forever go together, what a classic combination; a dark delicious cookie meets an icy cold sensation; the one and only creamy crunchy chocolate, O-R-E-O!" Incidentally, I do confess that I thought the verse was a glass of milk. Oh well. They shouldn't mess with a classic, but if you listen to the finalists, A Capella Gold sounds almost exactly like the original. Now go get yourself a glass of milk and some OREO cookies!

Return of the Deaf Jedi

2006-07-05T12:11:00.000-04:00

At long last, I have returned. The two or three of you who were holding your breath and pulling out your hair can relax now. I had to get internet set up in our apartment, and I have now gotten DSL cobbled together from BellSouth's excellent service. Let's go over the blog agenda for the next month.

The wedding was great, the honeymoon fun and relaxing, and pics will be posted in the near future.

I will finally get started on irresistible grace this weekend. The reason will be explained in the next item.

I will blog the setting up of my office at church through the next couple of weeks. The bulk of this stuff is notebooks, folders, and papers that I have accumulated through my time at Southern. They need to be sorted and filed. Right now, everything is in boxes or piles in my home office in the apartment, so good luck finding anything! You'll get to see exactly what my home office, where everything is boxed and stuff, looks like now, what my church office looks like, and the finished product.

Josh Hearne, for those of you who remember, asked me to do a translation of John 3:11-21 for the 200th post contest. That will get underway beginning Monday. I will try do to at least one verse per day until it is done. I'm salivating over this one.

I think that is it for the time being. I won't be trying to do too much since we are getting the apartment in order and the like. Thanks again to all who have prayed for me and fed me through their blogs, friendships, and teaching!

Pre-Marital Musings

2006-06-16T02:47:00.000-04:00

As I prepare to engage in cleavage (What's that? No, no, no, I'm not talking about boobies, you boob! I'm talking about marriage! Leave your parents and cleave unto your wife? Hello?), I'm struck with several thoughts at random: Is it possible to be Reformed and not be a "full" Calvinist? Just how dumb is our convention, really? Passing that alcohol resolution was even dumber than the Disney boycott. Speaking of dumb, why are we counting non-Christians as church members just because "we don't want to lose prospects for evangelism?" What happened to the church being a body of believers? If this knot in my tummy means anything, then I think I've just discovered what "pre-wedding jitters" are. It is annoying. I was fine until now! I'm going to hurt my boss for giving me those jitters when he reminded the entire department about my wedding at work last night. He's already been duly threatened and the rest of the guys have volunteered to hold him down. Is everything ready? I hope the folks from Tennessee get up here to the 'Ville okay. I sure wonder how dadgum gorgeous Tricia will be. We might have to change her name to Grace, cause I'm sure she'll be irresistible. Queerest of the Queer: Late-night infomercials. The one that's on now is for "80s Gold." That's a great decade; unfortunately most of us are still trying to forget how uncool we were. But we've never had better toys than we did in the 80s--Voltron, the original Transformers, G.I. Joe, Star Wars. The old school stuff can't be beat. Strangest of the Strange: We're having an organist at a Deaf wedding. Numbest of the Dumb: The poor men and women humiliating themselves on Fear Factor right now. They just got done eating spiders, scorpions, and bugs. *shudder* Lamest of the Lame: Outgoing SBC president Bobby Welch's foot-in-mouth moment where he said, "Maybe if we spent less time blogging we would spend more time baptizing." For those of you who came of age in the 90s, you ought to recognize those last 4 thoughts being from Garbage's song Queer. Is it really less than 36 hours till the wedding? I'm going to enjoy the honeymoon. Thanks to everyone who's prayed for us and who have fed me through their blogs, seminary classes, friendships, and so on. I love you all and look forward to this new chapter of God's will for my life!

The Dangers of Reformed Thinking

2006-06-14T05:01:00.000-04:00

I had heard a few months ago that someone in the SBTS blogosphere was planning to write about the "dangers" of Reformed thinking. Well, "a few months" have passed, and no such blog has been forthcoming on the SBTS metablog. So, I have decided to list a few of the dangers that accompany Reformed thinking.

You will read what the Bible actually says.
You will give up what you want the Bible to say.
You will be driven to study meticulously.
You will develop a hunger for the weighty words of dead theologians.
You will become a better theologian and Bible scholar.
You will disdain "rededications," preferring instead perseverance through discipleship.
You will despise "altar calls."
You will believe giving a Gospel invitation is mandatory.
You will think the purpose of preaching is to present the Gospel.
You will hold that "it's all about God," not "it's all about us."
You will become more and more bewildered at the appallingly unenlightened state of the church.
You will desire that people disagree with what you actually believe, not with their made-up bogey men.
The less fortunate will become theology hooligans.
You will chuckle amusedly at Emergent/Arminian/heretical/(insert adjective or group here) theology (especially after reading Purgatorio's treatment of the EC).
You will start telling really bad jokes using each point of the TULIP.

It was predestined and irresistible, so sue me.

Somebody Finally Gets It Right...

2006-06-13T17:06:00.000-04:00

Drs. Albert Mohler and Paige Patterson, SBC seminary presidents both, have just made my day. Reading this report of what initially was characterized as "Clash of the Theologians" nearly a year ago has warmed my pre-marital heart and set it aflame with fresh fire. They discussed their differences over the system of Calvinism the way true Christian brethren are supposed to. Somebody finally gets it right. It's days like this that make me glad to be a theology hooligan. In other news, Mr. Frank Page has been elected president of the SBC. You may recall that I supported this guy (see this post), despite his obvious theological flaws. It's difficult to withhold support from someone who seems to genuinely want to work with those brethren with whom he disagrees theologically. On the blogging front, I've been lax. I fully intended to have the doctrines of grace finished this week; instead it has taken a back burner due to the massive wedding preparations I have been doing. Is it really only 4 days left? I may try to get at least irresistible grace done, but I'm not making promises this time. I am currently in the process of getting moved out of Fuller Hall on campus and into our apartment. Pray for this time, as I absolutely despise moving. But this move is for a better blessing than I could ever hope for! With that, I take my leave to go finish my laundry and pack up a few more boxes. May God richly bless you!

Reforming Revival

2006-05-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

Outgoing Southern Baptist Convention president Bobby Welch, in this BP News article, is calling for every church in the SBC to have more revivals. Specifically, to have two annual revivals. From the article:

“I would urge you: If every church in this convention attempted to have two revivals in one year, it would change everything,” Welch said during the annual meeting in Nashville. “You say, 'But we don't do any revivals anymore.' I say to you: If you had two of them, it would do you better,” Welch continued. “You say, "Well, if I said revival, nobody would know what we were talking about.’ Well, talk about something they know about, but you give them a revival. Spend a few days trying to visit people, spend a few days trying to share the Gospel, spend a few days preaching the Gospel and watch what God will do,” Welch said.

What is the purpose of a revival? The word revive means: 1. To bring back to life or consciousness; resuscitate. 2. To impart new health, vigor, or spirit to. 3. To restore to use, currency, activity, or notice. 4. To restore the validity or effectiveness of. 5. To renew in the mind; recall. So it would seem that revivals are important. But why are revivals so ineffective these days? I would venture to guess because we have forgotten what a revival is for. A revival seems to be a time when we refresh or recharge our spiritual batteries; to reaffirm our mission and ministry; or perhaps to receive a fresh vision of what the Lord is doing. Oftentimes, however, we view a revival as a time "to get right with the Lord" instead. Granted, we must seek to repent of our sins and be forgiven, but that is not the sole purpose of revival. Further from the article:

Mathis, who is in his seventh year of vocational evangelism, said the revivals he leads, even in smaller membership churches, usually reap 10-12 professions of faith, and in larger churches many more. But the interesting thing to Mathis is that two-thirds of the converts are adults. “I’m discovering that adults in the 40 to 60 age range are especially receptive to the Gospel,” Mathis said. “And it’s therefore a mistake to regard the traditional revival as ineffective. In many cases, churches are baptizing more people as a result of revivals than they baptize throughout the rest of the year.”

Now, let's ignore the age-issue of this quote and focus on the principle. Revival is a time for the saints to be encouraged and uplifted by one another and through the preaching of the Word. It is not a time for people to get saved. It is not a time for evangelism. That's right, a revival is not a time for evangelism! Look at that first definition. To revive something is to bring it back to life. The lost are not alive, they are dead; furthermore, they were never alive to begin with. A revival is not for a non-Christian. Since only believers were alive to start with, a revival is for Christians. And Christians, when revival time rolls around, what do they do? They start acting a little holier; they start reading their Bibles a little more; they start coming to church a little more regularly; they start trying to figure out if they need to rededicate their lives; they start acting more evangelistically through inviting their non-Christian friends to the revival; and so on. In other words, they do, for that one or two times a year, what they ought to be doing every week, or even better, every day! And because this is a once- or twice- a year event, their pre-revival behavior continues for a few weeks to a couple of months after the revival, and then tapers off until the next revival; at which time they realize they failed to live up to their pronouncements from the previous revival and need to "rededicate" their lives. How horrendous. Our current view of revivals says that revivals are for weak Christians. It may even go so far as to view all the faithful as weak. We are seeking the lost and those Christians with weak faith, instead of seeking to lift up and encourage the saints by the power of God's Word. What we really need is not two revivals a year. We need to reform revival! What we need is a commitment from our churches to discipleship. What we need is the preaching of the Gospel year-round. What we need is to raise up believers who are strong in the Lord and in the power of His might in-season and out-of-season. Revivals, as we currently practice them, don't do that. They are band-aids attempting to cover a gaping wound.

More on Frank Page

2006-05-30T17:02:00.000-04:00

Today, Baptist Press News released another story about Southern Baptist Convention presidential nominee Frank Page. The story can be found here. Earlier, I posted on Brother Page's views on Calvinism. For that post, click here. Let me say that after reading this release from the BP, I am enthused. I like this guy. He seems exactly the kind of SBC president that we need. I kept finding myself muttering "yes, Lord" under my breath at each treatment of issues. And then we came to the issue of Calvinism. Page continues to show errors in his understanding of Calvinism. In the article, we find this paragraph:

"Page said he expressed his belief that “God has foreordained the ‘how,’ not the ‘who.’” Those foreordained in Christ become the chosen elect people of God, he added. Noting that Reformed pastor John Piper’s books are among the most read books on seminary campuses, Page said the movement is huge and growing -- “bigger than Texas,” he stated. “We must have honesty about this issue. There are churches splitting across the convention because pastors are coming in quietly trying to teach Calvinism or Reformed theology without telling the pastor search committees where they stand. The vast majority of Southern Baptist churches are not Calvinistic in their theology and it’s causing some serious controversy.”

I'm disturbed by two quotes here. First, God has foreordained the "how," not the "who." Those foreordained in Christ become the chosen elect people of God. Huh? Has my reading comprehension gone down a few notches? Unless I miss my guess, he's saying that "foreordination in Christ" and predestination (read as "election") as he understands it are two different things. You can be foreordained, but you must become elect. A look in the dictionary says otherwise. "Foreordain" is defined as to determine or appoint beforehand; predestine. So to "foreordain" someone in Christ is the exact same thing as "foreordaining who." Both the "how" and the "who" are determined. If someone is "foreordained in Christ" they are elect. Furthermore, he's denying Romans 8:28-30, which explicitly states that God determined the "who" beforehand. I can only hope he simply hasn't thought that one through. Second, the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches are not Calvinistic in their theology and it's causing some serious controversy. I actually agree with this quote. The vast majority of our churches are not Calvinistic. This represents a departure from the historic Southern Baptist faith. My inquiries into Southern Baptist founders reveal staunch Calvinists. No problem there. But I'm disturbed that this issue is "causing serious controversy." Calvinism should never be an issue of controversy! Serious Baptists and non-Baptists alike should seek to understand just what it teaches and simply decide whether or not it is a tenable position for one to hold. It is not the Gospel, despite what some people like to rip out of Spurgeon's sermon on the issue. It is the attempt to qualify what the Gospel is against the Arminian heresy. Yes, Arminianism, in my estimation, is a heresy. Most of us non-Calvinists don't even hold what heretical (classic) Arminianism does -- we're largely Calvinistic. So, the worst you can do is say Calvinists go too far with limited atonement. And even that isn't as bad as it sounds. Its bark is worse than its bite. But Calvinism as a whole (it's much bigger than the 5 points) is an extremely Biblical and God-honoring system. The founders of our beloved convention do not seem to have minded too much that there were some Baptists within our fellowship who were not full Calvinists. The Baptist Faith and Message, as well as Southern Seminary's Abstract of Principles, seem to indicate only three of the five points (the T, the U, and the P) are necessary to be able to call oneself a Southern Baptist. I remarked to a good friend that it seems as if the founders hoped that our convention would be Calvinistic or at least as Calvinistic as possible without sacrificing unity. As such, splitting churches over the details of that system is the height of stupidity. I'm going to go so far as to call it sin. Yes, sin! It is sin to mislead a church by intentional omission; and it is sin to split a church because you don't agree with the pastor when he is not a heretic nor in sin. Work together as a church family or I question your faith according to the principles of 1 John. This is why I find it refreshing to read Pastor Page say just beforehand that he is more than willing to work with Calvinists. All one must do to have a place at his table, he says, is meet his three criteria for appointment, which are: a sweet spirit, an evangelistic heart and a deep belief in the integrity of the Word of God. Many SBC Calvinists that I have been privileged to meet or read certainly meet these three criteria. Shouldn't that be the driving basis for Christian fellowship among those who differ on certain issues? There should be no divisions among us, except in cases of serious heresy or sin. And that said, I reiterate: I like Frank Page. It will be my prayer that if he is the man, God will elevate him.

"Private Sins" and "Quitting the Church"

2006-05-30T15:26:00.000-04:00

Is adultery a "private sin?" Can we "quit the church?" John Divito points out a case in Dallas in his post here, in which a church member involved in an adulterous relationship sought to avoid Matthew 18 church discipline by "quitting the church" so that the church could not appropriately confront him over his "private sins." The man and mistress in question have sued the church. His case has been dismissed twice and is currently on appeal. Go over to John's and read the articles, especially the church's release on the matter. But I want to ask a pertinent question or two. Is adultery a "private sin?" Now, I have to be very careful what I say here. There are people who read this blog who can potentially be hurt or even insulted by what I discuss in the following paragraphs. But we must not pretend even for a minute that adultery can be glossed over, and as such I submit that adultery is not a "private sin." The very fact that there are people who would take offense at the above paragraph should be evidence that there is nothing private about adultery. Someone completely disinterested in or ignorant of their situation, such as me in this post, can affect the emotions, attitudes, and behaviors of an adulterer with a post such as this. Further, adultery affects more than just the people involved, it affects the entire community. Secrets are kept that damage the relationship between the person keeping the secrets and the community. When one keeps secrets, an unhealthy attitude is taken in the relationship, and perhaps even resentment and bitterness creeps in because the one keeping secrets knows the community may disapprove. If the secrets are revealed, the relationship is actively damaged, because fellowship is broken. Either way, the relationship between the person and the community has been changed unalterably. The effects of adultery, as I have briefly stated here, go far beyond one's immediate family. So, adultery is not a "private sin." I'd also argue that there is no such thing as a "private sin;" every sin, no matter how sheltered, affects others around us in some way, shape, or form. And I haven't even mentioned that "private sin" drastically affects our relationship with God. That brings us to a second question: can a person "quit the church?" I'd say that if a person is a believer, he or she cannot leave without incurring sin on his or her part. This is not a knock against people who leave a church for various reasons such as a church falling into heresy, moving to a new community, God calling a person to join another church, or what have you. This is about a person leaving a church for the express purpose of avoiding the consequences of sin. I would expand this issue to also include those who "quit the church" in order to "punish" a pastor or church who they perceive to have offended them. On this one, I am unmerciful. Scripture is clear on the matter. The book of Hebrews tells us that we are not to forsake church attendance, and by extension we are not to forsake church membership. The consequences of the situation described in John's post are dire. Matthew 18 is very clear that the person attempting to avoid church discipline -- whether through ignoring it, flaunting it, or actively seeking to avoid it -- is to be treated as if they were not a Christian. These people are unbelievers doomed to Hell. And as believers, it is our duty to admonish those professing faith but living unrepentantly. The same goes for those who have "quit the church" for other reasons "less" sinful or not sinful at all, who are unrepentant of not returning to church. Who are they really "punishing" by leaving and refusing to return to fellowship? They are only hurting themselves, because the gathering of believers is the place where they will learn and grow in the faith. It is the only place where they can be discipled effectively. The church will move on without them, while they wallow in their bitterness like pigs in the mud. The sad thing about the situation with the adulterous man is that all along he is being called to Christ, yet by his refusal he is rejecting the very Savior whom he claims has saved him. What a radical perspective on those who are false teachers among us who "bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction (2 Peter 2:1)." And to claim that a Christian is not subject to church discipline is surely a destructive heresy.

Moments of Theological Stupidity: "Stupid Is Forever"

2006-05-23T15:43:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the second installment of Moments of Theological Stupidity! Dan "Booyah" Phillips gives me yet another priceless line over at Team Pyromaniacs. In the same vein as Mr. Frank Turk's son, Dan quotes:

Ignorance is curable, but stupid is forever.

Hahahahaha! This quote was uttered in reference to the book making the rounds in the bookstores called Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman, a secular Jew, has made a career out of recycling old and debunked semi-accusations against the Bible as reasons not to be a Christian. His latest book named above is nothing more than a rehashing. In the post, Dan Phillips gives the listing, in summary, of reasons Ehrman gives that supposedly ought to "shatter the Christian faith." Now, such a book can be safely ignored by Christians, if not for the problem of those who are a) weak in their faith, or b) not Christians. For those who are weak in their faith, they are the "curable." They simply do not know. That's all well and good; it is the duty of their churches and their brothers and sisters in Christ to disciple them by educating them about the Bible. So "weak" Christians ("baby" Christians as well as those who have weak faith) have a built-in means of overcoming the disturbance in the Force they are experiencing. But for those who are not Christians, they are simply stupid. Yes, stupid. Even the Bible calls them stupid. Ever read the book of Proverbs? That book is overflowing with the word "stupid!" And that's an apt word to describe Ehrman's book. In fact, Dan Phillips, in his post, says "the stupidity of articles like this is thick, palpable, almost sliceable and spreadable." What is the remedy for this stupidity? The enlightenment brought about by the Gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the only way such a stupid world will ever be redeemed. That is why debates, conversations, witnessing opportunities with non-believers that do not depend on the Gospel powered by the Holy Spirit will fail. F-A-I-L, fail. We must pray that every interaction we have with a non-believer is led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, and that the Gospel is clearly presented or at the very minimum touched on in some way, shape, or form. A great paraphrase of the great hymn could even read: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That enlightened this idiotic Joe Blow; I once was lost, but now am found, Was stupid, but now I know! I close with these words from Dan's post: "The world is stupid. It has to be. It's a matter of survival of the world qua world. But not as stupid as Christians who take their cues from it."

