2009-07-06

While the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day fancied themselves the guardians of the truth, they really cared more about their reputations, which Jesus exposed when they questioned Him by what authority He did things, shortly before His crucifixion. His reply, in asking them whether John’s baptism was from heaven or not, left them in a dilemma, and because they were afraid of the crowd and wanted to preserve their own reputations, they refused to acknowledge that John spoke the truth (which would have meant accepting Jesus’ as speaking the truth), and so showed that while they posed as protectors of the truth, they were really interested in perverting it for their own agenda. We do the same when distorting or denying the truth for the sake of our own reputations. Self-glory is an idol in our heart, exposed when the Lord presents us with an opportunity to glorify him by speaking the truth about our convictions or our sins, but are unwilling to do it for fear of what someone else will think of us. Exposing the Idol of Self-Glory

Engwer has a list of his posts on the NT canon, and his own summary in pointed form of some major arguments made therein. Some of his points: “Twenty-two of the twenty-seven documents were widely accepted in the second century, and the other five seem to have been accepted by a majority, though a smaller majority, in the ante-Nicene era. No ruling by a Roman bishop or a council in the first five centuries was widely perceived as having settled the canon. The criterion of apostolicity is demonstrable and widely applicable: A document should be considered apostolic if it was written by an apostle or seems to have been approved as scripture by an apostle, not just if it was written during the time of the apostles or by an associate of the apostles. Given the context in which the early Christians made their canonical decisions, their widespread agreement about the large majority of the New Testament is impressive. Atheists, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and other critics of Evangelicalism have to sort through similar disputes in many areas of life, and they do so without the sort of infallible guide that they often claim Evangelicals need on canonical issues. The evidence for the Apocryphal books isn't comparable to the evidence for the New Testament.” The New Testament Canon

Grimmond argues that it is essential to not provide a perfectly sterilized message when evangelizing, one that the culture says, ‘well, that’s nice’ about, but one that leaves ‘grit in the shoes’, one that's uncomfortable. “Jesus is the Lord you need to answer to” is grit in every western materialists shoe. And that’s what gets people converted: the gritty, countercultural, uncomfortable, first-century Jesus that changes lives. Wesley, charms and church planting (Part III)

McKinley gives church planting tips for those who aren’t Spurgeon: i) Preach God’s word, because it really is as powerful and effective as it says. This is the #1 priority. ii) We aren’t planting institutional churches but aiming at mission. iii) Take care of your family. “Everyone will love you for killing yourself for them.  No one will applaud you for taking care of your wife.  Beware your heart.” iv) Develop leaders – it’s essential in the long term. v) Be realistic, be patient. “The best case scenario for 99% of us is that we are faithful to the gospel, God in his kindness lets us see some real and enduring fruit from our labors, and we don't do anything that disgraces the gospel.” Church Planting for Guys Who Aren't Spurgeon by Michael Mckinley

James MacDonald notes these verses: “Revelation 2:3:  “I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake and have not grown weary.” Galatians 6:10 says, “Let us not grow weary.” Matthew 11:28 says, “come to me all you who are weary.”” He argues for the responsibility for the pastor to nourish his soul, keep himself healthy, repent of allowing himself to be wearied, deriving from the above that not being weary and dealing with weary by coming to Christ is a command to be obeyed through self-care. Weariness is Sin- You’ve got to be kidding

DeYoung cites Bavinck on Anabaptist mysticism, who compares it to the approach present in religions throughout the world: “in order to find truth or life or salvation–in a word, to find God–a person need not go outside of himself but need only descend within himself. God dwells within a person, making His abode within the person either through nature or through a special, supernatural descent into the person.” In the short term, it births exuberance, courage, enthusiasm, and deep and glorious mysticism when it is received in the community. However, i) people come to despise Scripture, church, and office and sacrament, appealing to private revelations and the internal Word. ii) Following the initial exuberance, rationalism is all that remains, and this internal word is robbed of a supernatural character - which, it turns out, is no different from our own opinions, convictions, and desires. People have often gone into this error, paying less and less attention to Scripture, saying it has errors or it can’t be understood or it’s less spiritual than the Spirit within us. They become dissatisfied with sermons, authorities, and “church”, and the Scriptures are increasingly silenced. But the outer, objective Word is essential to keep us from reducing to rationalism. The alternative is a cold lifeless church apart from the power or truth of God. [I see this often in the pervasive notion of ‘leading of the Spirit’ by which so many avoid accountability, stamp their opinions with divine authority, and so take God’s name in vain]. The Dangers of Mysticism

Challies briefly reviews Al Mohler’s book The Disappearance of God, noting that the content is great, but since it is a compilation of blogs that Mohler has written, it doesn’t build an argument, or have a real flow. It’s nice to have it in print. The Disappearance of God

