Patton notes that some use the pejorative ‘liar’ when dealing with those with whom they theologically disagree. He urges people to be very careful with rhetoric. A lie includes the intent to deceive. The liar knows that what he says is false. Saying something that is untrue isn’t lying. Often, people who teach something false are convinced of it (they are genuinely deceived). Using such rhetoric is not only indicative of insecurity in your own position, but it is emotional manipulation, and we are called to defend the faith with “gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15). Finally, it’s not effective to just call people liars, as it is ad hominem (attacking the person rather than the position). He says that people may be deceived, but it does not mean that we are deceiving. Mormons, Arminians, and Roman Catholics are All Liars
This post encourages all women to seek out younger women to mentor and disciple. She says that if women are growing in Christlikeness and pursuing holiness, then they have something to offer-the Savior- to younger women. Mothers chiefly disciples their children, but it doesn’t stop there. Singleness is also a wonderful season of freedom to give our lives for the building up of God's kingdom. If we abandoned, or postponed, our calling to disciple younger women even now, we would be wasting our singleness-and doing a disservice to the Gospel. Me, A Mentor- Part II, Who Women Disciple
Hays responds to an interpretation of Deut. 30:11-15 where it is claimed that all who heard his voice were indeed capable of obeying the divine command in a libertarian sense. Hays quotes Currid, who explains that the sense is that “the Torah is not too hard to understand and it is not too distant… It is not that the law is easy to keep and obey. Rather, this has to do with accessibility and understanding. The law is not incomprehensible, remote, or unintelligible. It is not beyond mankind’s ability to grasp it and to understand it. This truth is in contrast to much belief in the ancient Near East.” Choose life
Adams encourages Christians to be aware that people come to counseling for different reasons, and not everyone is actually a counselee. This can be determined by giving homework. Think About This
Piper quotes Obama exegeting the Sermon on the Mount. President Obama Exegetes and Applies the Sermon on the Mount
Phil Johnson writes about the decline of evangelicalism, as false teachers – hypocrites who desired the approval of the label ‘evangelical’ yet refused to define it – contributed to a pressure to broaden the idea of an ‘evangelical’ in the 19th century. Evangelicals have sold their birthright for a mass of pottage, and authentic, historic evangelicalism is an endangered species today. Historic evangelicals (paleo-evangelicals) were more or less driven out of the mainline denominations in the first half of the 20th century in order to preserve the purity of their evangelical fellowships. Johnson points to two critical events leading to this. First, evangelicals and fundamentalists parted ways, probably beginning when the latter published their Fundamentals proclaiming the essential doctrines of Christianity. Sadly, they underemphasized sola fide (justification by faith alone), and invested their energies in fundamentalist doctrine, obsessed with matters that are not first order. They lost their grip on the evangelical essential. So too evangelicals needed their approach. Where Evangelicalism Went Astray (Part 1)
Phil Johnson discusses evangelicalism by tracing some key events in church history. First he looks on the Pelagian controversy. Pelagianism is a denial of the necessity of grace, and Pelagius held that grace comes into play only in forgiveness of past sins. It insists that responsibility demands ability, exalting human free will to the point where salvation is considered purely a decision – just choose to stop sinning. Augustine pointed out that Scripture everywhere attributes our salvation to the grace of God and nowhere gives credit to our own willpower. Augustine kept the spirit of evangelicalism and a commitment to evangelical truth alive by proving this from Scripture, not be going to Rome, etc., even though he himself was in places inconsistent with his own evangelical convictions. Later, Anselm studied the atonement, bringing clarity and showing that the atonement was a substitutionary offered to satisfy God, not the devil. Christ died to appease the Father, not to pay a ransom to Satan. Both Augustine (helping us understand grace) and Anselm (helping us understand the atonement) were primarily concerned with the need to understand the Gospel – that attitude is the lifeblood of authentic evangelicalism. Tyndale first used ‘evangelical’ as meaning "of or pertaining to the gospel." All the major Reformers were evangelical, and the one doctrine all the Reformers and all their creeds consistently held in common was the doctrine of justification by faith. They stressed the imputation of righteousness to the sinner. This is evangelicalism. Roman Catholicism thinks the ground of justification must be real inherent righteousness in us (hence purgatory; it’s a process). The History of Evangelicalism (Part 1)
Out of the five solas, Phil Johnson, observing that ‘Protestant’ was practically synonymous with ‘evangelical’, looks at two evangelical essentials: sola Scriptura and sola fide. The Reformers designated those two truths the formal and material principles of the Reformation. Sola Scriptura is the formal principle—meaning that the Bible alone is the authoritative source of our doctrine. Sola fide is the material principle, because justification by faith alone is the essential substance of the whole Protestant idea. Evangelicalism means to affirm unequivocally these two. (He notes the original arminians weren’t evangelical, tending to semi-pelagianism and socinianism. Arminianism after Wesley (who was blessedly inconsistent) is often called "evangelical Arminianism," in contrast with the works-orientation you see so pronounced in earlier, semi-pelagian strains of Arminian teaching.) He adds that the denial of biblical inerrancy is really a neo-orthodox idea, not an evangelical one, putting one out of evangelicalism, and no evangelical before 1840 ever questioned inerrancy. Penal substitution is also implied in sola fide; and the former requires the latter. Oxford English Dictionary: "evangelical—an adjective designating that school of Protestants which lays particular stress on salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that good works and the sacraments have any saving efficacy." The History of Evangelicalism (Part 2)
