Thursday, September 16, 2010

2010-09-16

  • Piper points out that the not wanting people to see in is not the only reason porn shops don’t have windows. It’s also because the sun is the enemy of lust. He anecdotally relates the power in fighting his own lust of simply getting out of dark or lonely or boxed-in places, where it’s just small you and your mind, to where you’re surrounded by color and beauty and bigness and loveliness. There’s something about bigness, there’s something about beauty, that helps battle against the puny, small, cruddy use of the mind to fantasize about sexual things. “Pure, lovely, wholesome, beautiful, powerful, large-hearted things cannot abide the soul of a sexual fantasy at the same time.” Our capacities of seeing the sky are cut down progressively by yielding to lusts and fantasies and unwholesome things. It can happen to anyone; anyone can fall from having a large heart to being a gutter person. “battle it with the upward glance of the magnificent blue and the thunder and the lightning and the sunrises and the sunsets and the glory of God.” Why Porno Shops Don’t Have Windows

  • Burk gives his reasons why the “young, restless and reformed” often stand apart from reformed egalitarians. i) We need a ranking of doctrinal priorities. There are first-order issues which distinguish a Christian from a non-Christian. Second order issues can be disagreed upon by Christians but prevent Christians from doing local church ministry together. “Women in ministry” is a second order issue. ii) Second order issues (like egalitarianism) often directly affect how healthy a church and its members will be. An “egalitarian perspective on church leadership is often accompanied by an egalitarian perspective on the role of husbands and wives in the family. Differences on this issue lead to radically different definitions of what a healthy Christian home will look like.” For complementarians, leadership and submission in marriage are not insignificant details but reflect our seminal commitment to the gospel itself – as per Eph. 5 the Gospel is affirmed or denied depending on how husbands and wives relate to each other. In a complementarian framework, families are unhealthy and marriages are at risk where this male headship (which is therefore entailed in discipleship) is absent, while egalitarians say that this kind of leadership is unbiblical and immoral, while Complementarians say it is essential for a husband’s faithfulness to Christ. iii) The hermeneutic adopted by egalitarians puts one on a slippery slope, as it undermines biblical authority despite protestations to the contrary. When the functional authority of Scripture is compromised we’re moving into first order issues. Grudem notes that egalitarianism often leads to the denial of anything uniquely masculine, to calling God “our Mother,” and to the approval of homosexuality. History is a witness of the slippery slope that begins with an egalitarianism that then leads into any number of unorthodox, unbiblical directions. (Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism) iv) The glory of Christ and his love for his bride is most clearly on display in churches and in marriages that embody Christ’s sacrificial love for and leadership over his bride. Where it is absent, the vision of that glory is diminished. Gospel Priorities and Complementarianism

  • Creationsafaris asks, ‘How much do you trust scientific experts?’ and writes, ‘Most of the scientific experts expect us to trust them. They are appalled when lay people express doubts about matters the consensus of experts take for granted. Yet others tell us we should doubt.’ Examples follow. No Consensus on Scientific Consensus

  • Turk writes that BioLogos has affirmed the complete denial of Adam’s existence. He also notes the Pyromaniacs told us this was coming. “the folks defending BioLogos have to face up to it: it was never about whether or not there were days or ages in Genesis 1; it was never about reconciling Gen 1 and Gen 2 to "science". It was always explicitly about what it means to say, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth," and then "the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature" without it meaning that God actually, really, historically did something.” Biologos has explicitly said that Genesis 1 does not reveal how God created life. “It's only a matter of a few faculty meetings before they have called Jesus a manifestation of first century Jewish imagination and a deconstructing of Greek ethos to suit the likes of Philo and Paul.” My last post on BioLogos

  • Aomin: this post provides two contrasting quotes, one from Bavinck and one from Warfield, to the question, “Does the Christian apologist defend the faith established, or establish the faith by defending it? In other words, does our theology determine our apologetic methodology, or does apologetics give rise to our theology?” Bavinck and Benjamin- The Relationship Between Theology and Apologetics

