2010-09-29

Here’s more top Biblical archaeological discoveries at Reclaiming the Mind. Here’s one: “The House of David inscription is significant on many levels. First, contrary to all of the ink spilled touting the silence of David and Solomon from the extra-biblical record there is now proof of a historical king of Israel named David.” [as I’ve read, one’s attack on the reliability of Scripture will in time become an archaeologists embarrassing footnote]. Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #2 House of David Inscription

Bayly has a note on the spiritual downfall of Jimmy Carter, who could say to an interviewer from Playboy, “The Bible says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.” and now mocks what he once professed. How the mighty have fallen

JT likes Nick Needham’s 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, a projected five-volume history of the church. Scholarly yet accessible, few footnotes, an overview while containing primary source, etc. Historical Theology + History of the Church

Mahaney @ Girltalk: “Mothers, we have the gospel: we need not fear. And yet we do. A lot.” Parents will never outgrow their need to trust God for their children – nor will they outgrow the faithfulness of God (Ps. 103:17). When Worries Multiply

Bird isn’t sure on the ‘original autographs’ as the locus of the doctrine of inspiration, and thinks the ‘Bible as it has been received in the church’ is better. i) Text-critics debate whether their task is to reconstruct the original autographs or simply an "initial text" [as I understand it this is a rather late post-modern development in the field]. ii) There are the seeming different versions of Jeremiah between the LXX and MT, and Acts in the Western text is 10% longer. iii) “for thine is the kingdom…” is not in modern Bibles but widely used despite not being in the autographs. iv) The death of Moses is clearly secondary, and the Psalms underwent some redaction in their compilation as a collection. [he doesn’t address here how such a view can reckon with the fact that the ‘church’ is not a unanimous body in its reception of Scripture throughout history (e.g. 2 Peter), nor the implication that you can have two local churches having two different ‘inspired’ versions of the same text]. The original Autographs

ICR points out some of the difficulties cell division poses for evolutionary theory. “Processes at work inside the cell somehow ensure that enough of every required part makes it into both daughter cells, whether it is a complete set of chromosomes, at least one each of every organelle (in eukaryotic cells), and thousands of required proteins.” How do all these thing remain ordered and continually repeat with such precision? Researchers have found that a particular enzyme called Cdk operates as a master oscillator, undergoing rhythmic periods of activity. ICR points out the irreducible complexity of this system, which is essential to the function of the cell. Logically speaking, if a necessary component of any system is broken, then the whole system breaks. But this also means that the required piece—which in this case is the phase-locking oscillator setup—must also have appeared in its entirety and fully integrated at the very start. By evolutionists’ own admission, without these coordinated oscillators to regulate it, DNA replication would not occur. And without DNA replication, cell division would not occur. Without cell division, there would be no reproduction. And without reproduction there can be no evolution, because evolution supposedly operates by survival and reproduction of the fittest. Cell Division Defies Evolutionary 'Just-so' Stories

Genderblog has a rather honest confession from a woman: “When it comes to romance, many women are so needy, and get emotionally enmeshed so quickly, that they throw their brains out the window. They foolishly make excuses and rationalize giving their hearts away to guys who are jerks.” If you’re wise, you’ll listen up and guard your heart. Don’t give it to a jerk. Save it for a gem. Why do Women Love Jerks-

Hays points out that NASA must hold to a flat earth, as evidenced by their use of language, according to one critic of the Bible, who says, “Steve, Whether the story is about a person taken up to heaven in the spirit in a vision or in a physical body, the point is that they are taken UP. (While Paul tells us that he believed in beings that exist "under the earth.") That's three-tiers. ”. From NASA: “On March 27, 2004, NASA 008 carried the X-43A, mounted on a modified Pegasus booster rocket, up to the drop altitude of 40,000 feet. The rocket boosted the X-43A up to its test altitude of about 95,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, where the X-43A separated from the booster and flew freely at its test speed of Mach 6.8.” NASA's flat-earth cosmography

Solapanel advises a community party around Christmas for the cause of the Gospel. Connecting in your street

Reformation21 reflects on the importance and value of criticism – despite how much we don’t like it – especially in ministry. Criticism can be very healthy and is neccesary. Think for example of preaching class.  The best preaching classes are where the guys giving the feedback have the the guts to be brutally honest and tell you when you've bombed. We need to allow ourselves to be critiqued. It’s the criticism that we’ve found incredibly difficult to take that is most formative in ministry.  “Surely as reformed evangelicals we've got to be willing for the same, we should be able to critique each other, faithful are the wounds of a friend.  There must be a willingness to take it on the chin and disagree if need be.  It's not nasty to criticise it's what we need and what I need.  We must be able to laugh at ourselves because we are laughable!” http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2010/09/criticism.php

Beggar’s All has a chart here describing Romanist justification. The post also highlights this quote: "The Reformers' forensic understanding of justification ... the idea of an immediate divine imputation [of righteousness] renders superfluous the entire Catholic system of the priestly mediation of grace by the Church." (Bruce McCormack,What's at Stake in the Current Debates over Justification, from Husbands and Treier's Justification, pg 82.) That’s why ‘infusion vs. imputation’ is no mundane discussion The Faith that was Once for All Delivered to the Saints, Roman Style

