2010-09-13

Challies points to Take Words With You, by Tim Kerr, a small book that contains over 1600 scripture promises and prayers meant to help God’s people pray more effectively. The promises are arranged around the cross—its purposes and rewards. The author says, “Many years ago I discovered a precious truth regarding prayer: God loves to hear his own words prayed back to him!” Praying God's Promises

Mike Law @ 9Marks comments that the church is indeed full of hypocrites. A true church is hypocritical, but honest about it. We are endeavoring to be holy we’re endeavoring to live lives that honor God, but we’re sinners. If anyone is honest, though, he’ll admit he’s also a hypocrite, acting one way, while the heart says something else - be wary of your passion for pointing out hypocrisy, for that might avert your attention away from your own hypocrisy. We all need the Saviour. Also, the hypocrites in Galatians were Cephas and Barnabas.  Just because someone is a leader in the church does not mean they are above serious hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy & Our Congregation

Creationsafaris notes that an enzyme MEC-17 has been discovered to be responsible for directing traffic in nerves. The researchers deduced that “this microtubule acetylation process using MEC-17 is an evolutionarily conserved function.”  Conserved means un-evolved. “Saying evolutionarily conserved is like saying “aimlessly straight.”  It’s a meaningless phrase we should not be duped into thinking signifies anything logical.  This discovery emphasizes once again that things do not just happen; specific parts that are functionally exquisite are necessary for function.” Nerve Traffic Cop Identified

JT lists a number of important sermons and articles here. For example, The Excellencies of Christ, by Edwards. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.excellency.html. A List of Important Sermons and Articles That Are Worth Reading

Commenting on her 16-year old daughter, this post reads, “She lives in a world where friends are openly gay. The lead actress in last year's musical had to get her costumes specially made to accommodate her pregnant stomach. She has classmates who have parties where girls make the rounds, delivering sexual favors to the line of boys. She passes girls in the hall who wear bracelets in a rainbow of colors, each signifying a different type of sexual exploit so the world will know what they've accomplished. There are "420" drug parties (accounting for a tremendous number of absences every April 20). She lives next to an ROTC teacher who was fired for prohibiting same-sex couples from attend the military ball… There has been a concerted effort among adults to normalize all sorts of behaviors (what we used to call "sins"). Media that pours teenage sex, pregnancy and abortion into the developing brains.The work to get homosexuality highlighted in movies, tv shows, music. Video games that glorify defying authorities and devaluing people.  Schools that offer diversity training for behaviors and sexual preferences. Porn-peddlers who target their inboxes. Leaders who praise open-minded tolerance and criticize "bigots" who describe a narrow path.  Like those warned in Isa 5:20, they call good evil and evil good.” The reward? A generation without shame. Shameless

CMI points to the discovery of a new species of rabbitfish… what grabbed the media’s attention were comments by lead researcher Jules Soto linking the fish to the time of the dinosaurs. “The species that we found has fossil records that are 150, 180 million years old,” he said. “That’s very rare. It’s like if we had an animal as old as the Tyrannosaurus rex still alive.” Evolutionists have a problem: why are “living fossils” like the coelacanth absent from the upper layers of the fossil record—(supposedly) representing millions of years? Also, the living and fossil forms are much the same—this latest rabbitfish species, according to Soto, is unchanged in 180 million years—why no evolution in all that (supposed) time?” These species have been reproducing according to their kind, and the oldest fossils likely date back only to the global Flood of Noah’s day, around 4,500 years ago. This fits the evidence far better. http://creation.com/rabbitfish

Beggar’s All comments on Michael Liccione, pointing out that the argument he gives for Romanism is simple, ‘we assume the church’. Michael Liccione on The Authority Question

T-fan takes issue with a two-kingdom proponent who has problems with preachers preaching against the sins of the nation. “I can't imagine an article that would be more universally dismissed by not only all the Reformers but also by all the Presbyterians and Puritans from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Even the Reformed Baptists from that period would likely share the same assessment of this article, despite their stronger view of separation of church and state.” But this is one of the duties of the gospel minister. Preaching sermons about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection on the third day are great, and there is nothing wrong with them, but ... ministers must preach the whole counsel and that includes convicting sinners of their sins. Radical Two Kingdoms - Both Anti-Biblical and Worthless