Frank Page and Calvinism

2006-05-21T22:01:00.000-04:00

For those of you in the know, Frank Page, pastor of Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., has announced that he will accept a nomination for president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In what is increasingly becoming common in the blogosphere, Pastor Page was immediately given a good scouring by the blogs on his church profile and theology, and Timmy Brister pointed me towards this article about Pastor Page's views on the Calvinism issue. Now, let me be the first to say that I am just as guilty as everyone else for getting caught up in this whole Calvinism deal. It's silly. But I would hope I'm caught up in it for the right reasons -- I want to understand just what Calvinism actually is and not what it has been misrepresented as. Is that not a God-honoring reason? Test the spirits, whether they are of God? That being said, I took issue with Pastor Page's misrepresentation of the doctrine of grace as understood by Calvinists. He said, and I am quoting a section from the article:

Looking at God's grace through a Calvinistic view is missing what God means by grace, said Frank Page, pastor of Warren Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., during a March 4 chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. "Calvinism presents a God who arbitrarily selects some to be saved and some to be lost," Page said, adding grace is not a term of selection but an expression of love and acceptance. A Calvinistic perspective on grace misses the most important part of the true nature of grace, he said. "It portrays a nature of God who is capricious and even cruel in his selection of those who would be elect and non-elect," he said. Page cautioned that by seeing a God who selects his children randomly with no concern for the lost, Christians are not genuinely seeing who God is. "Not only does the Calvinistic view portray a nature of God that is other than that in the Bible, but it also neglects an overall teaching of [the nature of God] in the Scripture," he said.

Wow. My jaw just dropped at the apparent ignorance of this passage. No Calvinist I know believes that God is, nor would they ever dream of portraying God as, "capricious and even cruel." In my initial forays into Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, I find a God who is greatly concerned about humanity and desires the best for His creation, for the praise of His eternal glory. In the few Puritan works I have read, this theme continues wholeheartedly. It is found abundantly in the works of Spurgeon, and so on up until today, with good friends and acquaintances such as Shane and Timmy who revel in God's love for all people so much that they try their best to evangelize at every opportunity. The article goes on:

The wonderful thing about grace, he said, is that God's grace does not end once one has accepted God's forgiveness and received Christ as Savior. "God's grace is not only a saving grace, but it's enabling grace, living grace and daily grace," he continued. Telling students that God's grace is the tool God uses to train his children in righteous living, Page said, "God's grace involves us in the greatest training school in the world." By continually walking in God's grace, God instructs Christians on how to become more Christlike and less worldly, he said, adding "God's grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions."

Interesting. This is a wholly Calvinistic view of grace! Is anyone else more dumbfounded than me that Pastor Page, a very intelligent man, completely misses the point? Some of you boys and girls out there correct me if I'm wrong, but does he not realize he believes in essentially the same view of grace espoused by Calvinists? Pastor Page continues by asserting that Scripture teaches God's grace is a gift God desires to give all men. Uh-huh. No disagreement there from the Calvinist camp, either. But Pastor Page commits a big error. Desire does not equal decree. If God's desire for all to be saved actually meant that everyone would be saved, then we've got a huge problem because people are dying left and right without Christ, some even cursing Him to their last breath! To hold such a fallacious view of God's desire means that one must embrace a universalist view of salvation! God forbid! No, just like we do things all the time that we don't desire to do, we have got to understand that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11). He does not desire that the wicked perish, but we have got to understand that God has already decreed that all the wicked shall perish, unless they repent. God has already decided that humanity is going straight to hell! And that is in no way, shape or form cruel or capricious. It is the just and holy action of a just and holy God. How is it cruel for God to (if you read the context of the Ezekiel passages) desire that people turn to righteousness and live? When one understands that this is impossible for man naturally, it becomes clear that God has got to decree for people to turn to Him if anyone is going to do it! And that isn't cruel, it's the just and holy action of a just and holy God. While I'm on that particular rant, where do we get off telling God how to save His creation?!?!? Have we not read Job 21:22 - "Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges even the highest?" Oh my stars and garters, we have got to get off this lemming trail that says "no, God saves us THIS way" before we all go over the cliff! In that respect, Pastor Page does say one thing I and Calvinists wholeheartedly agree with:

Quoting Titus 2:11, which speaks of God's grace and the salvation he offers to all, Page said it is "inaccurate and dangerous to adopt philosophies that are manmade" because they are faulty and are not from God's Word. He did not completely discount human philosophies, stating that they may have some parts, if based wholly on Scripture, that are correct. The problem, he said, is where to draw the line between what is true and what is not. "We may agree with the Calvinists in the total depravity of man or with the Armenians in their free will concept, but the Scripture is so plain," he said. "Scripture shows that grace is a gift that God desires to give all men. "Without looking at other doctrines, we need to look at the doctrine of the gospel," he said, adding God's true nature can only be seen by looking fully at his grace and God's Word is always the ultimate authority on the matters of God's grace.

Amen and amen. I'm reminded heavily of Rev. Danny Akin's message about "worshipping a system instead of a savior." Preach it, brother Page! Now if only Pastor Page would actually examine the Calvinist gospel against Scripture. As a decided non-Calvinist, I would lay down money he would find the near exact gospel preached in Scripture. Christ died to save sinners, of which we (the elect) are without a doubt the worst. And we're the worst because we know just how short of God's glory we fall.

Pre-Graduation Meditations

2006-05-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

As I prepare to graduate tomorrow with a Master of Divinity in Pastoral Counseling (MDiv. PC), here's a few thoughts. I used my Lifeway graduation coupon (25% off) to buy The Works of John Owen, vol. 1. A couple months ago I picked up his most famous work, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ and have somewhat gotten started reading it. I'd like to have a full set of somebody's work eventually, so I figured I could start here since The Works of Jonathan Edwards is like $95 a volume new. I suppose I should get a start somewhere, so I guess you can do worse than Owen. ;-) As I said a couple of weeks ago in this post, I got promoted to part-time supervisor at UPS. I work in the training department. This week was my first week, and there are a lot of adjustments I'm having to make. For example, I have found myself real tired during the night, because instead of moving around and slinging boxes, I'm just sitting in a class for the new hires while I job shadow the training staff for the next two weeks. After that I'll be able to do some actual training myself, I hope. I'm learning a lot, so we'll see what the Lord has in store for me in this new portion of His will! It is now exactly one month until Tricia and I get married. June 17 at 2pm Eastern, to be exact. Any of you bloggers who will be in Louisville are welcome to drop in and say hey at the ceremony. It has been a hectic month. Tricia and I are fine, but everyone else (especially my future mother-in-law) are going nuts over the details for some reason. Now I can identify with those who say they can't wait until it's over, because I'm ready to ignite my lightsaber and dare anyone to try pressuring me about the preparations! Also, I'm in the process of trying to get everything moved to what will be "our" home. We have rented an apartment in town, and Tricia is already living there. Once graduation is over, the work of getting all this junk out of Fuller Hall and across town to the new place will begin. I will be throwing out a lot of old clothes and junk, and I think I may take a lot of my books that I don't need and sell them for store credit at Refiner's Fire books in St. Matthews Station. Go by there--it's a cool place. I plan to finish the Doctrines of Grace (see sidebar) before the wedding. I will start this Monday with Irresistible Grace. So keep your shirt on, folks. I think I've ably demonstrated what the 5 points of Calvinism are really about instead of the stupidity that's out there today. In between that, I will get started on The 5 Marks of a True Christian. And no, I haven't forgotten my promise to Josh Hearne to translate John chapter 1. I have now decided to do that after the wedding when things have considerably calmed down. Well, I am late for a meeting (my last of the semester), so I must mosey. Go forth and blog!

Word to the Wise

2006-05-09T16:13:00.000-04:00

Some of you from the SBTS Metablog are wondering where my post on "The Girls of Southern" went off to. After thinking and praying about this for a while, I decided to remove it. Too controversial, I felt. The subject matter was too disrespectful to our ladies, I believed. Too much of a chance of people getting in a hissy over. So I simply decided to consign the post to the realm of the undead. Let's just forget I was even asked about a Playboy spread for our ladies. The issue has been squashed by a friend of mine so maybe I should consider it dead as well.

Strange Baptist Fire

2006-05-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd give some love to the boys at Strange Baptist Fire (SBF). This site is dedicated to giving clear, concise, biblical answers to the morons at Baptist Fire. Notice I didn't link to Baptist Fire. They're not worthy of a link. These guys at SBF are doing what others have tried and grown weary of. They are answering a fool. "But wait," you ask, "doesn't Scripture say not to answer a fool according to his folly?" Certainly. But there comes a time when evil must be answered, and Baptist Fire is evil. Only the light of truth will defeat it. That said, I will make known that I do not agree with all of SBF's theology, but that's okay. I have said and will continue to say that if one is going to disagree with Reformed theology, one must disagree with what it actually believes and not the caricatures, distortions, and misconceptions that are out there. True Calvinism is not found in hyper-Calvinism (the distortion) nor is it found in the lies spewed by Baptist Fire, nor is it in the popular misconceptions the average Christian holds. Anyone who has even given the once-over to each of my posts on the doctrines of grace (see sidebar) ought to readily understand this. Baptist Fire makes me embarrassed to be non-Calvinist, Baptist, and Christian. Only someone with an IQ of a rock could behave in such a manner and still claim to be Christian. Claiming to be wise, they are fools, and God has sent them strong delusion, that they would believe the lie. Let all of us, non-Calvinist and Calvinist alike, throw our support behind Strange Baptist Fire. Such wolves in sheep's clothing must be at the very least humbled; at the very worst turned over to Satan for their destruction.

A Promotional Post

2006-05-05T05:13:00.000-04:00

Well, it's official. The Deaf Jedi has been promoted. That's right, starting May 15 I will be a part-time supervisor at UPS. No more slinging packages for me! I had my formal interview this Wednesday, and at the end the district manager (or supervisor) who interviewed me told me that I was in the pool. That was my only goal throughout this process, to at the very least have my name in the pool before the wedding. And then tonight my full-time supervisor (UPS has three levels in an employee's "chain of command" -- a part-time supervisor, a full-time supervisor, and then a manager) came to talk to me and told me that I would be promoted within the next two weeks, and then only because we had to get our belt squared away first. To promote me now would have been to leave my belt shorthanded. But at the end of the night, my part-time supervisor (my immediate super) told me to go upstairs, because the Godfather was going to make me an offer I couldn't refuse. Yes, he actually did say that. Anyway, I went upstairs and I was offered the position, and it did not take me more than 5 seconds to say yes! God has shined His grace on me tonight! I will not miss slinging packages. I will miss the exercise it gave me. I will not miss the horrible attitudes and behavior from certain co-workers. I will miss them personally, as I became friends with each and developed strong relationships with some of them. Shane knows what I'm talkin' 'bout. I will deeply regret losing opportunities to witness to them, especially certain people on the belt. But I remain confident that God's word will not return to him void. I am just floored at the providence of God. This promotion came just as I was beginning to worry about money. Now I will not need to worry about money for a good while, especially considering I am on the Dave Ramsey plan. On the contrary, God has chosen this moment, just over a full month before my wedding, to enlarge my estate. I spent the entire shuttle ride back to the parking lot fighting tears of praise to God and suppressing the overwhelming desire to just start singing boldly to the Lord. I was able to get to my car and have a "prayer closet" moment just for that! I want to take a moment to thank all you readers who have prayed for me, especially my church, Louisville Baptist Deaf Church and Timmy Brister, who both personally prayed for me in the 24 hours immediately preceding my interview. I thank my family for being supportive and prayerful, and for embarrassing me constantly by needlessly bragging to their friends. Here's more fodder for ya, folks! Now, in the immortal words of Mr. Frank "Centuri0n" Turk's son:

Let's get this paudy stauded!

A New Kind of Worship

2006-05-04T22:48:00.000-04:00

This is what I wrote for Dr. Ware's Systematic Theology 2 class for our second Scripture Meditation Paper. For the purposes of a blog title, I'm gonna call it "A New Kind of Worship." Although I don't think there's anything new about what it proposes! Enjoy.

A New Kind of Worship

For this paper we were required to read and meditate on Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 1:1-34; and Hebrews 10. It is my opinion after meditation and prayer that these passages present to us a clear and unified picture of how we are to present the Gospel. Isaiah gives us the promise, John gives us the realization of the promise, and Hebrews is the preaching of the promise. Throughout my meditations, it became a constant thought in my mind that our church services should be focused with almost total if not total exclusivity on these aspects of worship. The Giving of the Promise The giving of the promise is the major event of any worship service. Without it there is no vision for the realization and preaching of that promise. As pastors, we should ask ourselves: "What is the promise of God in this passage that I am preparing to preach? How does that promise point to Christ?" That promise must point to the reality of Christ and Him crucified. We must be able to connect our preaching to Jesus, whatever our passage or topic. The promise must be clearly articulated at the beginning of worship. We can do this from the start by having Scripture reading from the message that clearly articulates the promise to be proclaimed. All of our songs in worship should focus around this promise. Without this focus from the outset, our congregation cannot be mindful of what is to come. Our congregation cannot meditate throughout worship time and prepare themselves to receive the promise and learn from it. The Realization of the Promise How do we realize the promise? I have come to believe that we realize the promise of Christ by partaking of the Lord's Supper. This is not to say we realize Christ's promise in ways similar to Roman Catholics or Lutherans. No, I affirm strongly that the Eucharist is a symbolic representation of Christ's body and blood. But what is actually happening in the Eucharist? Christ commands us to partake of it in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19), and as such we are first and foremost remembering what Christ has done for us in fulfillment of the promise. But the promise has been fulfilled. How does the Eucharist give us access to that fulfillment? I believe the Eucharist functions for believers in the same manner as the filling of the Holy Spirit. It is a time of sanctification for the believer. When we partake of the Lord's Supper with a prepared heart - one that is in the fear of the Lord, repentant, and trusting wholly on Christ - we realize Christ's forgiveness of past and present sins and the continual transformation of our minds in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. John expresses the concept I have arrived at here by naming Jesus the light that gives life to men. By His light, we become children of God, born of God's will through Christ Jesus, our sins taken away. The Eucharist reminds us of what Christ's light has done for us and points us ever to His light for our current forgiveness and hope of our final righteousness in heaven. Thus the Lord's Supper is spiritually powerful; something actually happens when we partake of it properly - we are sanctified. This is another reason why we must not profane the Lord's Supper. This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that we are to partake of the Lord's Supper every week. Every Sunday that we come together we must partake of the Eucharist in obedience to the command of Scripture to do this as often as we come together. In this way, if we are constantly renewing our minds weekly by the realization of the promise, our people can potentially be more spiritually minded and more apt to meditate upon their spiritual condition in preparation for worship. The Preaching of the Promise Hebrews 10 gives us a very clear exposition of the purpose of the Isaiah passage and the realization of Isaiah's promise in John 1. The promise, having been given and fulfilled, now must be explained so that faith can come through the hearing of that promise. The listeners (readers, in this case) are exhorted now to claim the promise of Christ's finished work by faith, and not to let go of that promise nor forsake it by sinning deliberately. Indeed, this is a serious responsibility these three passages conclude with in Hebrews. The promise must be clearly and forcefully preached. Those to whom it has been given must be exhorted to hold fast to Christ, to put their trust more and more fully in Him day by day. Those to whom it has not been given are warned that their rejection of the promise is damning. This is also in my mind a clear example that we do not know who those are who will accept or reject the promise, so the exhortation and warning must be preached to all. They are two sides of the same coin. This aspect of worship is the focal point of any service. Without the preaching of the promise, we have no need for a promise to be given nor for a promise to be realized. Romans 10:14-17 makes it very clear to us that unless the promise is preached, none will be saved. Unless the promise is preached, none will be sanctified as well. Conclusion The overarching theme of my meditations on these passages is that there is a great need to overhaul our worship around these three aspects. We must give the promise through our singing and the reading of Scripture. We must realize the promise by partaking of the Lord's supper in every service. And finally, we must preach the promise as the focal point of every worship time.

