The Wittenberg Door

General Revelation – Part 2 – Internal Revelation

2012-02-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

In my last post on this topic, we discovered that God reveals Himself to all men through the created order. In this post we’ll see that God also reveals Himself to all men internally.

18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

19) because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

20) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Romans 1:18-20

It is not of a mere external revelation of which the apostle is speaking, but of that evidence of the being and perfections of God which every man has in the constitution of his own nature, and in virtue of which he is competent to apprehend the manifestation of God in his works.
Charles Hodge (1797–1878)

God Reveals Himself to Us Through Our Moral Reasonings

Conversation with an unbeliever: Ever feel guilty? Of course you do. Why? Because you are guilty. Guilty of what? Of breaking God’s law.

It would be rare indeed to find someone in this country who has not heard the summary of God’s law—the Ten Commandments. But what of those who have not heard? Are they off the hook? Do they receive a cosmic “Get Out of Jail Free” card? Many Evangelicals would say yes. Many would say that surly God would not find someone guilty of breaking a law that he did not know.

But is this the case? Is one excused from the law’s requirements simply because he’s never heard them? Paul addresses this issue in Romans, stating “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law . . . show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them” (Romans 2:14-15). In his commentary on Romans, John Calvin speaks of men being “blind,” but “not so blind that we can plead ignorance without being convicted of perversity.”

The actual hearing of the law does not determine the lawbreakers ultimate guilt; for all men know the law of God innately, since all men bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28). Thus, when men reason morally, experience a crises of conscience, or suffer from guilty feelings they are actually reflecting the stamp of the law, which each man by nature bears.

All men of sound judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart. And that this belief is naturally engendered in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones, is strikingly attested by the contumacy of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God . . . for the worm of conscience, keener than burning steel, is gnawing them within.
John Calvin (1509-1564)

God Reveals Himself to Us Through Our Religious Self

As much as man is a moral creature, he is just as much a religious creature. Man was created to have fellowship with, to worship, and to adore his Creator.

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Westminster Shorter Catechism (1640s)

Then all your people will be righteous; they will possess the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified.

Isaiah 60:21

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11:36

The Fall, however, changed the object of man’s worship:

. . . although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and fourfooted animals and creeping things.

Romans 1:21-23

Instead of accepting revelation they became philosophers. And what is a philosopher? A philosopher is a man who claims that he starts by being skeptical about everything, that he is an agnostic. “I am going to have the date,” he says, “and then I am going to work it out.” And that is exactly what such men have done; they become foolish and wicked in their reasonings, in their thoughts, in their own conjectures and speculations and surmisings. And what is the cause of it all? Paul uses the word “vain” and it means not only foolish, but it means wicked as well . . . The cause of the whole trouble was wickedness and it is still wickedness.
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)

To be continued . . .

Today in Church History: R.B. Kuiper and New Life OPC (Escondido)

2012-01-31T05:16:00.000-08:00

Rienk Bouke (R. B.) Kuiper was born on January 31, 1886 in Garrelsweer, a village in the northern province of Groningen, in the Netherlands.

The son of a Reformed Church minister immigrated with his family to North America in 1891. Kuiper's life in the new world involved a constant shuttle between the Midwest and the east coast. After studies at Calvin and Princeton Seminaries, Kuiper served five western Michigan congregations over the course of seventeen years. He then embarked on a career in higher education, first as professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary in its inaugural academic year, 1929-30. He then answered the call to serve as President of Calvin College. Three years later, he returned to Westminster where he taught practical theology for twenty years. After his "retirement" in 1952 he served as president of Calvin Seminary for four years.

Kuiper was a ministerial member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for 16 years, and he moderated the fourth General Assembly in 1938. He was the author of several popular books, including As to Being Reformed, The Glorious Body of Christ, and God-Centered Evangelism. In his writing and especially in his preaching, "he had the gift," wrote Robert Nicholas in the Presbyterian Guardian, "of making the profound simple as he proclaimed the whole counsel of God."

Kuiper died on April 22, 1966 in Grand Rapids, at the age of 80.

New Life OPC (Escondido)

On January 31, 1989, New Life OPC in Escondido, California, left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and joined the Presbyterian Church in America.

In a process dubbed "voluntary realignment," the Escondido congregation was one of several churches established by New Life OPC in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, that left the OPC in frustration over two failures of the denomination to unite with the PCA within the previous decade. In an exchange published in New Horizons, John Frame defended the exodus. "Our congregation," he wrote, "has gifts from God, a strategic location, and a burden and a calling to plant churches in San Diego County. Most of the more gifted church planters in this area have preferred to work in the PCA rather than in the OPC. Thus we believed we had good reason, indeed, a divine mandate of sorts, to switch denominations."

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., disagreed: "To withdraw unilaterally and for the reasons currently being given " frustration, preference, or presumed advantage " is to retrace those fatal steps that first divided Christ's body."

Twelve years later, the OPC returned to Escondido with the planting of a mission work in the city.

-John Muether

General Revelation – Part 1 – External Revelation

2012-01-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Psalm 19:1

We know Him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God, even his everlasting power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says (Rom. 1:20). All which things are sufficient to convince men and leave them without excuse.
Belgic Confession, Article 2 (1561)

To speak of General Revelation is to speak of God making Himself known (i.e., revealing Himself) to all people everywhere. This revelation is twofold:

The external revelation of God in nature

The internal revelation of God in man

External Revelation

God reveals Himself to us through the created world

As we look around us, the evidence of our Creator is everywhere. Consider how fine-tuned the universe is to support human life (anthropic principle); or how amazing it is that Microchiroptera bats can hunt in total darkness by emitting a stream of high-pitched sounds that bounce off their prey and then the resulting echo is received by their very sensitive antennas; or how about the bacterial flagellum with it’s out-board-motor-like propulsion system—complete with a rotor, O-rings, bushings, and drive shaft. Indeed, we live in a world filled with wonders that evidence our loving Creator.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…

Romans 1:20

God’s creative handiwork is clearly evident to all. Expounding on this point, Paul, speaking to the people of Lystra, said,

Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filing our hearts with food and gladness.

Acts 14:17

To be continued with Internal Revelation . . .

How Do You Use Liturgical Elements in Your Church Worship?

2012-01-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

The Gospel Coalition Web site asks three young evangelical ministers about their liturgical practices. I think the readers of this blog will find their answers encouraging. Here’s how interview sets the stage . . .

If you look at any Roman Catholic cathedral, you will notice that the Mass shapes the architectural design, featuring the altar, bread, and wine. The pulpit is placed to the left, out of direct sight in the peripheral. Since the Reformation, most Protestant churches have placed the pulpit, the place for preaching God’s Word, at the center of the church and usually at the center of the stage.
Besides the preaching of God’s Word, however, there’s been much debate on what else we should do during our services. Some early Protestants argued that preserving some liturgical elements along with preaching looked too similar to Rome and distracted from God’s Word. Others disagreed and continued to use them to enrich devotion or for pedagogical reasons. Today, these debates continue in one form or another. Some use them, some decide not to.
For whatever reasons, the interest in the use of liturgical elements has increased in recent years. So I asked Scotty Smith, Mike Cosper, and Bob Kauflin, “To what extent does your church use liturgical elements such as responsive readings and creeds? Why?

You can read the responses here.

Be Encouraged: God Does Not Issue Bluebacks

2012-01-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

During the Civil War, the economic systems of the North and South were set on differing paths—at least in their ability to gasp for air. The South was suffering grievously due to the North’s naval blockade, which disallowed the transport of the southern mainstay—cotton. Although fairing better than the South, the North was hardly swimming in a sea of revenue.

As early as 1861, the first year of the war, Lincoln and his cabinet were forced to make tough economic choices. One such choice was to increase duties and excise taxes. Another was to issue “greenbacks.” Greenbacks were printing-press currency backed by the federal government. Because it was not supported by gold, the greenback’s value was determined by how much the government could borrow; as a result, the value of the greenbacks fluctuated with each battle. The problem was resolved, however, by the passing of the National Banking Act of 1863. This act allowed banks to issue currency based on the purchase of government bonds, thus stabilizing the greenbacks.

As mentioned, the South was fairing much worse, lacking the industrial might and commerce of the North. In response to this dire situation, Davis’ administration imposed a 10% increase of taxes on farm produce. Of course, this did not sit well with the states’-rights southerners who opposed direct taxation by a central government. Only 1% of the Confederacy’s revenue was derived from this measure. Consequently, revenue quickly dried up.

So out came plan B: Printing press currency. The South began printing “blue-backed” paper money. Once the printing presses began to hum, the flow of currency into the market place would not be ebbed. Runaway inflation ensued. For example, if you and two others decided to have breakfast in 1864 Richmond, you would leave a $21.15 tip—that’s 15% of $141, the cost of the meal. By the time Lee surrendered, the Confederacy was experiencing inflation of 9,000 percent.

What's This All About?

You’re probably wondering why we’ve taken this short trip down history lane. Well, in my study at home, I have a $5 blue-backed bill, which was issued on February 17, 1864. The full faith and trust of the Confederate States of America backed this note. I’m sure this pledge gave solace to the note’s original recipient. Today, however, the bill is worthless as currency, holding value by historians and history buffs only. This note is void, despite the intentions and promises of the Confederate government.

History reveals that regimes come and go; political philosophies fail; nations rise and fall, their destinies not being in their hands. But with God, this is not so. Actually, He determines the times and seasons of nations and men.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.
(Acts 17:26)

He sovereignly decrees all that comes to pass.

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His Will.
(Ephesians 1:11)

He accomplishes His purposes.

. . . He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand . . .
(Daniel 4:35 )

His Word stands because of who He is. Therefore, unlike that Confederate note, God’s Word will never return void. It shall always retain its value, adequacy, clarity, power, and authority. It shall always accomplish the purpose for which He set it.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

(Isaiah 55:11)

How we ought to rejoice upon hearing such a pledge. Our covenant-keeping God has the ability and the will to fulfill His promises and keep His Word. This holds much more meaning than the pledges of men, governments, or nations. Indeed, God’s Word stands because of who He is—And you can take that to the bank.

Calvinism: Still Changing the World

2012-01-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

Here's something interesting from Time Magazine: 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now. Why is it interesting? Calvinism appears in the number three spot. Here's an excerpt . . .

Calvinism, cousin to the Reformation's other pillar, Lutheranism, is a bit less dour than its critics claim: it offers a rock-steady deity who orchestrates absolutely everything, including illness (or home foreclosure!), by a logic we may not understand but don't have to second-guess. Our satisfaction — and our purpose — is fulfilled simply by "glorifying" him. In the 1700s, Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards invested Calvinism with a rapturous near mysticism. Yet it was soon overtaken in the U.S. by movements like Methodism that were more impressed with human will. Calvinist-descended liberal bodies like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) discovered other emphases, while Evangelicalism's loss of appetite for rigid doctrine — and the triumph of that friendly, fuzzy Jesus — seemed to relegate hard-core Reformed preaching (Reformed operates as a loose synonym for Calvinist) to a few crotchety Southern churches.
No more. Neo-Calvinist ministers and authors don't operate quite on a Rick Warren scale. But, notes Ted Olsen, a managing editor at Christianity Today, "everyone knows where the energy and the passion are in the Evangelical world" — with the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention. The Calvinist-flavored ESV Study Bible sold out its first printing, and Reformed blogs like Between Two Worlds are among cyber-Christendom's hottest links.

Fathers, Instruct Your Children!

2012-01-25T06:19:00.000-08:00

Being raised in an unbelieving home, I had no idea how to instruct my children in the faith. When my wife and I had our first child, we were attending a Pentecostal church. We were taught how to demand God do certain things for our daughter, and we were taught how to chase away those pesky demons, but we were never taught the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. So what were we to do except to book another trip to the next Benny Hinn crusade?

After six years of demon chasing, loud suits, and big hair, God providentially brought us out of Pentecostalism and into the Reformation. On my first Lord’s Day in the Reformed church I was awarded a Heidelberg Catechism. I devoured it! What a treasure I had found; not only for my own growth—learning to worship the right God rightly—but also for my children’s. Now I had a tool to instruct my children, a tool that has been tried and tested for 400 years.

What is a Catechism?

To catechize a child is to instruct her in the faith using questions and answers. It’s a method that traces its history back to Scripture (Mat. 16:13, 22:42). The catechism I use in my home is the Heidelberg Catechism. Completed by Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus in 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism offers 192 questions and answers and is divided into three parts: man’s guilt, God’s grace, and our gratitude. Here’s a sample:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.

If you are raising children, or if you're just a Christian who wants to better understand his faith, I recommend a good catechism—it’s a tried and true method of learning the faith that has stood the test of time.

Notable Quote: Charles Spurgeon

2012-01-24T05:54:00.000-08:00

Spurgeon on God's gracious election . . .

I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.
C.H. Spurgeon (1834 - 1892)

Good Works vs. Virtuous Acts

2012-01-23T06:40:00.000-08:00

Paul declares in Romans 14:23 that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” Here’s the dilemma: An unbeliever sees a child drowning in the river. In response, he dives in and saves her. Was this a good act?

Consider Paul’s teaching regarding obedience to the civil government in the previous chapter:

1) Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

2) Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.

3) For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

4) For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

5) Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.

Romans 13:1-5

Paul is teaching that “every soul” (not just believers) must subject themselves to “governing authorities.” We find here, and in other portions of Scripture, that obeying legitimate authority is a moral good—even for the unbeliever. But what are we to make of this in light of Paul’s comments in the next chapter regarding faithless acts?

