Challies notes that as he grows in the knowledge of the Lord, he is increasingly aware of the centrality and importance and preciousness of the local church in God’s plan for His people. In Does Grace Grow Best in Winter?, Ligon Duncan observes from Colossians that God may be building up the church through your suffering. Suffering id designed to mature believers, not only facilitating individual godliness and treasuring of Christ, but also that of the body. One person's suffering is every person's suffering; one person's maturing is every person's maturing. Even watching the perseverance of others in trials is formative. Duncan takes “what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” as those sufferings not yet experienced by the body of Christ – when one believes he becomes a part of the body. Your Suffering Does Not Just Belong to You
McKinley notes anecdotally that the Proverbs do indeed give prudence to the simple (1:4), identifying all manner of foolishness, once one goes to them for this. He points to a number of resources: Bruce Waltke's commentary (in two volumes), Charles Bridge's Proverbs and William Arnot's Studies in Proverbs, Derek Kidner's Proverbs in the Tyndale OT Commentary Series. Graeme Goldsworthy has a chapter in Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, CJ Mahaney recently posted thoughts on preaching Proverbs, Edmund Clowney's The Unfolding Mystery (pages 168-177). Confessions of a Recovering Proverbs-phobe by Michael Mckinley
Someone asks, how/when does one move a traditional church toward elders? i) You may think the congregation has ‘got it’, but one sermon series in a year may not cut it. Some forget, there are new people, and so on. So develop position papers, distribute frequently asked questions, and teach in print. ii) Sometimes you think you’ve been patient, but you haven’t been – “slow, deep move to a structural change is better than a rapid shallow one that can be ripped up by the roots”. iii) Sometimes we settle for some when we should strive for all. We shouldn’t think in terms of majority winnings but aim at unanimity, and not be too quick to dismiss it as ideal. To do otherwise can carry a vote and lose a church. A super-majority is a minimum. iv) Getting enough votes doesn’t finish the issue. Be gracious in making the position and direction known, not drawing party lines, etc. just because you won. Demonstrate concern for those who oppose it, etc. Remember, you’re hoping for a healthy church for generations to come. When to Make Changes by Thabiti Anyabwile
Swan cites Roman Catholic commentary on James 5:16 as illustrative of the vacuity of the claim that it is crucial to have an infallible magisterium to interpret Scripture correctly (esp. in light of their attacks on sola scriptura). i) A modern Romanist’s interpretation is that elders are priests (committing the root fallacy, e.g. ‘greek word presbyter is the root word of English priest’), and so this is clearly confession to a priest. Swan points out the problem that if elders are priests, then ‘priest's’ are married in Titus 1, 1 Tim. 3, contradicting the current practice of Rome. Also, to one another suggests mutual confession. Do confessors pray for priests? ii) Cajetan (16th century) denies that it is to priests. iii) Bede thinks it is to one another, with serious sins to an elder. iv) The Navarre Bible says "It's impossible to say exactly what type of confession is being referred to". v) Raymond Brown says that it is very disputed. vi) A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture doubts this is sacramental confession. vii) Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary says sacramental confession is not certain, though it may mean one confesses to the priest. Where is the infallible interpreter to clear up this mess? We Have Apostolic Tradition - The Unofficial Catholic Apologist Commentary #11
MacArthur comments on the primary purpose of the church. Some prominent views would be fellowship with believers, sound biblical teaching complete with helping believers discover/cultivate spiritual gifts in various service and leadership, and praise of God (exalting the Lord). All these are biblical and ought to be characteristics of every body. But “The supreme purpose and motive of every individual believer and every body of believers is to glorify God, and the supreme way in which God chose to glorify Himself was through the redemption of sinful men. It is through participation in that redemptive plan that believers themselves most glorify God.” MacArthur notes the centrality of a redemptive purpose in the promise to Abraham. The aforementioned purposes are most fulfilled in heaven, MacArthur argues, and our presence here indicates something else: to seek and save the lost. These purposes are preparation for the mission, not the mission itself. Inward, Upward, or Outward-