The 200th Post: Towards a Theology of Baseball

2006-05-03T05:03:00.000-04:00

Ah, baseball. The word brings joy to my mind every time I hear it. I grew up playing the greatest game on earth. And with no braggadocio at all, I was pretty good. It was my dream to be a pro and play for my beloved Atlanta Braves. Yes, for the discerning among you, that means I have been a Braves fan since long before they became good. They stank for the majority of my childhood! Baseball has been a significant part of my testimony. It is the one thing that prevented me from fully yielding to the call for a long time. It is the one thing that in my Christian youth I regretted giving up. You have no idea how I felt to watch the 1996 World Series and see Andruw Jones of the Braves (we were both all of 19 years old at the time) hit two homers in Yankee Stadium, and foolishly think to myself, "That could have been me. That should have been me." Now that I am a more mature believer, I can look back and realize that it wasn't really me who gave up baseball, but rather baseball gave me up as God had determined from before the foundations of the world. At my station in life now, I feel I can now look at baseball without a longing eye but with one that enjoys it. And after our recent revival at my church, Louisville Baptist Deaf Church, I was struck by the metaphor for the Christian life that our evangelist, Ricky Milford from Talladega, Alabama, presented to us. It is that of the bases of a baseball field. And with no further ado, I present to you a brief theology of baseball. The Batter's Box The batter's box is where everything begins for the man or woman in this world. In order to get on base, one must stand in this box and hit the ball that has been pitched to you by the pitcher. You cannot hit the ball anywhere else but inside the box, or you are out. In the Christian life, to be out in God's ball game is to be sent directly to Hell. First Base In the Christian life, we stand before a holy God who demands our obedience to Him in order to be saved. God stands on the mound, His throne, holding the ball, the Law, in His hand. He requires of us to hit the ball pefectly and safely in order to get a hit and reach base. This means that first base represents salvation. But we have a problem. God is throwing this special pitch called the Law at us harder than Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson combined. Imagine a fastball coming at you at 200 mph! You could never hit it, let alone see the ball clearly! That is what the Law does to us - it is thrown at us so hard and fast that we fail to hit it at all. We feebly swing in hopes of hitting it. And as such we strike out miserably. The Pinch Hitter But God, from eternity, had a game plan. He knew that when we got into exactly this situation, we would strike out. So instead of us performing what is required of us, He sent Jesus His son to bat in our place. Jesus is our pinch-hitter. Jesus alone can hit the ball and reach base safely. And He actually accomplishes this! Jesus has hit the ball, run to first base, and reached it safely in our stead. Salvation is now accomplished for all whom God has elected to pinch-hit for. Now, here comes the neat part. Jesus, having reached first base safely, now turns to us, sitting on the bench, and commands us to get off the bench and run the bases! That's right, this is the effectual call illustrated. We cannot finally resist the call of Jesus, just as a baseball player cannot finally resist the orders of his coach. To those on the team (the elect), they will obey. To those not on the team, the fans and spectators (the non-elect), they will simply sit where they are and watch. Maybe even boo, hiss, and jeer. But by faith you and I get off the bench and trot to first base where Jesus is waiting patiently for us to take the salvation He has secured for us. Jesus then leaves us with the Holy Spirit as our base coach to guide us around the rest of the bases. Second Base Second Base is now possible for the runner, the believer. The believer can now be baptized and join a church. This means second base represents baptism and church membership. But a runner does not take second right away. He must either steal second or be advanced by the next hitter. This means that a believer must first mature to some degree before he can be baptized or join a church. This is what in baseball is called "taking a lead," that is, legally cheating a few steps towards second base. The parable of the seeds becomes heavily relevant here. A runner taking a lead can still be picked off. If one has truly accepted Christ, one cannot be picked off. If one has not really accepted Christ, one's lead is not enough to return safely to the bag when attempts are made to assault your faith. Those whom are like thorny or stony ground to the Gospel will get picked off easily. These were never truly saved, never truly believed. Those whom are good soil will always be able to take refuge in Christ their salvation. One cannot advance to second base unless one truly possesses first base. Then when the Holy Spirit gives the church, our third-base coach, the green light, the church will call you to be baptized and accept you as a member. Third Base Third base is famously known as "the hot corner." I played third for many years and can attest to the heat that rises from this position. But once you have joined a church, what's next? One must serve in the church. This means third base represents Christian service. Think about this. Why were we saved? Ephesians 2 tells us that we were saved to do good works, and God had set things up before hand that it would be this way. See, God has a game plan! In baseball terminology, this means God desires for us to "manufacture" runs instead of swinging for the fences. We have to work for the bases! The only difference is that Jesus has already secured first base for us, and instead of working the pitcher, we accept Jesus' base hit in our stead by faith. We truly work out this salvation in fear and trembling! Home Plate What is home plate? It is where the runs are scored. It is the reward for faithfully and fervently running the bases. The runs don't count until one crosses the plate. In the Christian life, home plate represents eternity with God. Think about all the previous bases. Unless they lead to eternity with God, they are worthless. That's right, worthless. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is worthless if it does not send the repentant sinner to the Father with eternal life. Church membership and baptism are worthless because it actually does not send people into eternal life. Christian service is also just as worthless because it cannot give eternal life. This is why first base is so very important. In baseball, if you miss first base but touch second and third, all the opposing team has to do is tag first base with the ball and you are out. Oh-yew-tee, OUT! This should be sobering for us as Christians. We cannot, cannot afford to miss first base! It is the well from which all other bases spring forth. You cannot have church membership without salvation, nor can you have true Christian service without salvation. It is sad to see many of our churches violating this simple principle with an unregenerate membership. And, as Paul says, if Christ did not actually do what reaching first base was intended to do, we among all people are most to be pitied. But His resurrection is the evidence of a secure first base, because He was then able to order us to get off the bench and run! He was not dead in the batter's box, He has risen indeed! And because of this, we can run confidently to second and third, and mosey home safely scoring the run for all eternity. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Celebrating a Milestone: The Contest

2006-04-21T05:58:00.000-04:00

The very next post will be the 200th post on The Silent Holocron. It's hard to believe! I'd like to have a very good celebratory post, but since all of my blog thoughts are centered around limited atonement right now, I thought I'd ask you guys, my gentle readers, to decide on a celebratory topic. Here's what I want you to do: leave a comment with a topic idea and a brief description of the topic in no more than 5 to 10 sentences (or a full paragraph). This topic should be in one of these categories: theology, church history, biblical studies (including languages), Christian counseling (i.e. marriage and family issues), practical ministry, and current issues in Christian thought and ministry (i.e. Emerging Church, ecumenism, etc.). On my end, I will spend a full week researching the topic and writing the post, and full credit will be given to the one submitting the winning topic as the originator of the topic. The winner will get props from me for a week at minimum, and I'm thinking of having a "blog prize" of a free copy of Thomas Brooks' The Secret Key To Heaven, or maybe Robert Letham's The Holy Trinity. I'll update this part of the post as I get settled on a prize. Well, what are you waiting for? You get to tell the Deaf Jedi what to write about! Get to commenting! UPDATE April 27th: Well, I have decided it is over. Alex Forrest suggests I write whatever I write entirely in Greek, but I think that would take me much longer than a week to figure out! Josh Hearne has the best suggestion thus far, and Shane and I have decided we will do another "co-blog" after the wedding on his suggestion. So that leaves it to Hearne and one other suggestion from a friend that was given in person. That suggestion being that I write a theology of baseball. My heart has been duly touched, and this suggestion will win the day. So I have decided the milestone 200th post will be entitled "Towards a Theology of Baseball." I have also decided that I will do Hearne's suggestion almost immediately following, so look for that one after I return from the Kentucky Baptist Conference of the Deaf after Derby Weekend. Most if not all of my papers should be done by that time, so I can give the Greek the attention it deserves. This is timely, because I have taken part in the Together For The Gospel Band of Bloggers and I am itching to post on it!

Putting Death to Death

2006-04-19T14:46:00.000-04:00

A meditation on the title The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. What exactly does John Owen's title mean? The dying of Death? Death has been killed? I've been thinking about this concept ever since I wrote my paper for theology 2. Let's start by defining Death (the second usage in the title, big "D"). I think we can agree that Death refers to rebellion against God that leads to eternal condemnation. This means, Scripturally, all rebellion against God leads to eternal condemnation. Obviously, since Death entered through Adam and Eve's rebellion, Death refers to the consequences of rebellion, and that rebellion should be thought of synonymously (i.e. "it's gonna be the death of me"). So the death of Death means the final destruction of that rebellion. How is Death destroyed? The title here says by the death of Christ. We find this to be eminently true in the book of Revelation, when Death and hell are cast into the lake of fire; that is, into eternal destruction. This means that all rebellion against God has been effectively ended and destroyed with the death of Jesus. All rebellion for the elect and non-elect alike has effectively ceased, making us very clearly without excuse for continuing to rebel despite God's command for all people everywhere to repent. What does this mean for the elect? It means their rebellion has been atoned for. Christ draws them out of what He has destroyed by the power of His death. They have effectively been made alive from eternity. What does this mean for the non-elect? I am increasingly coming to think that this means Christ's death effectively puts them to death. It does not pay for their sins. Rather, it destroys them utterly. From eternity, Christ has cast them into the lake of fire. Christ's death exacts the just sentence they deserve. They are already condemned because of their sin nature, and in Christ they are delivered unto destruction. This is a revolutionary concept in my thought over the past two weeks. It is also quite troubling in some respects because I'm not too sure it is coherent or even a biblically supportable concept. I will post more on this as I reflect more and search the Scriptures.

A Quick Update

2006-04-19T05:20:00.000-04:00

A quick update before bed. Yes, bed--I just got off work at UPS. Shane Morgan has weighed in with Limited Atonement and will be weighing in some more over the next few days. In case you forgot, he has been "co-blogging" the doctrines of grace with me. He's been quite possibly the best partner I could have had as I have begun investigating these doctrines. You can find the two posts he has so far here and here. I really like the first one because he's "invented" another term that we've started throwing around in our conversation! Speaking of invented terms, here's what we've coined so far, and to our knowledge they are original to us: Hermeneutical gymnastics - Shane. This one is our favorite. Theological curmudgeons - Me. This one is becoming another favorite. Death credits - Shane. This one is pretty hilarious and makes a striking point in one of his posts on limited atonement. ...I've got to catch up... When the week is over I will try do to some more incidental posting on the atonement as well as get started with an examination of the 5 Marks of a True Christian. Til then, enjoy the stormy weather. I always find rain soothing and an encouragement to meditate!

Celebrate Jesus!

2006-04-16T08:52:00.000-04:00

Awake! Awake, O Christian! The long dark night is past! The Daystar has arisen, the dawn is nearing fast! Rejoice! Rejoice, O Christian! Lift up your souls and sing Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ the King! Alive! Alive! Jesus is Alive! He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today! Celebrate Jesus, Celebrate! He is risen! And He lives forevermore! Come on and celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord! Life is worth the living just because He lives!

A Brief Exposition of John 3:16

2006-04-14T15:20:00.000-04:00

As a rider to my series on Limited Atonement (see sidebar for links), I thought it might be a good idea to examine John 3:16 in light of the recent (silly) debate in the blogosphere as to whether this passage supports limited or unlimited atonement. Let us see the verse as it stands in the ESV:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Now, let's examine the Greek right quick. Since I'm not too sure how to mess with a Greek font in Blogger, I'll transliterate, so pull out your Greek New Testaments: "Houtos gar egapesen ho theos ton kosmon, hoste ton huion ton monogene edoken, hina pas ho pisteuon eis auton me apoletai all' eche zoen aionion." What the Greek comes out to is this: "For in this manner God loved the world, that he gave the only begotten son, so that all (or "the entirety of") those who put their faith in him (or "the believing ones,") are not lost, but they have life eternal." Okay, firstly we have the phrase everyone knows, God loved the world. It is modified by "for in this manner." So we know that God loved the world, BUT God loved the world in a certain way. How did God love the world? He gave the only begotten Son. There's no possessive "his" in the Greek text, but I think it's pretty clear we're talking about "his" son. So we know that the particular way that God loved the world was that He sent the only begotten Son. What was the reason for giving the only begotten Son? To give eternal life to all who put their faith in the only begotten Son. That's pretty explicit - Jesus is the only way to have eternal life. So what John 3:16 teaches is simple. God loved the world in such a way that He sent His only begotten Son for the purpose of giving eternal life to the entire group of people who put their faith in the only begotten Son. It doesn't say Jesus died only for those people. It doesn't say Jesus died for people who do not put their faith in Him. It simply says eternal life is given only to those who believe. I want to draw our attention to the first part of the verse. "For God loved the world." World in Greek denotes the entirety of mankind in this context, so there is no doubt here that God loves all of mankind. To say otherwise is unbiblical. However, the verse teaches that God's love is manifested in a certain way, and that is through Jesus. This makes it explicitly clear that only those who believe in Jesus are actually able to experience God's love for all mankind. So, when Arthur Pink says "God does not love everybody," I believe him to be speaking in this sense, simply that God does not manifest His love to every human in the way that is specifically stated in John 3:16. So while God's love is universal, the experience of that love is not universal. It is reserved only for a select few. Why is that so hard for some people to grasp? Each of you have a love for the entirety of brothers and sisters in Christ. Each of you have a love for each one of your family members. But not every single one of them experience your love in the same way that you direct it towards particular flesh and spiritual relatives. Think about that a moment. If someone says, "I love you," but you do not have an intimate connection with them; doesn't that, while making you feel good, not really penetrate to your heart? Aren't you more inclined to experience the love of someone to whom you are intimately connected? For those of you who've followed the debate between Fide-O and the IMonk, I'm coming out and saying IMonk is wrong. God doesn't love everybody, IMonk. Get used to it. Now, I do not think this view supports limited atonement. I think it supports, rather, election. Election says only the chosen have that intimate connection that God's irresistible grace gives. Only when one has been given that intimate relationship can love be experienced. My view says that God's love is extended to all, but experienced only by the elect. This brings up the universal and particular aspects of the atonement, which I am increasingly coming to wonder if this is what the debate is really about. Monergism.com has some good articles by John Piper that explores these aspects. Well, I continue to study the atonement, and I welcome any insights you may have, gentle readers, that will deepen my understanding of these issues!

Limited Atonement, Final

2006-04-13T18:05:00.000-04:00

Welcome back! I'm feeling good since I just took a test and feel I did well, so tonight I will attempt to finish our series on Limited Atonement. Tonight we will deal with the implications, my view, and conclude the doctrine.

Implications

Now, there are several implications that limited atonement brings, but none more profound than this:

Limited atonement must drive the believer into weeping, grief, sorrow, and prayer for the lost.

Just in case you think you didn't read that right, I'll say it again: Limited atonement must drive the believer into weeping, grief, sorrow, and prayer for the lost. Think about this for a moment. In fact, let's use a very extreme, though inaccurate, example to drive home my point. If you had an entire school full of children, and armed terrorists came in and told you that because their comrade died, they were only going to allow specific children to live, and that those children were predetermined by them, would you not be driven to grief for the children who would die? Not to say God is an armed terrorist, but hopefully you see the point. Limited atonement teaches that because of Christ's death, only certain people chosen by God from before the foundation of the world are going to be allowed into heaven, and that by virtue of the death of Christ securing their entry. Couple this with the indisputable fact that none of us here on earth know who those people are. This means that every lost person is consigned to hell. Even your unsaved children. Limited atonement absolutely MUST give us a heart for the lost. Which leads to the second implication:

Limited atonement must drive the believer to evangelize.

If limited atonement gives us a heart for lost people, the obvious corollary is that we must get off our behinds and start witnessing to the lost! We must preach the gospel. We must witness to our family and friends. We must witness to our neighbors and even people we don't know from Adam. Think about this for another moment. If there are a limited number that Jesus has purchased with His blood, and we have no idea who they are, that means failure to evangelize has dire, dire, dire consequences. Do we want to be responsible for disobedience of the Great Commission? Don't you realize that our witness is the means by which the elect are saved? As it is said in Romans 10:13-17 --

For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (emphasis added)

So now we can understand clearly that none of the elect will be saved unless we witness to them in some way.

My View

At the current time, I am not a "full" believer in limited atonement. I am not, as yet, fully convinced that Christ only died for the elect. But I am fully convinced (and have been for quite some time) that the application of the atonement is to the elect only. It is my view that there is a distinction to be made between the extent of the atonement and the application of the atonement. I think it is fallacious to say that "if Christ died for all men, then all men will be saved." This argument, in my mind, is a disservice to God's sovereignty. If God really is sovereign, then He can do whatever the heck He wants, whether we think it's logical or not. Some may say "it makes God unjust to withhold the benefit from those Christ died for, therefore Christ could only have died for the elect." That's malarkey and does the exact thing proponents of unlimited atonement are accused of, namely limiting God's sovereignty. It says God couldn't have done it that way, when yes, He could have. I think it is also fallacious to say "all" means "the elect" in some cases. This is because many of the "all" or "us all" passages were written specifically to believers, and as such we cannot (as I stated in Part 2) infer the general from the specific in these passages. Proponents of limited atonement would be better served to use the distinctively general passages I listed in Part 2. I won't get into the whole "meaning of 'world'" debate because I'm coming to think it's a silly and wrongheaded debate. Suffice it to say that I find the Greek for "world" to refer to mankind in general in the places debated, with modification brought about by either the specific nature of the passages or due to being interpreted in light of general passages. I could and probably should go a little deeper, but that would require a post of its own. I can summarize my view of limited atonement as follows: The atonement of Christ is sufficient to pay for the sins of the entire world. However, the atonement is effective only for those elect chosen by God from before the foundations of the world. This is a position that has been much attacked by those holding the "full" view of limited atonement. I've been told that my view is the "majority Calvinist" position as well. Whether this is true or not I do not know, as I am still studying limited atonement as my personal project. I will say that, as I have no desire to become a "theological curmudgeon," I am very open to the possibility that I am wrong on this issue. It is not a hill on which I will die. But I am certain that any change will be because the Holy Spirit has so convinced me of its truthfulness. If limited atonement, in its "fuller" sense, is true, then the Spirit has just not yet seen fit to convince me.

Conclusion

I have defined limited atonement as the amends for the sin of specific humans made by the redemptive life and death of Jesus that brings about reconciliation between God and those specific humans. There is ample biblical support for this argument. The support is convincing for many, and indeed is all but convincing for me, myself. But I feel that there is other biblical evidence to warrant a limitation in application rather than extent. So yes, I believe in a "limited" atonement, just not the fuller understanding. But nevertheless, limited atonement should never be characterized as "sapping evangelism from our churches." What a stupid, ignorant, and curmudgeonly thing to believe! Limited atonement, in its fullest form, is one of the greatest spurs to evangelism the Christian can have. Only so many have been redeemed, and we must get out there and get them! Pray that God will give you a heart for the lost, for only so many will be redeemed, no matter which form of limitation you ascribe to!

5 Marks of a True Christian

2006-04-08T13:34:00.000-04:00

Timmy Brister has put up an excellent post asking readers to give the 5 marks of a Christian. He is asking for 5 words specifically, 5 attributes. You can find the post here. Now, while I think that it is good to list 5 attributes, I think it can be better encapsulated in 5 statements. Obviously, we're required to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, and that's more than 5, and each of them are equally important in my mind. So with that said, here is what I believe are the 5 Marks of a True Christian.