Behind the Act

When considering this dilemma, I find helpful a distinction that many Christian ethicists make—distinguishing a “good” act from a “virtuous” act. The unbeliever saving the drowning child is a “good” act, but not a “virtuous” act. For an act to be virtuous, the person committing the act must be doing so with the right goal in mind, with the right motive, and according to the right standard.

The right goal

The act must be done to God’s glory.

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Westminster Shorter Catechism (1642-1647)

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Cor. 10:31

And it must be done in service to the Lord.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men

Col. 3:23

The Right Motive

The act must be done in true faith.

Q. What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Ghost works in me by the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.
Heidelberg Catechism (1563)

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

Rom. 14:23

And it must be done in love.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

1 Cor. 13:2-3

The Right Standard

It must be according the right standard—God’s law.

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law

Rom. 7:7

Conclusion

Saving the life of the drowning child is a “good” act. This does not mean, however, that the person committing the act is good—the quality of “goodness” applies to the act not the person. If, however, the act is committed with the right goal in mind, with the right motive, and according to the right standard, then it would be appropriate to call it “virtuous,” i.e., both the act and what’s behind the act are good.

True But Unusual Facts About C. H. Spurgeon

2012-01-22T05:56:00.000-08:00

From Christian History magazine . . .

One woman was converted through reading a single page of one of Spurgeon’s sermons wrapped around some butter she had bought.

Spurgeon read The Pilgrim’s Progress at age 6 and went on to read it over 100 times.

The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit—the collected sermons of Spurgeon during his ministry with that congregation—fill 63 volumes. The sermons’ 20-25 million words are equivalent to the 27 volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The series stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.

Spurgeon’s mother had 17 children, nine of whom died in infancy.

Spurgeon’s personal library contained 12,000 volumes—1,000 printed before 1700. (The library, 5,103 volumes at the time of its auction, is now housed at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.)

Before he was 20, Spurgeon had preached over 600 times.

Spurgeon typically read 6 books a week and could remember what he had read—and where—even years later.

Spurgeon once addressed an audience of 23,654—without a microphone or any mechanical amplification.

During his lifetime, Spurgeon is estimated to have preached to 10,000,000 people.

At least 3 of Spurgeon’s works (including the multi-volume Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit series) have sold more than 1,000,000 copies. One of these, All of Grace, was the first book ever published by Moody Press (formerly the Bible Institute Colporage Association) and is still its all-time best seller.

Notable Quotes: The Scots Confession

2012-01-21T05:49:00.000-08:00

The Scots Confession (1560) on the three marks of the church . . .

The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the Word of God, in which God has revealed Himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, with which must be associated with Word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.

HT: Valiant for Truth

What Makes Heaven Heaven?

2012-01-20T05:44:00.000-08:00

When I was a Pentecostal, my understanding of heaven was shaped by those who had claimed to have visited, such as Roberts Liardon in his book I Saw Heaven. His book reads like a child’s visit to Disneyland, with magical creatures (". . . it seemed as if they were talking among themselves"), water fights with Jesus in the River of Life ("He dunked me! I got back up and splashed Him, and we had a water fight"), and our own personal mansions filled with gadgets too advanced for earth ("I sat down on a black velvet couch - it was alive - and comfort just reached up and cuddled me").

According to Liardon, heaven is a place where the Trinity has an office ("Sometimes when the Trinity are inside having conferences in the back . . ."), where there's a warehouse of unclaimed miracles ("On one side of the building were arms, fingers, and other exterior parts of the body"), and where there’s a Pentecostal-style worship service where-in Jesus is but a spectator ("Jesus and I were met by two angels who escorted us down to the second row, were two seats were reserved for us"). Indeed, like the rest of Pentecostalism, heaven is man-centered, and Christ is but an appendage.

Christ: The Glory of Heaven

To the contrary of Mr. Liardon’s “vision,” heaven isn’t a place dedicated to our pleasures and comfort, where Christ is a mere means to an end. Instead, it’s all about Christ and His glory--He is the center of all things, and worshiping and serving Him is our chief end (Rev. 5:9–14). This will be our privilege for all eternity, as Jay Wingard over at the Soli Deo Gloria blog reminds us:

. . . I firmly believe that part of what will make heaven so glorious is that we will forever be learning and marveling at Christ. Heaven will be heaven because Christ is there. It truly teaches us that only the Bride of Christ will truly be happy in heaven. Everyone in the world wants to go to heaven – they just don’t want God to be there. But for true believers – the Bride of Christ – one of the many glorious wonders of heaven will be growing in the knowledge of God for all eternity and never reaching the end of Him.

Heaven is heaven because Christ is there, and He is there in the same glory that caused the apostle John to fall to the ground as dead (Rev. 1:17). Not a buddy to play with, but a king with a “name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11).

Dwight L. Moody once told the story of a girl whose mother became very ill. Neighbors took the girl in while her mother struggled with the affliction. After a time, however, the mother died. The neighbors didn’t know how to break the news to the girl, so they kept it from her. After the funeral was over, they returned the girl to her home. From room-to-room the girl ran looking for her mother until she finally asked, “Where is my momma?” After learning that her mother was gone, the little girl asked to go back to the neighbors’ home, for her own home had no further attraction without her mother. Moody concluded, “No, it is not the jasper walls and the pearly gates that are going to make heaven attractive. It is the being with God.”

Today in Church History: Heidelberg Catechism

2012-01-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

On January 19, 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism was published in German under the title, "Catechismus, or Christian Instruction, as Conducted in the Churches and Schools of the Electoral Palatinate.

It was named after the German city where it was prepared by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, at the request of the Elector Frederick III. Soon after it was written, it was translated into Dutch, and along with the Belgic Confession and the Canons of the Synod of Dort, the Heidelberg Catechism became part of the doctrinal standards of the Dutch Reformed churches. For centuries it has been cherished by Presbyterians as well, especially for its warm and autobiographical style, as displayed in its first question and answer:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong " body and soul, in life and in death " to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to serve him.

John Muether

Rome, the PCUSA, and God’s Name

2012-01-18T05:31:00.000-08:00

Retiring Netherlands bishop Tiny Muskens (not to be confused with any inhabitants of Middle Earth) offered the following proposal to the religious world:

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem.”

Drawing upon their centuries-old tradition of dealing ruthlessly with heretics, Rome responded with a scathing rebuke . . .

"I'm sure his intentions are good but his theology needs a little fine-tuning.”

Harsh words.

Meanwhile, in Our Own Backyard

Fresh off their recent triumphs of supporting Palestinian terrorism, endorsing the use of marijuana (for medical purposes, of course), and granting local congregations the authority to ordain practicing homosexuals, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has also decided that God’s name needed a little sprucing up.

In an attempt to top those slackers at the Second Ecumenical Council who took a year to produce the Nicene Creed (381), the PCUSA spent six years developing "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God." Knowing how much God loves the theologically novel, PCUSA churches may now refer to God in any of the following ways:

Rock, Redeemer, and Friend

Lover, Beloved, and Love

Mother, Child, and Womb

And if these don’t strike your liturgical fancy, the PCUSA offers seven other nifty, new names to choose from!

PS. Rumor has it that the PCUSA is already working on a follow-up to their Trinitarian Greatest Hits. It’s an updated version of the Bible where you’ll read about “. . . the Womb of God moving over the face of the waters.” (And if you’re a Trinity Hymnal fan, just wait until you hear the new version of O for a Thousand Tongues!)

God’s Name

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

(Exodus 20:7)

Q. What is required in the third Commandment?
A. That we must not by cursing, or by false swearing, nor yet by unnecessary oaths, profane or abuse the name of God; nor even by our silence and connivance be partakers of these horrible sins in others; and in summary, that we use the holy name of God in no other way than with fear and reverence, so that He may be rightly confessed and worshiped by us, and be glorified in all our words and works.
The Heidelberg Catechism, Q & A 99

God’s name represents who He is. Our human languages are woefully inadequate when it comes to revealing the glories of God’s nature. For this reason the Scriptures use many names to cast a ray of light upon His character (e.g., Yahweh Jireh, The Lord will Provide, Gen. 22:14; Yahweh Sabbaoth, The Lord of Hosts, 1 Sam. 1:3; Yahweh Tsidkenu, The Lord our Righteousness, Jer. 23:6). But this is done by the Scriptures and not by us. It is God Who chooses how and by what name He’ll be called; in other words, He has the right of self-definition and self-disclosure. He retains this right as sovereign Lord and creator, and as such is not a wax nose to be toyed with by self-aggrandizing bishops or wayward Presbyterians.

The names of God are not of human invention, but of divine origin, though they are all borrowed from human language, and derived from human and earthly relations. They are anthropomorphic and mark a condescending approach of God to man.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology

Commenting on Bishop Muskens, Father Jonathan Morris said that referring to God as Allah was “impractical.” What if I started referring to the fetching Mrs. Catechizer as Selma Hyach. Would that be “impractical”? Anyone who knows my wife will tell you that several minutes will pass before I regain consciousness. How much more forcefully will our Righteous King respond when He is called by the name of a false god? Or when our Creator, who revealed Himself in masculine terms, is told that He can no longer be Father because it’s not politically correct?

A Plea

I ask Rome (considering their weak-kneed response to the bishop), and especially the PCUSA, to consider the Third Commandment and its New Testament counterpart, The Lord’s Prayer (“hollowed be your name . . . Matthew 6:9); I also ask that they—and all the rest of us—observe the following three points from the Institutes of the Christian Religion:

. . . first, whatever our mind conceives of God, whatever our tongue utters, should savor of his excellence, match the loftiness of his sacred name, and lastly, serve to glorify his greatness.
Secondly, we should no rashly or perversely abuse his Holy Word and worship mysteries either for the sake of our own ambitions, or greed, or amusement; but, as they bear the dignity of his name imprinted upon them, they should ever be honored and prized among us.
Finally, we should not defame or detract from his works, as miserable men are wont abusively to cry out against him; but whatever we recognize as done by him we should speak of with praise of his wisdom, righteousness, and goodness. That is what it means to hallow God’s name.
John Calvin

Notable Quote: John MacArthur

2012-01-17T05:25:00.000-08:00

John MacArthur on the church’s need to hold fast to the truth . . .

Truly biblical ministry must hold forth truths that are absolute… We must take an unmovable stance on all issues where the Bible speaks plainly… Sound doctrine divides, it confronts, it separates, it judges, it convicts, it reproves, it rebukes, it exhorts, it refutes error. None of those things is very highly esteemed in modern thought. But the health of the church depends on our holding firmly to the truth.
John MacArthur, Reckless Faith: When the Church Loses Its Will to Discern

HT: Soli Deo Gloria

Thought of the Day: Taking Notes

2012-01-16T05:20:00.000-08:00

Here’s today’s helpful hint: take notes during the sermon . . .

It’ll help you stay awake.

It’ll help you remember what was said.

And, for heads-of-households, it’s a great way to make sure that everyone understood the sermon by going over the notes later with the family.

Why God Isn't Doing Well These Days

2012-01-15T06:48:00.000-08:00

Radio talk show host, commentator, and Jewish Ethical Monotheist Dennis Prager offers four reasons why “God is not doing very well these days”:

The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither secularist nor political agenda....
A second reason God is not doing well among Westerners these days is that many members of the Jewish and Christian clergy decided that their primary role was not to advocate their religion's moral and religious standards, but rather (1) to make congregants comfortable ("Don't call me 'Pastor,' Rabbi' or Father'; call me Jerry") and (2) to promulgate the values they learned at their secular left-wing universities....
A third reason God is not doing well is that most of the men and women who are products of this secular left-wing education (meaning a large majority of Western men and women) are theologically, intellectually and emotionally ill prepared to deal with all the unjust suffering in the world. I will never forget a Swedish pastor's reaction to the 1994 capsizing of the Estonia, a ferry that sank in the Baltic between Estonia and Sweden, leaving 852 passengers and crew dead. He said he could not believe in a God who allowed such injustice to take place....
The fourth reason is Islamic violence and the tepid response to it by the liberal churches and synagogues. It would seem pretty clear that a major, albeit almost never acknowledged, reason for the huge audiences for recent books advocating atheism has been the massive amount of evil in God's name committed by radical Muslims. Nothing creates atheism as much as evil done in God's name....

You can read the entire article here.

You might be a Calvinist If . . .

2012-01-14T06:13:00.000-08:00

Always a source of good, clean (albeit off kilter) fun, Tominthebox News Network offers the Jeff Foxworthyesque You Might be a Calvinist . . .

If your child’s first word was “Westminster”

If you send your mother tulips on Mother’s Day

If you’ve ever heard a wave of groans sweep through Sunday School when you refer to Romans 9

If you’ve ever read parts of “The Bondage of the Will” to children under ten and prayed that it would change their lives

You can read the entire list here.

Today in Church History: Gordon H. Clark

2012-01-10T06:20:00.000-08:00

In the January 10, 1945 issue of The Presbyterian Guardian, Gordon H. Clark labeled the OPC a "sectarian oddity."

In Clark's article, "Blest River of Salvation," he accused the 8 year-old Orthodox Presbyterian Church of diverting its chief emphasis away from opposition to Modernism. As a result, the church had "earned an unenviable reputation" and "assumed the position of an isolationist porcupine." An editorial in that same issue defended the testimony of the church as well as the work of the Guardian and Westminster Seminary. Within a few years, Clark and sympathizers would leave the OPC, an exodus that included churches in Quarryville and Willow Grove, PA.

John Muether

Thought of the Day: Separation of Church and State

2012-01-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

If we are to use the term “separation between Church & State,” we must do so honestly, remaining faithful to the original context: Thomas Jefferson was writing to Baptists who were being persecuted by an officially Congregationalist state government. Thus, he was not calling for a wall that protected the government from the church, but the church from the government. Something to keep in mind when discussing this issue.