T-fan: “"Vatican newspaper praises French Protestant John Calvin" that's the AP headline for this article (link). The paper apparently called Calvin extraordinary and emphasized that Calvin was a Christian. Isn't interesting how times change?” Vatican Praise for Calvin-
Hays springboards off a paragraph which says Luther was dependent on Ockhamism. Hays notes that the real presence makes an incongruity between what you see and what you get, between the underlying reality of Christ’s body and the appearance of the bread and wine. Any version of the real presence is subject to this – that once you disconnect the primary qualities of blood and body from the secondary qualities of bread and wine, you really have no idea what the secondary qualities are actually representing. There’s no intrinsic connection. Appearances are deceptive
This blog continues a friendly atheist’s argument against Edwards’ assertion that moral inability is irrelevant to moral responsibility concerns one's ability to control their will. The atheist (Rowe) understands rightly that Edwards help that a person is able to control his own volitions. But Rowe neglects Edwards’ view, which is crucial, that a person is free when they act according to their strongest desire at the given moment. (e.g. a person can’t want a drink and not want a drink, but he can want a drink and not want to be a drunkard). A person can’t will something and not do it – that’s not how decisions are made. The will must come to a decision at any given moment on the desires in that moment for the immediate objects of desire. The Friendly Atheist on Edwardsian Freedom-Part 3
Creation.com notes a UK bill that could force churches to employ practicing homosexuals. What ever happened to 'sin'-- A response to the UK Equality Bill
Leeman posts a ‘page torn out of a church history book from 2109’, which looks at the ‘dark end of the Reformed Revolution’. Multi-campus churches allowed fast corruption via heterodox bishops. People didn’t notice the subtle pragmatic shifts. The ordinary pastor was a thing of the past, the man whose skills were not extraordinary, but sufficient to guide a ship with a hundred souls to safety. His sermons weren’t made for TV, his music wasn’t good enough for the studio, and churches, feeling entitled to all things professional, dismissed him, etc. Found- a church history book written 100 years from now! by Jonathan Leeman
Trueman begins to make a case for church history over at Solapanel. He argues for the importance of church history as a vital discipline for theological education, both in seminary training and in the day-to-day life of the church. He compares it to how criminal profiling helps police. Thus we have one of the primary purposes: there are few errors or heresies around today that do not have clear parallels and antecedents in church history. Indeed, the older heresies like Arianism, Socinianism, Unitarianism, which all have modern parallels, were more sophisticated. Church history is a time-saver, offering fruitful avenues of response. It’s not as if earlier generations did no exegesis! “Too often [a dismissive attitude of church history] also indicates a subtle anti-theological agenda that wishes to downplay or minimize the role of systematic theology in the church's witness over the years. Such an approach overturns, in the process, a pretty universal, almost two-millennia consensus on the importance of systematic theology as a discipline, and it does that by, ironically, sidestepping, rather than engaging with, the exegesis on which such was built.” “Evacuate Christianity of its history and you leave a dangerous vacuum that can be filled with any old nonsense. As the quotation from George Orwell on my office coffee mug says, “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth”.” The theological importance of criminal profiling, or The case for church history, Part 1
