2009-04-03

A female ECUSA priest also goes Muslim; a Swiss assisted suicide clinic has revealed plans to help a healthy woman die. As Phillips says, “what started out as mercy-killing to the terminally ill is expanding, expanding. Who could have predicted it? Any Biblical Christian.” 09

Another anecdotes (a 12:1 ratio of women’s bible studies to men’s in a church) that today’s men are anything but men. Where Are the Guys-

The correspondence theory of truth holds that a claim is true insofar as it corresponds to the external or extramental world. There are two elements to truth: the truth bearer (a proposition, statement, or a sentence) and the truth maker (the world, a fact, or a state of affairs). The latter makes an asserted proposition true or false. Christianity theology tends to adopt this due to its realism. Philosophy Word of the Day – Truth

Phillips posts a testimony from a man who, by God’s grace, escaped the unbiblical mystic spiritualitism so prevalent in Pentacostal, etc. circles today. “Since I heard "the voice", no one - including my parents, who understood my temperament and knew too well my weaknesses - had any tool in their toolbox to convince me to think it over. How could I disobey "God's" voice?” Word of testimony on the personal will of God view

Engwer summarizes an atheist’s double standards in evaluating Josephus versus the New Testament. 1) In textual criticism, the atheist not only accepts that Josephus is reliable, but also cites Ehrman on textual issues, and while Ehrman ranks the NT as in better shape than Josephus, and the manuscripts are earlier and better for the NT, the atheist rejects the NT. 2) On internal consistency, the atheist was discussing the letters attributed to Paul, and he didn't just conclude that inconsistencies in the Pauline documents reflect "deficiencies in Paul" or "bias" on Paul's part. Rather, he concluded that inconsistencies suggest forgery, whereas he was far more restrained about Josephus. 3) On external consistency, Engwer reminds the reader that the issue is whether the atheist applies his own professed standard and consistency in reaching a conclusion about Christianity. The atheist generally trusts Josephus as a "reliable historian", which implies a trust in at least of the accounts Josephus gives which have no corroboration. But if a letter of Paul or the book of Acts is realistic or historically accurate, the atheist thinks that a forger wrote the document and we shouldn't assume that the author is trustworthy where we can't check him against other sources. 4) The atheist claims that no one is trying to forge in the name of Josephus (contra reality, Engwer provides examples), but when going after the authorship of an NT book, he’ll bring in the forgeries in general, not just in the author’s name. 5) Ancient sources, both Christian and those opposed, agree that Jesus lived, which is embarrassing to the atheist’s argument. The atheist will agree that Josephus could be "an incurable liar,” etc. while marveling over the “encyclopedic" information he gives and regarding him as generally reliable, and at the same time rejecting NT + patristic writers as wicked and vicious. 6) The atheist rejects Romans on the grounds of anachronisms, while not applying the same standard to Josephus. Josephus Judged By A Different Standard