Today in Church History: Westminster Theological Seminary

2012-01-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

At a special meeting of the Board of Trustees of Westminster Theological Seminary on January 7, 1936, thirteen of its 28 members submitted their resignations.

Included among the departing Board members were Samuel Craig, editor of Christianity Today, and Clarence Macartney, the prominent pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. At the same time O.T. Allis also resigned from the faculty of the Seminary. At the heart of the dispute that led to the resignations were the formation of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions in 1933 and the subsequent creation of the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union. Craig and Macartney regarded these responses to the crisis of modernism in the Presbyterian Church as excessively provocative and even schismatic, prompting them to challenge J. Gresham's leadership of the anti-modernist opposition. Craig wrote, "Dr. Machen is a very gifted man but as a tactician we venture the opinion that he is about the world's worst."

The disruption of the Westminster Board revealed significant differences among conservative Presbyterians between those who advocated separation from unbelief and those whose strategy was to "reform from within." Throughout the controversy, Macartney remained in the PCUSA. While he claimed to further the cause of Reformed militancy through the Presbyterian League of Faith, he steadily distanced himself from denominational matters while pastoring his Pittsburgh church until his retirement in 1937.

John Muether

Holy Ghost and Fire

2012-01-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

A sound . . . came from heaven . . . they saw . . . The gift had to be visible, so that the disciples might be roused through their physical senses. We are so slow to think about the gifts of God that unless he wakes up all our senses, his power passes away without our noticing. These physical signs prepared the disciples to understand more clearly that the Spirit Christ had promised had now come.
John Calvin commenting on Acts 2:2–3

During my years as a Pentecostal, praying for the “Holy Ghost and fire” to come was common. Typically the prayer would be for the uninitiated to receive the “gift of tongues,” or for the already blessed to have the spigot of “Holy Ghost” power turned to full. One of the main proof-texts for such requests was Acts 2:2–3:

And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them

In these passages we read of three signs accompanying the Spirit’s arrival: 1) the sound of a violent rushing wind; 2) visible “tongues” of fire; 3) and each person hearing the “mighty deeds of God” declared in his own language (vrs. 11).

For the purposes of this post we’ll focus on the second sign and see if it really refers to an ecstatic gift or buster-shot of power.

Tongue

First, the sign is visible: It appeared to them. Or, as the New King James puts it, “and one sat upon each of them.” This differentiates it from the other two signs which were audible.

Luke uses the word “tongue” (i.e., that muscular piece of tissue in your mouth) to describe what the sign looked like: a flame, like that dancing atop a candle, resting upon each person. (This is similar to describing the decent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus as being “like a dove.”) Luke is simply being a good narrator by using a common element to paint a word picture.

Fire

Throughout the Scriptures fire is used to show both God’s glorious presence among His people (Gen. 15:17; Ex. 19:18, 40:34–38) and His all-consuming fire of judgment (Due. 4:24; Mal 3:2–5, 4:1; Heb. 12:29). Consider Luke 3:15–17:

Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ,

John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

"His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

Here John the Baptist reveals that Christ will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Vrs. 17 makes it clear that the “fire” is the fire of judgment. This is significant because we see the church at Pentecost not being consumed by the fire. Reason being, Christ, as God’s sacrificial lamb (John. 1:29), bore God’s judgment in our place (Isa. 53:6; 2 Cor. 5:21).

"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!”

Luke 12:49–50

Jesus bears the baptism of God’s fiery wrath so that when He casts the fire of judgment upon the earth, His people won’t be consumed. That’s what’s taking place in Acts 2—the tongues-like-fire representing both God’s judgment (and our delivery from it) and His glorious presence among His people.

Conclusion

Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear

Acts 2:33

Peter reveals that on that Pentecost God fulfilled His promise and sent His Spirit. This makes the events of Acts 2 a unique part of Redemptive History. Pentecostals misapply these texts by reducing Pentecost to some personal, post-conversion experience. But it’s not about me and my experience—it’s about Christ and His glorious work of redemption.

Today in Church History: Henry Sloane Coffin

2012-01-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

On January 5, 1877, Henry Sloane Coffin was born in Manhattan.
Educated at Yale and at Union Seminary in New York, Coffin pastored Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church from 1905 to 1926, when he became president of Union Seminary, where he served until 1946.

Coffin "loved New York and accepted the patrician responsibility of advancing its welfare," according to historian Bradley Longfield. A self-proclaimed "liberal evangelical," Coffin was a prominent voice in the liberal New York Presbytery throughout the Presbyterian controversy in the early twentieth-century, and he defended the Presbytery's liberty to ordain men who denied the virgin birth of Christ. His threat to lead a walk-out of liberals from the 1925 General Assembly was narrowly avoided when moderator Charles Erdman convened the Special Commission to examine the unrest in the church. That Commission eventually exonerated the New York Presbytery and the signers of the Auburn Affirmation. According to Time magazine, "Dr. Coffin went to the [1925] General Assembly, as he had gone before, one of the many commissioners from the Presbytery of New York. He returned the acknowledged leader of the liberal elements of his church."

Nearly two decades later, in 1943, the General Assembly elected Coffin as moderator, further symbolizing the triumph of liberalism in the PCUSA. Coffin passed away in 1954.

- John Muether

William Tyndale – Part 2 (Conclusion)

2012-01-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

In part 1, we learned of William Tyndale’s early life and how he was drawn to the Reformation. We also learned of the Roman Catholic Church's murderess opposition to an English translation of the Bible. In this post we’ll pickup where we left off, the immanent danger in which Tyndale found himself.

Tyndale’s End

Fearing for his life, Tyndale fled London for Brussels in 1524 where he continued his translation work for the next 12 years. Tyndale’s time in exile was dreadful, as he describes in a 1531 letter:

. . . my pains . . . my poverty . . . my exile out of mine natural country, and bitter absence from my friends . . . my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, and finally . . . innumerable other hard and sharp fighting’s which I endure.

On the evening of May 21, 1535, Tyndale was betrayed to the authorities by a man he trusted, Henry Philips. For the next 18 months, Tyndale lived a prisoner in Vilvorde Castle, six miles outside of Brussles. The charge was heresy.

The verdict came in August, 1536. He was condemned as a heretic and defrocked as a priest. On or about October 6, 1536, Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled by an executioner, and then his body burned. He was 42 years old. His last words were, “Lord! Open the King of England’s Eyes!”

Tyndale’s Legacy

Tyndale’s translations were the foundations for Miles Coverdale’s Great Bible (1539) and later for the Geneva Bible (1557). As a matter of fact, about 90% of the Geneva Bible’s New Testement was Tyndale’s work. In addition, the 54 scholars who produced the 1611 Authorized Version (King James) bible relied heavily upon Tyndale’s translations, although they did not give him credit.

Tyndale is also known as a pioneer in the biblical languages. He introduced several words into the English language, such as Jehovah, Passover, scapegoat, and atonement.

It has been asserted that Tyndale's place in history has not yet been sufficiently recognized as a translator of the Scriptures, as an apostle of liberty, and as a chief promoter of the Reformation in England. In all these respects his influence has been singularly under-valued, at least to Protestants.
Wikipedia

Today in Church History: Robert Lewis Dabney

2012-01-03T05:05:00.001-08:00

On January 3, 1898, Robert Lewis Dabney died in Victoria, Texas.

Born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1820, Dabney studied at Hampden-Sidney College, the University of Virginia, and Union Seminary in Virginia. He pastored Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church for six years before serving on the faculty of Union Seminary from 1859 to 1883 (interrupted by service as a chaplain in the Confederate army during the Civil War). For health reasons he later moved to Texas, where he served eleven years on the faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. After his death, Dabney's body was shipped to Virginia where he was buried in a Confederate uniform.

A lover of the South, Dabney became the leading Southern Presbyterian theologian after the Civil War and a prominent defender of the southern tradition. His writings included a biography of Stonewall Jackson (1866), A Defense of Virginia and Through Her of the South (1867), and his four-volume Discussions (1890-1897). According to historian A. H. Freundt, "Dabney's style was terse, powerful and fresh. Interested in practical matters, he was concerned to apply Christian faith not only to religious topics but also to moral and social philosophy. Because of his willingness to wrestle with difficult theological issues and make his own critical observations, some have regarded Dabney's systematic theology as more profound than that of Charles Hodge."

- John Muether

William Tyndale - Part 1

2012-01-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

"I defy the pope and all his laws; and, if God spares me, I will one day make the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the pope does!" So said translation pioneer William Tyndale.

Born near Dursley, Gloucestershire, UK, between 1484 and 1496, Tyndale developed a zeal to get the Bible into the hands of the common man—a passion for which he ultimately gave his life.

Educated at Oxford and Cambridge, Tyndale became fluent in at least seven languages. In 1522, the same year Luther translated the New Testament into German, Tyndale was an ordained Catholic priest serving John Walsh of Gloucestershire. It was during this time, when Tyndale was 28 years of age, that he began pouring over Erasmus’ Greek New Testament. The more he studied the more the doctrines of the Reformation became clear. And like a great fire kindled by a lighting strike, so Tyndale’s heart was set ablaze by the doctrines of grace:

By grace . . . we are plucked out of Adam the ground of all evil and graffed in Christ, the root of all goodness. In Christ God loved us, his elect and chosen, before the world began and reserved us unto the knowledge of his Son and of his holy gospel; and when the gospel is preached to us openeth our hearts and giveth us grace to believe, and putteth the spirit of Christ in us: and we know him as our Father most merciful, and consent to the law and love it inwardly in our heart and desire to fulfill it and sorrow because we do not.

Rome’s Opposition to an English Translation

Nearly 200 years earlier, starting in 1382, John Wycliff and his followers (known as Lollards) distributed hand-written English translations of Scripture. The Archbishop of Canterbury responded by having Wycliffe and his writings condemned.

But Rome was not finished. In 1401, Parliament passed a law making heresy a capital offence. Seven years later, the Archbishop of Canterbury made it a crime to “translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue . . . and that no man can read any such book . . . in part or in whole." The sentence was burning. Across Europe, the flames were ignited and the Lollards were all but destroyed. Rome was determined to keep God’s Word out of the people’s hands.

. . . as a boy of 11 watched the burning of a young man in Norwich for possessing the Lord’s Prayer in English . . . John Foxe records . . . seven Lollards burned at Coventry in 1519 for teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English.
John Bale (1495-1563)

Rome was not finished with Wycliffe either: 44 years after his death, the pope ordered Wycliffe’s bones exhumed, burned, and his ashes scattered.

Tyndale was truly in great danger.

Stay Tuned for part 2 !

The Necessity of Creeds By Rev. Robert Grossmann

2012-01-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

The Word of God calls upon believers to confess their faith. Jesus said, Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 10:32). The apostle Paul concurs: If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom. 10:9). To assure a purity of confession, the church has written various creeds over the years. Creeds are universal as summaries of the truth of the gospel.

Even those who proclaim "No Creed but Christ" have a list of propositions that defines the Christ they believe in. The problem is that they are not willing to publish this list since it might change. There should be no fear to publish the teachings of Scripture, though: the Lord got his doctrines right the first time! Nevertheless, as Christians we must agree that, if our creedal summary is in error, we will change it.

The Bible teaches that man's conscience should be bound only by the Word of God (Mark 7:9). This does not lead to anarchy, as one might suppose, because the Bible also teaches the unity of the true faith and separation from those who do not hold to the clear teaching of God's Word (2 Cor. 6:14ff.; 1 Tim. 6:3-5; 1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 10).

Basic Christian unity is confessed by Reformed Christians with all who sincerely hold to the teachings of the Apostles' Creed (see Heidelberg catechism, Questions 22 and 54). Historic confessions have generally used the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer to structure their more specific doctrinal statements.

Reformed churches, along with other churches descending from the Reformation, have followed the ancient church tradition of writing expository creeds which state Biblical teaching in a way that separates believers from unbelievers (cf. the Nicene Creed, which declares that all Christians must believe in the Trinity). Reformed confessions include the Heidelberg catechism, the Belgic Confession of Faith, the Canons of Dort, the Second Helvetic Confession and the Westminster Standards (the first three creeds constitute the confessional base of the RCUS). These expository creeds serve as the skin and bones for the church as an organization on earth. As bones, they give it a unifying structure, since all members and officers confess the truth of the doctrines they set forth; as skin, they separate those of a particular denomination from others outside the church structure.

Because Reformed churches hold that unity in truth is the basis of all other unity (2 John 10), they form close-knit denominational fellowships and establish ecumenical connections with other Reformed bodies holding similar creeds. Such fraternal relations should not be confused with the modern tendency of church unionism.

Notable Quote: R.C. Sproul

2011-12-31T05:37:00.000-08:00

R.C. Sproul defines inspiration and infallibility:

Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called infallible and inerrant.
Infallible signifies the quality of neither misleading nor being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy Scripture is a sure, safe, and reliable rule and guide in all matters.
Similarly, inerrant signifies the quality of being free from all falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.

Explaining Inerrancy

The Return of Gnosticism

2011-12-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

Not long ago my aunt died from complications related to Alzheimers. At her funeral, the “minister,” who was somehow associated with Calvary Chapel, made several references to her spirit being “released from the prison house of the body.” This terminology comes from an ancient heresy called Gnosticism. Gene Edward Veith, in a World Magazine article titled Return of the Cainites, provides this helpful definition:

The Gnostics were eastern mystics who taught that the physical realm is intrinsically evil and that the spirit can be freed from its bondage to physicality through the attainment of secret knowledge (or "gnosis"). They rejected the Christian doctrine of creation (saying that the material world is evil). They denied the incarnation (saying that Christ was a spiritual being who brought the secret knowledge and denying that He became "flesh"). And they denied the redemption (saying that sin is not a moral failure—since what we do in the flesh does not affect our spirits—but simply a lack of spiritual knowledge).

