2009-05-20

Ray Ortlund discusses the allure, the social damage, and the misrepresentation of the Body of Christ intrinsic to gossip. Gossip is our seeking gratification – it isn’t necessarily untrue. It makes us feel righteous and powerful as we cut others down. It’s devastation includes manipulating people into taking sides, ruining reputations with cowardly but effective weapons of misrepresentation, creating a social environ where no one can really trust anyone, and discrediting the Gospel before the world and making the church look like destroyers rather than healers. http://christisdeeperstill.blogspot.com/2009/05/gossip.html

JT summarizes Ortlund’s post here: Ortlund- What Is Gossip-

In Phil. 3:10, Paul expresses not a desire for some mystical knowledge, but what he longed to know was the power of Christ’s resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, and conformity to His death. Indeed, lofty, mysterious, emotive-based communion is at the heart of gnosticism, teaching that God should be known beyond His revealed word. Paul discarded all his earthly credentials for the word of knowing Christ, putting all his faith in Him: this justification by faith—because it means we are clothed in Christ’s own righteousness—establishes the most intimate imaginable relationship between the believer and his Lord. It is an inviolable spiritual union. Right thinking about God, not rituals, are essential to worship – the alternative is the heart of idolatry.Intimacy is in knowing God from His revealed word; in prayer, where the worshiper pours out his heart to God; in obedience, for the one who submits to Him as Lord is His friend and the one who does not is his enemy; in suffering as He suffered, as as to reap the reward (Matt. 5:10-12). Knowing Christ

Mohler comments on the NIH release on stem cell research: legislative barriers to the direct destruction of human embryos remain in effect.  The main issue is the expansion of funding to include stem cells derived from human embryos created by in vitro fertilization in IVF clinics. Embryos from other sources are not permitted. The Obama administration assured scientists that this was the best they could hope for until public opinion shifts – presumably meaning that the public will grow accustomed to using stem cells from ‘excess’ humans. Embryos have been reduced to a means to an end rather than the end itself, which will grow into a mature human. Scientists are destroying human offspring in the name of medical science. And in the name of creating life IVF clinic generate hundreds of thousands of embryos with no wombs to place them in. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3634

Challies quotes Jerry Bridges, who provides an illustration for how many Christians have come to believe that God's blessing on our lives is somehow conditional upon our spiritual performance. A bad day means we’re less confident in sharing the Gospel. Why would that be? This attitude "reveals an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life: the thinking that, although we are saved by grace, we earn or forfeit God's blessings in our daily lives by our performance." Quiet time becomes tyrannical when you understand it as a performance. Morning quiet time is not commanded and it is a terrible legalistic crime to bind the conscience where Scripture leaves freedom. A real irony here is that we've become accustomed to pigeonholing our entire relationship with God into a brief devotional exercise that is not even commanded in the Bible. Let’s not read the Bible less – but rather more, from a needy heart, as a chance to willingly grow in grace. The Quiet Time Performance

Piper cautions people not to be passively hospitable, but as on Romans 12:13, to chase and seek to show hospitality – they aren’t merely willing, but they look for it. This, of course, is an implication of the Gospel, where God sought to show us hospitality. Don't Just Be Passively Hospitable

Carolyn Mahaney urges mothers to avoid the temptation of hyper-introspection and self-focus, especially in the face of apparent parental failure, where the true motive is really pride and glory and concern for what others think about your own capacities. Success or failure does not depend entirely on parenting. A Mother's Pride

Bird quotes Horton, as he argues that the word is efficacious, bringing about the reality of which it speaks, and the sacraments, being tactile, visual, edible ‘words’ derive their efficacy from the words they ratify – it is the word of God that makes them powerful. Michael Horton on the Sacraments