  • CMI: Similarities between certain organisms is claimed as evidence for evolution but incredible similarities that are not due to common ancestry undo the argument. The article goes into some examples, and concludes, “God has indeed created things in such a way as to confound naturalistic (everything made itself) explanations for the origin of organisms. Various ad hoc, or just–so, stories have been invented in an attempt to explain the many things which do not fit the evolutionary scheme, but they are just that—stories. May God receive the glory that is His due for the marvelous things He has created!” Are look-alikes related-

  • Mohler responds further to Chris Mooney’s vacuous attempt to bridge science and religion by appealing to his blend of ‘spirituality’, saying, “neither side is buying his argument. The naturalistic scientists want nothing to do with what they see as a pandering to superstition, and those with any genuine theological convictions want nothing to do with a vacuous “spirituality.” Citing another perspective from Jerry Coyne, Mohler summarizes, “mere “spirituality” will not heal the breach between naturalism and theism.” Coyne says, “Mohler may be a Baptist, but he’s not a moron.” Mohler writes, “So I am a Baptist but not a moron? Well, I will file that under awkward compliments.” http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/09/15/i-may-be-a-baptist-but-i-am-not-a-moron-says-evolutionist

  • Tony Reinke writes, “generation of believers transferring the truth of God to the next generation is a theme that can be found throughout Scripture.” He cites a number of Scriptures, and points out that this is reflected in the NT, in that pastors are called to identify and train their successors, following Paul’s model: he trained Timothy and expected him to train a generation of teachers that Paul himself could not see (2 Timothy 1:13–14, 2:2). Stewardship of the Gospel requires churches and pastors to think seriously about transition. From Generation to Generation

  • DeYoung has More Advice for Theological Students and Young Pastors. It is succinct and point-form, and worth the full read. For example, “Don’t preach your issues from seminary. I can almost guarantee no one in your church doubts the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. It says “Paul” in their Bibles so they’re good to go.” And “Figure out what you believe about divorce and remarriage, and figure it out soon.” Or, “… I realized early on I didn’t really want revival unless I was fine with it starting at the church down the street.” … “Better to be a little naive than a lot cynical.” “Love your wife. Spend time with your kids. Be very afraid if you no longer look forward to going home at the end of the day.” “Learn to ignore some comments, some controversies, and, yes, some people.”

  • JT posts a chilling quote from Darwin on the diminishment of his tastes and affections. It concludes “My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive…The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” Do You See the Glory of God in the Sun- Darwin’s Negative Testimony

  • Pike responds to the Arminian argument that while God knows the future, choices are still free: “God knows what a man will freely choose. If the man chooses X, God knows that the man will choose X. But if the man would have chosen Y, then God would have known that the man chose Y instead. Therefore, the man’s choice is still free and self-determined, despite the fact that God knows what it will be.” i) This will lead to Open Theism. ii) The only reason the Arminian argument can even get off the ground is because of the confusion most people have between a temporal “before” and a logical “before.” The Arminian confuses temporal sequence with logical sequence. iii) Even if we grant the Arminian view for the sake of argument, we are left with a determined future. It cannot be other than it is, for God knows what the future is. iv) In their scheme God functions little better than someone who watches a DVD he has seen before and knows what the next scene will be before the characters in the movie do; but he only knows that next scene because he’s already watched the movie at some point in his past. v)  if our actions are self-determined, then God must logically wait for us to determine our actions before He will know what we will determine. Saying, “If we would have chosen otherwise, then God would have known otherwise” actually proves this, for it explicitly states that God knows what we will do only because we have already, in God’s time, made the decision. But that isn’t foreknowledge (it is post-knowledge, for it is in God’s past even if it is in our future) and opens all kinds of problems with the flow of time. Arminianism in Time

  • Mounce writes, “What was most educational was to see how dynamic translation works, first hand. From my years on the ESV I had gained an appreciation for formal equivalent translation, but to actually be part of a dynamic translation (okay, "functional equivalence") was a great teacher. I watched godly men and women struggle, sometimes agonize, over just the right wording so the NIV would faithfully convey the same meaning as intended by the biblical author. Whoever says dynamic translators have a lower view of Scripture needs to sit behind the veil and watch this group work.” What Constitutes an Accurate Translation- (Monday with Mounce 75)