Although Gnosticism is primarily considered a second century heresy, a precursor to it known as Docetism was present in the time of the Apostles. John addresses this heresy in 1 John 4:1–6. Like Cher and her annual “farewell tour,” this heresy just won’t admit defeat and remain on the ash heap of history.

Today the Gnostics are back in vogue. Feminist theologian Elaine Pagels of Princeton argues that Gnosticism is more open to women, since the body makes no difference to the spirit. She maintains that the early church labeled Gnosticism a heresy as part of a patriarchal plot to oppress women. And the Cainites have come back in pop literature. Philip Pullman, in the His Dark Materials fantasy novels for young people—currently being made into a motion picture—presents God as the villain and Satan as the hero. Dan Brown in the mega-seller The Da Vinci Code draws on Gnostic writings and continues their tradition by making up history to create the impression that Christ's real message was feminism and sexual liberation.

Gnosticism lets you be "spiritual"—as an inner mysticism—without worrying about objective truth or what you do with your body. But, like Judas, it betrays Christ.

Read the rest of Mr. Veith’s article here.

Today in Church History: Charles Hodge, Princeton Theological Seminary

2011-12-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

On December 28, 1797, Charles Hodge was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

After graduating from the College of New Jersey and Princeton Seminary, Hodge was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick in 1821, and the General Assembly appointed him to the Princeton faculty in 1822. For the next 56 years he trained over 3,000 students at Princeton, including two of his sons who would eventually join the faculty. In 1825 he founded the Princeton Review and throughout the course of his career he would use it to publish on all the major theological controversies of his day, defending Reformed orthodoxy against New Divinity, European romanticism, frontier revivalism, and Darwinian evolution.

Hodge was also an active churchman. He lent his support to the Old School wing of the Presbyterian Church, supporting the 1837 division and opposing the 1869 reunion. In 1846 he served as the moderator of the Old School General Assembly.

On June 19, 1878, Hodge died at the age of 80. Alfred Nevin described him as "one of the brightest and best ornaments of the Presbyterian Church."

- John Muether

Preach Like a Calvinist!

2011-12-27T05:07:00.000-08:00

Think like a Calvinist. Preach like an Arminian.

Most Calvinists, myself included, would take exception with the second line—for we, indeed, must also preach like a Calvinist! But what does that mean? How do you preach like a Calvinist? Pastor Eric McKiddie breaks it down like this:

Explicitly call the unregenerate to believe in the gospel.
Trust that the Holy Spirit will do the work to make that call effective in the elect.
Pray that God would save people through the inherent power of the gospel.

Pastor McKiddie expounds on this topic in a post over at The Gospel Coalition site. Here’s an excerpt . . .

Eschewing theological labels for a moment, it is biblical and Christian to call people to believe in the gospel. This is, after all, how Jesus began his ministry: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:14-15). You don't have to know Greek to recognize the imperatives.
But we Calvinists love to quote Ephesians 2:8. "Faith is a gift from God!" we exclaim. "It doesn't originate in the person!"
The question is: When non-Christians do repent and believe the gospel, do they express faith in Christ? Or does God grant the gift of faith in Christ to men? Yes! Why? Scripture teaches that faith in Christ includes both an objective and a subjective aspect. This is not a contradiction. Rather, the two must be held in tension.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

HT: Contemporary Calvinist

Avicenna and the Law of Non-Contradiction

2011-12-26T06:13:00.000-08:00

Many Postmodern thinkers have taken to denying the law of non-contradiction. This law of thought states that A cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same sense.

Despite their protestations, Postmodern-types violate this law when they claim that truth cannot be known. Since they mean for this claim to be taken as true (despite their verbal smoke and mirrors), they are saying that it’s the case that truth can be known and it’s the case that truth cannot be known.

Folly Revealed

With all the ills Islam has brought to humanity, I’ve found something commendable. Muslim philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) deftly shows the folly of denying the law of non-contradiction.

Anyone who denies the Law of Non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as to not be burned.
Avicenna (980-1037)

I recommend setting this to memory for use next time you encounter someone denying the law of non-contradiction—or if you just simply want to recite flowery Islamic prose.

Jacob’s Ladder

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

In Genesis 28 we find God speaking to Jacob in a dream. The Lord tells Jacob that his descendants will multiply, be blessed of God, and will inherit the land upon which he was laying (vrs. 13 and 14). The Lord also promised to be with Jacob wherever he goes and to bring him back to this land (vrs. 15). Prior to the Lord’s address, however, a strange vision was given to Jacob.

He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

Genesis 28:12

No explanation of the vision is provided in the text. So what does it mean?

Ziggurats

During Jacob’s journeys through ancient Mesopotamia, it is certain that he saw many ziggurats. These temple towers, which appear not only in the Middle East but also in Central America, were a place of sacrifice to various gods. The most famous ziggurat being the Tower of Babel described in Genesis 11.

Ziggurats featured a stepped construction comprising a large base that ascended, step-by-step, to a much smaller summit. Upon the summit was the alter. The purpose behind the ziggurats was for men to ascend to heaven.

So What’s Jacob’s Ladder About?

For the interpretation of Jacob’s dream we must turn to the New Testament, to the words of the Savior.

And He said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

John 1:51

Christ is the ladder Jacob saw in the vision. Unlike the ziggurats where men are ascending to God, God descended to man in the person of Christ. This is the difference between Christianity and the religions of men: all non-Christian religions are works-based—man trying to ascend to God via his own righteousness. This is like a drowning man trying to climb out of a pool using a ladder of water; it can’t be done. Christianity is completely opposite: man’s works play no part in bringing the sinner to God.

Here’s the gospel in a word: imputation. It’s Christ’s righteousness (His perfect keeping of the Law) being imputed (transferred) to His people, and their sins being imputed to Him (which He bore on the cross). Men can only stand before God when clothed in Christ’s righteousness—and this was accomplished by God descending to man, not man ascending to God.

It may be demaunded, what is that thing in Christ, by and for which, we are justified. I answer, the Obedience of Christ, Rom. 5. 19. And it stands in two things, his Passion in life and death, and his Fulfilling of the law joined therewith. . . . The obedience of his passion stands before God as a satisfaction for the breach of the law. . . . By the second Obedience in fulfilling the lawe, the sonne of God performed for us, all things contained therein, that we might have right to life everlasting, and that according to the tenour of the lawe, Levit. 18.5.
William Perkins (1558-1602)

For further reading: Heidelberg Catechism, questions and answers 12–18.

Merry Christmas!

Notable Quote: James Motgomery Boice

2011-12-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

James Motgomery Boice on the impact of the virgin birth upon one’s worldview . . .

The virgin birth is important in regard to our world view. When I speak of a world view, I mean a total world philosophy. The most important issue in philosophy is whether we are living in a closed universe or an open universe. When we look about at the visible universe, when we see matter and the laws that govern it, the basic question is whether that is all there is. If it is, we have a closed universe. That is the dominant view of our time. On the other hand, when we look at the universe of things and ideas, do we confess that we are not dealing with a closed universe but with a universe in which God lies above and beyond what we see? That is an open universe, and that is the Bible’s view.
The Christ of Christmas

Same-Sex Marriage and State Interest

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

From The Wittenberg Door archives . . .

Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation," George wrote for the majority. "An individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

According to the California Supreme Court, marriage rights should be conferred upon same-sex couples because they can establish loving, long-term, committed relationships. Not to do so would be the same as denying fundamental rights to citizens based solely upon their skin color.

Loving, Long-Term, Committed Relationships

I love Frank Capra’s 1944 adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace. It’s one of my favorite movies. So it's with great trepidation that I add this modern twist: What if the Brewsters lived somewhere in California instead of Brooklyn, New York; and one day, the sisters, Abby and Martha, hear on the radio that same-sex, loving, long-term couples can now receive the same benefits that married couples receive. Seeing as how they are of the same sex, they love each other, and they have pledged to spend their lives together, they must be eligible, right? Not so fast.

There’s a problem—they’re not having sex. The government is not interested in their loving, lifelong, same-sex relationship unless the wild mambo is involved. So out came plan B: Elaine.

Elaine, the minister’s daughter, moves in with the Brewster sisters; and since Elaine is looking to offset some gambling losses (she was sure Michigan could take North Carolina), she’s willing to have sex for money (i.e., tax benefits).

“But wait,” says the government! “We have some arbitrary rules to apply: sisters don’t count, and it can’t be three people, and Elaine is already married to Mortimer, so she’s out ...”

“But we love each other! Isn't it all about love?"

As this little exercise in reductio ad absurdam reveals, the court’s ruling is logically vacuous.

Is Homosexuality the Same as Ethnicity?

As the Los Angeles Times points out, “The ruling cited a 60-year-old precedent that struck down a ban on interracial marriage in California.” In the court’s mind, ethnicity and homosexuality are on the same moral plain. But is this the case?

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ethnicity is white. He was born that way and can do nothing to change it. His ethnicity is intrinsic to him. Consequently he had—and has—no choice in the matter. Those with homosexual desires, on the other hand, have a choice as to whether or not to act upon those desires. The latter is morally relevant, while the former is not. Thus ethnicity and homosexuality are not on the same moral plain (one involves choice and the other does not—one is intrinsic and the other a behavior). And since the state should only treat equals equally, it is in fact immoral to judicially conflate the two.

State Interest

The State should only have an interest in two types of contractual relationships: corporations and heterosexual marriages. The first because the State is required to regulate commerce (section 8, clause 3 of the constitution); and the second because it is the best way for it, the State, to perpetuate itself.

This unit is the best way to secure society’s future. Therefore, the State has an interest in favoring and protecting marriage between a man and a woman. It has no such interest in same-sex unions.

Notable Quote: William Hendriksen

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

William Hendriksen on the angels’ reaction to the birth of Christ . . .

The baby was born in a stable, not in a palace. It was laid in a feeding trough for animals, not in a pretty bassinet. All this spells poverty, deprivation . . . These angels, having been associated with Christ in heaven before his incarnation, knew something about his glory, riches, and majesty. They had also become aware of man’s fall. And they had been informed that God had provided a way of salvation for man. Gabriel’s announcement to Joseph—“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21)—clearly implies this.
Did they also know that this work of saving man, while at the same time fully maintaining God’s righteousness, meant that the Father would not spar his own Son: that the Son, thought he was rich, for his people’s sake would become poor, vicariously bearing the curse resting on those whom he came to save; and that the Holy Spirit would condescend to dwell in sinful hearts, applying to them the salvation merited by the Son. We can assume at least that the very birth of Christ in a condition of poverty and deprivation must have caused these angels to stand in awe of God’s indescribably marvelous love.
The Gospel of Luke

Rick Warren and Your Chance of a Lifetime!

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve discovered some disturbing news. We’ve missed the chance of a life time, a chance at “making Christian history.” And if that weren’t bad enough, we’ve also missed our chance at a once-in-a-life-time event: to be photographed with Rick Warren. [Insert bobbysoxer screams here.]

“But how, Mr. Catechizer, could I ever attain such an honor?” It’s simple. Just join Saddleback Church.

But wait! There’s even more!

In Rick Warren’s own words, here’s eight reasons to join his church . . .

1. I'm personally teaching Class 101 for the first time in ten years.
2. I'm personally baptizing after Class and you'll receive a photo & baptism certificate.
3. You'll get a free one year subscription to Purpose Driven Connection magazine. (Never offered before)
4. You'll get free copy of The Purpose Driven Church book.
5. Your name will be included in the historical list of Saddleback Pioneer Members who joined in our first 30 years. (This Easter is our 30th Easter and I want you included in this list.)
6. The class is 1 hour shorter than normal . . .
7. You'll be a part of making Christian history! The largest membership class ever!
8. We love you & want you in our family. There is no good reason to procrastinate.

But alas, we’ve missed our chance to fawn over pastor Warren (and lost-out on the free Ginsu knives). But never fear! I hear that Justin Bieber is on tour.

Today in Church History: Church of Scotland, Scottish Reformation

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

On December 20, 1560, the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland convened in Edinburgh.

Under the leadership of John Knox, six ministers and 36 elders gathered to deliberate on and eventually to present for the approval of the Scottish Parliament the Book of Discipline, drafted earlier in that year. Although this work would be superseded by the Second Book of Discipline by 1578, the greater significance of the 1560 gathering was its establishment of the Presbyterian pattern of annual meetings of commissioners from each presbytery. This conciliar system of church government finds its biblical precedent in the Jerusalem council of Acts 15.

The highest representative body in the Reformed system of government is presided over by a moderator, with the stated clerk serving as chief executive officer. The General Assembly oversees and supervises its committees and agencies, along with the lower assemblies of the church (which in turn submit overtures and appeals to the General Assembly). In Presbyterian polity, the General Assembly is itself limited in its powers and subject to the constitution of the church The precise authority that it holds varies among Reformed denominations. The American Presbyterian tradition has generally assumed a more decentralized character, with undelegated powers residing in the Presbyteries.

- John Muether

Nativity Scenes

2011-12-19T05:41:00.000-08:00

Tis’ the season for gift giving, carol singing, and circumnavigating the ubiquitous nativity scenes. Maybe your nativity scene of choice is the plastic kind that sits as a crown Christmas jewel atop your TV; or perhaps you’re the more earthy type who prefers the living, breathing kind that leaves droppings in the church courtyard. Whatever the variety, they all share a common element: baby Jesus nestled in the manager.

But have you considered this? —Jesus is God.

