2010-08-12

Triablogue: Hays interacts with an enhancement to the second commandment, which takes it to absurdity. For example, Hays notes that Rev 1:13-16, the incarnation, Dan 7:9, etc. fall under such ‘enhancements’ to the commandment, as miserable failures.  Ungodly perversions. See also here: Improving the Second Commandment

Triablogue. Contra simplistic detractions, Carrier writes, “if Luke meant an Augustan decree issued in 28 B.C. first applied to Judaea when Quirinius was in office, then Luke 2:2 becomes completely intelligible: this is the first Augustan census of Judaea--in other words, the first time the Augustan decree affected Judaea, which happened to be when Quirinius was governing Syria (a chronological marker no author would use unless Quirinius only governed Syria once).”: Paul Tobin Vs. Richard Carrier On Luke's Census

Pyro: Phillips expresses dismay at the focus of churches. “Russian/Chinese/Black Baptist Church”. They deliberately choose names like this, even though they have Colossians 3:11 in their Bibles. Black (and other) women (and others), dating, the world, compromise - and so much more!

JT cites Mohler’s potent article entitled “The Seduction of Pornography and the Integrity of Christian Marriage”—available in manuscript and audio form. It describes two pictures of male sexuality, one committed to sexual purity and sexual integrity with one wife, and the other pursuing lust and self-gratification through porn, without responsibility, expectation, or demand. The article pulls no punches: “He can sit in his soiled underwear, belching the remnants of last night’s pizza, and engage in a pattern of one-handed sexual satisfaction while he “surfs the net” and forfeits his soul.” Two Pictures- Purity vs Pornified

JT: He summarizes Packer, who discusses the two tones of faith, the cognitive acceptance, and relational reliance on and submission to God by those facts. Believing and trusting are the two tones blending like a chord in music. Packer on the Two Tones of Biblical Faith

Trueman continues with Luther’s third mark that goes to making a true theologian: Experience. Luther here speaks of something passive, not an action we perform, but something done to us, dependent on something outside of us. It is neither contentless, nor purely subjective: it is experience of the external word of God impacting upon the individual, in the context of everyday life, touching all areas of human experience. Luther On Being a Theologian IV (Carl Trueman)

JT: CS Lewis: “You will have noticed that most dogs cannot understand pointing. You point to a bit of food on the floor; the dog, instead of looking at the floor, sniffs at your finger. A finger is a finger to him, and that is all. His world is all fact and no meaning. And in a period when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind.” On Missing Pointers to God

Girltalk: A reminder and encouragement to wives to do good to their husbands all of their days (Prov. 31:12). Do so remember God’s promise in Psalm 23:5 of God’s neverending faithfulness. All Her Days

DeYoung observes the common error, called moralism, wherein the OT is taught as a collection of stories of famous people we should emulate, instead of a single story of what God is like. On the other hand, some sneer at drawing examples from biblical narratives (contra Heb. 13:6, 1 Cor. 10:6). DeYoung points to Hezekiah (2 Chr. 31:20) as a good example. Good leader, administrator, worshipped in spirit and truth, cleansed the temple, believed Yahweh as King of all, and sought God in time of need. He repented of his pride, and asked for forgiveness. Hezekiah and Heroes

DG has a good list here: Recommended Reading for Recovering Sinners

Challies continues a series of reading a biography of Spurgeon. This deals with their physical afflictions. Spurgeon and his wife worked astoundingly hard, and yet suffered all the while. Spurgeon wore himself out through constant activity. We see there is a cost involved in working hard for the Lord. Challies says, “I sometimes think that Spurgeon should have done less that he might have lived longer; and yet it seems that there are a few people in the course of history who are so talented and so gifted that for them to slow down is to disregard God’s call on their life.” Who knows if he should have slowed down? Reading Biographies Together - Spurgeon (V)

CMI: The post discusses the response of the new atheists to a conference CMI held in the same city on the same weekend as a new atheist conference, after CMI offered to debate the new atheists, an offer which “was rejected in a torrent of insults and invectives, particularly from Myers and his followers”. Behold the new atheism:“When Prof. Dawkins became aware of our response, he called it the latest ‘flea’. Dawkins is quite fond of being called ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’ (in Darwin’s day, evolutionary promulgator Thomas Huxley was called ‘Darwin’s bulldog’). Dawkins’ self-image of being the ‘big dog’ of evolution, being pestered by no more than a flea (Sarfati) displays all the arrogance of some sort of intellectual superiority. We’ve noticed this increasingly agitated and hostile attitude towards creationists by the followers of Dawkins and Myers et al, and what followed on Dawkins’ blog was a ‘hatefest’ of spiteful comments aimed at Dr Sarfati…” [given their vitriol and hatred, I suspect they are not the solution to the world’s problems – after all, some of them would have people like me killed for dangerous beliefs] “The one ‘religion’ that is always singled out for this treatment is Christianity. Similar criticisms of Islam, for example, would simply not be tolerated.” Evolution's pesky flea