  • Jeremy Pierce comments on the bad argument for homosexuality which aims to minimize the passages in the Law on homosexuality as an abomination because eating shellfish is also an abomination. “Anyone who has thought for a little bit about the relation Christians see between the Mosaic law and the New Testament should see through such an argument, because the New Testament explicitly affirms the judgment of male-male and female-female sexual relations as bad while explicitly rejecting the dietary laws that the ban on eating shellfish was a part of. So that objection is pretty naive. Any Christian interpretive grid that seeks to minimize the Torah prohibition on same-sex sex acts can't do so merely because we nowadays think it's all right to eat shellfish, because there's explicit allowance of that in the New Testament and explicit continuance of the harsh language about same-sex sex acts.” He points out a further aspect – it isn’t that the judgment on shellfish lowers the judgment on homosexuality. It’s that the evil of eating shellfish goes way up Eating shellfish in the covenant context of God's people called together to be separate from their neighbors is tantamount to deciding for yourself what you think God's standards should have been when he instituted the dietary laws. We can't read our acceptance of shellfish-eating into how serious eating shellfish would have been taken among those at the time. “Any Christian does consider it an abomination to do something with the import of what eating shellfish would have been in that context.” “We should instead increase our sense of the horror an ancient Hebrew would have had at the idea of eating shellfish.”http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2010/09/abomination.html

  • Phillips writes, “Worthy bros Justin Taylor and Kevin DeYoung are shocked, shocked that WORLD magazine would print an article by Andree Seu lauding Glenn Beck and dubbing the practicing Mormon a born-again Christian.” He points out, “I myself used to love Seu's writing. This is shocking. But is it more shocking than gushing all over an unrepentant murderess and antinomian, dubbing her (also) a "Christian"? Is it more shocking than accepting as "Christian" a convert to Roman Catholicism, without as much as one question about the meaning of the Gospel? WORLD did all this, and it was duly noted... more than four years ago. By someone.”  Justin and Kevin- also kinda funny

  • AiG writes, “A large number of recent American presidents and high government officials have openly supported creationism/Intelligent Design, or have expressed the right to question Darwinism.” High Level American Government Leaders Support Creationism

  • Interesting article cited here from Ligonier: “Cardinal Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. The truth is that to be deep in real history, as opposed to Rome’s whitewashed, revisionist, and often forged history, is to cease to be a Roman Catholic."” To Be Deep in History - excellent article by Keith Mathison

  • JT has this suggestion: “Even if you’re not a political conservative National Review is worth subscribing to for Ross Douthat’s movie reviews alone. They are invariably insightful and often entertaining. And unlike some Christian reviewers, who tend to find commendable spiritual lessons in even the worst films, he’s willing to tell it like it is.” Why Ross Douthat Is My Favorite Movie Reviewer

  • Wow. JT links to an article at the national review which says, “The reason marriage exists is that the sexual intercourse of men and women regularly produces children. If it did not produce children, neither society nor the government would have much reason, let alone a valid reason, to regulate people’s emotional unions. (The government does not regulate non-marital friendships, no matter how intense they are.) … What the institution and policy of marriage aims to regulate is sex, not love or commitment. These days, marriage regulates sex (to the extent it does regulate it) in a wholly non-coercive manner, sex outside of marriage no longer being a crime. Marriage exists, in other words, to solve a problem that arises from sex between men and women but not from sex between partners of the same gender: what to do about its generativity.” “The government cannot simply declare itself uninterested in the welfare of children. Nor can it leave it to prearranged contract to determine who will have responsibility for raising children.” read this whole piece. Law and Marriage, Sex, and Children