A testimony of repentance and faith in Christ and of sanctification since.
Fear of the Lord - a deep and abiding awe, reverence, and dread of God (and Christ)
Love for the Lord - which includes in my mind a love of the Word
Love of neighbors - brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the lost
Missional attitude - concerned to fulfill the Great Commission in whatever setting one is in

Is this not a strong list? This list, in my mind, encapsulates every Christian attribute (i.e. fruit of the Spirit) and responsibility (i.e. going to church, witnessing, etc.) there is. When limited atonement is finished, I am going to devote a short series to each of these points. This is too important. This may even become a sermon series.

Limited Atonement, Part 3

2006-04-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

Okay, a quick recap. limited atonement has been defined as the amends for the sin of specific humans made by the redemptive life and death of Jesus that brings about reconciliation between God and those specific humans. I have also given biblical support for this doctrine. Now let us turn towards a historical background for this doctrine.

Historical Background

At this time, there is dearth of information regarding limited atonement up until the Reformation. I am hoping this deficiency is due to a lack of availability of materials on my part. I would like to put out an open request for anyone who may know of pre-Reformation sources for this doctrine to either email me or note any such sources in the comments section. However, John Owen, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (p. 310-312), gives a short listing of early sources for limited atonement, which I will reproduce in part here. Any emphasis in these first five has been added by me. 1. The confession of the church of Smyrna: in it's letter to the churches of Pontus concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp, they wrote, "Neither can we ever forsake Christ, him who suffered for the salvation of the world of them that are saved, nor worship any other." 2. Ignatius, in his epistle to Philadelphia, wrote, "...for whom, instead of a dowry, he poured out his own blood, that he might redeem her." Owen comments by saying, "Surely Jesus Christ gives not a dowry for any but his own spouse." 3. Cyprian in his epistle to Demetrian writes, "This grace hath Christ communicated, subduing death in the trophy or his cross, redeeming believers with the price of his blood." 4. Ambrose, writing about 370, states that If thou believe not, Christ did not descend for thee, he did not suffer for thee." 5. Prosper around 440 says that "He is not crucified with Christ who is not a member of the body of Christ. When, therefore, our Savior is said to be crucified for the redemption of the whole world, because of his true assumption of the human nature, yet may he be said to be crucified only for them unto whom his death was profitable. Diverse from these is their lot who are reckoned amongst them of whom it is said, 'The world knew him not.'" And again from Prosper: "The death of Christ is not to be so laid out for human-kind, that they also should belong unto his redemption who were not to be regenerated." Owen also quotes Augustine, which ostensibly gives the origin for the Roman Catholic view that there is no salvation outside of the Church: "He often calleth the church itself by the name of the world; as in that, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself;' and that, 'The Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.' And John in his epistle saith, 'We have an Advocate, and he is the propitiation for [our sins, and not four ours only, but also for] the sins of the whole world.' The whole world, therefore, is the church, and the world hateth the church. The world, then, hateth the world; that which is at enmity, the reconciled; the condemned, the saved; the poluted, the cleansed world. And that world which God in Christ reconcileth to himself, and which is saved by Christ, is chosen out of the opposite, condemned, defiled world." Owen comments that more could be said from Augustine, but that Augustine's "judgment in these things is known to all." Hmm. I gotta break out my Augustine stuff. But it seems clear that Augustine, and by extension Roman Catholics, believe in a limited atonement to the effect that only those saved (for the RCC read: baptized and confirmed) in the (Roman Catholic) Church are those for whom Christ died. I invite anyone with a better knowledge than my superficial one on that issue to comment. There is also the testimony of Theodorette of of Cyrus, who lived in 393 to 466. He wrote this about Hebrews 9:27-28. He said: “It should be noted, of course, that Christ bore the sins of many, not all, and not all came to faith. So He removed the sins of the believers only.” Jerome, who lived from 347-420, a contemporary of Augustine, wrote about Matthew 20:28: “He does not say that He gave His life for all but for many, that is, for all those who would believe.” In any event, the doctrine of limited atonement was not really developed (to my woefully incomplete knowledge) until the Reformation; and as such I must plead ignorance and point the reader towards more learned men who may know better than I do. Let us now briefly examine a statement from John Calvin that I think establishes that he believed and taught this doctrine: "The first thing to be explained is how Christ is present with unbelievers, to be the spiritual food of their souls, and in short the life and salvation of the world. As he [i.e. Hesshusius] adheres so doggedly to the words, I should like to know how the wicked can eat the flesh of Christ which was not crucified for them, and how they can drink the blood which was not shed to expiate their sins? [Calvin: Theological Treatises trans. J. K. S. Reid (1954) p. 285]" It was not until the Synod of Dort that Calvin's view was formalized in response to the Remonstrants (Arminians), who held the view of unlimited atonement, that is, the view that Christ died savingly for all and that the benefit was imputed only upon the choice of the individual. As such we see in the Canons of Dort, Second Head, Article 8:

For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death; should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after believing; and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should at last bring them, free from every spot and blemish, to the enjoyment of glory in His own presence forever (emphasis added).

The details of this article have been debated within Calvinist theology since, but none whom hold limited atonement reject that the atonement is limited only to the elect. The Puritans, in general, were staunch Calvinists and produced a large body of work regarding the atonement which is likely unparallelled today. Skipping ahead from the Puritans, Charles Spurgeon had this to say about limited atonement:

Many divines say that Christ did something when he died that enabled God to be just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly. What that something is they do not tell us. They believe in an atonement made for everybody; but then, their atonement is just this. They believe that Judas was atoned for just as much as Peter; they believe that the damned in hell were as much an object of Jesus Christ’s satisfaction as the saved in heaven; and though they do not say it in proper words, yet they must mean it, for it is a fair inference, that in the case of multitudes, Christ died in vain, for he died for them all, they say; and yet so ineffectual was his dying for them, that though he died for them they are damned afterwards. Now, such an atonement I despise — I reject it. I may be called a Calvinist for preaching a limited atonement; but I had rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than an universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of man be joined with it. Why, my brethren, if we were only so far atoned for by the death of Christ that any one of us might afterwards save himself, Christ’s atonement were not worth a farthing, for there is no man of us can save himself — no not under the gospel; for if I am to be saved by faith, if that faith is to be my own act, unassisted by the Holy Spirit, I am as unable to save myself by faith as to save myself by good works. And after all, though men call this a limited atonement, it is as effectual as their own fallacious and rotten redemptions can pretend to be. But do you know the limit of it? Christ hath bought a “multitude that no man can number.” The limit of it is just this: He hath died for sinners; whoever in this congregation inwardly and sorrowfully knows himself to be a sinner, Christ died for him; whoever seeks Christ, shall know Christ died for him; for our sense of need of Christ, and our seeking after Christ, are infallible proofs that Christ died for us. [Spurgeon, C. H. -- The Death of Christ: Spurgeon's Sermons: Volume 4: #173]

Thanks to the crazy guys at Fide-O for this quote. It has been argued by some that once Spurgeon leaves the scene, Calvinism enters its decline with the rise of Methodism and the influence of Arminianism on the churches of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the late 20th and early 21st centuries (in which we obviously live, for those aren't following me clearly) we are seeing a resurgence of Calvinist beliefs, notably within the Southern Baptist Convention and conservative Presbyterian churches. Only time will tell if this is a new Reformation or if it is yet another theological fad. Well, since this is a bit long, I will hold off on implications, my view, and a conclusion until tomorrow, as it's late and it's time to go to work at UPS. Feel free to leave any additional information, thoughts, corrections, etc. in the comments section. Come back tomorrow!

Limited Atonement, Part 2

2006-04-06T16:48:00.000-04:00

Okay, I have defined limited atonement as the amends for the sin of specific humans made by the redemptive life and death of Jesus that brings about reconciliation between God and those specific humans. Now, I'm going to change up the order of presentation a bit in this post and start with the biblical support.

Biblical Support

I'm going to take a moment to clarify what I am going to do with this section. It is my view that many of the passages used to support limited atonement (i.e. passages that state things like "us all") cannot in good conscience be used here because they are written specifically to Christians and as such we cannot infer a universal where Scripture is silent. Instead I want to use such passages that directly speak to a universal principle, in the hope of honoring this doctrine and doing it justice. Also, I am passing over these verses because they are interpreted in light of the universal principle passages, instead of at face value. Some of you will argue (and perhaps rightly so) that I am failing to "consider the whole counsel of Scripture" when presenting biblical support here. To that I ask if it is faithful to authorial intent, which in those cases were directed towards believers, to infer principles about those whom were not addressed. Hmm, that would be great fodder for another post. *note to self* Anyway, the strongest passage of Scripture dealing with this doctrine, in my estimation, can be found in John chapter 10. As we see in verses 11-15:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

I think this passage is very clear in regards to limited atonement. First of all, Jesus himself explicitly says He dies for the sheep. It is obvious from the context of the entire chapter that the "sheep" spoken of here are the elect, those chosen by God from before the foundation of the world for eternal life. Second of all, we know for certain that "sheep" here refers to the elect because of the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31-46. So it seems that Jesus is explicitly claiming to give up his life solely for the elect. From this passage I think we can rightly point towards Ephesians 5:25, which states, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her....(emphasis added)" This passage very clearly points specifically towards the elect body of believers as those for whom Christ died. Other passages that are sound in their support include: John 6:37 & 39 - implies that only the elect are in union with Christ. By extension, this means that only the elect share in Christ's death. Very powerful, for only those whom have been given to Christ by the Father are delivered by Christ. John 11:49-52 - Caiaphas the high priest prophesied that Jesus died not only politically for the nation of Israel, but spiritually to gather together the children of God who are scattered abroad. This is a very specific statement that says Jesus died specifically for the children of God, the elect. John 17:9-12 - supports John 6 above in that Christ again states that none of those given to him perish. All whom the Father has given to Christ (the elect) are delivered by Christ's death. Revelation 5:9-10 - very clearly states that Jesus died for a specific group of people that are taken out of every tribe and language and people and nation in the world. There are also other verses that support this doctrine in the way that I have attempted to show it here, but I think this is a good sampling. It is a very convincing sampling on its own, I would hope. This is why I wanted to set aside verses such as the "us all" passages which were written specifically to believers, because those verses are interpreted in light of verses such as the ones I have listed above, as I stated in the beginning. I hope that the result of doing things this way is that we have come to an understanding of why those passages are interpreted the way they are. Also, I want to interject that none of these passages can be understood without first understanding the doctrine of election. No one who holds limited atonement can do so without holding unconditional election (for my posts on this doctrine, click here: Part 1 and here: Part 2). Now, I think here is a good place for us to pause and digest. Tricia wants to go to a nice dinner and to see Ice Age 2, so I will return after laughing at the squirrel.

The Doctrines of Grace: Limited Atonement, Part 1

2006-04-05T20:45:00.000-04:00

Finally. At long last. We have arrived at Limited Atonement. Buckle up! Introduction I want to begin by firstly making clear that this post and the post to follow is not an attack upon limited atonement nor its supporters, nor is it the reverse concerning unlimited atonement. As the stated purpose of this series is to present the doctrines of grace clearly and accurately as possible, to the best of my understanding, that is exactly what I am attempting to do in this treatment. Limited atonement is quite possibly the most controversial of the five points of the TULIP. Some would say unconditional election is the most controversial (though I think to argue about election is barking up the wrong tree), whereas the limited atonement position is just deluded. I say people who would naively and stubbornly argue against any point from any perspective, Arminian or Calvinistic are nothing more than theological curmudgeons. Let us make any assent or dissent from a perspective that is studied and informed, as I am attempting to do so here. The proper point of dissent for one must be the limited atonement position, as each point treated thus far is clearly and convincingly articulated by the witness of Scripture, as is each point that will be treated subsequently. Limited atonement, in my estimation, is the hub of the Calvinist wheel. One's position on the atonement is a more accurate estimator of whether one is fully Reformed; each of the other four points of the flower can and have been staunchly held by non-Calvinists. Now, with these introductory remarks concluded, let us turn to a definition. Definition We might wonder why we need to define these words. Don't we all know what limited means? Don't we all know what atonement means? I would hope so. But in the interest of clarity and certainty, let us define these words. Dictionary.com gives several definitions of limited that I think are crucial to our subject matter. The verb means: 1) To confine or restrict within a boundary or bounds; 2) To fix definitely; to specify. The adjective, which I think is the one we want here, means: 1) Confined or restricted within certain limits; 2) small in range or scope; 3) having a specific function or scope. So limited in our context means something that is definitively fixed within a specified boundary and having a specific function or scope. Something that has been fenced in, so to speak, for a specific purpose. Now, atonement is defined as: 1) Amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong; 2) compensation for a wrong. It goes further to define atonement religiously as reconciliation or an instance of reconciliation between God and humans, epsecially as brought about by the redemptive life and death of Jesus. So atonement in our context means the amends made for our wronging of God that brings about reconciliation between humans and God by virtue of the redemptive life and death of Jesus. Let me try to put these two definitions together to make an uber-definition. Limited Atonement refers to amends for the sin of humans made by the redemptive life and death of Jesus that brings about reconciliation between God and humans. Further, these amends have been definitively fixed within a specified boundary and scope, for a specific purpose. Yes, I agree with you--this definition sounds very clunky and cramped. But it is exactly what is meant by limited atonement; namely the atonement has a specific purpose and scope to it. (There, that was simpler.) Now, before anyone decides to get riled up, notice that there is nothing in my definition that says anything about what that purpose and scope is. That comes later. We have to flesh out exactly what this definition tells us from the witness of Scripture. An Alternate Definition However, in the interest of accurately describing this doctrine, I need to say a few words about an alternate label for this doctrine. Many Calvinists prefer, instead of "limited atonement," the term particular redemption, feeling it to more accurately present what is meant by this doctrine. Dictionary.com, in the context we are using it here, defines particular with 1) of, belonging to, or associated with a specific person, group, thing, or category; not general or universal; 2) Logic. Encompassing some but not all of the members of a class or group. So, then, to define it using particular, we find that limited atonement refers to amends for the sin of specific humans made by the redemptive life and death of Jesus that brings about reconciliation between God and those specific humans. Yes, I think that is much better, clearer, and more accurate. And with that, I think this is a good place to stop. Tomorrow we will examine the biblical support for this position and the historical background of this doctrine.

On Sheep and Goats

2006-04-05T06:14:00.000-04:00

Shane and I were talking tonight after work about limited atonement, and in the course of our discussion the topic of sheep came up. Obviously, we were talking about the verse in John where Jesus says he lays his life down for the sheep. We started talking about the verses where there are sheep not of Jesus' fold, and as we looked at the text together, Shane brought up the sheep and goats metaphor. Suddenly I was struck with how appropriate a picture of salvation and election that metaphor is. I was also struck at how utterly useless it renders human effort. Think about this for a minute. What is the default position for humanity? Every human being is a goat at the moment of their conception. That means destined for eternal punishment. Now, if this is true, think about what works-salvation and other forms of salvation attempt to do. Any other form of salvation that is not wholly God's work is attempting to do the impossible. That's right, the impossible. Now, there are certain of you who read this blog who are about ready to string me up as a heretic. But hold on just a second and read the next sentence:

Can a goat become a sheep all by itself?

Well? Can it? You see, this is the insight that put a massive grin on my face and a few "Amens" come out of my mouth. It is impossible for a goat to become a sheep. It is absolutely, positively not possible to save yourself. And as such, it is just as impossible for a goat to choose to become a sheep. No matter what this foolish, deluded goat does, it will still be a goat. Just like a man who undergoes a sex change is still a man. Remember what I have just said, it is impossible for a goat to choose to become a sheep. Why? Because a goat is happy just the way he is, for starters. He does not desire to become a sheep. He does not desire to act like a sheep. He does not want to be a sheep. In order for this foolish goat to become a sheep, the impossible must happen. He must be transformed. Only when the goat is transformed into a sheep does he want to be and act like a sheep. Only then will he desire to follow the shepherd. Only then can he actually follow the shepherd. And it has nothing to do with any action on the part of the goat. And that, my friends, is exactly what God does in salvation; he transforms us and gives us the desire and ability to follow him by faith. But what about election? Remember, Jesus spoke of separating sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). While this passage is more accurately about the final judgment, I think it is obvious that the passage shows not every goat will be transformed. When one takes into account the discussion above, it is obvious from this passage that God deliberately chooses to transform some goats while passing over others. There are many other verses of Scripture that support this position. "But waitaminit," you object, "doesn't the Bible say that God doesn't want anyone to perish, but for all to be saved?" Of course it does, and of course God does. But what does Jesus say in John 10:22-30?

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." (emphasis added)

Look at that emphasis. The reason people do not believe is because they do not belong to Jesus' flock. Why is that? Because they have not been transformed into sheep. This is so simple and profoundly humbling. I deserved eternal punishment from the moment I was conceived because I was a goat. But God, in his eternal and unfathomable mercy, chose to transform me into one of his sheep. What a comfort to know that out of all the goats in the world, God chose me. And to think I had nothing to do with it!

A Holocron Wedding

2006-04-03T00:14:00.000-04:00

This past weekend my sister Angie got married. Mah-hah-harried. And, being the award-winning Big Brother that I am, I preached the wedding. An April Fool's Day wedding that wasn't a joke! It was a small, intimate, family and close friends only wedding, and it was a lot of fun. To celebrate the beginning of Spring Break here at SBTS, I thought I'd share some pics with y'all. Our Favorite Goofy One. This here is my bride-to-be, Tricia, in a goofy rehearsal moment. You mean this was an April Fool's joke?!? Me and Angie sharing a lighthearted moment before the ceremony. Brother and Sister. Let's do it, girl! Me officiating the ceremony. The Family. I've prayed for a picture like this for 12 years, ever since my parents divorced. If only it represented the reality. Well, I'll just keep praying! This one will get an 8x10 in my living room for sure. Mom and Dad with their new son-in-law. Of course, these pics don't begin to tell the story of that weekend. There's the part where champagne was spilled on my suit, leading to no end of "you're cut off" and "aren't you a preacher?" jokes; my cousin Andrew (who was the official photographer--these pics were all done by him) giving what will become an infamous although inadvertent "linebacker" remark; there's the glorious rehearsal dinner; and many others that likely will never be told here. But God was greatly glorified this weekend; His name was worthily praised!

