Now this is a tract: New Gospel Tract
JT points to this Lewis quote: "When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased."" JT has a number of links to Powlison's Q&A on the lusts of the flesh. Desire 101- Putting First Things First
JT points to this comment, that suggests that "the historical and sociological record suggests that when the state addresses most of the physical and financial needs of people, or when individuals are wealthy enough to care for those needs entirely on their own, that people are less likely to turn to God, their local church, charities, or their families for help, direction, and consolation. This is why in some important respects the Church is healthier in Nairobi than it is in New York, or in Lagos than it is Los Angeles." http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2009/03/will_obamas_vis_1.html
Dobson has stepped down as chair for Focus on the Family. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3372
Piper challenges fathers to teach their sons rightly regarding Elissa Reinsma became the first female to compete in the state high school wrestling tournament. "It was not a step forward. Some cultures spend a thousand years unlearning the brutality of men toward women. This is an odd way to make history. Relive prehistory maybe." Manly gentleness isn't epidemic in our culture (e.g. rap). "You know exactly what almost every healthy boy is thinking. If a jock from Northern Minnesota encircles her around the breasts and twists his leg around her thighs, trust me, he will dream about it tonight. Only in his dream she won't have clothes on. And if he doesn't dream it, half the boys in the crowd will. Wake up dads. You know this." It is weird, but who will have the courage to trace this back to God-ordained manhood and womanhood? Men do not fight women. They fight for women. It will take a real man, a real father, to say to his son. "Not on my watch, son. We don't fight women. I have not raised you that way." Over My Dead Body, Son
JT points to Phillips' post on the public reading of Scripture, and says: "In about A.D. 150–155 Justin Martyr, describing a typical church service, includes the importance of reading the Word aloud: On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has finished, the president speaks, instructing and exhorting the people to imitate these good things (First Apology 67)." The Public Reading of Scripture
Challies quotes a letter from James MacDonald that he sent to a woman who was grieving for her mother. "Your mother is having a day that is very different than yours. As you put on your black dress this morning remember that your mom is dressed in white (Rev. 19:14). As you shed tears of sorrow and separation remember that your mother is shedding tears of joy. As you think and reflect and ask the questions we all struggle with remember that all your mom's questions are gone (1Cor. 13:12)..." 5)
Challies is going with Wilberforce's Real Christianity. The book was written to contrast what he saw in the lives of so many Christians with what the Bible teaches, since he was disturbed to see that "the majority of so-called Christians having such little understanding of the real nature of the faith they profess." The book is intended to discern true faith from false beliefs, and the author challenges people to test it by the Scriptures. Faith is a subject of such importance that we should not ignore it because of the distractions or the hectic pace of our lives. Life as we know it, with all its ups and downs, will soon be over. It was written in 18th century England, which, like today, was full of cultural christians - pretenders. Reading the Classics - Real Christianity (I)
DesiringGod blog has a post on how to express a pastoral care for those who are considering adopting or have adopted. 1. Develop your own heart for the fatherless. The Gospel involves adoption, and it is necessary to communicate that adoption is fundamentally connected to the Gospel. 2. Do a biblical study on God's perspective on orphans. 3. Educate yourself on basic facts about adoption and orphan care. 129000 need adoption in the USA, 132 million are orphans around the world. 4. Ask questions. (examples provided) 5. Remind them that they desire a good and God-magnifying thing. 6. Keep on encouraging them. 7. Provide financial counsel and help. 8. Cry with them and celebrate with them. Enter their experience. [grieve with those who grieve]. 9. Celebrate adoptions publicly in services. 10. Don't feel like you have to have all the answers. Encourage the church and those with a passion for the fatherless to lead others in expressing it. 10 Ways to Pastor Adoptive Parents and Those Considering Adoption
