Burk reports that Zondervan is taking the TNIV off the market. There has been substantial backlash from its ‘gender-accurate’/gender-neutral approach. Those who claimed that the use of the generic masculine pronoun is not understood in the English language not only overstated things, but simply assumed their position. A new 2011 revision of the NIV will be based on the TNIV, though we still do not know the extent to which gender-neutral translations will be included. Doug Moo is chair of the Committee on Bible Translation, responsible for the translation. Let’s hope they don’t do the same thing in this next revision as the TNIV. There are opposing views on how to properly translate God’s word, and this is important for every Christian because whenever you open your Bible this issue affects you. TNIV Is Dead . . . Sort of
More leaves of Sinaiticus have been found! More Leaves of Sinaiticus
Helm writes about the pejorative application of 'Scholastic' and' Scholasticism' to later Reformers, who supposedly left the purity of Calvin’s way, going to rationalism, metaphysical speculation, leaving revelation and Christocentricity for natural theology and hair-splitting, adopting a method of theology which was inductive and foundational. Yet these charges cancel each other out. Calvinism’s later federal theology moved from rationalism to a more biblical historical method, and was sympathetic to Cartesianism. Yet high Calvinists were not. So the allegedly non-rationalistic federal theologians were rationalistic while the supposedly rationalistic high Calvinists were not. Scholars have alleged a sharp divide or even reaction to Calvin’s soteriology from the Westminster divines and Puritanism. Helm therefore considers such charges as they relate to Chapter 5 of the WCF ('Of Providence') by looking at a review of the document and the writing of Westminster Divine John Arrowsmith on the same theme. i) The framers sought to ground each assertion in the text of Scripture while recognizing the logical order of things (i.e. one can’t consider the decree of God without first establishing the existence of God, and his work of creation and providence is the unfolding of his decree). So they aren’t deducing this from an axiom asserting the existence of God. ii) The WCF is emphatic that God is in complete macro and micro control. Even the fall is not a bare permission, 'but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them'. iii) The WCF is emphatic that sin proceeds only from the creature; God is untainted, the wicked are responsible. iv) The WCF is not merely academic in these things, but strives to connect them to practical Christian life and experience; suffering is to chastize, humble, increase dependence, and make watchful, the wicked are hardened by a withholding of grace, and God is especially caring of His church. v) They aren’t ‘scholastic’, the WCF offers no theory on how this all works together. Helm suggests this is because of their desire to remain as close to Scripture as possible. They are not imposing a set of ideas on the raw data of Scripture. vi) They don’t appeal to what is reasonable, nor to natural theology; “in asserting that God orders all things to fall out according to the natures of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently, the authors of the Confession cite Gen. 8. 22 and Jer. 31. 35 as proof of God's ordering of necessary secondary causes; Exod.21.13, Deut 19 .5 and l Kings 20.34 as his ordering of contingent secondary causes; and Isa. 9.6,7 as his ordering of free secondary causes.” Now they do distinguish between primary and secondary causes, but this is no degeneration from primal Calvinism, since Calvin himself used this distinction. vii) The men who framed the confession were learned; they employed concise and economical language to reject many errors in a single thought. viii) Armstrong’s work echoes the WCF and Calvin, though he does rely on the idea of evil as a privation, which Augustine held, and Calvin would not have liked. Providence and Puritanism