DeYoung summarizes the creedal and trustworthy sayings from the pastoral epistles: “Jesus Christ is a Savior who came to save sinners. Salvations comes not by works but through faith and the converting work of the Holy Spirit. Those who truly believe will devote themselves to good works. Those who will saved in the end, persevere to the end… There is one God and he is unspeakably glorious. There is one mediator, Jesus Christ who gave his life for ours. Jesus, our great God and Savior, appeared in the flesh and ascended into heaven after a time on earth. His coming again is our blessed hope. We have been saved by the grace of God that we might be free from our former passions and live holy lives. These beliefs form the nucleus of Paul’s message.” Truths that Transform, Doctrines that Damn (2)
DeYoung continues to point out that any church without a doctrinal centre is not a Christian church. From the very beginning, orthodoxy was essential and fixed. Belief was important. The Gospel is rooted in Scripture and it is not to be deviated from, but proclaimed boldly and passed on. ”The apostolic message exhorted people to live godly lives, but only in conjunction with a robust message about sin, salvation, incarnation, resurrection, atonement, reconciliation, and eternal life.” Anyone denying these has a different Gospel. Truths that Transform, Doctrines that Damn (4)
This defines speech acts – the ‘actions’ associated with speaking, including locutionary, illocutionary (e.g. promising), and perlocutionary (effect caused by words). Philosophy Word of the Day – Speech Acts
Phillips: “you know that there are no scientists who are Christians, right? What, you don't? It goes like this: (A) if a science student, no matter how excellent, doesn't affirm materialistic evolution, (B) he is denied his doctorate. If he doesn't have a doctorate, (C) he's not a scientist. Therefore, (D) no scientists who are Christians! Is the same thing underway in counseling, so that one day it will be said there are no counselors who are Christians? … Where We're Headed Alert: our dear Libbie pointed me to the report that 242 patients under the tender care of the government in Britain were starved to death.” 09
Patton points out that God’s omnipresence doesn’t mean that God is everywhere physically, as if God has spatial dimensions (that’s akin to pantheism). Rather, everything is in God’s immediate presence. [I would add that I understand God’s omnipresence to be a combination of his omniscience and omnipotence, which is to say, He is ignorant of nothing in all of creation at any time, and nothing is impossible for Him]. God is Not Everywhere
Patton’s iPhone stopped working. He describes his trip to the Apple Store and interaction with the Apple cult. My Trip to “The Apple Store”
Hays responds to an Easter Orthodox proponent, Perry Robinson. i) In light of claims to apostolic succession, and a caveat such authority/power can be used appropriately if not diverted from truth, Hays points out that this is measuring the authority by truth and therefore no different than the Protestant rule of faith. And as to the idea that the Scriptures presuppose knowledge/participation in the apostolic community, where is the systematic correlation between the OT cultus and Orthodox polity or piety? Is the OT cultus equivalent to the apostolic community’s structure of worship/thought/new life?” ii) As to the church fathers, do we identify them by right teaching or right teaching by the teaching of the fathers? Which comes first? Tradition? Or the sources of tradition? How can we identify the fathers by comparing them to the overall tradition when by EO standards that tradition is developing incrementally on account of the contribution of the fathers? iii) Simply asserting consequences of Protestantism doesn’t falsify it (as an argument must be made to show why these consequences are unacceptable), nor does it prove EO. Even granting that the canon is formally revisable, that doesn’t mean that it is practically revisable (e.g. we’d be hypothetically open to a lost letter of Paul being recovered). Why is it insufficient to identify the canon based on the best evidence (both internal and external) that God has put at our disposal? Why do we have to meet some antecedent condition of normative sufficiency or formal unrevisability? We can also identify part of Scripture without knowing the whole. Scripture came in parts (Progressive revelation), so knowing parallels being. iv) EO folk can’t produce empirical evidence for the claim to continuous apostolic ministry so they fall back on what must be necessary in their view, and simply assume it. Moreover, how can prophecy verify the apostolic ministry, when the apostolic succession is used to verify the canon, since prophecy is in the canon? v) appealing to criteria to identify tradition used by a particular father is begging the question – why not use a different father’s view? And does the claim “What the church always believes is in references to the apostolic deposit again in reference to the apostolic sees” apply to iconolatry? Eastern Orthodox criteria
Arminians claim that people have a genuine freedom to do otherwise, a libertarian free will. Hays writes that every single one of the billions and billions of people who has lived since Christ has, by Arminian standards, the free will, so as to be able to choose to not sin. But every single one fell into sin. On the one hand, everyone has the freedom to do otherwise; on the other, everyone sins. “Universal freedom to do otherwise leads to universal sin.” “A universal freedom to do otherwise that yields a uniform result. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost suspect that such a freedom was...illusory.” Universal freedom and universal sin
Socialism just doesn’t work. This article gives some reasons. People are sinners. Enter the free-loader effect - the natural tendency of people to do less and less work when they realize that they won’t see a proportionate increase in what they can get for it. Eventually socialism collapses under its own weight – less productivity, less innovation, and more taxes. Also, socialism creeps in gradually as governments promise more ‘something-for-nothing’ programs. http://www.whatsbestnext.com/2009/04/patrick-lencioni-on-the-two-core-problems-with-socialism/
Phil Johnson responds to an example of someone denying the usefulness and appropriateness of a biblical answer to a difficult question (e.g. defend destruction of Canaanites by Israelites; they were wiped out for being an abomination to God) on account that unbelievers, who doesn’t care about God’ law, wouldn’t care if it had been transgressed. i) The right answer is the biblical answer, and Jesus proclaimed truth – He didn’t pander to people because they didn’t accept it. ii) The timid, cowardly approach inherent in avoiding biblical answers is a gross miscarriage of our duty as ambassadors. Indeed, this is an example of a massive point of failure in evangelicalism. Truth and Apologetics
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