Engwer, in response to a claim that '75% of scholars surveyed are 'conservative' in that they believe Jesus rose from the dead, so we shouldn't be impressed that 75% think the empty tomb is historical,' (the claim is wrong, for Habermas is including scholars who believe in some type of non-physical appearance of Jesus, and it only includes those who commented on the subject) quotes, "From considerations such as the research areas above, perhaps the single most crucial development in recent thought has emerged. With few exceptions, the fact that after Jesus’ death his followers had experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus is arguably one of the two or three most recognized events from the four Gospels, along with Jesus’ central proclamation of the Kingdom of God and his death by crucifixion. Few critical scholars reject the notion that, after Jesus’ death, the early Christians had real experiences of some sort...." Thus, the fact that early Christians, such as Jesus' disciples, thought they saw Him risen from the dead isn't just accepted by "conservative Christians". It's also accepted by most non-Christian scholars. How Significant Is It When Modern Scholars Affirm The Historicity Of A Biblical Account-
Engwer does some follow-up to the above, points out that the objector is "defining "moderate conservatives" as people who believe that Jesus was "actually" raised from the dead. He explains that there's not "any surprise" if such people believe in the historicity of the empty tomb. The implication is that DagoodS is claiming that 75% of the scholars Habermas studied believe in a physical resurrection of Christ." Given the misrepresentations as shown (see previous), it's misleading to refer to scholars as "conservative Christians" because they agree with a traditional Christian perspective on some issues relevant to the resurrection of Christ. Are 75% Of Gary Habermas' Scholars Conservative Christians Who Believe That Jesus Was Actually R
In dealing with a commentator, Hays makes some points: Every apologist assumes the truth of his own position. That doesn’t single out presuppositionalism. The real question at issue is whether you make a case for your operating assumptions. Regarding the presuppositionalist, he tries to disprove the unbeliever’s worldview by exposing its residual and irreducible commitment to certain theistic truths, and, on the other hand, he tries to prove his own position by process of elimination. How is that two-pronged approach begging the question? Dude, that's a caricature!
Hays draws from the analogy of how tastes differ, how 'one man's heaven is another's hell', and from this, speculates that heaven and hell needn't even have different settings. Heaven might well be hell to the damned. "hypothetically speaking, you can lavish someone with the best of everything, and thereby make him utterly miserable if, in his inverted scale of values, good is bad and bad is good." One man's heaven is another man's hell
Engwer discusses scholarship related to the claims of Robert Price, who advocates the view that all the NT authorship attributions are not justified. "Price is a minor figure in scholarly circles, and his view on this issue is a tiny minority position, so we wouldn't expect much scholarly interaction with him and his positions in particular. But the general principles involved in Pauline authorship of Romans or Pauline authorship of Ephesians, for example, are frequently addressed by scholars, and some scholars have interacted with Price in particular on such issues." Engwer thinks the neglect of his arguments has more to do with their unpopularity than it has to do with an inability to refute the arguments. Several resources are given. Why Doesn't Someone Try And Deal With Arguments Like Robert Price's-
In response to the notion that critics may reject the authorship of Josephus if they were as critical of his works as the NT, but it doesn't matter because they are generally reliable (say, compared to Luke), Engwer comments: i) To the idea, "Do we base our confidence in Josephus on the fact that we know his name? No." Actually, the identity of an author does influence our evaluation of the credibility of his claims. Josephus claims to have been an eyewitness to some of what he reports, for example. The authorship of documents like those of Josephus and Tacitus is relevant to our confidence in those documents. ii) Do we throw out arguments by atheists just because we expect them to say what they say? That's how the atheist in this discussion is treating Christian scholarship. iii) How is the reliability of Josephus determined? Comparison to other sources? That just backs up the question. iv) We should indeed be consistent in our critical treatment of both Tacitus and the NT. v) The atheist is inconsistent, trusting Josephus or Tacitus as generally reliable, while rejecting the NT as unreliable due to its textual record, when its credentials are way better than any other work of antiquity. vi) Engwer gives some examples of how the same questioning of the NT could be applied to the other works of antiquity. vii) Why accept the authorship of any document of antiquity and its reliability when works like Josephus are considered reliable because of his claimed proximity to close sources? Why Trust Josephus-
