2009-06-30

Here’s a letter at True Women to pastor’s wives: The main role is to support her husband: Watch out for him, give him honest and helpful feedback, and stand with him when times are tough. Never gossip. Grow a thick skin. And be careful what you read concerning pastor’s wives. http://www.truewoman.com/?id=732

DeYoung posts an excerpt he contributed to the book, Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, to the effect that there are volumes of those books dissatisfied with the ‘institutional’ church for this and that reason, which instead advocate ‘we want God, not an institution’ manta and ‘spirituality’ instead of ‘religion’, employing pejoratives and architectural putdowns. If decapitation is cutting off the head, this is decorpulation – cutting off the body. Mad-Libbing Church Angst

Turk continues with a followup to iMonk’s post in their debate over Driscoll and whether he should repent publically. Turk begins by talking about Pelagius – learned in theology, and the common culture, not a cleric, well known in his home town for his public life and persuasive speech. While referred to by leaders as a saintly man, he was later accused of lying about his own teachings, and he was a heretic. Now, Driscoll is in the right camp on the Gospel. Now, Turk compares refuting Pelagius to going after Driscoll in terms of congregationalism – should Augustine have remained silent? If being Congregationalist means that it is solely the duty of the elders of the local church to rebuke, then MD needs to stay home. MD doesn’t need any more elders, and neither do the churches he goes to, yet he goes out and teaches. And elders have the same responsibility that they began with: raise up disciples and protect them from error. Turk responds to these objections: i) you should go to Driscoll in private. MacArthur and Johnson tried with no results. ii) TO “Are you really criticizing a sin, or is this just a difference in ministry approach?” and ‘yer a crude watchblogger’, Turk challenges people to say out loud, and judge for themselves, “According to the Bible’s standard for Christian behavior, anyone should be allowed to make jokes about masturbation in public without any shame.” Also, try this: “The objective of Christian sanctification is that we should strive toward becoming ashamed of things which we do which the Bible does not define as sin.” “those people who are elders, or teachers with a spiritual responsibility to those to whom they are given, have an obligation locally to speak to the errors which come into their churches. That includes the errors which look like a failure to repent.” Right to Rebuke- (2)

Engwer shares some thoughts on the Mark Sanford story (possible GOP nominee for the white house having an affair). i) Engwer points out an anecdote from a man formerly involved in politics that perhaps half those in politics are involved in adultery at some point, and this appears to be because they travel a lot, they’re away from family a lot, and they are the sort who will ‘beg for money’ – the people willing to do what politicians do to get (re)elected would be more likely to get involved in adultery. ii) While we must acknowledge our capability to do such sin, we must also be realistic about our potential to avoid it, and there are sins are more common and more destructive, so we should keep things in right proportion. But God is more enjoyable and more powerful than all sin.  Some Comments On The Mark Sanford Story

MacArthur writes on "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7). Wives must submit to their husbands as leaders, and men must submit to their in fulfilling the loving duty of being sensitive to her needs, fears, and feelings: He must subordinate his needs to  hers, be considerate (understand her needs), be chivalrous (women are weaker physically and emotionally, and men should protect them), and be a companion (live life with her). These aren’t suggestions. An Understanding Way

As an indication of how ‘scientific’ modern thinking on origins is becoming, here is an an example from a leading scientific publication that makes the debate a choice between a benevolent designer and the multiverse [has anyone noticed that more than one universe is harder to explain than one universe?? If the probability of one happening is so astronomically small, isn’t an infinite number infinitely impossible? This merely backs the problem up and makes it worse!!] It’s a non-answer way of explaining away design, based on reading into quantum probabilities by assuming that the alternative happened in a parallel universe: if there were lots of other universes, with the laws of physics a little bit different in each one, then it would become probable that at least one would happen to have the properties required for intelligent observers to exist. string theory, or the theory that the universe might exist in multiple branes or dimensions, is presently completely unobservable and untestable. It’s also unfalsifiable – is this science?? http://creation.com/multiverse-theory

In discussing an engineer’s work in geology, this comment is made regarding his experiments on radiometric dating: “One ‘reliable’ method of dating involves plotting the ratios of parent and daughter isotopes on a graph. This ‘isochron’ line purportedly represents the age of the rock. Tas found that graphs of ratios of various non-radioactive elements also gave nice lines, which means that there must be causes for the lines apart from radioactive decay. This means that the lines based on radioactive elements cannot be assumed to represent the age of the rock.” The engineer says that while radiometric dating is a genuine attempt to measure the age of rock, it must assume the history of the rock in order to work. When a result of the dating is off, they come up with a different result to explain it. http://creation.com/engineer-goes-back-to-school

Richard Dawkins is running a summer camp to turn kids into life-long atheists. They are doing everything possible to emulate traditional Christian/religious camps, incl. singing songs, etc. He has ‘jumped the shark’. This is another in the line of credibility damaging actions by Dawkins, with the self-parodying ‘there probably isn’t a god’ bus signs preceding this. Also, the existence of this camp in Great Britain and its sister camps in the United States indicates something of the intellectual insecurity of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=4071

Mounce looks at John 2:4,“What to me and to you, woman” and asks, how rude was Jesus? i) While woman/wife is not rude or abrupt in Greek, and this use can even express respect or affection, it is unusual in the case, and not normally used by a son of his mother. It is not a Hebrew or Greek expression. So also Jesus’ words in Matt 12:48 when he says, ““Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” On the cross, Jesus commits Mary to John and John to Mary: He still cared for his mother, but that relationship was not a primary one for the Son of God who came to do the work of the Son of Man. The NLT omitted the word initially, but they put it back in – this is a strength of word for word translations, whereas the NLT was inclined to drop it since, as it could be misunderstood, it was against their translation philosophy. How Rude was Jesus- (Monday with Mounce 40)