Hays comments on the Romanist apologetic argument based on the alleged scandal of a divided Christendom, saying it’s a major reason why unbelievers are driven away from the faith. But if everyone belonged to Rome than it would remove this major obstacle. Now, they’re just supposed to take this position, but they don’t get past the ecumenical abstraction of a reunion and think about the real consequences. Hays compares the hypothetic response of unbelievers when surveyed for the first thing that comes to mind when they hear OPC (to which they’d surely draw a blank), as compared to Catholicism, which is the subject of major public coverage and opinion, much of it negative. There are a lot of lapsed Catholics with strong opinions about they church they left. The notorious reputation of the Catholic church precedes it. Regardless of whether this is a proper perception, the aforementioned argument is also based on public perception. But Rome has an image problem: “They [unbelievers] regard the Catholic church as a sexist and homophobic institution. They think of the Crusades and the Inquisition. They think of pedophile priests. They disapprove of its positions on contraception and abortion. And so on and so forth.” But this means that healing divisions and bringing all believers home to Rome isn’t a recipe for winning converts, but would have the opposite effect. Moreover, Rome hardly presents a solid front. Even if everyone belonged to her you’d still have high profile dissidents, as we do now. Finessing these differences is meaningless given the argument based on PR by Romanists. All in the family

Engwer looks at hostile corroboration for the NT canon, as there was interaction over the texts between Christians, heretics, Jews, and pagans. Hostile corroboration carries a lot of weight. Scholars rightly note the significance of early non-Christian acknowledgement of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and His empty tomb, for example. Engwer cites multiple evidences that non-Christians had access to the NT, from Trypho, the Talmud, etc. For example, Tertullian encourages non-Christians to "examine our sacred books, which we do not keep in hiding, and which many accidents put into the hands of those who are not of us.” Also, the early Christians we into reading/interacting with non-Christian writings. Engwer cites Metzger noting copious citations by patristic writings of non-Christian writings. “The total number of citations amounts to about 8,000, more than a third of which come from pagan writers." Origen apparently outdid the Greek philosophers on their own grounds, and consulted with Rabbis. The modern critics are implying, by saying the majority of the books are pseudonymous, that early enemies of the faith made a long series of errors in their arguments against Christians, since they didn’t bring this up. Though Porphyry argues against the traditional authorship of Daniel, we don’t see this sort of thing happening on a wide scale in the NT, with the traditional authorships for most books being disputed rarely, if at all – and Christians were concerned about eyewitness testimony and Biblical authorship, so this should be a point of attack that we should see leveraged if the early enemies thought there was any doubt. But we don’t. Moreover, “what was at stake between gnostic and non-gnostic Christians was not principally which books were authoritative, but rather how the scriptures were to be rightly interpreted.” Again, no doubt of authorship. Even most heretics accepted the bulk of the NT, they just twisted it. Gnostic belief was contradicted by the NT, and the fact that Gnostics felt the need to reinterpret the NT in their favour speaks well of its credentials. Engwer goes on to give specific details/citations regarding the authorship of various books as affirmed in hostile sources. Hostile Corroboration Of The New Testament Canon

StraightUp concludes the Gender roles series: Gender roles in Scripture are not determined by giftedness, natural ability, etc. but by the image of Christ and His church. “The submission and deference of the woman to the man is a reflection of the church’s submission to Christ. And the love and protection extended from the man to the woman is an expression of Christ’s love and protection of the church.” This explains what we see in Scripture in terms of gender roles; men are entrusted with church leadership/teaching, and are to lovingly serve and care for their wives, and women are called to service in the home and provision for the family’s needs. i) The husband/man is the head of the wife/woman, such that his role as leader and hers as responder should be meaningfully symbolized (1 Corinthians 11:3-16). ii) The primary mandate for men is to love their wives. iii) Sexuality is not just about us but about manifesting the Gospel. iv) The closer one gets to the church and the family, the more clearly the typological significance of gender should be manifested. And there are certain occupations that push men and women into roles that strain this typological function. v) Women were created vulnerable, weaker, so men could manifest the selfless kind of love Christ expresses. vi) The greater the capability and giftedness of the one submitting, the more beautiful and meaningful his or her submission. Gender Roles and the Image of God- Conclusion

Solapanel posts on another principle of prayer from Broughton Knox. Repetition is taught by Jesus in Luke 18. Our prayers should spring from our deepest longings and desires, and we should not hesitate to bring them constantly to God. Such repetition not only demonstrates earnestness, but a belief that God will answer. This isn’t mindless repetition but that which springs from the heart. We see Jesus and Paul as examples of this. Knox’s seven principles of prayer (Part IV- Repetition)