2009-04-22

JT provides form excerpts from Tripp's Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands on the progression of the heart as it is overwhelmed by desire. First, there is a desire - not intrinsically bad - but it is left unchecked and grows, not being kept in submission to the desires of God for His kingdom. Desire turns into demand, which is imposed on others silently, and then into need, christening desires into essentials. Then this turns into expectation of others, causing much conflict in relations. This in turn results in disappointment, for people fail to meet our expectations, which is followed by all manner of punishments, be it the bloodless murder of the silent treatment or actual violence. The first step for dealing with this is vertical - submit yourself to God, draw near to Him, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, and humble yourself before God. The Stages of the War for the Heart

Spiegel wrote an essay ten years ago called "Aesthetics and Worship," which points out that the church is at a historical low point in terms of arts, including music, drama, painting, and architecture. It seeks to look at what we can do to make things better. "Evangelicals tend to be nervously suspicious of secular art, rigidly utilitarian in their approach to Christian art and apathetic about developing a biblical aesthetic..." calling it near heretical (though there has never been an orthodoxy of arts). He sketches a rudimentary Christian model of aesthetic virtues: technical excellence, veracity, originality, moral integrity, and intentionality. These are contrasted with the aesthetic vices: laziness, banality, artificiality, authentic utilitarianism. Finally he looks at "art as worship" and then "art in worship." The duties of the Christian church pertain to both goodness and beauty. A Christian Model of Aesthetics

The audio is available for the Schreiner, Seifrid, and Vickers on the Piper-Wright Debate.

Four metro PCA churches, Northern California, Metro New York, Philadelphia Presbyteries, Metro Atlantic Presbytery have disregarded the PCA position that only men are to be ordained as deacons. Woman deacons and the PCA- earlier today, Atlanta jumps on the northern bandwagon

Bayly points to the suppression of tracts for those who practice homosexuality to repent (during the pro-homosexual 'Day of Silence') at a school. [Do these Americans who do this know how far they are really going in stepping up their persecution and suppression of believers? Do they not see the sheer hypocrisy of their intense intolerance of those who disagree with their ideals of 'tolerance?'] An excellent read- Tinker v. Des Moines School District

Challies reflects a bit on blogging for 2000 days. He says that he doesn't usually plan ahead, but discipline and commitment have gone a long way for him, and the practice has been immensely helpful. He also breaks most of the rules of blogging (i.e. write short, skimmable, controversial posts, etc), but he enjoys his site the way it is. 2000

A reader asks Gilbert, how is it that, if the Gospel is always the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins through the substitutionary death of Jesus, that the disciples, who didn't understand this, could proclaim the Gospel, as recorded in Luke? i) They didn't proclaim the fullness of it. ii) Jesus began by proclaiming, 'repent and believe, the kingdom of of God is at hand!' and throughout His ministry, he filled in what those things were. This is a seed form of the Gospel. As he taught, He filled those categories of Kingship, Messiahship, repentance, and belief with meaning. The angels start it: “He will save his people from their sins.” John the Baptist continues it: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” iii) The disciples would have been preaching the message as best they knew - repent and believe, Jesus is the Messiah! iv) Hence, it is jaw-droppingly ironic when people say, 'I'm going to go preach like that!' because they're boldly adopting the attitude that they're going to preach the Gospel as if they've never understood it and 'Messiah' as an empty category! "Why would anyone want to go to the part of the story where the disciples are still plainly ignorant and say, “Right there. That’s my model for my preaching”?" RE- Which Gospel- by Greg Gilbert

Thabiti follows up the previous post by asking why someone would look to the disciples (in their ignorance) for the model of preaching: i) Ignorance of our own - of reckoning with the impact of statements of the disciples ignorance in Scripture, as well as a broader ignorance of the Bible, theology, etc. ii) Red-letter Bibles - laymen have created their own version of the critical attempt to get behind the real words, in looking to the red letters and the words of the disciples in the Gospel as more authoritative. This approach produces the 'jaw-dropping' irony of preaching the Gospel as if they don't understand it. iii) Laziness. Proper exposition takes work. iv) The trendiness and shallowness of the 'really old is kool' return to the good ol' days of Galilee. This is in vogue today. v) Social concern from the idea that preaching on wrath, sin, belief, repentance, etc. produces an unhealthy otherworldliness - then broader kingdom emphasis are coupled with ambiguity and simplicity. vi) The fear of man is surely behind some of the toning down of the Gospel that we find. The preacher who grows weary of a lack of success and the constant resistance to the Gospel will find "the kingdom" or something called "the gospel" with no personal demands safer ground for his feet.  Why Preach the Gospel in Ignorance- by Thabiti Anyabwile