Hays continues reviewing Ehrman’s latest book. Ehrman says that “eyewitnesses cannot be trusted to give historically accurate accounts. They never could be trusted and can’t be trusted still” which is interesting since he likes to relay stories about his student days at Moody, Princeton, etc., but by his own admission he isn’t trustworthy. He also can’t claim an inaccuracy in the Bible on the basis of extra-biblical sources, since the same standard applies to them. This doesn’t help Ehrman’s intellectual credibility. ii) Ehrman just asserts that the Gospels were written anonymously with none claiming to be eyewitnesses, disregarding evidence to the contrary. And even if a book was loaded with claims of being an eyewitness Ehrman would just dismiss it as pseudepigraphical, so it’s just a diversion. “Heads I win, tails you lose!” iii) There’s no evidence the Gospels circulated anonymously - even by Ehrman’s liberal dating scheme, the persons credited with the work could still be alive in the time the work circulated. Ehrman must by the same standard hold that all the apocryphal books circulated anonymously. Does he? iv) Ehrman goes after the 3rd person of Matthew (not uncommon in that day), but if it was first-person, he’d dismiss it a fraud. v) Even if John weren’t written by the apostle it could still be authored by an eyewitness. Köstenberger has shown how the third-person usage in 21:24 is probably a self-referential literary convention. vi) Ehrman makes the illiteracy claim. Hays cites evidence to show that Matthew (tax-collector), Mark (a man from a family of means), Luke (a Gentile physician), and John (who appears to come from a wealthy family; fishing in Galilee was good business – he may have been related to the high priest), were not illiterate unilingual hicks. Moreover, “the great number of Greek inscriptions as well as Greek literary finds in the Dead Sea region has led many scholars to conclude that Greek was spoken by many Jews in Galilee.” Being ‘without letters’ (Acts 4:13) doesn’t mean illiterate, but in the context being without formal religious training. vii) Luke has more literary finesse than Matthew, Mark, or John, hardly surprising since he was, in all likelihood, better educated than the rest. John is very subtle and sophisticated, but not the least bit academic in tone. He uses simple diction, simple syntax, simple metaphors, quite different from Paul. viii) Ehrman thinks that 2 Thess. isn’t Pauline because in 1 Thess. the end would be unexpected and sudden, while in 2 Thess. it isn’t coming right away and there would be signs. But this tension appears in the Gospels, and to say that when Jesus comes, he will subdue his enemies in short-order, doesn’t mean that he is coming right away. Paul appears to be saying that it may be a long time before he comes, but when he finally arrives, he will make short work of his adversaries. Signs are only signs to those watching. There is a difference between strategic surprise (big army at the border) and tactical surprise (when that army will move). God intends to keep Christians vigilant, and He won’t tip His hands. ix) Trying to question Pauline authorship while comparing to other Pauline books is self-defeating since the standard of comparison is shrinking. x) Finally, Ehrman goes after Petrine authorship. But “at the level of syntax, the Greek of 1 Peter arguably exhibits bilingual interference that is consistent with a Semitic author for whom Greek is a second language” and “Of interest here is the fact that preformed material makes up at least one-third of II Peter and that other verses, although less easy to identify as such, may also represent traditional idiom (e.g. II Pet 1:2,5b-7; 3:18),” so 2 Peter would stylistically match this material in large sections. Who Wrote the Bible-

Hays has some further thoughts. Ehrman actually claims that the apocryphal gospels were considered canonical. He doesn’t tell us who or where though. Ehrman just denies the Exodus, calling it myth, and then claims that Genesis 1 contradicts Gen. 2, apparently unaware of the fact that it is standard compositional technique: “Synoptic/resumption-expansion. A Hebrew author will at times tell the whole story in brief form (synopsis), then repeat the story (resumption), adding greater detail (expansion).” Same with the details of the clean animals being brought onto the ark. Ehrman claims contradiction between Ex. 6:3 and Gen. 15:7, since God says “I did not make myself known to them” to Moses. But this is the difference between promise and fulfillment, knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance. He disregards the semantic range of all in ‘all of the livestock of the Egyptians’ (Exodus 9:5), which can mean can mean ‘all sorts of’ or ‘from all over’ or ‘all over the place.’ God also does not wrong executing guilty sinners. And Scripture can record things without approving of them. Ehrman also simply asserts that God being a God of vengeance is a bad thing but doesn’t tell us why. Does Ehrman think that drug-dealers who have the run of a place because judges do nothing is a good thing? And why does he think that the duration of sin has anything to do with the duration of punishment (e.g. a shoplifter and serial rapist killer may commit a crime for the same length of time). The sinner would continue to sin indefinitely. Death is a cutoff to this! To the suggestion that certain texts teach annihilationism, Waltke writes, “The tension between those texts that represent death as annihilation and others as a state from which all will be raised–the righteous to everlasting life and the wicked to everlasting shame–can be resolved in the same way the similar tension in Ecclesiastes between futility under the sun and hope is resolved: by distinguishing between what can be known by sight and by faith. Texts that refer to annihilation depict the visible phenomenon that the dead cease to exist in the land of the living and are annihilated, and texts that refer to the final judgment beyond are faith statements.” Ehrman also can’t being his attack on the consistency of the text without assuming its preservation. Despite his claims to the contrary, he isn’t aware of Christian argumentation, and he is too dimwitted to realize that atheists have no standard of morality, while he rambles on about the problem of evil. And how exactly does he know whether misery is senseless? Ehrman tries to get around the resurrection by appealing to a phenomenon where people see/touch deceased loved ones – but the source he uses even says, “Typical encounters with the recently deceased do not issue in claims about an empty tomb, nor do they lead to the founding of a new religion.” Hays concludes by quoting Metzger on the factors lending to the preservation of the message of Christ. I was a teenage werewolf