Q: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
A: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are . . . the making of any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of creature whatsoever . . .
The Westminster Larger Catechism, question 109

Consider the following syllogism:

Making a representation of God is forbidden (Deut. 4:15–19; Acts 17:29; Rom. 1:21–25).
Jesus is God.
Therefore, making a representation of Jesus is forbidden.

Something to think about before wrapping your daughter’s doll in swaddling clothes.

Five Reasons to Join a Church

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

Tim Challies offers five reasons to join a church :

1. For Assurance
While a person should not feel he needs to join a church in order to be saved, he ought to join a church to be certain that he has been saved. Christians, those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, will naturally gravitate towards other Christians and will desire to be with them, to learn from them, and to serve them. A person who professes Christ but feels no desire to be among his believing brothers and sisters is not a healthy Christian. Thus, eager participation in a local church and heartfelt attempts to measure our enthusiasm for that group of believers is a God-given way for us to assure ourselves that we are truly saved.
2. To Evangelize the World
The gospel can best be spread through combined and collaborative efforts. Throughout the history of the church great men and women have attempted great things on their own and have often been successful. But more often, great things have been accomplished through the collaborate efforts of Christians working together. If we are to reach this world with the gospel message of Jesus Christ, we must share our efforts with other believers.
3. To Expose False Gospels
As we interact with other believers, we will see what true Christianity is, which ought to expose the common belief that Christians are self-righteous, selfish individuals. As we labor, fellowship, and serve alongside other Christians, and as we observe the lives of other Christ-followers, we will see what biblical Christianity looks like. The more we see of genuine Christianity, the more the counterfeits will be exposed.
4. To Edify the Church
Joining a church will help Christians counter their sinful individualism and teach them the importance of seeking to serve and edify others. The benefit of being a member of a local church is not primarily inward, but outward. Christians attend a local church so they might have opportunities to serve others and thus to serve God. Every Christian should be eager to serve within the church and to edify others through teaching, serving, and exercising the spiritual gifts.
5. To Glorify God
We can bring God glory through the way we live our lives. God is honored when we are obedient to him. He is glorified when his people come together in unity and harmony to find assurance, to evangelize the world, to expose false gospels, and to edify one another. God is glorified in and through the local church.

Notable Quote: Richard Baxter

2011-12-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

Richard Baxter (1615 – 1691) on the danger of man-pleasing:

Remember that the favour and pleasing of man is one of your snares, that would prevail against your pleasing God; therefore watch against the danger of it, as you must do against other earthy things.

Today in Church History: George Whitefield, Revivalism

2011-12-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

On December 16, 1714, revivalist and evangelist George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England.

Trained initially as an actor, Whitefield was educated at Pembroke College in Oxford and ordained in 1736. At the invitation of John and Charles Wesley, Whitefield traveled to North America in 1739, where he quickly became the best-known figure in the Great Awakening. His fervent open-air preaching " filled with colloquial phrases, dramatic pauses, and vivid word pictures " met with remarkable success.

Whitefield's practice of itinerant preaching furthered tensions within colonial Presbyterianism. Revivalists felt justified in traveling from village to village, speaking to crowds whether inside church buildings or outside in the market square, with or without the invitation of the local pastor. Established pastors, however, considered such occasions of preaching as a rebuke to their own ministry and feared the disorder, error, and individualism that itinerants cultivated. The effect of itinerancy was to undermine the discipline and authority of the local church. Through the ministry of Whitefield and other revivalists, American Protestantism moved away from careful observance of traditional Old World forms and toward an emphasis on individual religious experience.

John Muether

Truth as Proof for God's Existence

2011-12-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

Over at the Christian Theology blog, Doug Eaton posts a page out of Ronald Nash's book, Faith and Reason, explaining Gordon Clark's argument for the existence of God from truth. Here's how Doug kicks it off . . .

Gordon Clark being a presuppositionalist normally did not argue for the existence of God, but in this case he thought it was valuable. Taking his cue from Augustine, he developed this argument. This argument is also given by Alvin Plantinga in a slightly different way. The following is Ronald Nash’s explanation of Clark’s argument.

Clark’s account of the argument from truth utilizes six steps:

1. Truth Exists
2. Truth is immutable
3. Truth is eternal
4. Truth is mental
5. Truth is superior to the human mind
6. Truth is God

Click here for Ronald Nash's explanation of the six steps.

Thought of the Day: God’s Justice vs. His Love

2011-12-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

It’s in vogue today to claim that God won’t punish anyone because He’s a loving God. The truth is, if you sacrifice justice for love, you have likewise sacrificed love—for love demands justice. Thankfully, this is a false dilemma—one does not have to be sacrificed for the other. God is both loving and just—and we see both God’s love and His justice in the doing and dying of Christ.

Notable Quote: William Tyndale

2011-12-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

William Tyndale (1494 – 1596) on the law-gospel distinction . . .

In the Old Testament are many promises, which are nothing else but the Evangelion or gospel, to save those that believed them from the vengeance of the law. And in the New Testament is oft made mention of the law, to condemn them which believe not the promises. Moreover, the law and the gospel may never be separate: for the gospel and promises serve but for troubled consciences, which are brought to desperation, and feel the pains of hell and death under the law, and are in captivity and bondage under the law. In all my deeds I must have the law before me, to condemn mine imperfectness. For all that I do (be I never so perfect) is yet damnable sin, when it is compared to the law, which requreth the ground and bottom of mine heart.
I must therefore have always the law in my sight, that I may be meek in the spirit, and give God all the laud and praise, ascribing to him all righteousness, and to myself all unrighteousness and sin. I must also have the promises before mine eyes, that I despair not; in which promises I see the mercy, favor, and good-will of God upon me in the blood of his Son Christ, which hath made satisfaction for mine imperfectness, and fulfilled for me that which I could not do . . .

The Terrorist Threat from Non-Islamic Religions

2011-12-12T06:02:00.000-08:00

From The Wittenberg Door archives . . .

WASHINGTON — A Baptist organization committed to religious freedom for all has urged Rep. Peter King and his committee to broaden the scope of the planned hearing on the “radicalization” of American Muslims scheduled for Thursday.
Rep. King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has singled out the Muslim faith, says J. Brent Walker, who is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Walker said the implied suggestion that Terrorist threats to the American people result from one religious group is an insult to the millions of peaceful Muslim American citizens. . . .
. . . Walker said “the hearing will send a further message that Muslims present a greater threat of Terrorism than other religions,” and “it would imply that the potential for Terrorism from outside of Islam is not significant enough to merit a hearing.

The Baptist organization’s plea was for the committee to not only focus on Islamic radicals, but radicals of other faiths too. We can surmise from the Baptists’ concern that other religions pose as least as much threat as the Islamic radicals.

But who can blame them when you think of the Tibetan Monks who tried to detonate a car bomb in Time Square? Or, in Jacksonville FL, the pipe bomb attack upon a mosque carried out by Amish militants. Even in places where safety should be expected, like the most populated military installation in the world: Fort Hood. There, the bloody hand of a radicalized Hindu sect attacked, killing 13 and wounding 32. And how can we forget the most heinous attack by extremists on American soil: 9/11. It took just 19 members of a Christian Evangelical extremist group to murder 3,000 people; killing in the name of their god as they yelled, “Praise Jesus!”

Or was it Islamisist who committed these atrocities?

The number of terrorist attacks since 9/11 worldwide committed by radicals in the name of their god tells the tale:

Islam – 16,961 (now 18,120)

Budism – 0

Hinduism – 0

Christianity – 0

Judaism – 0

So, according to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the threat from radicalized Islam is no greater than that of any other religion. I’m glad that truth matters to them.

Inclusivism and John 14:6

2011-12-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Kevin DeYoung makes a great point against the inclusivistic interpretation of John 14:6 over at his blog . . .

Inclusivists believe that everyone who is saved is saved through the person and work of Christ. They do not, however, insist that conscious faith (on the part of sentient adults) is necessary to appropriate this saving work. Some Buddhists or Hindus or good people in our neighborhoods drawn to the true and the beautiful might be saved through Christ without knowing it. But what about John 14:6? Inclusivists understand “no one can come to the Father except through me” to mean through my saving work. Faith may not be necessary.
No doubt, it’s true that no one can be saved apart from the work of Christ. But the “through” in John 14:6 means “through faith in me.”
Look at the immediate context. Jesus begins the chapter by telling the disciples “believe in me” (14:1). Then verse 7 talks about knowing the Father by knowing the Son. Verse 9 makes clear that whoever sees Jesus has seen the Father. Verses 12 and 13 repeat the exhortation to believe in Jesus. The point of the whole section is that if you know/see/believe in Jesus you know the Father. And conversely, you cannot go to the Father or follow Jesus to his heavenly glory unless you know and believe in Son.

You can read the entire post here.

Notable Quote: James Boice

2011-12-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

On solus Christus . . .

The Reformers taught that salvation is by and through the work of Jesus Christ only, which is what the slogan solus Christus refers to. It means that [through the cross and the empty tomb] Jesus has done it all so that now no merit on the part of man, no merit of the saints, no works of ours performed either here or in purgatory can add to that completed saving work.

The Lazy Atheist?— The Christian Worldview (Conclusion)

2011-12-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

In part 1 I mentioned that for a worldview to be viably considered it must be able to make sense of reality. Atheism as a worldview fails to provide a foundation for abstract (non-material), invariant (things not given to change) entities, such as morality, mathematics, laws of logic, and propositions. Moreover, atheism fails to make sense of love and beauty, and is found wanting when it comes to accounting for the regularity of nature.

So what are we to make of it when atheists love, show compassion, demand justice, use logic and mathematics, and engage in the scientific enterprise? Like a drowning man denying the existence of water, they must assume the Christian worldview in order to refute it—for it is Christianity, not atheisim, that comports with reality.

Christianity Provides the Answers

Christianity answers the tough questions:

Morality
Murder (the unjust taking of a human life) is wrong. We know this innately. The same is true with theft, adultery, rape, lying, etc. (Sure, there’ve been variations on these themes, but the themes remain.)

Morality reflects God’s character. He is holy, righteous, and just. We are beings created in his image; therefore, we are moral agents. It is upon this very foundation that civilization is made possible.

Mathematics and the Laws of Logic
Prove 2+2=4. Most people grab four items, place them next to each other, and then say “two pencils and two pencils equal four pencils.” But this doesn’t solve the problem—it merely restates the equation using a different physical representation.

How about the laws of logic? Are the laws of logic—the law of non-contradiction (A cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same sense), the law of identity (A is A), and the law of excluded middle (A is either A or it isn’t)—merely human inventions? If they are, we’re doomed. Actually, all cultures assume the laws of logic. Language isn’t even possible without them, and thus civilization would not be possible.

2+2=4 because that’s the way it is in the mind of God; and the laws of logic reflect His thinking. Again, we think this way because we are His image bearers. Thus, Aristotle discovered (i.e., categorized) the laws of logic; he did not invent them.

Uniformity of Nature
God upholds all things by the word of His power. It is because of this that we see regularity in nature, and it is because of this that we can extrapolate future events from the past. This provides the needed foundation for science and answers Hume’s Problem of Induction. All this without making incredulous claims like everything came from nothing; order came from disorder; life came from non-life; consciousness came from non-consciousness, etc.

Propositions
How much does a thought weigh? How deep into space does a proposition extend? How long is it? Imagine Snoopy atop his red-roofed doghouse. Now, if we opened your cranium, would we find him there? I don’t think so. But if thoughts are material, he must be there! Perhaps we just don’t have a microscope powerful enough.

Wrapping It Up

Like the previous post, this is just a thumbnail sketch (and we still didn’t have room to talk about love and beauty)—but at least it’s a start. All claims to explain reality must be scrutinized, including atheism. The ball’s in your court, Penn.

Thou Didst Love Me Before I Loved Thee

2011-12-08T06:17:00.000-08:00

Thou didst love me before I loved thee,
An enemy, a sinner, a loathsome worm,
Thou didst own me with I disclaimed myself,
Thou dost love me as a son,
And weep over me as over Jerusalem.

Love brought thee from heaven to earth,
From earth to the cross,
From the cross to the grave.

Love caused thee to be
Weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged,
Buffeted, spat upon, crucified, and pierced.

Love led thee to bow thy head in death.

Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

The Lazy Atheist?—Part 1

2011-12-05T06:02:00.000-08:00

Penn Jillette, of the popular magic duo Penn and Teller, spent some time pontificating on the existence of God over at NPR’s site. By way of respose, I'd like to offer an observation:

Atheists Tend to be Intellectually Lazy When it Comes to Defending Their Atheism

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do.
Penn Jillette

What a wonderful world it must be where you can simply make metaphysical proclamations without bothering to support them with any arguments. To be fair, Penn is not alone in this; this is typical of atheists—but is it justifiable?

Atheism assumes a naturalistic worldview—only material things exist. This is the point where we need to start asking questions.

Is the proposition that only material things exist itself material?

If so, where did they discover it? Under a microscope? Did they trip over the proposition in a parking lot?

If not, the game is over. (That is, of course, unless they’d like to try their hand at proving that material things produce non-material things.)

How about morality? Are moral laws merely human conventions?

They must be. Then by convention Nazi Germany can institute its final solution. The civilized world might not like it, but hey, who are they to judge?

By the way, if morals are culturally defined by the majority, then the moral reformer is by definition amoral. That means people like Martin Luther King should be spurned not praised.

How is science possible in an atheistic universe?

Science depends upon the regularity of the universe. We talk about the law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, ect., but how can there be such laws in a world were everything comes about by random chance? All they can do is describe what has happened in the past. They have no foundation for drawing conclusions about future events. Atheist philosopher David Hume’s Problem of Induction makes this very point.