On Theological Curmudgeons

2006-03-30T04:54:00.000-05:00

Curmudgeon (kuhr MUJ yuhn) n. A crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas. I recently had a conversation with an individual that just made me think. Is it possible that some people get so set in their ways that change is impossible? More specifically, is it possible that some people get so theologically set that they cannot learn new ideas and change their beliefs? Even when the beliefs they ought to change to are more biblically faithful than their former beliefs? I was struck with abject sadness at the thought. I discussed this with my senior pastor before church Wednesday, and his reply was a resounding yes. Needless to say, this bothered me. He told me that with individuals like this, one would be best served to never discuss doctrine. These people don't want to learn something new. They have already decided what they believe and are not open to growth or to correction. They do not want to believe they could be wrong. He named this type of individual fundamentalist. I was very bothered at the idea I could not discuss doctrine with the individual in question. I was even more bothered that this individual, whom I know quite well, has little or no hope of growth in their faith. Do you folks have any similar stories, and hopefully some encouraging experiences to share?

Arguing Over Doctrine

2006-03-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts I posted elsewhere regarding arguing over doctrine among Christians: I think the weariness expressed in the quoted statement, People are going to hell while you sit here and discuss meaningless doctrines, is pretty valid. How does sitting around getting upset at each other over [doctrine] help our witness? Not to say [doctrine] is meaningless; however I find it pretty embarrassing to see people get upset over doctrine when they could instead be using it to spread the Gospel. When do we simply say, "Look here, this is what I believe, and I believe it is what the Bible teaches, and by God, I'm gonna preach his Gospel whether you like it or not" and leave it at that? If we're being misrepresented and mocked (whichever our position) then further debate is certainly justified, but doesn't there come a point when one just has to say, "Enough is enough, grow up or shut up, and let me freakin' preach the Word?" Do you have any thoughts on this?

Reading Mark Driscoll and Other Updates

2006-03-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

Well, here's an update on the weekend. First of all, Friday I just physically crashed after a long week. When I woke up, I tried to do some school reading and some doctrines of grace reading (in preparation for posting that night) and suddenly realized I wanted to lynch those books. Fed up, I decided I would take the entire weekend "off" from school and limited atonement. The result has been a very restful and refreshing weekend. I will return to class and work on Monday healthy and happy, and my mind will be ready to tackle limited atonement. Tricia and I decided not to adopt Flurry, the Golden Retriever puppy that was born deaf. I'm so sad. We also decided not to adopt our backup, a hearing beagle named Reba. I'm more sad. But now we can focus on the types of dogs I really wanted for later; namely chihuahuas and cocker spaniels. Yay! Once the disappointment had time to settle, Tricia got serious about the whole getting a dog thing and now has a short list of breeds she'd like to look at, and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel has been added to my two-deep list. Not bad for someone who two years ago was afraid of dogs. We can thank her mother's Golden Retriever Ellie for bringing her into the wonderful world of barkdom. In the course of my resting, I decided I'd pick up Mark Driscoll's The Radical Reformission and read it over the weekend. I have almost finished, with a quarter of the book left to read as I write this. Here's a couple of thoughts on that. First, if Driscoll is the "godfather" of the emergent movement, so to speak, then the entire emergent movement (to the extent I have been able to read) has completely missed the point he was trying to make in this book. From Driscoll's own statements in the book, the emergent movement as it exists today is nothing more than heresy. Heresy! That seems a far cry from what he originally proposed. My buddy Shane said that from what I told him it sounded like emergents took Driscoll's ideas and "ran wild" with them. That's exactly what I think after reading through this book. Talk about an "adventure in missing the point!" Second, if Driscoll is correct in what he says, then we have to completely overhaul our ecclesiology. We've got to see if we've become so entrenched in our traditions that the Gospel becomes irrelevant, or if we've gotten so fancy in our innovations that we compromise the Gospel and again make it irrelevant. The second half of that statement is exactly why I think the emergent movement has completely missed the point. I'm not too sure what to think in this area, so I'm going to hold off on any further commentary until I've finished the book and had time to think more on this. Third, if what he says is true about me, I've got some further sanctification to get cracking on. I've been convicted by some of the things I've read in here, and roundly encouraged towards a goal by other things I've read in the book as well. Fourth, some of the guys who've recently reviewed the book need to get a life and grow a sense of humor. This guy is funny. Funny. I did not in the least feel his handling of Scripture was irreverent; then again maybe my sense of humor is different from most other people's. But I have never gotten such a knee-slapping laugh out of a book other than Christopher Moore's Lamb, and that one was a parody of the Gospel! Much less, I have never laughed while reading a serious book like Reformission. When you can thoroughly enjoy someone laying some serious sanctifying smackdown on you, you know the book is good. So, I'd recommend this book heavily to everyone who asks me about it. I'd recommend it over Brian McLaren any day. I still need to finish McLaren's other books, and as such I've assigned myself an additional summer reading project of reading the rest of McLaren's books (the New Kind of Christian series) and other Emergent publications as well. Until then I'm still going to withhold final judgment on the whole emergent deal. Well, that is the Sunday update. See you when I finally get around to limited atonement!

Friday Flounderings

2006-03-24T06:27:00.000-05:00

Well, at work last night I had another intentionally evangelistic conversation with the aforeblogged "Short Stuff." In this conversation I learned how devious some people will get just to convince themselves they don't need your point of view. In particular, I mean that some will try to use your belief system against you in order to accuse you of hypocrisy. The look of hubris on Short Stuff's face as she thought she'd caught me was almost funny. But instead I found it sad. To justify her confused and illogical (and quite silly) worldview, she found it necessary to attempt to ensnare me. But fortunately I was able to present the Gospel to her for the first time; a clear affirmation that Jesus died so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. Sadly, this confused her even more than the straight path I took out of her attempt to trap me in her web. I think a meditation on two passages today is appropriate in light of today's conversation. Let's start with Romans 1:21-25 --

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

And again in 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 about how God deals with the lost:

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

These are sobering passages to me this morning. My heart breaks that Short Stuff is fooling herself and is glorying in thinking she has others fooled too. Please pray with me that the Holy Spirit will work in her for salvation.

Wednesday Wonderings

2006-03-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of things I had filed away over the past week. Blue Like Jazz Debate: Apparently there's been some hassling going on about Mark Coppenger's recent lecture about Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. Timmy Brister and David Brandt posted two very different (though similar in some respects) reviews of the lecture, but both pointed at this review of the lecture, supposedly contributed to by Miller himself. Now, the biggest question for me is whether or not Miller actually did contribute to this article. It reads like some immature high school freshman's journal about how uncool and stupid he is compared to the glorious seniors. More disturbing is how Coppenger is caricatured by the author (authors?) and aspersions cast on his character. If Miller actually did write what's attributed to him, I'm not too sure I want to spend the time to read his book once the semester is over. Is this really the best that postmoderns can do? If all they can do when critiqued is throw mud, maybe they don't have as firm a foundation as they would have us think. Reminds me of the "Testimony Tussle" this blog recently experienced. Sad. Or as someone else said elsewhere in relation to Mark Driscoll, "if all you can take issue with is his tone rather than his content, why are you even bothering to argue?" These guys are real mature "Christians" if all they can do is throw mud at a seminary professor over a silly lecture. That brings me to a second thing I filed away: Emergent Movement: The boys at Fide-O have been looking at the Emergent Movement in this post and in others along the way. They presented a pretty good summary of what the Emergent Movement professes (according to Emergents themselves), and this sparked some volume of commentary. In the course of the meta, Jason Robertson recapped the points he listed as thus:

1. The emerging church phenomenon is exploring fresh ways to revamp and recontextualize the gospel message to postmodern people. The people are sovereign in the EC. They belive that we should edit (revamp) the message to match the people, rather than ask the people to change to match the message. 2. The emerging church phenomenon has placed a long-awaited emphasis on community and relational faith. The EC puts religion into Christianity, almost like cults rather than church. This is even evidenced in the way that they fight to protect their "personal beliefs." 3. The emerging church phenomenon has placed an emphasis on rethinking the modern church . . . its methods, its programs, its traditions, and its structure. The EC is very method-driven and steeped in pragmatism. 4. The emerging church phenomenon has placed a new emphasis on the Jesus of the Gospels opposed to the exclusive emphasis on the Jesus of Paul’s writings. The EC is anti-doctrine. 5. The emerging church phenomenon has placed a rightful emphasis on the importance of Body functioning. The EC is anti-authority. 6. The emerging church phenomenon has placed a new emphasis on the importance of narrative. The EC is filled with talk and no action. It is the Oprah generation who thinks just talking about it and telling your story heals the soul. *insert gag here* 7. The emerging church phenomenon has dumped the modern penchant to always be certain in answering every spiritual question under the sun. Instead, it has rested content to embrace mystery and paradox in our God. The EC is anti-intellectual. And the reason they do not like to answer questions because they do not like the answers. 8. The emerging church phenomenon has re-ignited a healthy interest in the Christian mystics who emphasized spiritual encounter over against mere academic knowledge of God and the Bible. Since objective truth is out of the question because of the anti-intellectualism, anti-authority, and anti-doctrine positions, the EC has turned to its only other option -- mysticism. Their religion is based upon their feelings. The people are sovereign and their feelings control them. And they will probably get really really mad at my comment and say that I just don't understand them. *insert group hug here*

That's a pretty strong indictment. While I might take issue with a couple of throwaway remarks in there, the more I read things from postmoderns, Emergents in particular, the more I find myself coming to the same conclusions Fide-O does here. Don't get me wrong, this movement is filled with good intentions and good people. But when Mark Driscoll (who has been pointed to as one of the originators of the "emergent conversation") distances himself from this movement, something isn't quite kosher. Now, I'm going to echo Brian McLaren's silly comment from a couple of months ago and say we need to seriously study this issue before making any pronouncements. I've deliberately withheld judgment on the whole Emergent issue for this reason--I've not read enough to know how I think one way or the other. But if what I have read is any indication, my final decision isn't going to be favorable. One More thing: Shane Morgan and I were talking at work last night, and he was telling me about Dr. Mohler being on TV last night to talk about comments by Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham about Islam being a "demonically inspired religion." I've been trying to find this show but can't think straight enough right now (I just got out of bed a couple hours ago) to find it. But the gist of the show (as Shane was telling me) was Dr. Mohler basically saying, "Um yeah, it's a demonic religion. You thought I was pluralist or something silly like that?" That was great. I wished I'd seen it. Dr. Mohler has been a staunchly consistent defender of the exclusivity of the Gospel, and it makes my heart warm to know that he's ~~responsible for the high view of Scripture our school espouses~~ the instrument God used to get a high view of Scripture here. Praise be to God. Anyway, just wanted to clear the brain of a couple of stray thoughts. Join me this weekend (hopefully Friday) as we delve into Limited Atonement!

Sunday Musings

2006-03-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

Just a few random pre-church musings:

Tennessee officially declared my NCAA Tournament bracket busted with a loss to Wichita State yesterday. Those slackers. I had 'em going back to the Sweet 16 this year. But it is just the first year of the Bruce Pearl era, so I think I can cut them some slack.

In contrast, Alex Forrest says he went 15-1 on the first day. Alex, you bracketologist git, share some of that Ph.D. knowledge next March. Please!!!

Stephen Underkofler serves up another gem. Honestly, I don't know where he gets this stuff. If I could be half as creative (and on-target) as this guy, the 'Cron would be a funner read. But I digress; to each as the Spirit wills.

Mr. Frank "Centuri0n" Turk has two amazing posts on marriage and marriage counseling. I plan to deconstruct them here on the weekends and in-between doctrines of grace postings. Look Frank (hereafter "Mr. Turk"), I kept my promise to call you "Mr." from now on because of those two posts!

Tricia and I are thinking about adopting a deaf dog. No, not one of those service dogs, I mean a dog that actually is deaf. Flurry, a 3-month old Golden Retriever/Australian Shepherd mix, is totally deaf due to a lack of pigmentation in her ears. She only understands sign language. Since Tricia and I just happen to be deaf, and just happen to be fluent signers, we thought this would be nice. We visited Flurry yesterday and found her to be fascinating. She does have an attitude, though. We'll keep thinking and praying about her and wait until the home visit to make a decision. Oh, yeah, we found her through a Goldie rescue here in Louisville: GRRAND.

Cool Blog Shout-Out: Archaeoblog. This blog feeds the monster of an armchair archaeologist in me. These guys keep up with happenings in the archaeological world. It's almost as if they're the CNN of archaeology, or at the very least a "breaking news" scrollbar. Fascinating reads. Be warned, though: they aren't Christians (to my knowledge) and have derided Creationists. But don't let that detail deter you.

Wedding Update: Tricia and I are now entering the final 3 months until our impending nuptials. I've gotten the tuxes done and have only the limo to reserve, and a little extra work on honeymoon accomodatioins. After that my work will be done, and I get to supervise the rest. I say that tongue-in-cheek; we all know that due to the overimportance placed on the bride, the rest of this is Tricia's show. Come on now, if not for us grooms there wouldn't be a show to begin with! But I've been a very involved groom, making a lot of the decisions, so our wedding day will be something we are both extremely pleased with because we decided together. Just food for thought for all you other prospective brides and grooms out there--do it together, don't let the bride or her mother decide everything. It's your day too, guys!

And I think that should top off the tanks. I have a paper or two to write this week, so I think I will save my introductory post on Limited Atonement for Friday. I can't wait!

What a Testimony Is

2006-03-17T05:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, today let's close this series by taking a look at what a testimony actually is. As most if not all of us know, the ultimate testimony was given by Paul in Acts chapter 22:

"Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you." And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. "As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' And I answered, 'Who are you, Lord?' And he said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.' Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, 'What shall I do, Lord?' And the Lord said to me, 'Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.' And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus. "And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me, and standing by me said to me, 'Brother Saul, receive your sight.' And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him. And he said, 'The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.'" (Acts 22:1-16)

And again we see in Acts chapter 26:

"My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? "I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities. "In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles--to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' "Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles."

An examination of these two great testimonies reveal to us an age-old formula for constructing a testimony: 1) One's life before Christ; 2) One's acceptance of Christ; and 3) One's life since accepting Christ. It is very obvious on the first point that Paul's testimony consists of a simple acknowledgement that his condition without Christ was one of lostness and rebellion. He seems to state rather explicitly that he'd rested heavily on his upbringing, associations and deeds. Then dramatically, Paul meets Christ and all of these things are counted as loss compared to his newfound faith in Christ (Philippians 3:4-11). He then evidences the fruit of his newfound faith by surrendering in obedience to Christ and proclaiming Him to the Gentiles. "But wait," some of you might interject, "even here in these two testimonies Paul never says that Jesus died for him and that he accepted Christ by faith!" To that I say, that's a crock of rancid yak butter. Paul's letters are most certainly his greatest testimony of all to us, and these testify to Paul's fervent belief that Christ died for him. These testify that Paul placed his faith firmly in Christ and Him crucified. As such, we can be especially confident that when the resurrected Lord appeared to Paul, he placed his hope in Christ. Damascus road then becomes the event in which he placed that faith in Christ. What we as believers must do is simple. We must have a testimony that very clearly articulates our lostness without Christ, the placement of our faith in Christ, and the fruit of that faith in Christ. A testimony is not about how you grew up, who your family is, or who you know. It is not about how good or moral a person you are, or all the good deeds you do because you follow WWJD or listen to your pastor. It is not about what Christians have done "for" you or "to" you. It is most certainly not about "following Christ into what many people would call 'lordship' or formation." And that last one is malarkey. A testimony is about Christ, pure and simple. It is about how, in your lost and damned condition, Christ died for you. It is about how you placed your faith and trust in the One who died for you. It is about how, since that moment, Christ has completely changed your life and continues to change your life, to His praise and glory. And if your testimony looks nothing like that, it's not a real testimony. Furthermore, if you -cannot- give a testimony like this, it is all but certain that you are not a Christian. What does this mean for you and me? It means, quite simply, that we must conform our stories to that of Christ. We must seek to most accurately reflect what He has done for us when we give our testimony to others. It means that we must be honest with ourselves and with others, sometimes painfully honest, if our testimonies do not reflect Christ. We must be willing to submit ourselves to the corrective of Scripture to find the proper source of, and change, our testimonies. In conclusion, there are some among you that have been dreadfully offended that I dared put a big question mark beside such testimonies. To that, I unapologetically restate my premise: I utterly and totally reject the authenticity of any testimony that does not proclaim Christ and Him crucified. Until you tell me that you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and that you accepted His work by faith, and that you have evidenced the fruit of regeneration since, I'm simply not going to back down in this assessment. The gospel and the testifying of the gospel is not inoffensive; it's the most offensive thing in the world. And if you claim to be bound by that gospel, you better come prepared to proclaim it. To God be the glory.

Sad Deaf News

2006-03-14T15:36:00.000-05:00

Miss Deaf Texas Tara McAvoy was struck by a train and died Monday. The train conductor said that they blew the horn constantly right up until she was hit. This illustrates a sad but true danger Deaf people face every day just crossing the street. We may never hear you until it's too late. I personally have nearly been run over by speeders in SBTS's parking lots, all because I never heard them coming. And this happens to me several times per month. No, it doesn't always matter if you look both ways; if you never hear a car coming out of a blind spot, you can't protect yourself. It is one of the many challenges that Deaf individuals simply accept as a way of life. If you'd like some more information about the Miss Deaf Texas stuff, click on this link.

"An Elegant Smackdown"

2006-03-13T21:28:00.000-05:00

It just had to be blogged... Albert Mohler uses the word "smackdown" in a sentence. Perhaps he's a lot less nerdy than he lets on? That would be awesome, watching Wrestlemania and discussing the finer points of Baptist distinctives with our estimable President!

What A Testimony Is Not (2)

2006-03-13T08:13:00.000-05:00

All right, now that we've seen the three major examples of what a testimony is not, I'd like to take a look at someone who had every "right" to have that kind of testimony. His name is none other than the Apostle Paul. In Philippians 3 he remarks that he has the exact testimony that I am writing against:

For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh--though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.