Mounce discusses Greek verbal aspect briefly: “The essence of the Greek verb is not its ability to tell time. There is past, present, and future, but even in the indicative time is secondary to aspect; and outside the indicative mood there is no absolute time. The Greek participle, imperative, infinitive, and subjunctive cannot designate when an action occurs. All they can tell you is aspect.” Aspect refers to the type of action, where it can be continuous or undefined. Undefined just speaks to the fact that the action happened, whereas continuous speaks to the action as a process, in some sense (be it ongoing, repeats, or stressing the beginning of the action) – actions can be described from the outside (undefined) or the inside (continuous). Introduction to the Imperfect (Monday with Mounce 33)

AiG points to the connection between violence and the nihilism intrinsic to naturalism and evolutionary thinking (the religion of atheism). It’s not that every atheist will be violent, It’s that the atheist must borrow from the Christian worldview to say that murder is wrong – he must live inconsistently. The more generations are taught they are just animals and that there is no Creator God, the more people will act consistently in accord with who (or what) they believe they are. It is Judges 21:25 again: We live in a culture where increasing numbers of each successive generation have been taught there is no absolute authority. They believe that there is no Creator to whom we are accountable—and everyone has a right to do what is right in his own eyes. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/04/20/if-you-dont-matter-to-god-you-dont-matter-to-anyone

This NY Times article points out that Brown self-admittedly packages theology in a smooth package. In his view, all religion is cool as long as you don’t actually think it’s true. This appeals to the do-it-yourself spirituality embraced by the masses these days. “But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19douthat.html?_r=3

Interestingly, the debate over whether preaching should be done with or without notes went on in the early 19th century too. “It is required of every minister that he advance in knowledge and capacity to speak. If he do not, his preaching will fail long to interest, even as an itinerant. Above all, increasing piety, spiritual-mindedness, devout activity, are the great secrets of energetic preaching. The closet has power in the pulpit.” [I would point to the benefits of a prepared manuscript with regard to the deaf – they can then participate in the sermon with the congregation]. A Question About Preaching by Aaron Menikoff

DeYoung writes about online discourse, saying to the tough guys, save the big guns for the big issues, and to the tender ones, don’t overqualify, don’t be a self-protective flatterer, and to everyone, just deal with the actual arguments instead of emoting. Try more persuasion, less pouting (2 Cor. 5:11). Give reasons, not just reactions (Acts 18:19). DeYoung- Defining Decency Down

Head at ETC points to an article on the ‘unstable negative’ in the NT: “Like many words in the New Testament, one-fifth of the 3,542 examples of the negative have suffered alteration, trivial or otherwise, through addition or omission or substitution.” North on Negatives

Here’s a list of the characteristics of a scholarly writing, broken down by trustworthiness, publicity, and accessibility. What is scholarly publishing -

Riddlebarger, pointing to the fifth amendment, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” notes that when “the Obama administration decrees (as a part of the government take-over of GM and Chrysler) that a certain number of Chrysler and Chevrolet dealers (which are privately owned, with personal inventory, debt, and employees) must close (without any compensation, or purchase of their inventories or properties) simply because someone in DC tells them they must, we have crossed a very dangerous line.” Chrysler, Chevrolet, and the Fifth Amendment

Bird gives his list of the best OT theologies. Old Testament Theologies

Pierce points out that Solomon bluffed to determine whose child the baby was when faced with two prostitutes. It’s held up as an example of wisdom, and no serious interpreter thinks Solomon actually intended to cut the baby in two. He did it to elicit a particular response. So, since God knows how each person will act, why can He not do things to elicit particular responses? Open theists say that it shows God changing His mind, say, when He says that He will destroy Israel to Moses, and then He doesn’t. But why could not God have said things to elicit a particular response in Moses knowing that it would never come to the point where He’d wipe them out? Open theists would have to say that Solomon intended to cut the baby in two. The text gives no indication that Solomon was being immoral: there's nothing wrong with someone sufficiently wise doing what Solomon does in bluffing here, and thus when God does it it's also not wrong. http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2009/05/bluff.html