Mohler comments on an opinion column by Chris Mooney in USA Today , author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. Mooney sets out to argue that spirituality can serve as a bridge across the science-religion divide. Mooney equates associates ‘illiteracy’ with ‘the war on science’ being fought by anti-evolutionists, etc. The fact that a large majority of Americans reject evolution only adds fuel to his fire when he cries in his milk over what he can only describe as “illiteracy.” Mooney doesn’t like the new atheists either: “The American scientific community gains nothing from the condescending rhetoric of the New Atheists,” he argues, “and neither does the stature of science in our culture.”“Abrasive atheism can only exacerbate this anxiety and reinforce the misimpression that scientific inquiry leads inevitably to the erosion of religion and values,” he writes. Spirituality can have little or even nothing to do with belief in God, Mooney affirms. “Spirituality is something everyone can have — even atheists.” He sees spirituality as a potential public relations strategy for the advancement of secular science and the naturalistic worldview, and wants atheists to shut up about atheism. Mohler concludes, “The real question posed by Mooney’s USA Today column is whether Christians possess the discernment to recognize this postmodern mode of spirituality for what it is — unbelief wearing the language of a bland faith.” The American public might be confused enough to fall for his ploy. Will Christians? http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/09/13/the-war-between-spirituality-and-science-is-over/

Calvary Grace Church blog has a post about why the terms ‘church partnership’ are preferable to ‘church membership’ (due to the secular connotations of vacuous membership; church membership is good). “The Bible doesn’t explicitly unpack the administrative details of early church membership. But it lays out more than enough guiding principles and suggestive examples for us to emulate. One fruitful exercise is to examine the concept of a “fellow worker” in the New Testament.” The wide sense of ministry workers (cf. 3 John 8) is what is meant “when referring to “ministry partnership” as being our idea of church membership. Calvary Grace Church is to be a fellowship of workers for the kingdom, a unit of “fellow soldiers” defending and expanding a Kingdom beachhead in Calgary. Partnership with us, “membership” in this church, will be no passive thing. Everyone is called to serve the kingdom and work in the gospel. Paul and John show that being a “fellow worker” is open to men and women, Jews and Gentiles, and that the work done can be formal frontier or pastoral ministry (Paul) or behind-the-scenes informal and indirect support of such ministry (John). There’s plenty of room to work and many different callings within this partnership. But everyone is expected to work; every soldier must be prepared to fight. That’s ministry partnership.” Everyone Works!

“A judge in Johannesburg, South Africa, has blocked a plan by a Muslim to burn Bibles on the anniversary of Sept. 11. An Islamic intellectual organization, Scholars of the Truth, had sought the order. It bans the burning of any holy books. “I’m very pleased the judge came to this decision. Not only did he ban this protest but he also banned other people from burning the Bible,” The Christian Scientist Monitor quoted plaintiff’s lawyer Yasmin Omar as saying.” ““What Mr. Vawda wanted to do is not just morally wrong but is an affront to Islam. We regard Jesus as a prophet who is part of the Koran so if he burns the Bible, he is burning part of the Koran,” said Omar.” Muslims Block Bible-Burning in South Africa

The title of this article speaks for itself. Patton makes a decent enough argument, including a timeline! His basic argument is that there can’t be any conception prior to the fall, or otherwise there would be a sinless line of people, and sex ostensibly would have worked quite well before the fall, and God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply (i.e. have sex), so the fall must have happened very quickly so as to not have broken this command, while not having conceived. Why I Believe Adam and Eve Fell Within 45 Minutes (Warning- PG-13)

JT posts a primer on the image of God. “Man represents, reflects, and resembles God in some ways—which includes as a result the ruling (subduing, having dominion) over creation, and having the capacity for relationship with God and with fellow human beings.” Even after the Fall, we all remain in the image of God, distorted though the image may be. When we were united to Adam, our original covenant representative, we bore his image. Though we are in the image of God, Christ is the image of God. When we become united to Christ, our covenant head, our goal is to be conformed and transformed into his image. When Christ returns we will fully and completely reflect the image of Christ. The Image of God- A Primer

Edwards argues that human beings are greater than angels: “Angels were made to serve God by serving man, but man was made to serve God directly.  Human grace, holiness, and love are greater virtues than angelic wisdom and strength.  Believers are united to Christ in a way angels never will be.” How Humans Are Greater Than Angels

Girltalk cites Piper: “"So I would say a wife's role is to see all that God enables her to see and then ask the Lord for wise and humble and submissive ways to share, to bring into her husband's life her perspective on things. And it's his job as a leader to be humbly receptive to those kinds of things and then to take action." What is the Wife’s Responsibility in Conflict-