  • DeYoung cites Bavinck: “Whatever apostasy occurs in Christianity, it may never prompt us to question the unchanging faithfulness of God, the certainty of his counsel, the enduring character of his covenant, or the trustworthiness of his promises. One should sooner abandon all creatures than fail to trust his word. And that word in its totality is one immensely rich promise to the heirs of the kingdom. It is not just a handful of texts that teach the perseverance of the saints: the entire gospel sustains and confirms it. The Father has chosen them before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), ordained them to eternal life (Acts 13:48), to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). This election stands (Rom. 9:11; Heb. 6:17) and in due time carries with it the calling and justification and glorification (Rom. 8:30).” Does the Bible Really Teach the Perseverance of the Saints-

  • Phillips has a potent post contrasting Samson and Jesus: “Samson died as a result of his own personal foolishness, while Christ died in the wisdom of God. Samson's lifelong eye-problems (Judges 14:3) led to his eyes being bored out. Worse, in a damning indictment we read that Yahweh had departed from Samson and he did not even know it (Judges 16:20b). By contrast, the righteous Christ died, innocent from any personal sins (as even Pilate admitted; Matthew 27:23), bearing the sins of others; and because of that imputed sin, God the Father turned from Him — and, in agony of soul, He knew it (Matthew 27:46).” Does Samson point to Christ? Absolutely. But mostly by way of contrast. Samson and Jesus- studies in contrast

  • Hays has an interesting point about the Romanist ‘33000 Protestant denominations’ argument, in that it poses a dilemma for the Catholic epologist. If these are mutually contradictory denominations, then in what sense are they all “Protestant”? You can’t very well classify them under the same rubric unless all “33,000” denominations share a core identity.
    So the very objection to Protestant diversity tacitly assumes that all Protestant denominations have a common denominator. They must have something essentially in common that makes all of them “Protestant.” 33,000 Protestant denominations

  • Heh – “Sleep is good practice for death. It’s good preparation for life with that same God who you’re going to have to trust eventually. And it’s worth asking for sweet dreams, because he gives sleep to his beloved, and he gives to his beloved in their sleep.” Theology of Sleep

  • Hays responds to Hector Avalos, writing, “even if, ex hypothesi, Avalos succeeded in proving that Christian morality is tautologous, how would that begin to prove that Christian morality is inconsistent with itself? How can a moral tautology fall short of its own ideals? Is it incoherent to say that single men are bachelors?” Carrier's foot-in-mouth disease

  • Moore gives his answer to whether the Christian should marry his non-Christian girlfriend. i) Christians should break off dating relationships with unbelievers. The Scriptures make it clear that Christian marriage is to be the union of a faithful man and a faithful woman. We are not to be, the Bible maintains, “unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). ii) The situation here is complicated. Paul does not treat already existing marriages believer to unbeliever as an ongoing state of sin. Those who are already in this predicament should, Paul says, continue in it, unless the unbeliever abandons the marriage (1 Cor. 7:12-16). iii) Piling sin upon sin is worse than the current state. iv) The sexual union, in and of itself, does not constitute a marriage. There is a reason, after all, that there is a biblical category for “fornication,” sex outside of the covenant of marriage. v) Saying you are are “yoked” already does not mean that you are married already. Rather you are not in a temporary “relationship.” Even in repentance, you cannot simply “move on.” Your only question now is whether, in addition to being a fornicator, you will also be an orphan-maker. vi) One who does not “provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household” has “denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). vii) Moore concludes: “The answer, I believe, is what our Father God models for us: provision, protection, and covenant faithfulness. A child is meant to have two parents, a mother and a father (Gen. 1-2). Love this woman, and love this child.” She might refuse to marry. But repent of your sin, receive the forgiveness of Christ, and move forward with your responsibilities. You’re a father now. Should I Marry My Non-Christian Pregnant Girlfriend- My Response

  • Good point from John 20:30-31: “The most important question we must ask when reading the gospel narratives is not “what did Jesus do?” but “what did the gospel writers tell us that Jesus did, and why did they select the material that they did?”” We have to learn to read the gospels with an eye to what the authors are trying to communicate.Jayber Crow’s Hermeneutical Insight

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