Turretinfan, quoting a number of Scriptures, writes against the use of statues, icons, and images of Jesus in areas of evangelicalism. The Sort of Evangelical I'm Not

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscript has discovered more than twenty biblical manuscripts in the last few years. What Does It Mean to Discover a Manuscript- (via CSNTM)

Here’s a good Spurgeon saying: “The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability--two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do; you watch the general current and then float upon it; you study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask--Is it fashionable? If it be fashionable, it must be done. Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.” Unfashionable

A court has determined that a 1998 ruling that marriage is limited to one man and one woman was determined unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court. Gay Marriage in Iowa

Bird has a reflection on the fact that God’s new creation has burst onto the scene, in the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. “here is the sense that I feel as if I am partly dead and partly reborn in a world that is gradually fading away and yet anxiously awaiting to be recreated.” We live in a world that is passing away but at the same time being made new. A New Creation

Spurgeon reminds us to hold all material things with a loose hand, since God has loaned them to us, and not given them to us as if we have a de facto right now to possess them. Charles Spurgeon on Manmade Gods

Since Romanist apologists claim that the alleged conservative Catholics "right" as to their interpretation and the alleged liberal Catholics "wrong" as to their interpretation, how do they come to this conclusion? Has Rome decreed, or do they rely on their personal judgment? Getting Your Money's Worth

Piper observes that atheists miss the joy in the sunrise because they care nothing nor know nothing of displaying the glory of God, wherein joy is found. Atheists Miss the Joy

This blog notes that formerly, the most important theologians were pastors, and to be a pastor was a step up from being a prof. “theological formulation was done by the pastoral community and then given back to the seminaries, which trained the future pastors.” The post goes on the lack the disconnect of the academy from the local church, how schools are more apologetically oriented than focused on the particular needs of the church. This is in part because of reaction to liberalism in seminaries, which required a response to remain academically credible. “The gulf between the academy and the local church has widened to such an extent that ministry in a local church is now often seen as a detriment to one’s ability to adequately formulate theology for institutions whose primary purpose is to train pastors for the local church.” The Academy, the Church and the Theological Disconnect

Phillips reviews Henry and Richard Blackaby’s contribution to How Then Should We Choose?. “This chapter is just about the single most appalling trainwreck I've read in recent memory, whether viewed exegetically, hermeneutically, theologically, or pastorally. The implications, if taken and followed out seriously by anyone (—God forbid!), are absolutely catastrophic.” i) the Blackabys argue that there is a one-for-one continuation between all Biblical narratives and our lives today; we should expect no change, thus denying copious amounts of Scripture, including “intra-canonical indications of purposeful ebbs and flows in the revelatory activity of God,” the pattern of miraculous event, divine interpretation, verbal rehearsal of that interpretation, and even successive covenants. God even points people back to the given word. ii) They deny Scriptural sufficiency, as language that the Bible reserves for binding, inerrant, verbal prophetic revelation is repeatedly applied indiscriminately to normal Christian living. They smash flat the Bible, reducing prophets like Moses to illustrations of nudgings to particular choices. iii) They provide unbiblical and convoluted tests and checks for determining God’s will. Even their own talk of a ‘struggle’ to hear God doesn’t line up with the Scriptural accounts! iv) Phillips asks, does Scripture ever use the Blackabys' expressions — God's voice, God speaking, God talking to someone — in a sense other than revelatory, verbal, quotable, and utterly binding to believers? v) What exactly makes the office of prophet distinct if we’re all to hear God’s voice constantly? vi) 2 Peter 1:19-21. Non Sola Scriptura- the Blackaby view of God's will — 1

Hays comments on relics, a traditional fixture of Catholic piety, having the superstitious belief that it’s possible to be healed through the virtue of a relic. Now, God can assign an effect to a particular medium. And God can use something for symbolic value, in which case it’s authorized. But the common denominator in the biblical examples of objects used (e.g. mud) is the grace of God and the faith of the believer. God is God, and He heals whom He will – often despite the faulty assumptions, etc. of those involved. Relics