Helm continues an analysis of Wright’s new book on justification. We have seen that Wright’s account of justification commits him to substitution and imputation, yet he continues to rule out and ridicule the latter. Wright thinks of justification as a law-court concept which has nothing to do with moral virtue or ‘righteousness’ (in Augustine’s sense); it is the court simply finding in one’s favour. He denies the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, instead, a new relationship is reckoned – faithfulness to covenant. Wright holds there is a big difference between this and imputation of a new moral status: i) He sees Paul’s imputation in negative terms – the not reckoning of sin. ii) imputed righteousness seems to Wright like an implant of merit; for Wright righteousness is not a moral character trait, but a ‘judicial sentence on sin’. Wright thinks that what is imputed under the Reformed view is Christ’s moral righteousness, that is, his subjective moral state; he thinks that for the Reformers the righteousness imputed is an implanted virtue, and while he’ll speak of the ‘grant of the status as righteous’ he thinks this is a judicial state. iii) For some reason, for Wright, the term moral cannot imply a standard (i.e. ‘moral’ law), but the subjective, personal possession of a set of qualities or ‘virtues’. Thus he thinks the Reformers held that we have Christ’s righteousness the way I have your toothache, a concept which is a category error in Wright’s view – you can have the same sort of toothache but I can’t have your toothache. A person’s act of sin cannot become Christ’s act of sinning, and His moral character cannot be our character. Christ cannot come to possess the very condition that is a person’s act of sinning. iv) This was never the Reformed view! It was never a subjective righteousness that was imputed. Where does Wright get this?? Does he not know how crazy his view of the Reformed view is? That he’s making it up? He thinks the Reformed view is that a person is morally righteous to a degree only if he is subjectively righteous to that degree, that Reformed justification is a receiving merit from the treasury of merit, a moral, in his sense, change, an imparting of moral virtue, which he thinks is impossible. But this is deeply and crucially factually inaccurate. Helm cites Wright to show this, saying “I know that some of this is scarcely intelligible, or credible, but this is what Wright has written. Check it out for yourself.” Wright thinks of the Reformed view of justification in a distinctly medieval way, as involving both what is later called justification and sanctification, and as holding that sanctification is justification because it involves acquiring the judge’s moral virtue. Next time, Helm will show that Wright’s own view of reckoning as not imputing sin commits him to legalism, and that he has utterly misunderstood what imputing the righteousness of Christ means. Wright and Righteousness
If you’re new to the New Perspective on Paul debate, here’s a very quick primer on Piper and Wright’s positions. If You Are Late to the Discussion
More new papyri of the NT. More on New Manuscripts of the NT
Hays asks, why does the Catholic church come down harder on those who commit suicide that those who protect and promote homicide? What does that tell you about the moral priorities of the one true church? Hays then cites some stats on Ted Kennedy’s rabidly pro-abort position – he got a 100% rating by NARAL on abortion. Homicide, suicide, and Catholic morality
On that note, Hays writes that with Ted Kennedy’s passing, babies in the womb can sleep a little easier. Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child
Bayly comments in light of a judge ordering a ten year old girl, whose parents are divorced, to go to government school – the judge gave the child’s vigorous defence of her religious beliefs to her counselor as suggesting she has not had the opportunity to consider any other point of view as the reason! – as not only a good reason to avoid divorce; but also a good reason never to date, let alone marry, an unbeliever. Government is not growing in its respect for the family, for the sphere sovereignty of father and mother over their children. [I know that the unbelieving world simply doesn’t get how far from upholding freedom and tolerance they really are, but this is just insane]. It can all be traced back to your daughter's Facebook page
Oh good. Brian McLaren is observing Ramadan this year. “od readers, when you and your pastor start to refer to our only Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Only Begotten Son of the Father as "our own faith tradition," your soul is in peril and you need to get out of that church and find a true Christian church where your own soul, as well as that of your wife and children, will be guarded--not sold for fame and fortune.” Brian McLaren bloviating his shame
Here’s a justification for the Lord’s day:
1. The Sabbath is fulfilled and abrogated through by the finished work of Christ (The covenant works fulfilled, including the Decalogue) ( Col 2:16, Rom 10:4)
2. Christ rises from the dead on the first day of the week (Matt 28:1)
3. The disciples were together on the first day of the week (John 20:26)
4. The New Testament church was born on the first day of the week (Act 2:1-4)
5. The church in Acts came together on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7)
