Phillips points out that Obama has no idea what a Supreme Court Justice’s job is, describing what is really judicial activism (the role of legislators, pastors, activists, etc.), and Obama is the perfect post-modern, saying opposing things in discussing what he is looking for in a justice. Obama is now the second-least popular president, at this point, in 40 years. Even behind Jimmy Carter! Breaking News! Obama has no clue what a Supreme Court Justice's job is!
DG blog lists five points that Paul Tripp notes about every child. 1) They are revelation receivers. They are interpreters. They are worshipers. They are hard-wired to seek glory. We all do this, all the time. For ourselves and to see it. They are self-focused and self-obsessed. 5 Things That Are True About Every Child
Bird suggests that the regula fidei, the summary teaching of the Christian faith in narrative form, is derived from the biblical witness to the act of the triune God in Jesus Christ, and that this core is the unity of the Scriptures. The Unity of Scripture - The Rule of Faith-
Hays refutes moral objections to Biblical ethics made by an atheist appealing to the Mosaic Law and Genesis 22 (Abraham’s ordeal in being commanded to sacrifice Isaac). i) In the Mosaic Law, there are no honour killings (i.e. the execution, sometimes regardless of actual guilt, of a family member or clan member because he brought shame on his family or clan (or some equivalent social unit), but rather offenders are executed for actual wrongdoing. ii) The Bible distinguishes between voluntary licit sex (e.g. marital sex), voluntary illicit sex (e.g. premarital/extramarital sex, sodomy), and involuntary illicit sex (e.g. rape), with voluntary illicit sex being punishable, and with involuntary only the rapist is punished. iii) The Bible distinguishes between what you do and what is done to you, something not done by honour killings. iv) As to Abraham’s sacrifice, the issue isn’t whether child sacrifice is wrong but whether a counterfactual command to sacrifice his son (involving God’s ulterior motive) is right or wrong. The command cannot be rended from the narrative, which is essential to understanding it: It involves types and shadows (Abraham had a key role in redemptive history), Abraham obeyed in perfect motives, trusting God, and God has ulterior motives and never intended for Isaac to die. One must make an argument that a counterfactual command to sacrifice his son (involving God’s ulterior motive) is right or wrong before objecting using this passage. v) Child sacrifice isn’t a ‘standard’ because God prevented it. Moreover, we’re only justified in certain courses of action based on a particular epistemic situation – if we know that God is talking to us. vi) An argument that we just have to make excuses because it is our holy book and our God is obtuse because it begs the question – if our God is real, then this God can impose moral obligations (and he has good reasons for doing so). The secularist must first argue that He isn’t real. vii) The alternative to biblical morality is moral nihilism. Hays cites an article about Peter Singer where the secular ethicist disabled babies should be killed, relations are discarded, and people are no more valuable than rats. Indeed, child sacrifice is acceptable under moral nihilism. Abraham's ordeal
When the GOP don’t agree with Obama, the thin-skinned President abandons his talk of bi-partisan ‘reaching out to the other side’ and just plans to ram legislation through. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/24/obama-repeatedly-reminded_n_191207.html. As Phillips writes, “President Obama reminds the (democratically-elected) GOP (leaders), "You don't understand: bipartisan means you do it my way, or I ram legislation through." As Dennis Miller noted, the problem never has been the color of Obama's skin, but its thinness.” 09 — Here’s 100 mistakes in 100 days for Obama: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04252009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/100_days__100_mistakes_166177.htm?page=0
God is purposeful in forming people – even those with disabilities. In Psalm 139:13 this is clear, and in Exodus 4:11 God unashamedly claims that He does make people mute, deaf, blind—disabled. In John 9:1-13 Jesus shows us that God uses this for His glory, and in Matthew 5:29 Jesus tells us that there is a problem far worse than disability, namely, sin, and that we are all affected. God Is Purposeful in Creating All People
CJ Mahaney observes that the motivation for biblical manhood and womanhood in marriage is the Gospel, and that complementarianism will strengthen the church in her role to proclaim the Gospel. But the most effective apologetic is the life-transforming effect of the Gospel in practiced biblical manhood and womanhood on full display. He is concerned that while it is being proclaimed it is often not being practiced. He dares husbands to ask their wives where they need to grow in leading and serving their wives and children, and to relate the details of this talk to the elders/pastors of your church and seek their input, which itself will cultivate humility. As for pastors, they cannot assume that a sermon a year ago on biblical manhood and womanhood is enough, for the church is assaulted daily by feminism. They must actively and strategically seek to model complementarianism in their lives and in the various ministries in the church. The Gospel & Deliberate Complementarian Pastors