That's a pretty powerful resume. Paul has a testimony about growing up "in church," about who his family is, and about his adherence to the teachings of the law. All in all, on the surface he looks like a righteous person. Surely this guy is going to heaven! But Paul flatly rejected his former testimony. Philippians 3 goes on to say:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

With this statement, Paul squarely places his testimony in the hands of Christ. His "story" is found in a righteousness that depends on faith in Christ--faith in his death and resurrection. One thing I have always found interesting about Paul is found in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

If he knew nothing among the Corinthians but Christ and him crucified, that heavily implies that his testimony could have been nothing else. Over the past year, I find myself more and more wanting to know exactly what it looks like to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. I want to know how to shape my own testimony, preaching and teaching to this concept. I don't want a 4.5 Calvinist testimony or a Gen-Xer testimony or a Southern alum testimony or even a Deaf testimony. I want a testimony that is nothing less than Christ and him crucified, period. Everything else is window dressing. Furthermore, in Colossians 2:8-15 Paul equates anything less than this with "philosophy and empty deceit." Any testimony that is "not according to Christ" is nothing more than empty deceit. Lip service. Fake. And the scary thing is that unless there is a validation of Christ and his atoning work, the testimonies of thousands of Christians in our churches have just been immediately disqualified. Okay, this is enough for the moment. Later this week we'll begin thinking about what a testimony actually is. Paul also has some very good examples of a testimony of Christ and him crucified, so I encourage you to take a look!

What a Testimony is Not

2006-03-11T16:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, now that (hopefully) everyone has recovered from the WTD (Weapon of Theological Destruction) I lobbed yesterday, let's take a deep, calming breath. ***Richard Simmons - "Inhale (sniiiifffff)...exhale (sheeeewwww)."*** Good, now that that is over with, let's look at what a testimony is not. 1. A testimony is not about growing up in a church or being a member of a church. Now, a testimony conceivably can and most often does include mention of growing up in a church environment and being a member. Mine does. I grew up in First Baptist Church, born and raised. Sunday School, Royal Ambassadors, Vacation Bible School, summer missions trips, youth evangelism conferences, handbells, choir (I was tolerated here), the whole nine yards. I even lived through times of friction within and without the church. And there were periods of time where my family didn't go to church regularly also. And I even got baptized and put on the membership roll without having a genuine testimony of salvation in the 7th grade. (For the record, I actually accepted Christ on Valentine's Day in my freshman year of high school. I'd previously asked to become a Christian after VBS in the 5th or 6th grade because it was the "popular" thing to do at the time. For what it's worth, my pastor there, when I asked, felt that I did not need to be baptized again.) But these things don't speak to being saved. They're merely groundwork. Worth mentioning is that some of the things I listed occurred before I believed in Christ and some happened after. But do any of these things really yell, "Steve is saved?" No. It just means I was blessed enough to be raised in a Christian environment to some degree. 2. A testimony is not about who your parents are. I get this one more often than anything else from my teenagers. "My dad is a deacon at church. My mom runs the nursery. My daddy's the assistant pastor. My mom teaches Sunday School. My dad started an outreach ministry." And so on and so forth. More common than the "Daddy Warbucks" answers are the "I was raised by my parents to be..." answers. You know these, people say they were raised to be good people, moral people, or what have you. And yes, these were responses to the question of how one knows one is saved. But again, do any of these things clearly say, "Jesus saved me?" No. 3. A testimony is not about "following the teachings of Christ." Anyone can do that! Come on. Joe Blow at Trixie's nudie bar can follow what Jesus taught, in principle. Though of course, he (and you and I for that matter) won't be able to follow the "be perfect" command, but I digress. This is the response I most often get from church members. "I follow the Bible. I follow what the pastor teaches me about Jesus. I study my Sunday School lesson. I try to live a Christian life. I always ask myself, 'What Would Jesus Do?'" This is where things tend to get cloudy for us. Obviously, if someone has really accepted Christ, these are the exact things we would look for. But do actions divorced from the saving work of Christ constitute a saving testimony? No. None of these things proclaim, "There's a saved person here!" Ephesians 2:10 ought to debunk any notion of a works-salvation: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Notice something here, the works come after we are "created in Christ Jesus." When are we "created in Christ Jesus?" When we are saved! WWJD is the result of salvation, not the cause. And as such it does not constitute a true testimony. I feel that, after having given these three points, I must repeat myself: I utterly and totally reject the authenticity of any testimony that does not proclaim Christ and Him crucified. Okay, I think that's enough for tonight. Let's meditate and pray over them, and examine ourselves to make sure our "spiritual resumes" are correct. More to follow.

The Appalling State of Youth Testimonies

2006-03-10T19:51:00.000-05:00

I am appalled. In the words of Waldo from the old show Family Matters, "I am shocked and dismayed." Our youth don't even testify of being saved by Christ anymore. Instead, they testify of being on "thrill rides" for Jesus (see Stephen Underkofler for more details) or of growing up church-hopping; or of joining churches just to save $5000 on college tuition; or of great church dinners and growing to like beer; or of following WWJD all their life; or of their parents being church leaders; and so on and so forth, ad nauseam. Where are the testimonies of being saved by Christ? Maybe I'm just old school, but I just don't get it. It used to be a testimony was about coming to Christ. Nowadays people don't even know what it means to come to Christ; all they can testify of is "becoming emergent" or of how they've "lived a moral life" or of how they "seek to follow the teachings of Jesus." I am throwing down the gauntlet. I don't care who this offends. In fact, people with testimonies like that NEED to be offended by this: I utterly and totally reject the authenticity of any testimony that does not proclaim Christ and Him crucified as the source of one's salvation. That's right, I'm questioning your salvation. Be offended all you like. Until you tell me that you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and that you accepted His work by faith, and that you have evidenced the fruit of regeneration since, I'm going to take any testimony of yours with a grain of salt. I won't even consider you for leadership until you do so, much less church membership. And I'm appalled that some people like this have gotten into our seminaries. And I'm even more appalled that this generation of youth are being taught that this is okay. It is far, far, far from okay. What we need in our churches are members with a testimony that is of Christ alone, not of how one is trying to live a moral life following the teaching of Jesus in a variety of churches even though we disagree with some of those churches and whatever else you can think of to add to this ridiculous run-on sentence. No wonder some are predicting the decline of the evangelical church - we can't even get our young people to understand where their salvation comes from. Now, this post was merely to let off steam. Be warned--I'm just getting started. In between my Doctrines of Grace posts I'm going to start a mini-series on what a true testimony is. And I will pull no punches.

Holocron Book Club

2006-03-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

Christian Book Distributors is having a sale on Donald Grey Barnhouse's 4-volume Romans commentary for $20. That's over $100 off the original $125 list price. Run out and get it; it will only last til next month, or so I'm told. For our inaugural Silent Holocron Book Club moment (which should have been my Valley of Vision post, but oh well), I want to share with you a jaw-dropping selection from the introduction to the first volume. I'll put the parts I want to emphasize in italics. (Italics looks like this, in case you didn't know.) "It should be realized also that these studies have been prepared for immediate delivery, and that I was never more than eight or ten studies in advance of the actual moment of broadcast. And, even as I write this preface to the first of several printed volumes, I am now working on the messages that cover the last ten verses of the fifth chapter of the epistle. As the nature of my conference work takes me out over the nation, and at times abroad, I am forced upon occasion to carry some of my material with me and write these messages far from my study, and with only twenty or thirty reference books with me. I have been forced, by this fact, to rely much more upon the Word of God itself, than upon any other commentaries. In all cases, I have read the thirty or forty leading commentaries, from those of the Reformation time and of the Puritans, to the modern commentaries, including those of unbelievers. In many cases, however, I had nothing more than a worksheet with the passage of Scripture in some twenty translations, in English, French, and German, my Greek testament, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Thayer's Greek Lexicon, and the Englishman's Greek Concordance." First of all, the very idea of travelling with twenty or thirty books, especially reference books, is staggering to me. HOW would I get all that stuff on the plane? Or even compactly and comfortably in my car and still have room for necessities? Second of all, the staggering amount of reading this guy did just to prepare a message is astounding. I'm lucky if I go any further than one commentary and two or three expositions, in addition to about 30 minutes to an hour of Greek work, depending on how demanding the text is. Many times I'll just work directly out of the text. I also can't imagine reading Scripture commentary from unbelievers. That's just unreal. Third, look at the guy's worksheet. Is that not massive? 20 translations in three languages is nothing to sneeze at. He's got every conceivable version of his text sitting right in front of him. And that's in addition to his Greek tools. Dang. What this paragraph does is convict me of the necessity of "rightly handling the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15)." Oftentimes I think we young-uns tend to pay attention to the single commentary or two on our shelves, something our former and current pastors preached, and a few books we've read and consider ourselves to have expounded Scripture. Barnhouse puts the lie to that. I'll never be content with any exposition I do from this point on, no matter how correct or thorough it may be, until I've reached the bar that he's just set. Therein lies the rub. We are seminary students, many of us working part-time or full-time outside of classes, and we really do not have the time to give ourselves that fully to the handling of Scripture. What can we do? I think the best we can do right now is understand that we may not be called to be that single-minded while we are in school. There's a reason seminary is a preparation ground - we're preparing for the day when we actually will have the time to do that. So maybe what we ought to do is before we begin preparing our messages and lessons, and especially before we preach and teach, we should just get down on our knees and pray: "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, that I am unable now to go full-bore on Your word. But You have promised us that Your word will not return to You void. Do what You will through what I have done, and I pray that today is a stepping stone to that wonderful day when I can fully obey Your command. My ability is poor, but Yours is perfect, and in it I trust."

Blog Redesign

2006-03-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

It's Alex Forrest's fault. His and Joe Thorn's. I've been wanting to redesign this template for who knows how long, and along come Alex and Joe with an easy and gorgeous way to do it. Free pre-made templates. Whodathunkit? See the sidebar for the link to the template goodies. The only thing I don't like about this new design is that it doesn't have a comments link, nor does it tell you how many comments are on the post on the main page, so I had to add "& Comments" to the permalink line. The comments show up on the permalink. Eventually I'll figure out how to get the comments link back on the main page. But not tonight. Drop me a line and tell me how you like the new look. Meanwhile, amuse yourselves with my introduction to The Valley of Vision.

Discovering the Valley of Vision

2006-03-09T18:55:00.000-05:00

Today I bit the bullet and got a copy of The Valley of Vision. Reading the very first selection very nearly undid me. It is such a timely prayer. I spent a good 30 minutes in prayer and contemplation after reading this one. Let me share it with you. I've edited it to take out the KJV-style language. The Valley of Vision Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, You have brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see you in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold your glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brigher your stars shine; Let me find your light in my darkness, your life in my death, your joy in my sorrow, your grace in my sin, your riches in my poverty your glory in my valley.

Intentional Evangelism

2006-03-07T04:38:00.000-05:00

I just had to share the joy. Tonight at work at UPS, I had an intentionally evangelistic conversation with one of the girls on the belt. And it centered around, of all things, theology! It all started when I was telling the girl (we'll call her Short Stuff) about the spectacularly crappy day I'd had (multiple things had gone disastrously wrong for no apparent reason) and how I could still be happy because of a single thing: I have a theology test today. It's one of my favorite subjects if not THE favorite. Yes, yes, I know--the Jock in me is going into seclusion and the Geek is taking over. Al Mohler would be proud. Anyway, Short Stuff kind of looked at me funny and asked me why that was. I told her that was because theology basically tells us how to be Christians. She gave me a quizzical look and asked me to explain that. I said, "well, theology helps us to understand what we believe about Jesus, for example." Not quite getting it, she asked for an example. "You know how these days most people say Jesus was just a great teacher? See, theology shows us that in the Bible, Jesus said that he and God were basically one and the same. If I understand Jesus in that way, and not in the way that says he was 'just a great teacher,' then it changes the way I look at Jesus and as a result it changes the way I think about what Jesus said in the Bible and what people said about Jesus in the Bible." She got very interested at that point and asked me about atheists. I told her that atheists for the most part don't even need theology since they don't believe in God. "But just suppose what if," she said. So I decided it was a bullet worth biting and replied, "Well, for an atheist, theology basically tells them that they are wrong about God; and theology tells them that they must believe or be miserable for the rest of their lives. Atheists don't want to hear that and spend a lot of time, no they WASTE a lot of their time trying to prove the Bible wrong, and they waste MY time because I have to answer them." She seemed satisfied with that answer. She started asking about other seminary students in the building (especially the illustrious Shane Morgan) and if we all believed the same. I told her that for the most part we were all on the same page. "Why study theology?" She asked. Now that was the question I had really been waiting for. "Because for the most part, Christians don't really know what they believe. They just want to go to church and let the preacher tell them what to believe and they're satisfied. They don't want anything more than that. And while that isn't all bad, people like me and Shane think there is so much more to being a Christian than that, and we believe that because we have studied theology! People like us want to teach Christians theology and help them become just as hungry for theology as we are if not more so!" That started a discussion about televangelists and morons like Pat Robertson. I have to admit I wasn't too nice in my assessment of those guys, but I affirmed to her that they are good examples of what I meant by that. I told her that I thought these guys had a bad understanding of theology which in turn made them think it was okay to take advantage of people in the ways that they did. Then she asked me a bombshell question: "Do you think the reason the Catholic Church had problems with the priests was because the priests had bad theology?" Dang. HOW do you answer a loaded question like that? "I think," I said, "that if those priests really believed what the Church teaches and really studied it, then there might have been a lot fewer problems than there were. But we don't know that for sure." She mulled over that for a minute, and then I interjected, "But see, that's why it's such a big deal to be a preacher, because the preacher's job is to teach people and help them grow as people. A preacher can't do that unless he cares for people, and it's hard for a preacher to care for people in the right way if he does not study theology! So, you see, people like me and Shane feel that we don't know how to care for people if we don't know theology!" Shane, I hope you don't mind that I kinda took it upon myself to speak for ya there, bro. *innocent look* She told me then that she'd never really had the chance to study theology, which was surprising to me because she was apparently raised Catholic. But she shared that she went to a school where they only went to Mass on Fridays, and when I asked she said there were no catechism classes or anything like that. She didn't even know what a catechism or a catechism class was until I explained it to her! Ah, that explains it. She is a Catholic, and she doesn't even have a basic understanding of her faith! How horrible! "That's why it's so important to study theology," I told her, "because when you do that, you learn what your faith is all about." She continued to think about that for a few minutes and then the conversation petered out as we started to get slammed with boxes. I only have one thing to say about this conversation: PRAISE GOD! Only He could have set the events of the day into motion in such a way as to culminate in this conversation. Let me ask you guys to pray that another such opportunity will come our way very soon!

Rock 'N' Roll Part 2

2006-03-04T05:17:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm off work and somewhat more coherent (but not by much), I got another one for ya. This is truly old school. Reminds me of a time when faith was simpler and I didn't need all this theology (or so I thought). Sometimes it's nice to remember when all you knew was fluff. Soulmate by Audio Adrenaline There is a tremendous lover who would like to share His wondrous love story with all those who would care To listen to His still small voice He doesn't like to yell and if you stop and take a chance I know you'll hear him tell I...your soul's friend I...your soul's love I...your soul's hope I wanna be your soulmate, your soulmate The search it will continue leading you down many roads it seems very attractive but in truth you're very alone It's a trick of deception of clever placed distraction leaving your spirit earth bound, never to soar I...your soul's friend I...your soul's love I...your soul's hope I wanna be your soulmate, your soulmate There is a tremendous lover who would love to share His wondrous love story with all those who would care I...your soul's friend I...your soul's love I...your soul's hope I wanna be your soulmate, your soulmate

Tonight, I'm a Rock 'N' Roll Star

2006-03-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

Was listening to Oasis' Definitely Maybe album before I hit the sack after class today, and really got into this one song, Rock 'N' Roll Star, so I started playing it over and over. I even got out the guitar and played it a few times. I got so into it because I was feeling pretty irritated at people outside of SBTS denigrating me and others simply because we go to school here, so the song just spoke to me loudly at that moment. When I woke up I was pretty quiet the rest of the day, especially through dinner. That was mostly because I still had this song on the brain, and I was trying to come up with a Christian version, thinking about how sometimes we're looked down upon and how we're driven by fads in our churches and personal walks. Here's what I came up with on what little sleep I had today. SBTS Star by Stephen Newell Lived my life at seminary There's no easy way out My class movin' just too fast for me I need some time with the Savior I've gotta slow it right down My class movin' just too fast for me I live my life for the Word that shines People say it's just a waste of time When they said I should feed my head That to me was just a day in bed I'll take this fad and trash it bad Cause you're not concerned about the faith I had In my heart my Lord is real Now you're concerned about the way I feel But tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Live my life in the church house There's no easy way out The sermon is just too fast for me I need some time with the Savior I've gotta slow it right down The sermon is just too fast for me I live my life for the Word that shines People say it's just a waste of time When they said I should feed my head That to me was just a day in bed I'll take this fad and trash it bad Cause you're not concerned about the faith I had In my heart my Lord is real Now you're concerned about the way I feel But tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern star You're not down with who I am Look at you now, you're all in God's hands Tonight Tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern Seminary star Tonight, I'm a Southern star It's just SBTS It's just SBTS Get off your high horse, people It's just SBTS It's just SBTS Let's come to Him and worship It's just SBTS It's just SBTS Praise the glory of His grace

A Question on Berkhof

2006-03-02T19:48:00.000-05:00

I need a bit of help. I am currently trying to budget Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology, and while browsing the campus bookstore today I realized there are two versions on the shelves. On the one hand, there is the Banner of Truth edition (reprinted 2003), and on the other there is the Eerdmans edition (printed 1993). There seems to be no difference between the two other than cost (BoT edition is far cheaper) and the fact that the Eerdman's edition contains another of Berkhof's theology books, an introduction to theology, I believe. So my question to you guys and girls is this: which is the better buy? Which will do me more good in the long run? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Unconditional Election, Part 2

2006-02-27T09:28:00.000-05:00

Welcome back. It's been a long time, I know. If you'd like to refresh things, go read Part 1 To recap, I wrote that unconditional election refers to the right, power, or privilege of God to make a choice that is totally free--that is, a completely objective, uninfluenced decision--of some individuals to salvation and others to damnation, and that choice dependent only on the good pleasure of His will and not on anything seen in the individual. Now, let's move into the biblical support. Biblical Support One of the key texts for the definition I have provided above is Romans 9:6-18:

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son." And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

Okay, that was long but illustrative. This verse deals with two aspects of election; namely salvation and reprobation. It would seem here that Paul is clearly teaching Augustine's gemina praedestinatio. But this is not the point of the verse. The point is found in the last paragraph from this passage--election depends not on human will or exertion, but on God. Jesus himself made it very clear that election was from God and independent of human action in John 15:16--"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide..." See here? We did not choose Jesus; rather, He chose us! This verse ties very heavily with a later doctrine of grace, which we will discuss later. I'll let you amuse yourselves by guessing which one. Other important verses include: Deuteronomy 7:7-8 - God chose Israel not because of anything in them as a nation, but because of His love and promise to them. Acts 13:48 - Expresses the idea that there are people who have been chosen to receive salvation. Romans 11:5-6 - Uses the idea of a remnant to show there is a chosen group, and further underscores that the remnant is not chosen because of anything they have done, but because of God's grace. Ephesians 1:4-5 - Underscores that election occurred before the creation of the universe, and was done solely by God's "good pleasure and will." To sum up the Biblical evidence for unconditional election, let's take a paragraph from Dr. Chad Brand's systematic theology class:

Election is not dependent on man’s will (Rom. 9:16; John 1:12-13), works (2 Tim. 1:9; Rom. 9:11), holiness (Eph. 1:4), or obedience (1 Pet. 1:1-2). Rather, election finds its sole and all-sufficient cause in the sovereign good pleasure and grace of God (Eph. 1:9-11; Rom. 9:11; 11:5; Matt. 11:25-26; 2 Tim. 1:9).