6. The church in Corinthians came together on the first day of the week (1 Cor 16:1-2)
7. The John was in the Spirit on the Lords day, the first day of the week(Rev 1:8)"
Covenant Theology Part 8 Misc
The problem with the Romanist argument using Aramaic/Hebrew cousins for Jesus’ brothers to uphold the perpetual virginity of Mary is that the NT is written in Greek, and there is a specific word for ‘cousin’ in Greek (cf. Col. 4:10). There are other words for close relative (e.g. Luke 1:36), Also, in Matthew 12:49-50 - the point would be lost, if he meant "cousins", because Jesus makes the point that His true spiritual brothers are disciples, believers; and His blood (half) brothers were not believers at that time. Tertullian argues this point very early in church history. Jesus gives Mary to John, his true spiritual brother, rather than his biological brothers. Dave Armstrong trying to argue for Perpetual Virginity of Mary again
Mathis points out Esther 9:1 as a narrative pattern prefiguring Christ: “On the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.” So it was at the cross. God has innumerable ways of pointing to His Son in the universe (col. 1:16-17); if so, how much more the Scriptures. Esther & Jesus- The Reverse Occurred
Phillips previously asked, "What must I do to be saved?” He cited a number of popular answers. He answers that these popular answers are not really abominable, nor are they unbiblical, and though some Calvinists pour scorn on them, they offer the most unbiblical answer – telling them they can do nothing in response to the Gospel, as if it is, ‘sit there and go to hell’. i) The Bible does tell us to receive Christ, and there is no reason no to pray for this, though one shouldn’t think of it as a mystical existential encounter. ii) Believe in Jesus is exactly what the Scriptures say to do. This must be a repentant based on the truth, which must be embraced. This faith should be sincere, and Christ should come and live in our hearts (Jn. 14:23; Eph. 3:17). There is a volitional elements. Harping on the wording doesn’t make Christ appear glorious; it makes you look snotty and nitpicking. We shouldn’t make this as complex sounding as quantum physics, since Jesus doesn’t. iii) “Give me the brother who is doing the right thing imperfectly, rather than the man who does nothing but find fault — perfectly .” iv) The phrase "accept Jesus as your personal Savior” seems like a maverick mentality, but it was probably crafted to counter barren institutionalism. Indeed, Christ must be your saviour, or you’re not saved – God has no grandchildren. v) Phillips least-favorite version is "Believe that Jesus died for your sins." The Scriptures don’t make salvation the result of singling out any one fact, one statement, and then make ascription to that statement the vehicle of salvation. Remember, as evangelists we want to get our hearers to Christ, not to one fact, or a cluster of facts about Him (cf. Matt. 11:27; John 6:32; Acts 16:31). What are we to believe? Everything about Him. This starts with believing Jesus. vi) Saving us was horribly complicated for God, in order that it might not be so for us. vii) There are many ways of expressing the central truth of the sinner's need to exercise repentant faith in Christ alone, coming to Him by faith. Telling sinners how to be saved
Some Romanists point to the Watchtower as a ‘sola scriptura cult’, claiming this is what the doctrine leads to. The problem is that there are high-churchly cults, like Mormonism. High-church cults and heresies
Grimmond argues that the power of the argument from biological determinism that we’re simply wired to have lots of sex, and we have no choice, lies not so much in its deep explanatory power, but in its emotional appeal. i) As the old puritan saying puts it, “what the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies”. ii) When it comes to ethics the emotional appeal always involves reducing another’s pain, making the appeal personal. So celibacy, heterosexuality, etc. seem cruel because they cause pain to the person who desires illicit behaviour. To hold to the teaching of God about our created nature involves a great deal of courage and an acknowledgment of pain involved, so the bio argument is appealing. iii) No one actually buys the argument from biological determinism. We find that there is a genetic component to anger, but nobody thinks this justifies an inappropriate expression of anger. When something is socially unacceptable our biology is not determinative. iv) Above this, it’s likely that most people believe in biological determinism because it is ultimately dehumanizing. The power and inadequacy of biological determinism