Swan says, “The commentary notes though used by the Thigpen / Armstrong New Catholic Answer Bible are, according to Dave Armstrong "the notoriously liberal notes for the NAB," written by "heterodox, liberal dissidents." That is... not very comforting. Are we to assume the "answers" given in the NCAB commentary notes are not intended by Armstrong and Thigpen to be correct answers?” This despite the claim that the NAB will lead to "a deeper understanding of the Catholic faith." Swan concludes with this satirical prayer, “Based on Dave's comments, I've put together a prayer. Perhaps it could be something like, "Dear Mary, please help this clueless, ignorant, dense, know-nothing, slanderer, nit wit, anti-Catholic imbecile desperate for attention, liar, and spewer of idiotic nonsense stop quoting the notoriously liberal notes (with the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur) for the NAB. Help him to see (and embrace), the true Catholic faith found in those sections of our Answer Bible that agree with what we deem correct by orthodox scholars and Catholic commentaries.” [remember, the Romanists claim that we need to magisterium for interpretation. Good to see that they’re on top of things!] The New Catholic (Right and Wrong) Answer Bible

Good quote: “"Gethsemane is not a field of study for our intellect.  It is a sanctuary of our faith."  Lord, forgive us for the times we have read about Gethsemane with dry eyes.” Forgive Us Our Dry Eyes by Michael Mckinley

Leeman writes about Dever’s use of great stories from church history throughout his sermons, which helps us to see that our Christianity is not all about right now, my moral progress, and how I feel about myself and God. It helps us look to eternity to hear these things. He cautions against tacitly engaging in mere therapeutic preaching – even gospel-centred – by only making people feel good about themselves in the Gospel, and exhorts preachers to employ such stories of God’s faithfulness in history past and abroad. 2 preaching tips for promoting kingdom mindedness by Jonathan Leeman

Leeman reminds us that God’s word doesn’t just impart information, but it creates life. Preaching is a strange thing, with a man heralding and telling people what God thinks. The truth is carried by God’s Spirit to do exactly what He intends. (Isa. 55:1, cf. Heb. 11:3; Ps. 33:6; 2 Cor. 4:6; Rom. 10:17; 1 Peter 1:23; James 1:21; Col. 3:16; Heb. 1:3.) He concludes, “But I'm a postmodern. So I don't want to just sit and listen. I want to speak. I want to have a conversation. My generation is different than every generation that has preceded me, and so none of this applies to me and ministry today, right? ” preaching as monologue or dialogue- by Jonathan Leeman

Carolyn Mahaney exhorts mothers to be a godly example, as this is of paramount importance in the view children will have of God, for hypocrisy proclaims that God’s truth is a mere facade. “So ask yourself: What does my example say to my teenagers about the truth of God’s Word?  Am I walking in paths where I want my children to follow?” Profound Influence

Carolyn Mahaney exhorts mothers to use their sins as opportunities for the light of the gospel to shine into our relationship with our teenager. “If we humble ourselves, confess our sins, and ask for our children’s forgiveness, we will be showing the power of Christ’s saving work.” Live in a way that reveals that God and His word are most important to you, even through your mess-ups and imperfections. Not Perfect, But Humble

Carolyn Mahaney reminds us that humility in parents breaks down barriers with children, and parents must not hesitate to exhort children to imitate them (assuming the parents give a godly example), despite the common false notion that this is arrogant. (consider Paul, 1 Cor. 11:1; Philippians 3:17). Children, Imitate Me

Challies has this remarkable illustration from the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder of living through technological transform. She lived as a pioneer girl: “she describes the long and arduous journey from Wisconsin to Walnut Grove, Minnesota and then on to Dakota Territory. This is a journey that took weeks, moving no faster than the pace of a team of plodding horses.” She died in 1957, which “marked the dawn of the Jet Age with the first flight of the Boeing 707, an aircraft that could make the journey from Wisconsin to North Dakota in less than an hour and with 150 passengers on-board. The world she was born into ceased to exist long before she died.” Technological Transformation

[Discovery Channel has decided to bust some ‘myths’ about' Jesus – It’s remarkable how similar their Jesus looks to a 21st century liberal! Convenient… eh? I wonder if they’ll be doing some Mohammed myth-busting in the near future? Better not hold your breath…] http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/03/historical-jesus.html