Clint asks if his sermon illustration "Four bare legs in a bed" perhaps distracted from the sufficiency of the vine. [My personal thought is no, if you bothered to keep listening!] Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Sermon Illustrations
Noel Piper says of Advent, "here we stand in the middle. Advent is a season of looking back, thinking how it must have been for those awaiting the promised salvation of God, not knowing what to expect. And at the same time, it is a season of looking ahead, preparing ourselves to meet Jesus at his Second Coming." A Season to Look Back and Ahead
Mohler point to an LA Times editorial that is a sympathetic lament for those women who can't break through the 'stained glass ceiling,' which goes after conservatives who 'attack' the gains of women in ministry. This editorial has the audacity to pretend to read the minds and hearts of people who oppose female ordination, and moreover, implies that the writers read the NT. Do these editors believe the Bible to be merely human, or just without any authority? http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2833
Mohler: "The gift certificates from Planned Parenthood represent a brazen and ill-disguised effort to package abortion as a gift. " http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2849
Mohler quotes a report: "Researchers have done individual studies for years to learn how media affect children. A review released today, which analyzed 173 of the strongest papers over 28 years, finds that 80% agree that heavy media exposure increases the risk of harm, including obesity, smoking, sex, drug and alcohol use, attention problems and poor grades." Mohler comments on some trends in media, and then gives some parental advice: 1. Limit the total media exposure experienced by your children. 2. Do not allow children and teenagers to have televisions and Internet-connected computers in the bedroom. 3. Make entertainment media a family experience. 4. Parents have to do the hard work of actually knowing what their children and teenagers are watching, playing, hearing, and experiencing through media exposure. 5. Realize that a revolution has taken place in the lives of children and adolescents.6. Take a regular look at what your child is posting and what others are posting on his or her social media sites. 7. Remember that saying "no" is a legitimate option. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2861
Mohler: While the formation of a new Anglican denomination is being accused of threatening a fragile unity, it is a profound disunity that spurred it, as those appalled by the disregard for biblical authority demonstrated by the ordination of openly-practicing homosexuals are working desperately to hold fast to the authority of God's word. "the fact that the establishment of the Anglican Church of North America was motivated by explicitly theological concerns and commitments is a sign of hope." http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2866
Mohler comments on the vacuity of the argumentation in the Newsweek article that is attempting to suggest that the Bible doesn't oppose homosexuality or uphold the traditional definition of marriage. At the heart of this is the issue of biblical authority, once again. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2881
Hays argues that Piper and Dabney don't escape the dilemma posed regarding God's desire to save everyone. Dabney is very anthropomorphic - but we sympathize with evildoers because it could happen to us. "When God shows mercy to a sinner, it’s not because he identifies with the plight of the sinner in the way that you and I might identify with our fellow man." As for Piper, his "position on the bifurcated will of God is a hermeneutical harmonistic device." In other words, he grants the tension in the will of God and, as Hays puts it, we really don't need to frame the issue in terms of God's self-restraint. Is God's will bifurcated-
Phil Johnson writes that Shirley MacLaine probably did more than anyone else to popularize new age thinking. Indeed, she believed she was God, since "all energy is plugged in to the same source. We are each aspects of that source..." But her willingness to believe any superstition may have hurt its credibility. Christian apologists also took new age to task, in varying levels of soberness, some assuming massive conspiracies. It seems that various non-polemical best-sellers and fads, as well as emergent thinking, are the focus in the evangelial movement. But new age is hardly gone, with stats showing it is gaining much ground. And emergent teaching paves the way for it through its epistemic deconstruction. "the contemporary evangelical movement has become more susceptible to mysticism, relativism, and subjectivity. Evangelicals are more likely than ever to regard intuition as divine guidance, and less certain than ever that Scripture is authoritative and objectively true." The Rise and Decline of New Ageism
This is a compelling story of the sovereign hand of God in two lives. http://www.boundlessline.org/2008/12/gods-sovereignt.html
Hays writes about Zane Hodges death. In contrast to JT, Wallace, he says: "He should not be honored in death. He was a heretic. And it wasn’t some abstruse point of heresy, but a very practical heresy. Hodges was a high priest of nominal Christianity and false assurance. Hodges was to Protestant theology what Tetzel was to Catholic theology." ... "Hodges nailed the sign of Heaven to the gates of Hell—thereby misdirecting many unsuspecting souls from the pilgrim path to perdition’s path." Not once saved, never saved
Challies reference Michael Wittmer's Don't Stop Believing to provide insight into the relation of the wrath and love of God. Indeed, Calvinists are often accused of misconstruing God as unloving and full of only wrath. Now, the conclusion drawn in this blog is basically, God is love, God has wrath. God exists in the relation of love in the Godhead, but wrath is His response to sin. "There has never been a time that God has not been expressing love; nor will there ever be. But God's wrath is far different. God has not always been wrathful." At the cross, God's love met God's wrath. Wittmer says, "Jesus endured God's wrath when he bore the curse of sin, but he also experienced God's love, for the cross was a necessary step in crowning Jesus as Redeemer and Ruler..." God would not have wrath if it were not for His love. God's Gag Reflex
No comments:
Post a Comment