Beggar’s All: This post looks at whether Luther said there is no ‘free will’. Luther dealt with Erasmus’s inadequate use and treatment of the term. He thought it to be safest to drop the term altogether, but he said that people are ‘free’ in that they act according to their nature. This sort of free will, however, is overruled by God in His good pleasure. Luther- Man Has No Free Will

JT: I hope that tons of folks read Fred Sanders’s new book, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. Here’s a taste: “Because the gospel is Trinitarian, evangelicals as gospel people are by definition Trinity people, whether or not they think so. It only makes sense that if the gospel is inherently Trinitarian, the most consistently and self-consciously Trinitarian movement of Christians would be the movement that has named itself after the gospel, the evangel: evangelicalism. ” The Deep Things of God- How the Trinity Changes Everything

AiG: Here’s a decent looking primer on the integrity of the Bible. One noteworthy observation, regarding how two different people attempt to understand why Old Testament sacrifices are no longer practiced. One emphasizes the evolution of religion, the other sees Christological typology. “The only difference is that one approaches Scripture looking for contradiction and development. The other approaches Scripture as if God has written it and therefore looks for unity, allowing one passage to throw light on another.” Chapter 27- Isn’t the Bible Full of Contradictions-

Beggar’s All: Here’s a post at some of Luther’s writings on the relation of works and salvation, dealing with attacks on Luther. Luther defines good works as those “works that flow from faith and from the joy of heart that has come to us because we have forgiveness of sins through Christ.” Only what God commands is a good work: “Everybody should consider precious and glorious whatever God commands, even though it were no more than picking a wisp of straw from the ground.” “…[W]e are not to do them merely because we fear death or hell, or because we love heaven, but because our spirit goes out freely in love of, and delight in, righteousness.” Luther understood our best efforts to be tainted with sin, that they could never result in justification. Justification is totally of works – but Christ has performed them. Luther- The Commandments Only Show Man What He Can't do

Uggh. United Churches are opening the doors to Muslims during Ramadan. http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Christian+churches+open+doors+Muslims+Ramadan/3388933/story.html

A new study indicates that women feel more pain and have a harder time coping with pain than men do. They say, “Pain management strategies of the future might be more individualized and gender-based.” [two things – i guess this runs against the common conception that women have a higher tolerance for pain, but maybe that’s acute pain; and more important, it looks like men and women aren’t the same in every respect, that there might actually be reasons to interact with people differently on the basis of their sex, and that this is physiological, not culturally conditioned. Who knew?] http://news.discovery.com/human/women-men-pain.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Bayly makes note of the gruesome death in a sauna competition (110 C temperatures), and draws this lesson: “What a perfect picture of man's momentary glory before God's judgment and the bottomless pit of eternal torment. Like these competitors, man arrives at his grave in tatters; skin hanging from his forehead, arms, and back; his nose boiled like a brat; his conscience seared beyond recognition--of sin, that is; all his God-given glory consumed in the pursuit of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Leaving behind a bloody mess--including body parts of his unborn children, in one instant he is translated to the Judgment Seat of the Holy God where he must give an account for every single word and deed.” With seemingly a touch of irony, Bayly ‘contextualizes’, using the illustration as a metaphor for the Gospel call to awake sinners to their reality, and the Christian duty to try to pull people out of Satan’s ‘sauna’. Our death, or His-

Bring the Books: Here’s an unflattering review of NT Wright’s book, Simply Christian. i) Wright diminishes, though doesn’t deny, the reality that the Gospel saves from eternal damnation. Seems like a pretty important thing to diminish. ii) Wright rejects inerrancy as a modern invention. Quoting Barth, he provides this [chillingly ironic] gem: "It doesn't matter if the serpent [in the Garden of Eden] was real; what matters is, what did he say?". iii) 95% good, the 5% of the book ruins it. iv) You can do better for the new believe, like D.A. Carson's new book The God Who is There. v) Piper is right about how confusing Wright’s gospel is. “If there's something orthodox in there, it's wrapped in cheese cloth, covered with cement, and buried somewhere below” The Unprofessional Book Review- Simply Christian by N.T. Wright 

Bock’s blog has a brief explanation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, which demand a prime cause which itself is apart from nature. Thus this post relates these to Creation. “Not only is God required for the existence of the universe (first law), but God is required for the organization of existence.” http://blogs.bible.org/impact/lance_ponder/creative_science_9_-_cosmic_organization

Misconduct in the lab of an animal morality prof at Harvard? http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19293-misconduct-found-in-harvard-animal-morality-profs-lab.html

An update on SETI. Nothing yet. Taking the Sci-Fi Out of SETI