Patton discusses a possible error in the Bible. He notes the ‘hermeneutic of inerrancy’, where one manipulates the text to make it conform to his idea of inerrancy, outright rejecting any inductive claim to error. Others don’t hold inerrancy as a presupposition (i.e. God is perfect/without error, the Bible is God’s word, ergo, without error), but rather because they find no errors. This is rare; many find what seem to be errors and reject inerrancy. Patton believes the Bible, rightly understood, is inerrant (re. history, science, etc), but denies that a denial of inerrancy is a denial of the faith. He then raises the “Abiathar problem” of Mark 2:26 (i.e. Christ says “in the time of Abiathar the high priest” but 1 Sam. 21 says Ahimelech was high priest). He cites five answers from Wallace: i) the textual tradition is wrong, needs to be amended. ii) Our interpretation is wrong. iii) Jesus is wrong. iv) Mark’s source (Peter?) is wrong. (v) Mark is wrong. (vi) The OT is wrong. He then puts it to the audience. [I recall that someone had cogently argues that this was a convention for referring to a particular text – Abiathar was a major character; hence, the ‘time of Abiathar the priest’ doesn’t refer to him being priest at the time, but rather this whole story in the text, in which he does become priest later.] A Possible Error in the Bible-
Swan posts some interesting commentary from Ambrose (339-97), seemingly for its relevance to the real presence, etc. An Ancient Voice For The Day #28
Manata continues with another defeater to an Arminian’s ‘common man’ ‘the dictionary has ‘possible alternative’ as an essential element to choice so Calvinism is wrong’ argument. He notes 2 Kings 10, where Jehu commands the best of 70 men to be chosen. ‘The best’ implies out of the group, with the rest not being live options. Hence, they were to choose only the best, those that weren’t best weren’t actionable alternatives. Choose The Best- More on a failed Arminian argument
Hays responds to the charge that Calvinists caricature free will as “some imaginary power that lets one do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with no restraint whatsoever.” i) There’s can be a discrepancy between what is said and thought, and between the logical consequences of what is said or thought. This isn’t an issue with what Arminians claim to believe, but what this believe commits them to logically. ii) LFW is the freedom to do (choose) otherwise. We have no empirical evidence of this, since no one has actualized the alternative to see if it was actually viable. iii) Hence, Arminians fall back on intuition. If they can contemplate alternatives, that is evidence of the freedom to do otherwise. But this is only viable if there is a 1 to 1 between conceivable choices and actionable choices. Many things conceived aren’t actionable though. So what’s the upper limit? We should be able to actualize whatever is conceived. iv) For Arminians, the future is open, the result of our choices. The past is unalterable. Hence, the only restriction on freedom would be what’s logically possible or compossible. We should be able to make any thing within this restriction happen. But real life doesn’t corroborate this. Hence, the intuition is false. v) There is evidence against LFW. “At best, the Arminian can only harmonize his position with the lack of evidence and contrary evidence by postulating that God imposes an arbitrary restriction on our freedom of opportunity.” Mutant-X Arminians
Hays recaps his point that a real presence reading of John 6 is anachronistic. He adds that liberal commentators admit this, and don’t have a problem with it, because they think John was historicizing a later doctrinal development. This at least has the virtue of self-consistency on its operating assumptions. And contemporary Romanist Bible scholars tend to be liberal. But Christians who think John 6 is a real situation need to match this belief with a realistic interpretation that matches the time, space, and audience. Engwer has noted that the physical feeding of the 5000 is used as a springboard to note the inefficacy of physical consumption by Jesus. The contrast is deliberate in the text, especially so since the feeding was miraculous, like the Manna. But if both meals are literal (on a eucharistic reading), the intended contrast is destroyed. Rather, what we have is a contrast between a literal meal and a figurative meal. I am the Bread of Life
Russell Moore discusses the negative stereotyping of the disadvantaged in the movie Orphan. Russell Moore Takes on ‘Orphan’ Movie
From Challies: “It seems that many adolescents are abandoning social media sites. "From uncles wearing skinny jeans to mothers investing in ra-ra skirts and fathers nodding awkwardly along to the latest grime record, the older generation has long known that the surest way to kill a youth trend is to adopt it as its own. The cyberworld, it seems, is no exception."” 6); It's SO Over
Here’s an interesting page by T-fan: Non-English Reformation-Era Bibles - Index Page
Dan Wallace is on the Dividing Line here. Dan Wallace on a Very Important Dividing Line
No comments:
Post a Comment