It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so.
David Hume (1711 - 1776)

Does the Emperor Have Clothes?

What about love? Is there an intrinsic difference between love and hate? Or are they simply different chemical reactions in the brain? Is there a thing called beauty? Is it objective? Is there really a difference between a sunset and a pile of dung? Penn tells us of his enjoyment of both these things (love and beatify that is, not chemicals and dung). He also seems interested in the plight of his fellow man. I’m sure that Penn is sincere, and I don’t question his compassion.

But in a world where we are simply matter in motion, where survival of the fittest reigns, why ought we care about anyone else? Is there really a difference between feeding a starving child or strangling him? If so, how do you account for such distinctions in an atheistic universe?

These questions are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more could be raised, but these are a good start. It’s time for Penn and his ilk to stop ducking the debate with copouts like, “you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do.” Atheists are putting forth a worldview that is radically counter-intuitive—that doesn’t fit the facts. It’s time for them to step-up to the plate and take a shot; and they can start by answering the questions above.

Part 2

For any worldview to be viably considered, it must be able to make sense of reality. This, of course, would include Christianity. In part 2 I’ll make the case for Christianity by considering the aforementioned questions.

Today in Church History: Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Southern Presbyterian Church

2011-12-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

On December 4, 1861, commissioners from the Southern presbyteries that had renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. met at First Presbyterian Church of Augusta, Georgia, and constituted the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America.

The split was prompted by the Civil War and by the action of the previous General Assembly in May, 1861 (with only 16 southern commissioners in attendance). After eight days of debate, the Assembly passed the Gardiner Springs resolutions, which declared the obligation of the church to uphold the Union and pledged loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, in all its provisions, requirements, and principles. Southern Presbyterians considered these resolutions to be a violation of the spirituality of the church and an engagement in partisan politics.

After the war, the two branches of Northern and Southern Presbyterianism continued to coexist until their merger in 1983. That reunion was preceded by a division within the Southern Presbyterians. On December 4, 1973, 112 years to the day after the formation of the PCCSA, the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) convened at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

John Muether

John Calvin: One of History's Top Monsters

2011-12-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

It was at just about this time 2-years ago that I began to read Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, a guided tour through the mind of a sociopath and, doubtless, the engine of huge amounts of human misery; if it could all be totted-up, Calvin would surely rank near the top of the list of history’s monsters.

The author, Bob Felton, appears to be an atheist from what he writes at his Web site, Civil Commotion. He is most concerned with the influence of religious fundamentalism. Based on what I’ve read of him, his concern seems to be restricted to Christianity. Along those lines, nothing seems to raise his ire more than John Calvin, whom he describes as one of history’s top monsters. I must say, when you look at the evidence, he has me convinced.

Used to be, when I reflected upon the great evils in human history I needn’t look further than the last 100 years. During that time we’ve had more state-sponsored murders than all of human history combined—well over 100 million.

Mao Tse Tung - 61.7 million people

Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev - 66.7 million people

Pol Pot – 1/3 of Cambodia’s population

These are just a few butchers who sacrificed people in mass upon the alter of Communism, an ideology that is necessarily atheistic. But, as Mr. Felton reminds us, we mustn’t forget who is near the top of the “monster” list; a true “sociopath” and “engine of huge amounts of human misery”—John Calvin.

Disclaimer: What follows is very graphic and many may find it disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

For the next three years [after his conversion], Calvin lived in various places outside of France under various names. He studied on his own, preached, and began work on his first edition of the Institutes—an instant best seller. By 1536 Calvin had disengaged himself from the Roman Catholic Church and made plans to permanently leave France and go to Strasbourg. However, war had broken out between Francis I and Charles V, so Calvin decided to make a one-night detour to Geneva.
But Calvin's fame in Geneva preceded him. Farel, a local reformer, invited him to stay in Geneva and threatened him with God's anger if he did not. Thus began a long, difficult, yet ultimately fruitful relationship with that city. He began as a lecturer and preacher, but by 1538 was asked to leave because of theological conflicts. He went to Strasbourg until 1541. His stay there as a pastor to French refugees was so peaceful and happy that when in 1541 the Council of Geneva requested that he return to Geneva, he was emotionally torn. He wanted to stay in Strasbourg but felt a responsibility to return to Geneva. He did so and remained in Geneva until his death May 27, 1564. Those years were filled with lecturing, preaching, and the writing of commentaries, treatises, and various editions of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

The horror.

For further information on the atrocities committed by John Calvin, I recommend the expose John Calvin: Servant of the Word. And, If you’re interested in the Servetus affair, Was John Calvin a Murderer? is a fine resource.

Also recommend is the article article The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason, from where I derived numbers above.

(Hat tip to The Contemporary Calvinist for the link to Mr. Felton’s comments.)

Fear and the Last Judgment

2011-12-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

I became a Christian in 1987 at the age of 18. I wasn’t looking for God, but He was clearly looking for me. An ex-girlfriend of my roommate invited me to go to church with her. She was hot; I was board; so why not? Worship was not on my mind as the service began, but something happened. I suddenly became aware that I was lost; that God was terribly angry with me; and that I needed to be made right with Him. I sat in the seat and wept bitterly. Everything had changed.

Peter Hitchins, brother of famous atheist Christopher Hitchins, also had an unexpected conversion. Kevin DeYoung posts an excerpt from Peter Hitchin's book describing the event at his site:

What I can recall, very sharply indeed, is a visit to the Hotel-Dieu in Beaune, a town my girlfriend and I had gone to mainly in search of the fine food and wines of Burgundy. But we were educated travelers and strayed, guidebook in hand, into the ancient hospital. And there, worth the journey according to the Green Michelin guide, was Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenth-century polyptych The Last Judgment.
I scoffed. Another religious painting! Couldn’t these people think of anything else to depict? Still scoffing, I peered at the naked figures fleeing toward the pit of hell, out of my usual faintly morbid interest in the alleged terrors of damnation. But this time I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and, in an odd way, the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me and the people I knew. One of them — and I have always wondered how the painter thought of it — is actually vomiting with shock and fear at the sound of the Last Trump.
I did not have a “religious experience.” Nothing mystical or inexplicable took place — no trance, no swoon, no vision, no voices, no blaze of light. But I had a sudden, strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. A large catalogue of misdeeds, ranging from the embarrassing to the appalling, replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned.

You can read the entire account here, as well as pastor DeYoung's comments.

Discussing Homosexuality

2011-11-30T06:06:00.000-08:00

Here’s some advice for when discussing homosexuality in the market place: steer clear of using the term terms “homosexual” and “homosexuality.” These terms, which have only been around for about 60 years, have taken on a meaning that is foreign to preceding generations and civilizations—that being, homosexuals are regarded as a special class of human being.

This designation gives homosexuals carte blanch when it comes to their behavior. After all, it’s genetic. For them not to act in a way consistent with their nature would be, well, unnatural, or so the argument goes.

Terms

Instead of using "homosexual" and homosexuality," use “homosexual desires” and “Homosexual activity.” Using these terms makes irrelevant the claim that “they are born that way.” Here’s how:

I was born with certain heterosexual desires. These desires are good when exercised properly (i.e., for my wife, and for her alone). However, if I misdirect these desires (i.e., lust towards another woman), they are bad (immoral). When confronted with these misdirected desires, what should I do? Should I say, “Hey, it’s natural; I was born with these desires,” and then act upon them? No. I’m expected to realize that these desires are misdirected (sinful) and to restrain myself.

Likewise, those with homosexual desires should show the same restraint. The moral aspect aside for a moment, isn’t it obvious that their desires are misdirected? If “nature” intended for a man to have relations with another man, wouldn’t “nature” have provided the compatible equipment? It seems obvious that the proper direction for the desires should be towards those of the opposite sex.

Conclusion

Speaking of desires moves the conversation beyond the question of genetics—it doesn’t matter why I have these desires; what matters is how I respond to them. Engaging in homosexual activity is both unnatural (which a quick survey of the equipment reveals), and immoral (this is where a discussion of worldviews comes in). Speaking of desires also avoids the modern notion that “homosexuals” are a special class of humans. Instead, it reveals that they are like anyone else, just with different immoral desires.

Today in Church History: E. J. Young

2011-11-29T14:25:00.000-08:00

On November 29, 1907, Edward Joseph Young was born in San Francisco, California.

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Westminster Theological Seminary (Th.B. and Th.M.), and the Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning (Ph.D.), Young was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in 1935. One year later, he joined the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the same year that he was appointed to the Old Testament department at Westminster Seminary. A prolific author, Young wrote commentaries on Isaiah and Daniel, and several other books including An Introduction to the Old Testament, My Servants the Prophets, and Thy Word is Truth. For many years he served as editor for the Westminster Theological Journal and the New International Commentary on the Old Testament. No less remarkable were Young's labors as an Orthodox Presbyterian churchman. He served as the moderator of the General Assembly in 1956, he was a long-standing member of the Committee on Christian Education (for which he wrote several tracts), and for 15 years he served on the committee that produced the first Trinity Hymnal.

Young's varied service to the church was cut short by his sudden and premature death on February 14, 1968. The Presbyterian Guardian memorialized him in these words: "He was second to none in his research depth of the Scriptures, with a reading knowledge of thirty or more languages, ancient and modern. Writing articles for various journals year after year, Dr. Young did not neglect the ordinary reader in his conscientious effort to explain Biblical truth and its relevance as the Word of God. A willing listener and counselor, he was esteemed as a friend by pupils, colleagues, and many others."

-John Muether

The Loss of Symbolism

2011-11-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about the Reformed church is the symbolism, especially the symbolism involving the pulpit. The pulpit comprises a lectern standing upon a raised platform. Being the most important piece of “furniture” in the church, it is positioned in front of the congregation, with all pews facing it. Its symbolic importance can be summarized as follows:

It’s central—The pulpit’s central placement is important because it is from there that God addresses His people via the preached word. Therefore, it commands the most prominent place in the church.

It’s raised—The pulpit is elevated because it is upon the lectern that the minister’s bible rests, symbolizing the word of God being over the people.

It’s solid—The lectern is made of solid wood, symbolizing the sure foundation upon which God’s word stands. Moreover, it’s large enough to obscure most of the minister’s body, thus keeping the focus on the word. For this reason, Reformed ministers stay behind the lectern, so as to stay behind the word of God.

So Goes the Pulpit, So Goes the Glory of God

Overall, the pulpit represents what the church service is to be primarily about—God’s people coming together to worship Him, and, as mentioned, God addressing His people through the preached word.

Things have changed, though. Pulpits are considered outdated, and even stifling. Like nature, the church abhors a vacuum. In the pulpit’s place sprung the Plexiglas stand, allowing the “minister” to be seen in all of his glory. But this too is seen by some as cumbersome. Why let anything stand in front of the minister, hindering his ability to work the crowd like a Vegas lounge lizard?

Too harsh? Perhaps. But the transition from the pulpit to more modern elements is symptomatic of a greater problem: a shift from the glory of God to the glory of man; a shift from the minister as an empty vessel placarding Christ, to the minister as a personality and centerpiece; a shift from the preached word as a Means of Grace to the advent of a new sacrament—the minister himself.

Is Christianity Left, Right, or Nether?

2011-11-26T06:26:00.000-08:00

Dr. Brian Lee, pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Washington DC, wrote an interesting opinion piece over at The Daily Caller. It’s part of a series where one writer makes the case for Christianity being politically conservative, one that it’s liberal, and one that it’s neither (Rev. Lee’s view).

Warning: If you go on to read the “liberal” article I recommend a belt of whiskey first. It’s a long, rambling invective that offers no discernible arguments; all we learn is that the author hates Christianity, even though the Christianity he hates is a product of his own imagination.

Here’s how Rev. Lee kicks it off . . .

Both the Christian Right and the Christian Left get the question of Christianity and politics wrong.
Christianity is not politically conservative or politically liberal — though Christians may be either. Christianity is not political at all. It is in a sense politically agnostic. But in another sense it calls into question the basis of every earthly power, including politics.

You can read the entire article here.

(HT: The Riddleblog)

Children’s Bibles, Ben-Hur, and Imaging Christ

2011-11-25T06:09:00.000-08:00

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) describes the epic movie Ben-Hur’s plot as follows:

When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

What most people don’t know is that the book upon which the movie is based is actually titled Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ. Published in 1880, this novel, by Union general Lew Wallace, unfolds the life of Christ in parallel to that of the book’s protagonist, Ben-Hur. One of the interesting things about the film is that you never actually see the face of the actor portraying Jesus, opera singer Claude Heater.

From what I've found, there are basically two theories as to why “Christ” isn’t shown. The first was that the author, who was Presbyterian, requested that the actor’s face be shielded. This is unlikely, though, since General Wallace died in 1905. The second, more plausible reason is that the director, William Wyler, did it out of respect. Respect, I’m sure, for not only Christ but also for the public, which tended to be more theologically conservative than it is today.

This brings me to children’s bibles (and other such Christian commodities). William Wyler thought better of imaging Christ in his film; but in our day, I think it rare indeed to find a children’s bible that doesn’t. But is this appropriate? Is it okay to make images of our Lord?

Consider this—Jesus is God.

Q: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
A: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are . . . the making of any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of creature whatsoever . . .
The Westminster Larger Catechism, question 109

Consider the following syllogism:

Making a representation of God is forbidden (Deut. 4:15–19; Acts 17:29; Rom. 1:21–25).
Jesus is God.
Therefore, making a representation of Jesus is forbidden.

Something to think about before adding a children’s bible to your Amazon.com shopping cart.