Great quote from Just Do Something: "In short, God's will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus.  So go marry someone, provided you're equally yoked and you actually like being with each other.  Go get a job, provided it's not wicked.  Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody.  But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God's sake start making some decisions in your life.  Don't wait for the liver-shiver.  If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God's will, so just go out and do something.  (Page 61)" Kevin DeYoung and the Will of God by Michael Mckinley

Dever exhorts believers to show compassion for people as a function of having a supreme passion and compassion for God, thus effecting a compassion for those in His image. God redeems human culture. Not us. The Heavenly City comes down, not up. The Gospel’s main thrust is not the renewal of the fallen structures of this world, but rather the creation of a new community composed of those purchased by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 5). "No Gospel that tells Scripture’s sweeping narrative that culminates in the coming of the kingdom but neglects to tell individuals how they can be included in that kingdom is any true Gospel." Ministries of compassion are wonderful signs of the love shown to us by Christ. Mark Dever on How to Start a Soup Kitchen in Your Church by Michael Mckinley

Here's some good thoughts from Dever on the Kingdom and social justice, etc. He quotes Wesley to the effect that whenever religion increases, it produces more diligence and frugality, and thus generally improves welfare, and whenever riches increase, the spirit of religion diminishes and is swallowed by pride, etc. It's a catch-22, effectively. Thus, acquire all you can, and give all you can away. Dever points out (with sources) that conservatives give more generously than liberals. "Since the Fall, the trajectory of unredeemed human history—the City of Man—is always in the Bible to judgment ." We should not, though, be Platonic towards temporary things, and it is good for Christians to seek the common blessings of providence for the poor in the world. But the material world is only restored after a radical disjunction (a judgment) with the current history. The Congregation and the Wider Community, Part 2 by Michael Mckinley

Dever continues with some points on the congregation and the wider community. The priority and most important thing for believers is to proclaim the Gospel, which alone can address the greatest causes of suffering. "We, as a congregation, are not required to take responsibility for the physical needs in the unbelieving community around us." We have a mandate to care for those in the church, but even here, there were further qualifications - such as a lack of alternative sources. If there is support for those outside the church from other sources (e.g. state) this is to be preferred. But we are not forbidden from choosing to alleviate physical needs outside our congregation as a witness to the Gospel. Many texts in Scripture focusing on taking responsibility for the community's physical welfare are aimed at charity to the covenant community, not the world at large. The Congregation and the Wider Community, Part 3 by Michael Mckinley

This post quotes something observing that White,  Ehrman, and Wallace share a very similar view of the general state of the preservation of the Scriptures in terms of textuality [though Ehrman sides with radical pessimism]. Apparently, Wallace said that Ehrman is one of his heroes. The post argues that both Wallace and Ehrman have allowed the evidence to shape their beliefs - Ehrman rejected his faith, and Wallace informed his view of inerrancy and preservation. Bart Ehrman and Dan Wallace on the Preservation of Scripture

Carolyn Mahaney gives seven guidelines for talking to your children, with Scripture support. i) Communicate humbly with your teen. Romans 3:23. Your teen is more like you than not. ii) Postpone talking if you're angry (Eph. 4:29; 2 Tim. 2:24-26; James 1:19-20). iii) Postpone talking if your teen is angry (Prov. 17:4). iv) Don't talk for too long (Prov. 10:19). Listen, don't lecture. v) Correct only what you must, overlook what you can (Prov. 19:11). vi) Acknowledge your own sin (Matt. 7:3-5), no matter how small. vii) Don't let the conversation end until you've encouraged your teen (Heb 3:13; Prov. 16:24; 12:25). A Mother's Conversation

Turretinfan writes that "Within Roman Catholicism (and within some other churches as well) there are prayers that are made for, through, and to the dead." Reformed Christians reject all three. "We should pray for the living, to the living and true God, through the merits and intercession of Christ alone." i) The general gist of purgatory is that through suffering the soul is purged of sin. The Bible, however, teaches that redeemed souls pass immediately into glory. Since no one is saved from hell, prayers on behalf of the dead in either category are of no use. (i.e. prayers for the dead as such are useless). ii) We don't pray to the dead because (a) there's no reason to think they can hear us, (b) Scripture not only doesn't encourage this but condemns it as necromancy, (c) these prayers suggest a lack of faith of the efficacy of prayer to the Father, and (d) they suggest a desire for the mediation of someone other than Christ. iii) There is a kind of praying through the dead, through their merits and intercession, in Romanism. This position comes into direct conflict with the unique mediatorial role of Christ. Only by Christ's merits do we come before God. We pray in Jesus' name - on the basis of Him alone. Prayers For, To, and Through the Dead

