2009-05-15

Turretinfan discusses the history of Molinism and middle knowledge. Middle knowledge is the view that there is a third category between the natural knowledge of God and the free knowledge of God. The order is natural, middle, decree, and free. Molinism was created by the Jesuits, by Lessius, Fonseca, and/or Molina. They were attempting to make God's election to be based on foreseen faith and good works, as well as to defend their view of man's free will as autonomous. The Dominicans opposed this. Middle Knowledge - Part 2

Mohler writes that Communist China, with its one-child policy, limiting most couples to a single child, has resulted in a horrifying gender imbalance where there are more than 32 million more boys than girls (in 2005). With the arrival of fetal ultrasound, the abortion of girls is extremely likely. It is abortion and totalitarianism hand in hand, resulting in the deaths of millions of baby girls and the abduction of at least thousands of young boys. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3607

MacArthur rejects the meaning of Song of Solomon as primarily allegorical. It is a love poem between Solomon and his bride. He points out that allegorical views on it elevate the interpreters imagination over the authority of the text, and argues that those who claim to know the precise meaning of the poetic symbols do the same thing. He rejects particular explicit connections, saying they speak to the purity of the mind of the interpreter. (Also, “those who multiply the voices try to make the verses fit some complex libretto that arises more out of their own personal agenda than from the text itself.”) He then quotes Driscoll unapprovingly, who, also rejecting an allegorical view, jokes about the ‘homo-erotic’ implications of such a view, humour which Driscoll defends by saying he’s making fun of a false view of Jesus. The problem, as Scripture teaches, is that the love between a husband and wife in all its aspects is a metaphor for Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32), and therefore by implication even a non-allegorical take on Song of Solomon points to Jesus and the church. The preacher should treat it accordingly, “not as an excuse to bathe in the gutter of our culture's easygoing obsession with crude sex-talk and graphic sexual imagery.” Interpreting the beautiful poetry as soft-porn is to corrupt the intention of the text. When a preacher “deliberately arouses lusts that cannot possibly be righteously fulfilled in unmarried college students, or when his personal illustrations fail to guard the privacy and honor of his own wife”, repeatedly, this is spiritually disqualifying. That this point is even controversial indicates how much evangelicals have become like the world. The Rape of Solomon's Song (Part 3)

DeYoung says that youth is another high place: Everything often revolves around the children, the lives and schedules are dictated by the children, parents aim to have their kids get ‘every advantage’ in life, taking precedence even over the church and the husband-wife relation. Youth culture is also idolized, even in the church: No church talks about reinventing church so it resonates with old people. Most cultures in history respect the old for their age and maturity – it’s backwards now. Perhaps the older are showing selfless humility. But that doesn’t mean youth culture is right. Nor have the older been honoured as they should. “We have coddled kids when they should be challenged to do more for themselves, while we have not given enough help to the elderly when they really can’t do as much on their own.” Stop separating generations, stop belittling seniors. Idolizing the elderly is no answer but there is far more biblical support for honouring them than “the whims and wishes of tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings.” Our High Places (3)

Piper answers the question ‘Why can’t we get any straight answers from Christianity?’ If Scripture were quite simple, would not people be saying, aren’t we as good as God, shouldn’t it be more complex? He exhorts skeptics to read the whole thing, and to see if there is not enough that is crystal clear and compelling to cause you to want to join Christ’s followers, who say, ‘Lord, you have shown yourself to me.’ http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/101/3717/

Carolyn Mahaney points to the wisdom of seeking counsel when there are difficult problems with your own children, something that will actually be incentive to your children. Spurgeon wrote of his mother: “I cannot tell how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother….I remember on one occasion her praying thus: ‘Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.’” All discipline must be done in tender love. Perform the merciful service for your teens in bringing the sinner back from his sin. Rear them Tenderly

Some words from Wilberforce: i) A true mark of a Christian is the dread of sin. Challies comments that he has seen many Christians look back on their sinful youth with a degree of fondness! ii) Humility should increase with maturity in grace. iii) Are you a ‘general’ Christian, seeking general holiness from a general feeling of guilt about general sin? This should not be so. iv) He also exhorts Christians to boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many who bear the name of Christian are ashamed of Him. Let them serve, if not save, their country, not by political interference, but by the benefit of the influence of true religion. Reading the Classics - Real Christianity (VII)

Bird argues from Gal. 3:13-14 and 4:5-6 that Paul draws a parity between the futility of Gentiles going to the Law since Jewish Christians themselves have been redeemed while/from being under the Law. Gal. 3.13-14 and 4.5-6

Phillips points to an article arguing that Republicans will pay the price for Bush’s disinterest in media/communication for a long time. He tried to be the anti-Clinton, aiming at defending America instead of himself, hoping that results would win out over image. He was wrong, and this miscalculation has greatly hurt his party and put the country at risk. Obama, on the other hand, plays that game and defends himself. 09 —

Turretinfan points out that the Reformed position is that God knows future contingencies, but not through a third category of knowledge, but through natural/free knowledge. There are two kinds of necessary contingent things: Things pertaining to natural knowledge (e.g. the sun will rise), and things pertaining to free knowledge (i.e. through God’s decree). Molinists and Calvinists agree on these two categories. The question is not whether middle knowledge comes before every decree but before the decree to create particular creatures. The question is whether God knows by way of a third category of knowledge what men or angels (rational creatures) will freely do without a special decree preceding. Middle Knowledge - Part 3