Turretinfan disagrees with Ehrman's skepticism on the following grounds: Ehmran empoys an ill-formed Set / False Dichotomy when he breaks things down into two possible categories: (1) The Text is Reliable or (2) The Bible's Text is Uncertain in Some Places; which are really not mutually exclusive. There is a difference between 'reliable' and 'perfect'. Both Ehmran and KJVO's think the only way the text is reliable is if it has zero uncertainties. Ehrman is not open about the fact that his conclusion that there is no way to tell is a break with almost 300 years of modern textual critical scholarship. Ehrman is unphased by the fact that his conclusion means we can know nothing if we don't have an original. How does Ehmran know that we don't have direct copies of the original? Moreover, the possibility of early corruption only reduces our knowledge of the text from 100% regarding 100% of the words, to a standard of the text being merely "reliable." Ehrman claims that there are places where scholars will continue to debate the original: i) This implies the other places are good. ii) This shows those scholars disagree with Ehrman's radical skepticism as they seek to get the original, which he thinks can't be known. iii) Commonly this debate is over the impact of internal evidence, but in Ehman's view they don't know what that is. "His presentation failed to provide an adequate reason for departure from the 300 years of textual criticism, and relied on an extreme standard of "perfect preservation" to assert that the Bible is not reliable. If all that Ehrman means is that we are not 100% certain about the precise spelling and word order of 100% of the words of the New Testament, he's right - but that doesn't mean we have an unreliable text." Response to Ehrman (part I)- God Has Preserved His Word
Here's a humourous anecdote illustrating a young child understanding predestination easily while a 20 year old or 40 year old argues for hours against it (cf. Matthew 21:16). Pre-dawn-destination
Genderblog has an open letter to someone at Queermergent. i) The letter aims to reckon with the image of God in its recipient. ii) A rejection of the idea that we can know the truth from the Scriptures has made the person's interpretation of life the foundation your choices and beliefs, and it is then left up to man to figure out life. But we should not base our knowledge on what we can know but what God has made known to us. iii) To the idea, "There were more important things in kingdom living than where we go after we pass from this world to the next, like poverty, AIDS, the environment, etc." This is an over-correction, for while there are 'other' concerns in the kingdom, the ultimate remedy to these things is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not our efforts to remedy them in this life. Just the simple truth of "what does a man gain if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?" suffices to show this. iv) Coming to peace with yourself is not coming to peace with God [very modern]. Finding peace with God is only found in the Gospel - the forgiveness of our sins through the cross of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1) - don't abandon the Gospel. An Open Letter to Adele- A Response to Queermergent
More book recommendations: Girls of Character- Teaching Biblical Femininity to the Next Generation through Literature, Part
While an insert in the New Catholic Answers Bible claims a passage in 2 Maccabees tacitly teaches purgatory, while the commentary on the verse reads, "The statement is made here, however, only for the purpose of proving that Judas believed in the resurrection of the just (2 Mc 7,9. 14. 23. 36). That is, he believed that expiation could be made for certain sins of otherwise good men- soldiers who had given their lives for God's cause. Thus, they could share in the resurrection. His belief was similar to, but not quite the same as, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory." The NCAB on Purgatory & 2 Maccabees 12
Swan points to an interesting thing found by Armstrong on Luther's opinion of 2 Maccabees 12:46 and purgatory. He found that Luther stated in a letter, "The text in Maccabees is left, and is quite plain." Swan points out the irony in that he points to Catholic scholars who say it is not a plain reference, while a Romanist e-apologist points to Luther who says it is! Swan then quotes a writing from 1521 where Luther explains the spurious nature of using 2 Maccabees as a prooftext for Purgatory, while at the same time believing in purgatory. Luther on 2 Maccabees 12-46
Here are some pastorally rich Calvin quotes. Here's one: "We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal." Calvin Quotes
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