All right, now let's take a look at what these verses imply. Implications James Montgomery Boice, in one of his excellent last works, The Doctrines of Grace, gives an excellent statement that summarizes these verses: Election alone starts with all people at the same point and on the same level, all of them deserving hell. Then it saves some and passes by others, entirely apart from anything in the elect or reprobate persons themselves. Indeed, all human beings deserve hell, not heaven. As such, if any individual is to be saved, it must be by mercy only, not justice - remember, all human beings deserve hell. So there is nothing you and I could ever do to deserve heaven. Furthermore, even if God should save people on the basis of something in them (faith, good works, or something else) this would actually be an injustice, because individuals and their backgrounds are unequal.(From The Doctrines of Grace, p.107-108) Boice continues in his book to give four benefits of election, which I find myself coming into stronger and stronger agreement the more I study this doctrine. First, election is humbling. If election is solely dependent on God's pleasure, we have absolutely no reason to boast! If salvation is entirely God's action from start to finish, what right do we have to take away His glory in salvation by ascribing part of it to ourselves? "I think I had a choice. I made the decision. It was up to me to accept Jesus, and then God saved me." These statements are actually true statements. But the problem is that they are not the entire truth. As such we focus too much on the I part. What about the God saved me part? This also ties in heavily with a later doctrine, and I'll continue to let you amuse yourselves by guessing which one. Second, election encourages our love for God. Think about this carefully. "For God so loved me, that He sent His only begotten Son..." God loved you and me so much that He sent Jesus to die for us. And He sent Jesus not because you and I were deserving. We deserved death and hell, and yet God willingly overlooked our sin and the just punishment we deserve to call us His children. Shouldn't that remarkable act of God motivate us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Especially when we realize we didn't do a thing to seek Him in the first place? Third, election will enrich our worship. This should be self-explanatory in light of the first two benefits. If we are humbled before Him, then He is rightly praised and glorified in us. If our love for Him is increased, then our praise and glory of Him penetrates us to the core. It shines forth in our prayer and in our singing and in our listening to the preacher. It shines forth in our fellowship with others. Perhaps only those who hold to unconditional election can truly sing with their emotions and know that they truly praise God. Hmm. Fourth, election encourages us in our evangelism. Most people don't believe this. Most people won't even give this idea time of day. They are being foolish. If you really do hold to election, and you strongly believe the Great Commission, then you must realize that God is going to use YOU to bring in the elect! Shouldn't that motivate all of us to get off our butts and get the Word out that Jesus died to save sinners? Especially since we don't know who the elect are? Summary So, unconditional election, as seen in my definition and in Scripture, is God's choosing of some individuals to salvation totally apart from anything worthy in them or about them. It is dependent wholly on the will of God, uninfluenced by anything outside of Him. My View I don't think I can add to anything expressed in the Implications section of this post. I have always believed in election, though that view was a long time in developing. Once I understood (at least I think I understand) how God's foreknowledge and decree worked, I found myself unavoidably embracing unconditional election. I still think to this day there is something more about the relationship between God's decree and His foreknowledge that unconditional election misses; namely I think there is something about how they work together that we don't yet understand (and it could probably more accurately be said that it is I who don't yet understand that something more). I can't really explain what I mean without getting into the objections to this doctrine, and that is not the intent of this series. But I am currently taking comfort in the fact that men long dead as well as men older and wiser than me today have wrestled with this and written books on the subject, and to echo something Shane once told me about Calvin's Institutes, I have to approach the trail they have already blazed as if they are right and I am wrong. This just goes to illustrate the value of being a lifelong student of God. Thanks for reading! Join us next time as we delve into the most controversial of the doctrines of grace: Limited Atonement!

Towards a Theology of Pewism

2006-02-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

In the midst of the brouhaha over at Founders Ministries Blog, I came across one of the most hilarious things I've seen in a while. Here's a recap:

jbuchanan said: I would like to see us have a discussion on the gnostic and perhaps even Satanic influence of using chairs instead of pews in our buildings. I would submit that the chair "fad" that we see today is heavily influenced by Gnosticism and the desire to have an individual rather than community experience in worship. I think chairs violate the regulative principle and that they should be banned from every church sanctuary. I hope that Mark Dever will add this as the 10th mark of a healthy church. If pews were good enough for Paul and John Broadus, they are good enough for me. Our Baptist forefathers would never approve of this and in fact one of the little known charges brought against Michael Servetus was that he favored chairs over pews.

And again:

jbuchanan said: You guys are all missing the point. You are dicussing minor side issues like church discipline and baptism when you should be worried about the influx of theater style seating in our Baptist Churches. Am I the voice crying in the wilderness or the lone prophet. Will I have to challenge the chair crowd all by myself, like Elijah did against the Baal worshippers. By the way the Baal worshippers were notorious about using chairs in their worship centers. Just look at the damage that is being caused. I know that SBC leadership are mostly chairites but gentlemen we must continue the fight. We need to elect a President that rejects the influence of theater-seating and vote for a pewvanist.

To which Jeff Young gave a rejoinder:

Dear jbuchanan, I might consider joining your cause, but I have to make sure you are as orthodox as I am. Tell me, are you a 5-point Pewite, or not? According to the eternal church practice, dating back to when Peter sat on a bench in the high preist's courtyard, All church seating must be: 1. Totally Homemade 2. Unpadded 3. Left unfinished (no stain or paint) 4. Imcomfortable (the KJV term) 5. Perpendicular (no slant to back) In understand there are 3 and 4-point Pewites, but I cannot fellowship with them. There are also Semi-Paddites, who claim to be true 5-pointers, because they allow only bottom pads, and no back padding. These are not the true heirs to the tradition of Peter, however. Let me know, so I can see about possibly cooperating with you in a pew-building mission trip.

To which brother Buchanan replied:

Jeff, I am a 5 point pewite. The Left unfinished was very difficult for me to accept at first but eventually I saw the wisdom in it. How can I possibly infringe on the glory of God by adding man-made stain to what He has created. I know that many of our churches have abandoned the ministry of pew building, and in fact according to Lifeway, nearly 30,000 of our SBC churches failed to make one pew last year.

Isn't this outrageous? Furthermore, Tim Batchelor threw down the gauntlet:

I believe all seating is unbiblical. The only guy that the New Testament records as having sat down in church (Eutychus) fell out a window and died. The apostle James talked about folks sitting on stools (not pews) and even then they were a source of conflict in the church. I think everyone ought to stand while the preacher sits. Then the pentecostals already stand most of the time anyway. Maybe they are on to something. Can I get a witness, Amen?

This is an interesting development and deserves further investigation. I will be spending the majority of my non-Doctrines of Grace posting figuring out exactly where I stand in relation to Pewism. Here's hoping the illustrious Archer of the Forest chimes in with a distinctively Anglican view of the pew.

Blasting Bugs and a Blog Update

2006-02-23T15:53:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I've not posted but once this week. I've been sick with a cold most of the week, so posting has been pretty low on my list of things to do. I will have part 2 of unconditional election up for sure this weekend. Then we'll get back to my regular posting schedule. In the meantime, bugblaster over at Fide-O hits it squarely on the nose:

If a Calvinist is frozen and chosen and spiritually dead, and if a non-calvinist is spiritually handicapped, then the middleman holds to the tenets of Calvinism without the perceived arrogance and without the perceived lack of care for the state of the lost. The middleman would think like a Calvinist but act like an Arminian. Jesus wept over the lost souls of Jerusalem. There really are passages in the Bible that say that God is not willing that any should perish. Those passages are correct. They have to be, because if they are not, then I cannot trust the Bible. There is no secret will of God that contradicts the revealed will of God. A middleman wouldn’t mess around with formulating and reformulating and debating and professing TULIP if the time would be better spent serving their neighbours. A middleman would accept the sovereignty of God, and thus limited atonement, but would leave it at that, and get back to loving one another and being the light of the world and understanding that ultimately they cannot understand the mysteries of God. A middleman would weep over the lost and seek to proclaim the Way to them, with their deeds and their words.

Let this be a lesson to me and to others, specifically those who think the doctrines of grace are the be-all and end-all. It's just a system, folks, it isn't the Gospel. That being said, our study of this system will continue shortly.

An Apology to the Peanut Gallery

2006-02-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I'm behind in posting. But surely you can understand I'm a busy associate pastor and seminary student who works third shift and is planning a wedding while temporarily leading a church plant until a new pastor is called in order to glorify the kingdom while trying hard not to go meshugah when I drop everything to work on other people's problems and now I hereby end this ridiculous run-on sentence. I'll do my best to have part 2 of Unconditional Election up before I go to work tonight. I think this stuff is worth throwing off my posting schedule by a day (I don't post on Mondays anymore), so I will compensate by taking Wednesday off. That means the entire Limited Atonement mess will appear over the weekend, unless Shane Morgan and I decide to take the week off. Feel free to give Shane some traffic; his post on Total Depravity defies all who ridicule that doctrine. In the meantime, go see what Kenan Plunk found. I love Calvin and Hobbes, but this was just too much! I'm going to be laughing all the way to class. And with no further ado, I'm off to class. Ta ta.

A Lesson on Laughter

2006-02-18T07:12:00.000-05:00

Lisa McGary provides us all with the Lord's best medicine this side of salvation: laughter. This is, without a doubt, one of the funniest things I have ever read. And it's supposed to be a true story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's not bring up the urban legend stuff. Check it out here: I was laughing out loud...this one tops all the rest!

A Lesson on Hatred

2006-02-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

Frank "Centurion" Turk gives us a lesson entitled All About Hate. As soon as I read this I was heavily reminded of the cussin' incident and the more recent backlash from my "Moments of Theological Stupidity" post. Frank's post points towards a growing trend that increasingly dismays me; namely the ridiculous idea that one can't disagree with someone, especially a brother or sister in Christ, unless one hates the person being disagreed with. That is such postmodern nonsense. That's taking tolerance too far. Now, before certain pomos in the blogosphere start trumpeting the mythical "Buddy Jesus" that loves and gets along with everyone, let me quote Frank on this: did you actually read the words in red? You'll find Jesus was quite brusque in His disagreement with people. You'll find quite a few of those whom He sank His teeth into hated on Him because, quite frankly, the truth hurts. But in the end, did Jesus hate them? Certainly not! Didn't the Man break down and weep over Jerusalem? Didn't He lament over Bethsaida and Chorazin? Did He not bemoan that the Son of Perdition should never have been born? That doesn't sound like someone who actually hated people He disagreed with or whom He tried to correct. Likewise, there is no one out there who can actually say I have animus for those whom I think are wrong or whom I have sought to correct. Even those to whom I could rightly be said to have taken a power sander to their planks. I'd prefer the use of a chain saw, but I'd rather have an intact ship with a few rough boards. Not to say that I'm smooth as pudding, either. But let's all take a step back and remember that we're adults before we go off on tangents, calling people haters. A lesson all of us, including those who've been accused of being haters, should sit back and reflect on.

The Doctrines of Grace: Unconditional Election, Part 1

2006-02-15T19:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Part 1 of Unconditional Election! Let's get right down to business. Today I will seek to give you a brief history of the doctrine and a definition, similar to what I did with Part 1 of Total Depravity. Okay, let's start with a definition. Dictionary.com defines election as the right, power, or privilege of making a choice. Yes, it gives other definitions, but this seems to be the heart of the definitions listed. So election in this case refers to "the right, power, or privilege of divine choice." Further, unconditional is defined as 1) Without conditions or limitations; absolute; 2) not contingent; not determined or influenced by someone or something else. In other words, unconditional means "totally free." So, to give a basic definition, what we are looking at here in this doctrine is the right, power, or privilege of God to make a choice that is totally free; that is, a completely objective, uninfluenced decision. Now, let's look at the history of the doctrine. Thanks to Prof. Chad Brand covering this doctrine in his Systematic Theology III class. The Apostolic Fathers do not really discuss grace in the formative years after Christ and the apostles. This is because the biggest challenge the church faced at this time was Gnosticism. Any discussion of election and predestination would have encountered this heresy. Gnosticism taught that only by learning the secret knowledge of God could a person attain redemption. It would have been very easy for Gnostics to seize upon the doctrine of election to support their cause (For example, they could have said, "God has chosen certain individuals for salvation. Let us strive to learn this secret knowledge and as such be redeemed.") So as such election is not given much attention by the early Fathers. It fell to Augustine in his Anti-Pelagian Writings to begin systematizing election. His work was again in response to the heretic monk Pelagius. Pelagius, along with Julian of Eclanum apparently believed salvation is by "human monergism." Monergism means "one energy/action;" thus Pelagius declared salvation is by human ability. Augustine, on the other hand, believed Scripture taught that salvation is indeed through monergism or ability, but that ability is of divine origin, not human. People are saved by God's action alone from beginning to end. And as such salvation begins with God's election of those who will be saved. Augustine believed that the default position for humanity is hell (massa perdita, or the mass of those damned), and God chooses certain ones from this group to be saved. This is why God does not choose to save all--the Bible says clearly that some are going to hell. Further, he also posits the concept of gemina praedestinatio, or "double predestination," which holds that out of the mass of humanity, God chooses one group for salvation and the rest for hell. But Augustine for whatever reason did not go completely into a double predestination view. Unfortunately, as noted in Part 1 of Total Depravity, after Augustine the Church fell into semi-Pelagianism. Election became dependent (contingent) on human ability. To summarize, semi-Pelagianism holds the principle of facere quod in se est, or doing your best. If you always do your best despite your sins, God will accept you. This is the source of the popular belief that if we do our best and live good lives, striving to be good people, then God will allow us into Heaven when we die. When the Reformation dawned, Martin Luther made himself the bane of semi-Pelagianism. This heresy is described as the issue over which the Reformation was fought. Luther wrote a book against Desiderius Erasmus (which unfortunately I do not have the name of) in which he asserted that humans in their natural state do not have free will. Recognize that? That's total depravity. As such, humans are nothing more than donkeys (though Luther used a less endearing word--think of your gluteus maximus) that are being ridden. Either God is riding the donkey or Satan is. And of course, either God is in control of the donkey's fate or we're all heretics. So Luther did hold that God completely controls who will be saved and who will be damned. But election was not Luther's chief concern. John Calvin is the one who brings election and predestination to the foreground. In his work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, he taught that election is unconditional, individual, and unto salvation. That means that God objectively chooses individuals for salvation. He also held that God also objectively chooses individuals for damnation--Augustine's gemina praedestinatio. As such, because God objectively elects, divine election is dependent solely on God's sovereign good pleasure, not on anything in the individual, including the individual's sin. God is riding the donkey, and He alone chooses whether the donkey rides into Jerusalem or is cast into the valley of Gehenna to be burned. The Arminians (especially John Wesley), however, held that election is based on foreseen faith. God in His foreknowledge of things to come saw who would believe in Christ and as such chose those individuals. God is not the arbiter (the one who decides) of salvation, rather the individual is. As such election is not a call to salvaton, but a call to a work, a call to a decision. In a statement, in Arminian election God chooses some people to make a decision to accept Christ or not, based on His foreseeing who would respond affirmatively to the Gospel call. God is completely dependent on individual sinners in election. The Synod of Dort summarized Calvin's teaching on election in response to the Remonstrants (Arminians). I have summarized it as such in the Prologue:

God chooses people for salvation solely by His own good pleasure, not because of any condition foreseen in the individual. One could rightly say that this is "Arbitrary Election." This is not to impugn the doctrine but to underscore that there is nothing that influences God to choose some and damn others but His own purposes and plans. Faith in Christ is not the cause of election but rather the result. As so, those chosen (elected) by God are called the elect.

This is what the Calvinist and Reformed view of election has been ever since. Much thought and writing has been given to the workings of this doctrine since, but Reformed thinkers generally hold to this definition of election. So, then, unconditional election refers to the right, power, or privilege of God to make a choice that is totally free--that is, a completely objective, uninfluenced decision--of some individuals to salvation and others to damnation, and that choice dependent only on the good pleasure of His will and not on anything seen in the individual. Whew, this was long. Join us this weekend when we get into the biblical support and implications!