Solapanel posts an article that observes that ministry involvement is a spectrum, with full-time paid ministry at one end and volunteer spare-time ministry at the other. Christ’s people are tired, and often dissatisfied, and they are going to fast to even smell the roses, between jobs and ministry in lunch hours and evenings and weekends. They envy those who can do it full time. But this is a call to increase their service to Christ and His people, and they are created for these good works (Eph. 2:10), and they are to increase in love for one another (1 Thess. 3:12, Phil 1:9). “Imagine if 10% of our church was free for two days a week to do specific ministries. That would be a significant increase in gospel work and an enormous boost to the paid ministers.” Unpaid ministry is no less ministry. Where are you on the spectrum? Can you move up one notch? A flea in your ear (Factotum #12)
Here’s the 9Marks Journal on Multi-Site Churches
Here’s some advice on DG blog for teaching toddlers God’s word. Keep a Bible open, be animated, be brief, create routines, and use repetition, etc. 7 Ideas for Teaching Toddlers God's Word
Walton discusses some of the difficulties with Jericho and the archaeological evidence, to the effect that some evidence seems to suggest that there wasn’t a wall (at least as we think of one). (Though Egyptian accounts of the site during this period that Megiddo was fortified by a wall). The article discusses different options for the wall. like mud-brick houses build in rows so as to form a wall. When archaeology and the Bible seem to disagree, i) we might re-evaluate our conception of what the walls of Jericho would have looked like; ii) We may not be able to harmonize; and iii) the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, for we only have what survived. The Walls of Jerico . . . and When Archaeology and the Bible Disagree
Gilbert points out that Bell’s interview in CT hardly articulated the Gospel when asked (and the twitter context is no excuse). It wasn’t there. And CT puts this in a positive light, and endorses Bell’s book. Not the Gospel of Jesus. Not Anywhere Near It. by Greg Gilbert
Mary Kassian at Genderblog rails against the erroneous and dangerous imagery of God in The Shack. “The Shack contains terribly wrong concepts about God. Plain and simple. If you think it doesn't, then you're well on your way to accepting the image of the Christa on the cross. In a few years, you'll be hanging her up in your church.” And the fiction of The Shack is a vehicle for theology. The arguments used to by some to justify their feminist Christa are the same ones the Shack uses to justify its feminized version of God. In the Old Testament, God instructed his people to reject female goddess images and images of God as a bi-sexual or a dual-sexual Baal/Ashtoreth-type collaboration. God hated this imagery so much that he had his people destroy it and all those who promoted it. The New Testament Church also fought hard against teachings that sought to incorporate female images of God alongside the male images - the Gnostic heresy, in particular. And now, it seems that the same ideas are knocking once again.... and many are throwing the Church doors wide open and welcoming them in. God has defined how we talk about Him. She quotes CS Lewis: “The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life... [But] one of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures... [God images himself as masculine because]...we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. ...The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it. ” Re-imagining God in the Shack
Wow: P52 for sale on EBay
Challies comments that a good biographer lets us meet those who have died, so that we feel as though we know them. He is thankful that we need no biography for Jesus, since He is alive, having risen. He Lives!
Swan points to an MP3 on John Calvin. JOHN CALVIN- A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology
Mohler comments that leaders are largely viewing the problem of Somali piracy in economic and societal terms. But the religious must be factored in. “As Muhammad and his followers left Mecca for Medina in the early seventh century, they needed income. As Prothero explains, "Muhammad turned to the longstanding Arabian practice of the ghazu, or bounty raid." Muhammad's raids were on land, but the practice of sea-based piracy by Muslims follows the same logic.” The Hadith contains thousands of examples of Mohammed’s beliefs and actions, and Muslims imitate him. This is in direct contrast to the claims of secularists that religion would be dead by now. Hardly – it has exploded. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3741
Phillips comments on Driscoll’s TGC talk. He thinks Driscoll has a martyr complex [i.e. in light of things like MacArthur’s critique, etc.], that he frequently contradicted himself, that he seems to make under-cover shots at people who have confronted him, that he seems to be venting, etc. He sure gives every sign of a guy who just doesn't get it, who feels attacked and harrassed. Phillips wonders what Driscoll’s mentors are doing, and points out that they are mature enough and godly enough that they out to be able to calm him down, and help him understand. “If Driscoll doesn't deal honestly and frontally with good counsel he's gotten... I just don't see a happy future. Not for him, not for folks who look up to him... and I fear repercussions for the good men who've tried to help him.” Driscoll TGC 2009 impressions
Turk draws from Titus that the tall order for every pastor in every church is to have a church that raises up elders, where men like those Paul describes in Titus 1 are made. Titus wasn’t sent with a whip to lord it over them. He was sent to make elders and a church that makes elders Establish Elders [2]
Here’s a good list of Carson resources: http://www.thisisnext.org/webzine/may_2009#spotlight2
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