Bird's reading of Romans 7 is that it refers to pre-Christian Paul and not to the struggle of Christian Paul. He doesn't like the 'dualing natures' view - dog eat dog, so feed the right dog approach. Rather than two dogs, Bird suggests the exploding wolf view. We're all wolves. God traps us and gives us an injection to cure wolfiness, which causes the wolf to painfully explode, and in its place is a dazzling white lamb (still covered in the guts and bones and blood of the wolf), yet it is the same mind and soul, less the wolfiness. The lamb immediately acts like a lamb but struggles with the bits of wolf lying around, the stigma of formerly being a wolf, and the occasional sensation of feeling like eating some mutton, until he remembers that lambs don't do that. Eventually the old instincts fade away. Beware of Exploding Wolfs - New Creation and Sanctification

Hays writes that it is ironic that some Christians use John the Baptist as a posterboy for infant baptism. According to Lk 1:15, John the Baptist was already in a state of grace in his mother’s womb. If he was sanctified in his mother’s womb, then what would baptism do for him? Are you sanctified before you’re regenerated? The case of John the Baptist is a prooftext to the contrary, if anything. John the Baptist and infant baptism

Hays comments on Miss California being shot down for giving the "wrong" answer about sodomite marriage. What's ironic is that this show is a pretext for a babe-a-thon - appealing primarily to men who like to look at gorgeous women - very heterosexual men. "If the organizers of the event were truly concerned with being all-inclusive, then contestants would include drag-queens, circus ladies, and dominatrices. Nothing is more elitist than a beauty pageant." Ms America

Hays posts a discussion over determinism and Calvinism. Some general points. i) Calling God the 'Author of evil' is to call God a metaphor. You need to articulate what that means to understand whether it is good or bad. ii) What is the alternative view? Arminians hold that God foreknew that the world would enter sin, and yet He made it. That makes Him at least partly responsible. (since he put into place all of the necessary and sufficient conditions which resulted in the moral and natural evils we see in this world. ) iii) If you fall back on open theism, you turn God into a mad scientist. If you fall back on atheism, you lose the grounds to make an argument from evil since atheism cannot underwrite moral absolutes. iv) If one subscribes to libertarian thought, you must treat each decision as indeterminate, which means that each decision is causally disconnected from all others (and there can be no bias one way or the other). It commits the Monte Carlo fallacy to think the likelihood of choosing sin increases with each decision. v) Really, with humans, there are many variables factoring into our choices, both internal and external. This can't be quantified like dice (though for the sake of argument one might model libertarian theory this way). vi) The freedom to do otherwise implies that you can be sinful or sinless, and so we would expect sinless people - if people have the freedom to go in the other direction we wouldn't expect them to all go in the same direction. vii) Predestination (the plan, the blueprint) is not the same as causal determinism, with chains of cause and effect and secondary causes, in Reformed theology. The former assures the outcome, but how God actualizes it is a different matter. It's not like Newtonian cause and effect, and we can philosophically speculate over alternative models. viii) To say sin is inevitable on the basis of probability is to say that determinism and indeterminism result in the same thing, thus removing the argument against determinism for the indeterminist on these grounds - so what if God's plan coincides with what would happen anyway? The objection only makes sense if the person would do other than sin if given the chance to do otherwise - otherwise, abstract freedom is morally irrelevant to the concrete outcome. ix) All events are predestined, including mental events (e.g. human volitions) as well as human actions. x) Don't confuse certainty with causality - that God has predetermined all things doesn't single out a particular model of causality. xi) A person begins as a hypothetical in the mind of God, and God instantiates a particular hypothetical person, who would do X instead of Y, or could do hypothetical options X, Y, or Z - thus no one is robbed of a choice, for it's not making a possible person do otherwise than he would. The actualization also limits the options. xii) Defining 'cause' as a chain reaction isn't the only option. Defining it counterfactually (if A did not obtain, then B would not have obtained)) means that nature/people can cause things. Calvinism & determinism

Patton asks, What Would Luther Blog? Blogging requires you to be controversial. That Luther would have been. And he probably would have titled a blog, Sin Boldly. Not so that people sin egregiously. But so that they don't cover up their sin and make grace and their need for it invisible. "He was continually attempting to make those who were satisfied in their own works to recognize their own utter depravity. It was not so much that he wanted people to sin with a since of comfort, but to recognize their sin, not being coy with its presence in their own life." What Would Luther Blog (WWLB)

What is a tree for? Here's quite a few answers. What is a tree for-