Note to My Reformed Brethren

The children’s bible pictured in this post (I blured the Christ image), The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, is written by a member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City. Redeemer PCA is pastured by a man I respect, Dr. Tim Keller. Not only is this book endorsed by Dr. Keller, it is also endorsed and marketed by Westminster Theological Seminary’s bookstore. On their Web site they inform shoppers of the images:

Why do some children's books have the disclaimer, "This book contains cartoon or artistic images of Jesus."
There are many people in our constituency who, in a sincere effort to honor the second commandment, refrain from the use of any kind of drawings or pictures of Jesus, even if not intended for a worship context (cf. Westminster Larger Catechism Q. and A. 109). Out of respect for those who take this position, we have sought to add a note to books in our children's category which have drawings or depictions of Jesus so that they can factor that into their internet buying decisions, as they would if they could inspect the books physically

As evidenced by the disclaimer, imaging Jesus is still very controversial (and forbidden by the catechism). I searched the Web sites of the seminary’s bookstore, the author, and Dr. Keller’s church for an explanation as to why the images are allowable, but found nothing. I respectfully request that those in the Reformed camp who think it permissible to image Christ explain their position, especially if they are including these images in their books, selling those books, or endorsing them.

Today in Church History: John Knox, Scottish Reformation

2011-11-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

On November 24, 1572, Scottish reformer John Knox died in Edinburgh.

Born in 1514, Knox trained for the priesthood and was converted under George Wishart, an early martyr of the Scottish Reformation. While pastoring in St. Andrews, Knox was imprisoned after Wishart's death and served for 19 months as a galley slave. After his release he pastored in England until Mary Tudor ascended the throne, when he escaped to the continent, where he studied under John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger. Knox described Geneva as "the most perfect school of Christ on earth since the apostles," and during his exile he developed his defense for rebellion against idolatrous magistrates and female sovereigns. Upon his return to Scotland in 1559 he led in the development of the Scottish Reformed Church, introducing Reformed worship in his Forme of Prayers and Presbyterian polity in his Book of Discipline. In addition, his Scottish Confession, approved by the Scottish Parliament in 1560, was the confession standard of the Church of Scotland until it was superseded by the Westminster Standards in 1647.

Knox's secretary, Richart Bannatyne, recorded the passing of the "Thundering Scot" with these archaic words (recorded in the Presbyterian Guardian, November 4, 1935):

On this manner departed this man of God, the lycht of Scotland, the comfort of the kirk within the same, the mirror of godliness, and patrone and example of all true ministeris, in puritie of lyfe, soundness in doctrine, and bauldness in reproving of wickitness, and one that cared not the favor of men (how great soever they were), to reprove their abuses and synis. In him was sic a myghtie spreit of judgement and wisdome, that the truble never came to the kirk sen his entering in publict preiching but he foirsaw the end thereof, so that he was ever reddie a trew counsall and a faythfull to teich men that wald be taught to tak' the best and leive the worst.

-John Muether

The Separatist

2011-11-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

The one side [the Reformers] laboured to have ye right worship of God & discipline of Christ established in ye church, according to ye simplicitie of ye gospell, without the mixture of mens inventions, and to have & to be ruled by ye laws of Gods word, dispensed in those offices, & by those officers of Pastors, Teachers, & Elders, &c. according to ye Scripturs. The other partie [the Church of England], though under many colours & pretences, endevored to have ye episcopall dignitie (affter ye popish maner) with their large power & jurisdiction still retained; with all those courts, cannons, & ceremonies, togeather with all such livings, revenues, & subordinate officers, with other such means as formerly upheld their antichristian greatnes, and enabled them with lordly & tyranous power to persecute ye poore servants of God.

These were radical words when written in the early part of the seventeenth century. They described a movement whose members were known as “Separatists.” To be a Separatist in King James I’s England was punishable by imprisonment or even death.

On the run, the author and the others who yearned to worship God according to the Scriptures fled England to the more tolerant Netherlands. Here they remained for 12 years, enjoying their freedom granted by the Lord.

Being thus settled (after many difficulties) they continued many years in a comfortable condition, injoying much sweete & delightefull societies & spirituall comforte togeather in ye wayes of God . . . So as they grew in knowledge & other gifts & graces of ye spirite of God, & lived togeather in peace, & love, and holiness; and many came unto them from diverse parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation.

A Change in the Winds

But times changed. As war with Catholic Spain loomed on the horizon, England pressured its Dutch ally to drive out the Separatists. But where could they go that they could preserve their English heritage and language, be able to remain the king’s subjects, and still worship according to their conscience? There was an answer, but one that would be accompanied by great peril.

all great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible . . . Yea, though they should loose their lives in this action, yet might they have comforte in the same, and their endeavors would be honourable. They lived hear but as men in exile, & in a poore condition; and as great miseries might possibly befale them in this place, for ye 12. years of truce [the truce between Holland and Spain] were now out, & ther was nothing but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr, the events wherof are allway uncertaine.

So it was, after many more hardships and trials, that the author of these journal entries, William Bradford, and 101 other Separatists set sail for America.

On this Day of Thanksgiving, may we not forget the gratitude we owe these Pilgrims, and to the gracious God who established this nation upon the principles of freedom, justice, and liberty. May God continue to sustain this nation, and may He bless and keep His people all over the world.

The First Thanksgiving and Indeed-La

2011-11-23T13:43:00.000-08:00

From Forgotten English . . .

Indeed-la: The exclamation of a whining Puritan. Shakespeare uses the phrase, the right use of which has not been previously explained. (James Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855.)

The First Thanksgiving

American folklore historians generally consider the first Thanksgiving dinner to have taken place in the fall of 1621 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The early Puritan celebrations were anything but lavish, focusing on restraint in contrast to the overindulgence of today.

Many of the dishes now consumed at this most American of meals were not part of the first holiday meal, including sweet potatoes, yams, and white potatoes, which would be introduced later from South America.

As the settlers were near the Atlantic, cod and other ocean fish, eels, mussels, claims, and crabs were standard fare, and so corn-on-the-cob, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie would also have to wait for later times. It was not until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving, that this date was established.

Divvying Up the Writers of the 66

2011-11-22T06:03:00.000-08:00

John Mark Reynolds takes up an interesting task over at First Things: Identify the Biblical writer’s denominational affiliation. Here’s how he kicks it off:

Ecumenical dialogue is important. One problem in discussions between Christians has been the failure to recognize that each group quotes different Biblical authors. We all know that Paul is a Protestant, for example, but few recognize that Paul himself can be divided between early Paul (hyper-Calvinist) and late Paul (Presbyterian).
Theologians, of course, have long known that Obadiah was a papist, but the rest of us have been clueless. For example, the shift of Jeremiah from Calvinism to Catholicism over the course of his life explains a great deal about the text.
Many problems related to our ignorance of denominational affiliation would be solved if the Biblical players came with a program. I have provided you one with a one sentence reason for the designation . . .

Here are a few of my favorites:

Joshua: Catholic
Why? Likes crusades and building shrines.
Court Chronicler: Anglican
Why? Only Christian group interested in sustained sucking up to monarchs.
Ezra: Southern Baptist
Why? Has a great church building program.
Esther: Pentecostal
Why? Good looking women leaders.
Mordecai: Pentecostal
Why? Guy willing to work with good looking women leaders.
Job: Calvinist
Why? Stuff happens, don’t complain.
Solomon (Proverbs): Evangelical
Why? Advice fits on church sign.
Paul: (Late Period, see II Timothy) Presbyterian
Why? Very mellow and more concerned about heritage than present.
James: Catholic.
Why? Luther hated him

You can read the entire list here.

How the Church Failed Brad Pitt

2011-11-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

"She [his college girlfriend] helped me more than anyone else as far as setting off in my own direction," he explains. "It was my first year in college and I was pushing back against the religion thing. In my eyes it was a mechanism of guilt, this engrained system, used to keep the flock in servitude." Brad was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. "Guilt is the thing I find most evil about it. It's the thing I rail against the most. She helped me in defining what I believed.
"Religion works," he goes on. "I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn't last for me. I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, 'You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!' It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.
Brad Pitt in a Parade.com interview

Based on the reasons Brad Pitt gives for abandoning his Baptist roots, I think that we can surmize the following:

He doesn’t understand man’s plight

He doesn’t understand God's nature

Man’s Plight

Mr. Pitt finds guilt the most evil thing about Christianity. We can infer from his comments that he thinks his feelings of guilt are a result of his Baptist upbringing; that without that upbringing he would live a guilt-free life. But is that the case? Do those outside of the Christian community live a conscience-free existence? The answer is, unless you’re a sociopath, no (Rom. 2:14 – 15).

What Mr. Pitt should have learned in church is that people of all types of rearing experience the crises of conscience known as guilt, and the reason for this is simple: we feel guilty because we are guilty.

Scripture teaches that Adam’s sin brought spiritual death to us all (Gen. 2:16–17, 3:1–7; Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1–3; Col. 2:13). As a result, men are spiritually deaf, blind, and completely corrupted (Ecc. 9:3; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 8:7–8; 1 Cor. 2:14); also, men are slaves of sin (John. 8:34; Rom. 6:20; Tit. 3:3) and children of the devil (Eph. 2:1–2; 2 Tim. 2:25–26; 1 John 3:10). So how does natural man respond to the revelations God has given him such as a guilty conscience? He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). This is all something Mr. Pitt should have learned in church.

God’s Nature

Mr. Pitt is offended by the idea that God would require honor. I suppose his view is that any being who would have himself honored is undue that honor. An odd claim coming from a man who accepted the honor of his peers through both Golden Globe (he won one) and Academy Award nominations. I don’t’ recall him repudiating these accolades. Apparently, he is due honor, but God isn’t.

Here’s why God deserves honor:

There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.
God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and has most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever Himself pleases. In His sight all things are open and manifest, His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent, or uncertain. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands. To Him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them.
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)

Again, something he should have learned in church.

Conclusion

The reasons Mr. Pitt gives for abandoning his childhood faith show that he doesn’t understand Christianity. As mentioned, all of this should have been learned in church, but his church failed him. Not only that, his parents failed him too. But Mr. Pitt is not alone. We see a trend of children departing the faith as soon as they enter the college parking lot. So what are we as the church and as parents to do?

Catechize

To catechize a child is to instruct her in the faith using questions and answers. It’s a method that traces its history back to Scripture (Mat. 16:13, 22:42). The catechism that I use in my home is the Heidelberg Catechism. Completed by Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus in 1563, the Heidelberg Catechism offers 129 questions and answers and is divided into three parts: man’s guilt, God’s grace, and our gratitude. Here’s a sample:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.

The best way to inoculate your child (or yourself, for that matter) against error is by knowing the truth. Catechization is a tried and true method of learning the faith that has stood the test of time. Perhaps this could have made the difference in Brad Pitt’s life.

(Hat tip to the Desiring God blog for the Parade article.)

Jesus Actually Saves by C. H. Spurgeon

2011-11-20T06:12:00.000-08:00

Even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Matthew 20:28

Some preachers and professors affect to believe in a redemption which I must candidly confess I do not understand; it is so indistinct and indefinite — a redemption which does not redeem anybody in particular, though it is alleged to redeem everybody in general; a redemption insufficient to exempt thousands of unhappy souls from hell after they have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus; a redemption, indeed, which does not actually save anybody, because it is dependent for its efficacy upon the will of the creature; a redemption that lacks intrinsic virtue and inherent power to redeem anybody, but is entirely dependent upon an extraneous contingency to render it effectual. With such fickle theories I have no fellowship. That every soul for whom Christ shed his blood as a Substitute, he will claim as his own, and have as his right, I firmly hold. I love to hold and I delight to proclaim this precious truth. Not all the powers of earth or hell; not the obstinacy of the human will, nor the deep depravity of the human mind, can ever prevent Christ seeing of the travail of his soul and being satisfied. To the last jot and tittle of his reward shall he receive it at the Father’s hand. A redemption that does redeem, a redemption that redeems many, seems to me infinitely better than a redemption that does not actually redeem anybody, but is supposed to have some imaginary influence upon all the sons of men.
C.H. Spurgeon (1834 - 1892)

Lifted from Reformation Theology.

Dante's Ante-Purgatory

2011-11-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

Greg Peters at The Scriptorium provides a fascinating analysis of Dante's Ante-Purgatory found in the Divine Comedy. Here's how it begins . . .

For many Protestant Christians today the doctrine of Purgatory (especially in its medieval articulation) is blatantly wrong. The need for such a place is mainly the result of the medieval concepts of debt, penalty and merit (of Christ and the saints). To a medieval theologian Purgatory was necessary, even desirable. Thus, when Dante Alighieri went about writing his Divine Comedy, it was only natural that it would be set in three geographical locations: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. Yet, when one sits down to read Dante’s Purgatorio attentively, the reader notices that it is not until Canto 9 of the book that Dante (and Virgil) actually reaches the gates of Purgatory: “Thou art come to Purgatory now.” Where is he in Books 1-8? Is he still in Hell? No. He’s in a place between Hell and Purgatory that is seaside, flat and covered in reeds. This area is often labeled as Ante-Purgatory. Ante-Purgatory? As a person fairly well versed in medievalia, I do not recall the theological concept of Ante-Purgatory. What is Dante up to?

You can read the rest here.

Thought of the Day: The Gospel in a Word

2011-11-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Unique? It Really Is!

2011-11-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

From Great Commission Publications:

Many authors have been captured by a noble theme; we call them inspired. Many books have stirred hearts and even changed lives; we call them inspiring. Paul speaks of Scripture in a completely different sense. Whatever power exists in the written word to move the soul or redirect a life—and that power is considerable—it is different from that of the Bible. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16:17).

