2010-01-01

Avatar movie reviews: Phillips notes “Cameron may well have intended a heavy-handed parable preaching the joys of pantheistic Gaia-worship, and the evils of America, George Bush, the war on terror, the military, and capitalism. If so, Cameron failed miserably, pathetically, and laughably, because there is no actual connection.” http://bibchr.blogspot.com/2009/12/avatar-movie-review.html. After noting that the incredible immersive FX is about all the film has going for it, Chan says, “Many liberals seem to think the problem is that some humans refuse to get with the program and cooperate and so are causing the rest of humanity its problems. The few are keeping the many - the rest of humanity - from utopia. But the problem isn't merely some humans (e.g. conservatives). The problem is all humans. The problem is sin - our sin. We live in a fallen world. We ourselves are fallen. We're sinners. We have rebelled against God himself. That's the problem. Or as G.K. Chesterton once responded to the question of what's wrong with the world: "I am."” Avatar review

J. Gresham Machen went to be with the Lord, New Year’s Day 1937. He wrote that a refuge from strife, a place of refreshing, a place where two or three gather in Jesus name and forget all human sins, is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. Machen- 73 Years Ago Today

“Be determined more than ever to be a godly Christ like man in the totality of your redeemed humanity. What your people most need, and what an on-looking world most needs in your ministry, is a man who in his person in the totality of his redeemed humanity is both an exemplarity validation and an illustration of the power of the gospel. We all know the text, “I am not ashamed of the gospel it is the power of God unto salvation.”” The Gospel power should work in a weak and imperfect man – the pastor - so that anyone who knows him should see it. Paul told Timothy to be in all he did the embodiment of the message. http://reformedbaptistfellowship.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/here-is-a-timely-word/

Bayly posts a reminder from the Clearnote Fellowship Blog that (a) the church proclaim its doctrine, remembering that new perspectives like open theism, feminism, and abortion and mere modernized rehashings of ancient heresies (pelagianism, goddess worship, child sacrifice); and (b) that Christ as the Good Shepherd has for 1900 years enabled sinful men to be defenders of the truth, and has preserved the Churcsh as the ‘pillar and ground of this truth’ even in the midst of Arianism, Pelagianism, Islam, etc. To ignore this history is to ignore 2000 years of the blessings of God’s work. Announcing the ClearNote Fellowship blog

‘Nuf said. Jesus Taught Justification Through Foot Washing In John 3-5 (this has a context in a debate)

Hays interacts with a former Anglican who converted to Romanism. i) Appeals to Luther which imply that he is the founding father of Protestantism assume that Protestant identity is defined by continuity with a Protestant tradition rather than a rule of faith (sola scriptura). ii) To imply such is to impose a high-church paradigm on Protestantism. iii) Luther’s works are to be considered; the questions over baptism and justification are exegetical at the end of the day. iv) Good works are a condition of salvation. But they are not a condition of justification. They are a condition in the sense that sanctification is a condition – no one can be saved without the Spirit working through him to renew/preserve him in the faith. v) Baptism may well be a blessing to the faithful, but this doesn’t mean it is salvific. vi) To appeal to verses which promise salvation to baptized Christians one must account for the nature of symbols and metaphors – if baptism is purely symbolic then the relation between the rite and promise would also be symbolic, and one must reckon with passages which promise salvation apart from baptism. vii) To say that faith is a condition of baptism doesn’t begin to show that baptism is a condition of salvation. viii) Since infant baptism is the norm in Lutheran praxis (as well as Catholic praxis), Luther’s condition is at war with his practice. ix) To say faith requires an ‘embodied word’ (e.g. sacraments) and practice such is to shift from Christ alone to a mechanical rite and gain a false assurance. x) A mentally competent Christian should never leave the Bible so far behind that he can’t find the trail leading back to Scripture. xi) Romanists must show that the church of Rome is the body of Christ rather than simply assume that joining the church of Rome unites on to Christ and so justifies. xii) Romanist Kimel says, “Until one grasps the profound unity of these divine realities, one will never exegete Scripture properly,” admitting that before you can exegete Scripture properly, you must already have a thoroughgoing soteriology sacramentology, ecclesiology, and triadology – understanding which must be acquired apart from Scripture because you need it to interpret Scripture. Why Kimel is not the guide to Himmel

Burk points to a reading schedule for the Greek NT. Read the Greek NT in One Year

“What is first result of Adam and Eve choosing to be god?” Piper answers that the root of shame is the pretension to be god – invulnerable, self-sufficient, god-like – and the non-godlike appearance of man is absurd. So we try to do everything to look less like the wreckage we are without God. The essence of the fall is preferring to be god over enjoying God. To Satan’s suggestion that if they eat they will be like God, Piper notes that man can cut himself off from God (who is all sufficient, and who provides us with everything) in favour of being his own source of life, light, truth, right and beauty. And he’ll die. What Is the Essence of the Fall-