T-fan notes an underused analogical or typological argument for why we should not pray to anyone but God. The use of incense in the OT is a symbol or picture of prayer in the NT (cf. Luke 1:9-11; Rev. 8:3-4, esp. Mal. 1:11, Ps. 141:2). Thus we offer prayers, not incense. T-fan then cites a number of patristic sources that reflect this understanding. So how does this tell us we shouldn’t pray to the saints? In Exodus 30:34-38, the incense is reserved for God, with death promised for other use. So the prophet Malachi declares that incense will be offered "unto my name ... saith the LORD of hosts." Analogical Argument on the Object of Prayer
Turk is asked the question, how do you talk to an atheist about God when he believes nothing in common? Atheists rely heavily on the problem of evil to make their evangelistic case. “There is something wrong with the world, and the atheist says that since God doesn't exist, you just have to live with it. The first time the atheist has trouble in fact and not just in theory, I think you're going to have a great evangelistic moment.” It's a new week
White notes that the evidence of intelligent design is plenty, and the fundamentalist atheists like Dawkins are on the short end of the argumentative stick here. So they resort to increasing invective. He then cites Dawkins simply repeating over and over that evolution is fact, with this sort of talk “Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact… No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.”. Richard Dawkins- the Peter Ruckman of Atheists
Piper asks, have you wondered why sanctification is missing from the golden chain in Romans 8:29-30? No, because sanctification (i.e. Romans 6:22; 2 Thess. 2:13) is included in glorification. In Paul’s thinking, the process called sanctification in this life, the transforming from one degree of holiness to the next, is stage one of glorification (2 Cor. 3:18). The progressive change can be describes in terms of holiness or glory, sanctification or glorification. The age to come will be one of not only great physical glory but infinite moral and spiritual glory. We are being made morally glorious now. Glorification Now-
Responding to an adherent to liberalism on eternal punishment, T-fan makes the following points: i) Sin deserves infinite punishment because it is an offense against the infinite dignity of God – it’s more the majesty than holiness of God that is in play here. ii) It is not necessary that God permit sin; if it is permitted, it is necessary that it offend God because of the nature of God. iii) It’s easy to label a position as ‘barbarous’, it’s harder to actually make an argument against it. iv) Folks who think hell is ‘barbarous’ are likely to think that God’s wrath in the OT is ‘beyond the pale’. Their rejection of God in the OT is their own condemnation. v) The logic this liberal uses is, ‘if something is unpleasant to us, it’s false; the Reformed doctrine of endless punishment is unpleasant; therefore, it’s false.’ The problem is not with those who hold what Scripture teaches, but those who oppose the revelation of God. It’s also illustrative that this liberal, and churches like him, are not adherents to sola scriptura, are not the offspring of it. They reject God’s revelation. Infinite Punishment and Liberalism
How can a sending church best serve a church planter? i) People – you can plant a church without a team, but it’s a tremendous burden. ii) Money – it won’t solve your problems,but does make things easier. iii) Connection – planting can be hard on the family. An appointed elder can make sure the planter and family are ok. iv) Encouragement – the plant is viewed as a mission of the church, not a would-be competitor. How Can a Sending Church Serve a Church Planter- by Michael Mckinley
Bird writes that he always wondered how to reconcile Gal 1.11-12 ("I did not receive [parelabon] the gospel from humans, neither was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ") and 1 Cor 15.3 ("I received [parelabon] as the gospel that Christ died for our sins ..."). Jim Dunn’s resolution is that it’s not that Paul thought his Gospel differed from Peter, James, and John (1 Cor. 15:11), but he held that it was open to the Gentiles, too - the gospel he received in the tradition handed down to him at the time of his conversion (1 Cor. 15.3) was the message regarding God's Son which he had been commissioned to deliver to the Gentiles (Gal. 1.16). The Origin of Paul's Gospel
Here’s a warning from Lee Irons about being more interested in being right, and being very zealous about this theological perfectionism, than seeing sinners come to Christ, and having an equivalent zeal in seeing others come to know the truth. He uses an example from Westminster West of students who would fervently and critically debate the fine points of presup apologetics over all other methods, but had little zeal for using those methods in evangelizing people. The Dangers of Theological Perfectionism