Solapanel: one of the greatest pieces of ministry advice is “Make sure you are involved in some ministry outside your own patch”. 1. It encourages Kingdom growth, not growth of one’s own kingdom, one’s own tasks and ideas. 2. It encourages generosity. 3. It benefits others. 4. It helps share resources; When we serve outside our patch, often resources are flowing from the ‘resource rich’ to the ‘resource poor’, and that is a great help for kingdom growth. 5. It encourages a broader prayer horizon. 6. It provides great training opportunities. Often the external ministries we get involved in provide excellent opportunities for getting training in, and practicing ministry skills that we might not have at other times. Great ministry advice

Moore reviews the movie, ‘Get Low’:  “Get Low portrays where we all are, apart from Christ. Our conscience shows us who we really are, cut off from our only source of life and unable to get back to it past the watching angel’s fiery sword. That kind of guilt is enslaving. Like the protagonist in the film, we want somehow to explain our actions, or to assemble a cloud of witnesses who can explain it for us, without admitting our culpability. We want to live through judgment (which is, after all, what a living funeral is) so that we can reassure ourselves that the end result of our choices isn’t quite the horror we fear it to be.” “Get Low isn’t Christian, but it’s Christ-haunted. In an often animalistic culture, it reminds us that even the Gentiles know that guilt is real, and that it burns. It also reminds us that, no matter how deep the exile, where there is still a conscience there is still the God who put it there. That’s not the good news, but its a step toward acknowledging the bad. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s the truth, the (almost) gospel truth.” “Get Low” and the Gospel

Interacting with Westminster Two Kingdoms view, Manata argues here that the Bible does indeed have things to say about politics. “it seems clear that the Bible has significant things to say to the area of politics (and all that entails). The Bible may not detail a particular political theory, and tell us, say, whether democracy is better than a monarchy. Yet, it seems clear that given the nature of political philosophy (what we all engage in, from the mechanic to the academician), the Bible will have significant things to say about the field of inquiry, placing constraints or parameters on where we can go with our theorizing, help to direct our inquiry, and provide foundations for the various metaphysical and ethical presuppositions of the field of inquiry.” The Ethics of Politics

Mary Kassian argues that wives should take their husbands’ names, in light of the Globe and Mail recently suggesting that women who get married should say “I don’t” to changing their name. It cited new research from the Netherlands, which demonstrates that a woman who assumes her partner’s name upon marriage is regarded as more emotional, less intelligent, less competent and less ambitious. She gives six reasons - “Unity:  Scripture says that when you become married, you become one flesh with your husband.  Changing your name to his reflects that fact. (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5) Identification: Scripture teaches that it’s the man who launches out to establish a new family unit. Changing your name to his… identifies all of you as part of his family unit. (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5)  Commitment: Changing your name indicates that you are making a permanent, life-long commitment to be inseparably linked to your husband. (Rom. 7:2; Matt. 19:6)  Roles: Changing your name to his indicates that you affirm the biblical pattern of your husband being the head of your marriage and household. (1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5) Paradigm: Since the relationship between husband and wife is a paradigm of the relationship between Christ and the church, Christian women who change their name model and bear witness to the reality of Christ changing our names when we enter a relationship with Him. Christ’s bride is rightly called by her Husband’s name. A woman who changes her name bears witness to this part of the gospel story. (Isa. 43:7, Acts 15:17, 2 Chron. 7:14, Rev. 3:12; 14:1) Precedence: Adam named Eve. Twice. (Gen. 2:23; 3:20)” Saying “I Do” to changing your name may, in fact, be more intelligent than saying “I Don’t.” Say I Do to the Name Change 

Trueman has some words of advice to become a generalist. i) 90% of it dis disciplined use of time. ii) the books review section of a good journal to which you either subscribe or to which you have access via the web or a library. iii) build a private library of good theological books.  Do not waste space on garbage.  Life is too short and shelf space too precious to read or buy second rate books on any topic. iv) read one general, secular cultural publication each week. v) Remain attuned to the culture and keep an eye on the Amazon bestseller lists and the shelves at your local Barnes and Noble; this will give you hints about what congregants might ask. vi) talk to the people in your church.  Nothing highlights the kinds of issues you need to be adept at addressing than actually listening with a carefully tuned ear to what your people have to say, what is on their minds, and what is causing them problems.  In Praise of the Generalist III- Some Suggestions (Carl Trueman)

Engwer recommends The Heresy Of Orthodoxy.