Challies has some reflections on the downsides of blogging here. He posts some stats on the fickleness of the audience. He comments on the need to adapt, despite how it can be frustrating to do so. Bloggers just can’t write a wow post every time. And there is a lot of pressure on site statistics. He points out that blogs deal with a skimming audience, who read blogs read for information, not for wisdom or understanding. Solo blogging is a lonely sport. And readers demand the highest quality for, well, free. What I Hate About Blogging

DG reflects on Edwards’ arguments that we should be eager in doing good. “What Edwards brings to light is that what Paul is saying here about giving applies to good works in general. That is, we are to be earnest and eager and cheerful and bountiful and thoughtful and sacrificial in regard to all of our good works, not just giving. In other words, Christians are to be thoughtful people who are eager to do good and proactive in it. ” Christians Are to Be Proactive in Doing Good

DeYoung cites Carl Henry on the good of inerrancy if we don’t have the original manuscripts. ‘On the basis of all the existing early testimony, it is clear that the generation which possessed the apostolic autographs viewed them as the veritable Word of God. The fact of inerrant autographs is both theoretically and practically important. If the originals were errant, then textual criticism would expect to give us not more truthful readings but only more ancient ones.” Henry also notes the ironic presupposition in the documentary hypothesis that the present texts were inerrant, and that by postulating their idea, they were presuming to give us trustworthy redactions to replace the supposedly unreliable accounts given us in Scripture, and preferring alternatives allegedly uncorrupted by the theological convictions of the Gospel writers. What Good is Inerrancy If We Don’t Have the Original Manuscripts-

Hays posts a comment from an NT scholar on judgment by works, in particular on Romans 2:16. “In my opinion, the principal point throughout the first part of Romans 2 is a conventional OT point: God is the righteous judge. Everyone will get what he deserves. What many commentators do not recognize is that Romans 2 is part of a developing argument. It is too early in the argument for Paul to bring in how judgment according to desert is consistent with anyone being saved. So 2:12-16 should be read as pretty much a flat general principle, not as a statement about Christians.” [contra Schreiner, for one]. The consistency of God's judgment can be explained only after the doctrine of justification is introduced. At the last judgment the works in view are those of Christ. Christian good works are rewarded, but only in the light of Christ's perfection. Judgment by works

Hays notes in taking on those with a low view of Scripture that Walton draws a firm distinction between “material ontology” and “functional ontology.” He regards the cosmography of Scripture as “functional” rather than “material.” In this view even if Scripture did depict a flat-earth or triple-decker world, that would merely be a “functional” flat-earth or “functional” triple-decker” world rather than a real flat-earth or a real triple-decker world. Hays also notes that i) the absence of seismic activity is picture-language for the stability of life on earth–while the presence of seismic activity is picture-language for divine judgment; ii) earth immobility doesn’t refer to the mobility of the sun and the immobility of the earth, but between stable ground and earthquakes; iii) phenomenological language of the ‘sun shining down’ isn’t wrong – after all, it does shine down on us relatively speaking; iv) That a biblical book inerrantly records what he said doesn’t mean what he said is ipso facto inerran; v) even the seasonable variability of the sun is evident to the naked eye. Do we think that folks who rose with the dawn didn’t ever stop to ask themselves these elementary questions?  Thoughtless free-thinkers

Here’s a report of a planet that has some characteristics similar to earth; [I point to this article because it illustrates the massive faith that the scientists hold in simply assuming that they’ll find life there. It’s akin to the old – just add water, and you get life! (and they haven’t even confirmed water yet). Of course, the naturalist needs to believe that there practically must be life there because he already believes that life formed naturalistically here (against all odds), and now to rationalize it, he must simply step out in blind faith and assume that it can easily happen anywhere.] http://news.discovery.com/space/earth-like-planet-life.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Creationsafaris comments on the above: “Headlines are screaming that an earthlike planet in its star’s habitable zone has been found. Many sources, though, are claiming that life must certainly exist on this planet. Their hubris stems from the words of Steve Vogt, an astronomy professor at UC Santa Cruz.” Despite the ‘100% probability of life’, one thing is 100% certain: no life has been found. All that is known about this planet is that it is 3 to 4 times the size of our Earth, and it orbits a red dwarf star. Those two factors reduce the probability of life. The probability that life has not been found is certain – 100%, for now at least. Nevertheless, most of the articles cheerfully echoed Vogt’s confident 100% probability estimate, although some reported that co-discoverer Paul Butler (a planet-hunting pioneer), though optimistic, did not want to put a number on it. None of the articles criticized Vogt for stating an evidence-free, and therefore unscientific, personal opinion. Probability Life Not Found on Exoplanet- 100%

These look interesting: VanDrunen's Lectures on Christianity and Culture

Nine of Poythress’s books are available here for free: http://www.frame-poythress.org/poythress_books.htm

Good pastors won’t let you off the hook. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/09/13/good-pastors-dont-let-you-off-the-hook/