Interesting point: “Teachability is often confused with subservience. A person is wrongly thought to be teachable if he is passive and pliable. On the contrary, teachability is an extremely active virtue.” No one is teachable unless he exercises independent judgment. The Difference between Teachability and Subservience
Lee Irons has these conclusions on Wright’s position on penal substitution. Wright uses traditional terms with untraditional definitions. For Wright, sin is an impersonal evil force, not personal rebellion against God; sin has bad consequences, but does not elicit God's punitive wrath against the sinner; and the cross is to be understood as some version of the Christus Victor theory in which Christ defeats evil by letting it do its worst to him, not as a penal satisfaction of divine justice. Where Does Wright Stand on Penal Substitutionary Atonement-
JT writes, “A lot of people wonder if there is anything practical and helpful they can do to reduce abortion and to help hurting women in need. One of the best ministries with boots on the ground is Heartbeat of Miami (started by John Ensor). But they are seriously hurting these days and they may have to close their doors.” An Opportunity to Help a Crisis Pregnancy Center in Need
This has an excerpt from the Screwtape letters, where a devil talks about pleasure as God’s invention, and it being His ground. Rather the devils seek to encourage people to take the pleasures in forbidden ways. An Ever Increasing Craving for an Ever Diminishing Pleasure Is the Formula
Reclaiming the Mind Ministries is now offering a great deal on their entire Theology Program: $359 (the list price is $714). That’s 60 DVD’s and 6 workbooks. Theology Program- 60 DVDs
John Murray has a charge for pastors. “Under preaching he charges the pastor (a) to have the time and energy needed to prepare well; (b) to depend on the Spirit for understanding and effectually proclaiming the Word; and (c) to think much of the privilege. Under pastoral care Murray charges the pastor (a) to shepherd the church of God; (b) always be read to given an audience to your people; and (c) to remember that you are the servant of Christ.” A Pastoral Charge by John Murray
Challies reviews Glory Road, a book of testimonies that describes the journeys of ten African-Americans into Reformed Christianity. He notes a dedication to R.C. Sproul in the opening pages – and how often in the testimonies Sproul’s name appeared, as the men would be saved and then, searching for something more than their current expression of faith, they would find Sproul’s teaching and come to a whole new faithfulness to Scripture. There is a similar thing with Piper and MacArthur. It’s encouraging to see God’s work. Book Review - Glory Road
Challies summarizes 11 points on the aggravations brought on by murmuring (in discontent). Here’s a sample: To murmur when we enjoy an abundance of mercy; the greater and more abundant the mercy that we enjoy, the greater and the vile is the sin of murmuring. When we murmur for small things. It is sometimes easier to stand up under a heavy burden than a light one. For men of gifts and abilities to whom God has given wisdom, to be discontented and murmur, is more than if others do it. Said otherwise, to whom much is given, much is required. "If what we have were earned then it would be something, but when we consider that all is from God, for us to murmur at his dispensations is very evil." Reading Classics Together - The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (X)
The Bible tells us repeatedly that we will eventually and inevitably begin to resemble the people we spend time with. If we walk with the wise we will become wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm (Proverbs 13:20). The Companion of Fools
Worship Matters links to Matt Redmond on romantic language in worship. One interesting quote: “The church has been under-fathered and over-mothered.” Matt Redman on Romantic Language in Worship Songs
Harris writes, “In 2008, a team of men and women from our church traveled to western Uganda to visit and be involved in the work of Kiburara Gospel Centre Church. While in Kiburara they saw the filthy drinking water and learned that waterborne diseases were the leading cause of death. Motivated by what they observed, they returned home and by the end of the year raised enough money to build three wells for the village. Today waterborne illnesses are no longer the leading killers in Kiburara.” Josh Harris
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