Total Depravity, Part 2

2006-02-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

Now, welcome to Part 2 of Total Depravity. As promised, we will follow the outline given in the Prologue to the series. To recap, I defined depravity as a depraved (corrupted or degraded) condition of moral perversion in which virtue and moral principles are impaired. Combined with the historical background given, I arrived at this definition for total depravity: the idea that the impairment of man's will is total, so total that the will is not inclined to do good. Now, let us move into the biblical support for this doctrine. Again, thanks to Aaron Shafovaloff for the list of Scriptures he provided in Part 1. That's an amazing list just from the book of Romans alone. Saved me a load of time, he did. Some I'll use, others I won't; but it's a good reference in support. Hey Aaron--send me your blog address so I have the proper link here. If not, that's okay. Biblical Support In the interest of saving space, I'll give a sampling of some pertinent verses. Genesis 6:5 - States quite clearly that "every inclination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil all the time." This is what precipitated the Flood. Every person's desire of the heart is not God, but evil. Jeremiah 13:23 - "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil." Jeremiah 17:9 - "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" We are incurably evil. Sin cannot be cured. This is why sinners are punished with Hell. John 6:44 - "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." While this is not explicit in the same way the first two are, it seems clear that no one is willing to go to Jesus of their own volition. Romans 3:10-12 - The "none are righteous" verses. These are among my favorite verses in the entire Bible, and they quite clearly state that none of us enjoy any state of holiness or righteousness before God. We are sinners and that is that. 1 Corinthians 2:14 - "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." In our natural state (fallen), we cannot understand God. We are so corrupted by sin that we cannot even comprehend our Creator! Implications What are the implications of these verses (and many more like them)? Let us turn to Ephesians 2:1-3 to gather a picture of the natural person:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

What this means is quite simple. First, we are dead as a doorknob. We are walking corpses. Zombies! As such, we are unable to do anything at all. Think about what zombies look like. They are rotting away. What a horrible picture of our condition--because of sin, we are rotting away. Second, we practice evil willingly. We willingly seek brains and don't care what we have to do to get it. We will trample over everyone--including family, friends, and even ourselves--to get what we want. We want brains, and we want it brains...er, now. That pretty accurately describes the human condition--all we care about are our selfish desires. Third, we are enslaved to sin. We are slaves to our selfish desires. We are enslaved to the brains we are so horribly eating. And we can't get enough. We can never get enough. As such we will gorge ourselves constantly until we feel satisfied, which unfortunately is never. A side effect of this enslavement (though it can rightly be a primary symptom) is that we have lost all understanding of morality and spirituality. We are so consumed by our sinful needs that it is all we understand. Anything higher simply confuses us. Fourth, we are the objects of God's wrath. Think about this for a minute. Do you really allow a zombie to live? Not no, not oh no, but OH MY STARS AND GARTERS NO! You kill that sucker dead. And you burn 'im for good measure, just so he doesn't grow any new limbs. That's hell, my friends. God is burning the zombies for all eternity. Those of you who are horror fans know the only way to effectively kill a zombie is to burn it. Fifth, a serious meditation of these above four implications leads us to the inescapable conclusion that we need help if we are ever going to get out of this horrible condition. We need someone to come along with the cure for our sin. But sin is incurable. Therefore we need someone to step in and transform us. That's why Paul writes in Colossians 2:13-14--

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Summary So, we are rotting zombies who are willingly enslaved to our need for brains, and as such are slated for destruction. That, in a horror-movie nutshell, is what total depravity is about. Seriously, we are. Sin has turned us into self-seeking automatons, and as such we are unable to do or be any earthly good at all. We need to be transformed if we are to have any hope of escaping our horrible condition. Death will result if someone does not come along and transform us. My View There is really not much I can say here except to wholeheartedly affirm that I am a rotting, evil, worthless zombie in need of transformation. I fully deserve to experience the eternal wrath of God for my sins. Furthermore, my inclination towards sin has infected every part of my being, so that there is nothing I do that does not contain some ulterior selfish motive, no matter how miniscule. The Romans 3 passage is what convinced me early in my walk that absolutely no one can claim to be righteous. We are all sinners in need of a Savior. So, do I believe the doctrine of total depravity? Yes, unashamedly. Well, that wraps up Total Depravity. Feel free to hash it out in the comments, and if you should see any needed revisions, expansions, etc. let me know and I will either edit the post or take them on in the comments section. Join us next time as we look at the second doctrine, Unconditional Election!

I'm Infamous Again

2006-02-12T00:43:00.000-05:00

I'm infamous again. My post on Moments of Theological Stupidity rated me as an extremist in a post on another blog. Apparently I'm now hyper-Reformed. There's just one big problem with that label. I'm not a Calvinist. First the "Great Cussin' Blogwar," now this. And they say only conservatives resort to name-calling. I suppose this deserves a name change for the blog. From now on, this blog shall henceforth be known as "The Silent Hyper-Cron™" "Hyper-reformed," my lightsaber. What ignoramuses. (That was ironic humor, for the uptight among you.) In other news, Tennessee beat Kentucky. While we normally don't care about basketball back home, this is news. I will be going to church wearing orange. UPDATE: The blog in question came back to the good side of the Force (just a toe in the water, actually) and changed the original post. It's not much better but acceptable. I'm now semi-Reformed. Maybe this guy should get a clue that he's still calling it "extreme." So which is it: are the Reformed extreme or is it the semi-Reformed? He also removed a comment in which I corrected his false attribution of a labelling of him to me. I never labelled him "emergent," and a perusal of the posts in question (Start and Finish) will bear that out. Let's all act like we really are potty-trained, shall we? FURTHER UPDATE: The post in question has now been removed from the author's blog, including nearly all commentary on this blog by him on this issue. I guess he was listening to Kenny Rogers' The Gambler when he deleted his post and the comments from this blog. You gotta know when to fold em.... This has been a fun "Moments of Theological Stupidity." Maybe I should do them more often; you never know what comes crawling out of the woodwork.

Moments of Theological Stupidity

2006-02-11T05:33:00.000-05:00

That's right, theological stupidity. While sitting in Prof. Chad Brand's class this week, I heard something that basically made me go "no freakin' way." Dr. Brand was telling us about a book he was editing on the doctrine of predestination. It's one of those "Four Perspectives" type books. Imagine my surprise when he stated that a well-known open theist was contributing to the book, giving the open theist view of predestination. For those of you reading this who simply don't know, or have been living under at theological rock, open theism is the idea that to God, the future is open (roughly stated). What that means is that God does not know the future. That's right, God does not know the future. Providence, by contrast, can be simply defined as God's sovereign direction of all things to accomplish His purposes for all eternity. Yes, this is also roughly stated. It can be included as part of the doctrine of predestination, because predestination teaches that God declared before the beginning of the world everything that would happen, and that He knew all these things would happen as the result of His declaration. (Yes, I know it sounds confusing. It takes a lot of study to grasp the nuts and bolts, though most of you would agree with the big picture) Think of providence and predestination this way. Ever had something happen to you that could only be from God? Like the money came to pay a bill, or someone showed up to help you just when you needed it, or you found yourself somewhere at the right moment to help someone else? Or maybe something terrible happened in your life that helped you make better choices later in life? That's what's meant by providence--God has worked to make the outcome He desires in our lives, and in history, happen. Furthermore, predestination is that God has decreed an end result for all the things in which He works His providence. The decree comes first, next God goes about getting the result He decrees. (Yes, there's more to it, as predestination is primarily about who gets saved, but bear with me here.) Now, if God does not know the future, why would He even attempt to declare, "I hereby declare in my royal divinenessness that all these peoplesesses will do these thingsesses at those timesesses," and expect it to happen? God is at the mercy of history! He is just like you and me, making plans and hoping nothing bad happens to upset them. Even worse, He (like us) is powerless to prevent His plans from being thwarted. He cannot guarantee an outcome. He has no way of knowing what you will do if He does this or that. He does not even know if you will accept Jesus as your savior! So hopefully now you can understand my incredulous gape when I heard an open theist was going to outline their view of predestination. What utter and total stupidity to have a doctrine about God deciding the future when God does not know the future to begin with! What a waste of God-given brain power. Imagine what Jesus' answer to the disciples about the end times would be if He really did not know the future: DISCIPLES: "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" (Matthew 24:3) JESUS: "Well, see here now...uh...umm...I'm not sure...which side of the tree is the moss growing on again? What's that? No moss on the tree? Dang. Let me go see Madame Faux again and get my fortune told, then I'll hurry back and tell you." Jesus scurries hurriedly to the tent of Madame Faux, the fortune-teller. And with that, another heretic bites the dust. And I didn't even try to wax theological.

The Doctrines of Grace: Total Depravity, Part 1

2006-02-08T21:12:00.000-05:00

Introduction and Definition Welcome to the first of the five "doctrines of grace," total depravity. Before we get into the definition of this doctrine, let's briefly look at the word depravity. Dictionary.com defines depravity in four ways: "1) moral corruption or degradation; 2) a depraved act or condition; 3) moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; and 4) a corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice." What we are concerned with here are the second and third definitions, which I combine thus: "a depraved (corrupted or degraded) condition of moral perversion in which virtue and moral principles are impaired." Yes, I know I just committed a redundancy but just pretend that it's emphatic redundance. Now, for a smidgen of historical background. This doctrine was first expressed by Augustine in his writings against the Pelagian heresy back in the 400s AD. The monk Pelagius taught that man is created essentially good and that man's free choice introduces sin, and as a result man only needs to stop sinning, not to be saved. Augustine, in contrast, insisted that the Scriptures taught that while yes, Adam was created good, Adam's free choice to sin has consequences that were passed down to each successive generation of humans. That consequence Augustine saw in Scripture is that man became totally incapable of doing any good of any kind at all. After Adam, no one is born "good" in the same way as Adam; they are born under the consequence. Man is unable to stop sinning of his own accord. The only power of doing good was to be found in God's sovereign grace (the enabling power of God that rules the universe). In other words, God has to do it (stop sin) for you, since you can't. Thus it is more accurate to describe this doctrine as total inability. Unfortunately for Augustine (and by association all of Christendom and the rest of the world), the church did not fully embrace his system, and thus invented Semi-Pelagianism, which has plagued Christianity to this very day. While Semi-Pelagianism affirms with Augustine that man is not born good (that can only be true of Adam and Eve), and needs God's grace to be saved; however (in concession to Pelagianism) man is not so depraved that he has no inclination to do good. He is merely sick (the origin of the term sin-sick) and must be healed by God's grace. In addition, man must choose to submit to the healing ministrations of God's grace in order to be saved (a further concession that makes this obviously Pelagian). It was not until Martin Luther arrived that this doctrine was recovered. Isn't it interesting how Luther recovered much of what the Bible actually teaches? Luther saw that the church must be cleansed of semi-Pelagianism before believers can ever truly understand God. He made Augustine's teaching very accessible by stating that man's will, man's free choice, is so completely corrupted and perverted that it is in bondage to sin, and as such is not inclined to choose good. He wrote about this in book which sits on my shelf, The Bondage of the Will. It's a good read, I suggest everyone read it. John Calvin crystallized this teaching in the way which it has become known to us today. In his greatest work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote: "...everything in man, the understanding and will, the soul and body, is polluted and engrossed by this [sin or "law of sin"]; or, to express it more briefly, that man is of himself nothing else but [sin]." (In the original quotation, Calvin uses the word concupiscence, which means "strong desire" or "lust." The way Augustine uses it defines it as "the law of sin in our sinful flesh," and as such says we are "born in concupiscence," that is, born in sin.) The Synod of Dort summarized Calvin's teaching on the matter. Please see the series Introduction for the summary as I have rendered it. So, in conjunction with my definition of depravity above, total depravity is defined as the idea that the impairment of man's will is total, so total that the will is not inclined to do good. It is worth mentioning that an entire genre of thought has sprung up to flesh out why a will that is not inclined to do good does, in fact, do praiseworthy (good) acts. However, that is not within the purpose of this blog series. I will note such a quandary for some future blogpost. We can do systematic theology (ha ha, and I'm doing a series on something systematic, how ironic) later. Now, since this history will make the treatment a bit longer than I wanted, I'm going to split up this doctrine into two parts. Today will be the introduction. Friday I will post the remainder of the treatment, following my outline in the series Prologue. EDIT: What you see now is revised from its original posting on Wednesday. I've cleared up some ambiguities, made some things a little more specific, and added an explanation of using "sin" to explain the term concupiscence (thanx to: Shane Morgan). Otherwise what you see is exactly how it was presented originally. Also, I wanna thank Aaron Shafovaloff for making that list of Scriptures in the comments. Now I don't have to list them all on my notepad before I type up the second half of this treatment. ;-) Some of you have also asked where the biblical support is. Please remember that the biblical support of the doctrine lies in the next half, so bear with me. I only sought to get a definition here. I was of the mind that defining terms would make the biblical argument a little easier to grasp for those of us who aren't seminary students. In the meantime, peruse Aaron's list in the comments, it's a good primer for what I'm about to do.

"Ghost Hunting 101"

2006-02-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

Hey folks, it's Wednesday. I'm putting this up as filler until I finish the first of the doctrines of grace, "Total Depravity." Well, I came out of a meeting and came across a brochure for the University of Louisville's continuing education program. Lo and behold, I saw they actually have a class on ghost hunting! Here's the description:

Ghost Hunting 101 This popular class explores the intriguing world of the paranormal, taking a glimpse into the age of spiritualism, addressing theories on ghosts and hauntings, and offering techniques for researching and investigating paranormal activity. A field exercise will give you the opportunity to use research tools and report on the investigation.

Isn't that a hoot? They're actually gonna go to graveyards. Wow. As the Scripture says: ...professing to be wise, they are fools.... You know the rest.

Meeting CJ Mahaney

2006-02-04T05:31:00.000-05:00

Tonight at work at UPS, Shane and I met CJ Mahaney. Sorta. See, we were slinging boxes at the start of the night, when a small squarish box came down. Shane tossed it my way across the belt. I glanced down in my habit of checking the zip code, and WHAM. It was addressed to CJ Mahaney of Sovereign Grace! And what's more, the package had come directly from Grace Community Church in California! John MacArthur's church! Shane and I were instantly sent into a frenzy. We were so freaked out! Shane was dead certain this was a box of materials for the Together for the Gospel conference. Wow! We felt privileged to be a small part of God's working in the world. The world is truly smaller when one realizes how it's managed by the Most High. CJ, rest easy in knowing that a student from Southern and a student from Boyce handled your package with care and made sure it made the plane! You should be enjoying it in a few hours, should you receive UPS on Saturday. Hot dawg. God is good.

Friday Follies: Predestination in Star Wars?

2006-02-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

I was putting away a few stray books today, and I came across my Episode 3 novel and the "expanded universe" sequel: Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader. Thinking about this monumental event in Star Wars, I suddenly came across a realization: Anakin was predestined by the Force to purge the Jedi and thus bring balance to existence. It was a "whoa" moment. It kind of crystallized several thoughts on predestination I've been trying to think through lately. Think about it: Anakin Skywalker was The Chosen One. As such, his destiny was to bring balance to the Force. This was the will of the Force decreed through some obscure Jedi prophet thousands of years before his birth. Now, if you know anything about Star Wars, you also know that the Force is eternal and operates much in the same way as the Holy Spirit, though the Force is very Arminian in operation. It allows humans to act as they please within its power. And as such, the Jedi had been trying to force (no pun intended) Anakin to fit the mold they had made for the Chosen One instead of submitting themselves to the will of the Force. Anakin irresistibly went to his destiny as the most tragic character of all time, cleansing the imbalance in the Force through his evil acts. Then in one last supreme act, he completely obliterated the old guard, killing the Emperor while sacrificing himself, leaving Luke to rediscover the mysteries of the Force for a new generation. How does this relate to Christianity? Do you see the progression? Anakin was chosen by the will of the Force to bring balance, and it seems that from the moment he was born he was tainted by the Dark Side (he's rumored to be a creation of the Sith). He was driven irresistibly towards his destiny, and was given the strength to endure to the end. The only point in there that doesn't work (in fact, it's not even implied) is limited atonement. I have increasingly been coming to a position that belief in predestination means total submission to God's sovereignty and His will for our lives. To attempt to shape God's plan to our human desires is not only wrong, sin; it is utter and total stupidity. We are not Jedi who attempt to divine some vague disturbance in the Force and where it leads and then attempt to shape that disturbance to meet our ends. We are creations of the Almighty Force who rules over us all, and as such have no right to even attempt to alter His plans. Even if His plan results in our death, we must humbly submit to Him. No wonder Tertullian claimed the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And that's my Star Wars moment this week. Man, I'm such a geek. Mohler would be proud.

Friday Follies: The Flamboyant Al Mohler

2006-02-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

I got a real good laugh out of this one. Marc Driscoll, in his post about Dr. Mohler being on Larry King Live to talk about Brokeback Mountain, has this to say about Dr. Mohler: "The flamboyantly heterosexual Baptist theologian, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr...." That's right folks, Dr. Mohler is a flamboyant hetero. I can see it now...*drifts off into Weird-O-Cron™ land*

Parson Mohler, satisfied with his fried chicken and okra, leans back from the table, pops open the button of his britches, and lets out a loud and appreciative belch. He looks across the table to his lovely wife and remarks, "That was a dang fine supper you got there, darlin'. Won't ya go bring me a Nestea while I go sit in that thar recliner and watch Luther?"

We've got flamin' homos, now we've got flambo heteros. I have to go and exorcise the demons now. I'm too weirded out by this.

Friday Follies: Why I Like Bruce Ware

2006-02-03T13:11:00.000-05:00

Following my new posting schedule (outlined in the Blog Update), here's a Friday post. I think I'm gonna devote Friday space to random musings, silliness, and of course the famous Weird-O-Cron™. Some of you have seen this "Why I Like So-and-So" series some guy is doing for his blog. Well, I was recently reunited with one of my first profs here, Bruce Ware. Within 10 minutes of starting class I was instantly reminded why I like him so much. So without further ado, here's "Why I Like Bruce Ware."

His enthusiasm for theology is contagious. You can't help but love it just as much as he does.
His lectures are riveting. I never thought I'd say that about a lecture, but his just take the cake. You really are hanging on every word (unless you just got off working 3rd shift at UPS, of course. Thankfully I don't have that problem this semester).
His commitment to sola Scriptura is so deep that you feel emboldened. You can't help but agree with him that there is no better way except total submission to the text, and robustly embrace that attitude.
He ends each class making you feel smarter when you leave than you were when you entered. I just love that. Praise God.
He towers over us, despite his stature. I've got a full head on him in height, maybe more, yet I feel as if I'm looking up at him every single time I see him. He carries himself in such a way that respect is demanded. What a testimony.

I think that's enough. I'll stop now before some of you start accusing me of fanboydom. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled blogging. I may have more to offer later today.