First, look at the Bible’s source. It is breathed out, as it were, by God himself. God’s agency is direct and intimate, not merely providential. God’s agency is direct and intimate, not merely providential. God did more than guide the authors of Scripture in producing the final result. The human authors varied in their literary skills, education, and background, note of which God bypassed in using them. But, as Peter notes, “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21). As B. B. Warfield wrote, “The men who spoke from God are here declared, therefore, to have been taken up by the Holy Spirit and brought by His power to the goal of his choosing.” It was not their goal or their agenda they were promoting, but God’s. Whatever the Bible says, God says. And therefore, to quote Warfield again, the writers of Scripture looked on their work as “divinely safeguarded in even its verbal expression, and as divinely trustworthy in all its parts, in all its elements, and in all its affirmations of whatever kind.”

The Bible’s source is the key to its power. Because it is God-breathed, the Bible is therefore “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” Scripture does what no merely human writing can do. It reveals the totality of God’s will concerning everything we need to know on earth about the righteousness that God demands. And in doing that, it is the perfect instrument for equipping the Christian minister completely for his work—and the Christian layperson too.

The questions for you today are these: What are you doing with God’s word? Are you in it daily, even if briefly? Are you letting the Word “dwell in you richly”? (Col. 3:16). If it is God’s Word, dare we treat it as optional reading?

May God give us perseverance in his Word.

Defense of Marriage Act and Same-Sex Marriage

2011-11-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

From The Wittenberg Door archives . . .

The Obama administration recently announced that it will no longer legally support the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The act, signed into law by then President Bill Clinton, defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It also stipulates that a same-sex union considered a marriage in one state does not have to be recognized as such in another.

In order to advance the ball put into play by the Obama administration, House and Senate Democrats will be drafting legislation both to repeal DOMA and to replace it with something more palatable to their sensibilities.

In this post we’ll consider the reasons put forth as justification for overturning DOMA.

(Quotes below are from the Huffinton Post.)

State Interest

"The president's move is another step in the increasing realization that there is no conceivable justification for DOMA, that it is motivated, was motivated, purely by irrational considerations and fear and that there is no rational basis that will stand up to a constitutional challenge," said Nadler [Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee]. "Hopefully, that will make it somewhat easier to pass legislation in Congress."

DOMA defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Rep. Nadler, instead of advancing an argument to substantiate his claim, simply resorts to motive questioning: those who don’t agree with him are motivated by irrationality and fear. Furthermore, he claims “that there is no rational basis that will stand up to a constitutional challenge.”Again, no reason is given. He just makes a claim.

Unlike Rep. Nadler, I will make a case for my side, and I’ll do so without questioning his motives. I’ll let the reader be the judge as to whether or not what follows is irrational.

The State should only have an interest in two types of contractual relationships: corporations and heterosexual marriages. The first because the State is required to regulate commerce (section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution); and the second because it is the best way for it, the State, to perpetuate itself.

Mommies and daddies are from where the next generation of citizens will come. And the best environment for the raising of responsible citizens is a married, monogamist, heterosexual household. Married and monogamist because that brings stability to the home; heterosexual because both the mother and the father bring something in particular to the childrearing enterprise. This unit is the best way to secure society’s future. Therefore, the State has an interest in favoring and protecting marriage between a man and a woman. It has no such interest in same-sex unions.

All You Need is Love

"As a Member of the Judiciary Committee, it is my intention to introduce legislation that will once and for all repeal the Defense of Marriage Act," [Sen. D-CA] Feinstein said in a prepared statement. "My own belief is that when two people love each other and enter the contract of marriage, the Federal government should honor that. I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It was the wrong law then; it is the wrong law now; and it should be repealed."

Sen. Feinstein’s comments bring to mind the Beatles’ song, All You Need is Love. Great song; bad social policy. Is it true that we can marry anyone we love and with whom we enter into a “contract”? Can I marry my two neighbor’s wives as long as we love each other? Can I marry my sister if we stipulate that we wouldn’t breed? Can I marry myself (if I likewise promise not to breed)? We could go on-and-on with scenarios, but I think the point has been made: love is an insufficient reason to redefine marriage.

Another point is that the state isn’t interested in whether or not the happy couple love each other. On a marriage form there is no “Check Here to Swear That You Love This Person.” The fetching Mrs. Catechizer didn’t swear to her undying love for me before a magistrate. Why? Because the State doesn’t care. They care about the union for the reasons above, not about our emotional commitment to one another.

Conclusion

For all of recorded history marriage has been between men and women—never between the same sex. There have been variations on the theme of marriage, but the theme remains. Consider, though, the amazing chutzpah of the Senator and Congressman: They and their compatriots on the left are morally superior to all religious leaders of all times, and to all generations that preceded this one. (I suppose Sen. Feinstein can teach Jesus a-thing-or-two about morality.)

If the Congressman and the Senator take truth, intellectual honesty, and the fabric of society seriously, then they’ll offer something more substantial than “all you need is love, and if you disagree it’s because you’re irrational and fearful.”

Was John Calvin a Murderer?

2011-11-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

Was John Calvin responsible for the execution of Michael Servetus? That’s the question Jim McClarty answers over at Reformed Voices. Here’s how it begins . . .

This is a question that shows up in my email from time to time. It's a claim that is leveled by those who seek to besmirch Reformed Theology. Usually, the claim that Calvin was a murderer is an attempt to make all Calvinistic doctrine wrong through 'guilt by association.'
However, historically speaking, the so-called 'Doctrines of Grace' - which go by the nickname of Calvinism - did not originate with Calvin. They are the result of a Synod held in Dort, Holland in 1618/19, after Calvin was long dead. Those of us who hold to Reformed Theology do so not because we are attempting to replicate the theology or ecclesiology of John Calvin, but because we are convinced that the Biblical arguments and conclusions stemming from that Synod are valid and our own exegesis confirms the five points.
If it could be proven that John Calvin was indeed a murderous wretch, it would have no effect on the theology that sprung from the pen of the Reformers. In other words, the 'guilt by association' tactic has no teeth. That being said, let's clear up the history and let the proverbial chips fall where they will.

You can read the entire post here.

For a well-reasoned contrary view, I recommend Standford Rives’ article, Servetus & Calvin: Was it Murder by Calvin?

Dolly Parton and Tolerance – Part 2 (Conclusion)

2011-11-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

In Part 1, we considered the definition of tolerance and how post-modernity has redefined it. We also took a look at the common retort of those holding the new view: "Who are you to judge?"

In this post we’ll consider the foundation of tolerance, both old and new. We’ll also get a chance to see modern tolerance in action.

Tolerance with an “If”

Classical tolerance was birthed by a Christian worldview. It’s founded upon the notion that man is created in God’s image. As His image bearer, man is expected to act in accordance with God’s moral standards. Man is also expected to treat his fellows with respect, since they too bear God’s image.

Modern tolerance has no such foundation. Consequently, it’s very fickle, changing from person to person. Because of this, you can never tell how it’s going to cash out—it’s like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey with a living, highly agitated animal. Some burrows, however, are easier to stick than others. Consider the following sentiment from Ms. Parton:

. . . If you can accept me, I can accept you.
Dolly Parton

Ahhhh, the art of the caveat. This is actually very typical. She’ll show you tolerance as long as you show her the same. It’s the contingency here that counts. In the classical view, one shows tolerance even if the object of the tolerance is himself intolerant. This caveat makes tolerance anemic. Reason is, I don’t have to tolerate someone who agrees with me. It’s only those with whom I don’t agree that I can show tolerance—this, of course, includes the intolerant.

Hate Mail?

Having a big gay following, I get hate mail and threats . . .
Dolly Parton

I don’t know what to make of this. Ms. Parton doesn’t give us any examples. It does seem odd, though. I’m trying to figure out what someone would say. Maybe something like this:

“Dolly, I hear that there are some homosexuals out there who listen to your music. Therefore, I hate you. Have a nice day.”

There’s no question that people full of irrational hate do irrational things. But her characterization is a bit hard to accept. I wonder if those same people send similar emails to Levi Strauss:

“I hear that there are some homosexuals out there who wear trousers. Therefore, I hate pants. Boy is it drafty.”

Of course, I’m only able to offer conjecture since Ms. Parton has not granted us a peek into her email. I suspect, though, that she does what many do today: If someone is critical of your position (particularly hot-button issues like homosexuality), you characterize them in the worst possible light. Again, I don’t know whether or not that’s the case with Ms. Parton. But, because she holds to modern tolerance, and because her claim just doesn’t ring true (that she gets hate mail because some homosexuals like her music), I think we have grounds to be suspicious.

Mr. Mohidin of New Queer World, however, has already passed judgment: these people are “hate mongers.” It makes you wonder how he can come to this conclusion without seeing any evidence. But it does provide a transition to our next topic.

The Intolerance of Tolerance

Some people are blind or ignorant, and you can't be that prejudiced and hateful and go through this world and still be happy.
Dolly Parton

If I were to create a bumper sticker for the new-tolerance crowd it would read, “We don’t tolerate intolerance around here!” Reason being, those holding to modern tolerance have a tendency to vilify their detractors. For example, if you question the morality of homosexual behavior you run risk being labeled a “homophobe” or being accused of hating homosexuals. (I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me.)

True tolerance doesn’t name call, and it doesn’t cast aspersions upon the character of those on the other side. Even if the person is prejudiced in a bad way, or has an irrational hatred towards a person or group, the truly tolerant would respond with a well-reasoned argument, presented in a gracious, respectful manor. Of course, this is the difference between the classic definition and the new: the former, being founded upon a Christian ethic, has substance, while the later, having no foundation at all, is vacuous—just like the smiley face.

Catechisms and Catechizing in England from 1530 to 1740

2011-11-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from the chapter Catechizing in Church in Ian Green’s The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England (1530 – 1740). It provides a fascinating look into how the English churches of that time catechized.

The attitude of the English church to basic catechizing was not very different from that of the mature Luther or Calvin in the stress that was put on the role of the minister. Luther did not abandon his earlier belief that parents had a duty to teach their children the basics at home, but by the time he published his shorter catechism, it was on the shoulders of the “faithful, godly pastors and preachers” that he put the main responsibility for teaching it. Calvin too thought that householders and school teachers had a role to play, but in the text of his 1541 catechism the exchanges were between minister and child, and in the ordonnances ecclesiastiques of the same year it was to the minister in the church at midday on Sundays that parents were told to bring their children to be catechized.

In England, too, while many bishops and enthusiasts envisaged a role for parents in instructing their charges, there is no sign of great confidence that they would play it, or of any official attempt to make instruction domestic compulsory. Instead, in England from the early stage the brunt of the burden of ensuring the basic catechism was mastered and understood, especially by those who never attended a school, fell on the parish clergy.

The official reliance on the clergy for basic catechizing was laid down in the rubrics of the Edwardian, Elizabethan, and Caroline Prayer Books and the canons of 1571 and 1604. Catechizing was to be performed by what the rubric in the original Book of Common Prayer called “the curate of every parish.” In the absence of assistant clergy in the majority of the parishes at this time, “curate” referred literally to the man with the cure of souls: the parson, rector, vicar, or perpetual curate, or minister as he was often referred to in later Episcopal injunctions and visitations articles.

Basic catechizing was to take place on those days when all the faithful were supposed to attend church: Sundays and those holy days retained by the Protestant church. However, it is worth noting that regular catechizing on a weekday was not unheard of ... according to Samuel Clarke, the puritan hagiographer, a number of godly clergy not only preached twice on Sundays but also catechized or gave a catechetical lecture on weekdays as well.

Being catechized in church was part of a process of growing up in a village or town in which community and congregation overlapped, and was, at least in theory, a means to the end of further participation in the rites of passage which (as parents knew full well) only the church could provide. And from the point of view of a highly perceptive child like William Wordsworth, there may have been a frisson of excitement about b eing catechized and an element of anticipation about being ‘bishoped,’ as an initiation rite into adulthood. By the eighteenth century (and sometimes earlier) there was also the prospect of a reward or treat for those who were confirmed. Such thinking may have made children accept, if not necessarily welcome, their parents’ insistence that they attend church for catechizing for a period of time.

By was of conclusion and comparison, a word may be said about catechizing in Presbyterian churches and separatist congregations from the 1650s. In the 1650s the exercise was certainly comparable to that in ‘church’...

For there were always many Presbyterians and other nonconformists who were anxious to catechize in public if they could. Hence the elementary catechisms prepared by men like John Owen, John Wallis, Richard Baxter, George Fox, Benjamin Keach, Isaac Watts, and others for their particular groups of catechumens.

There was also a comparable commitment to securing understanding as well as instilling knowledge, a growing variety of catechetical forms and methods, and some extremely zealous catechists, such as Richard Baxter, Henry Stubs, Thomas Wadsworth, Thomas Lye, Thomas Doolittle, Thomas Vincent, Philip Henry, and his some Matthew, Samuel Bourn the younger and many others. Thomas Lye’s thirty year ministry, mainly in London, was marked by his zeal for catechizing, and his unflagging attempts to find new ways to make the Westminster Shorter catechism easier to master and understand, especially by those with ‘weakest capacities and memories.’ He taught catechism publicly on Saturday afternoons at Dyers’ Hall in the mid 1670s and among those he instructed was a very young Edmund Calamy. Of Thomas Doolittle it was said that “catechizing was his special excellency and delight, wherein he took much pains himself, and which he earnestly recommended to his brethren in the ministry, as greatly tending to their people’s profit, and their own comfort.” By his own account, his normal catechumens ranged from 6 to 28 years in age, though he also tells us he had helped some in their thirties and forties, and up to their seventies. In the preface of an early venture, which turned the Shorter Catechism into a series of questions requiring yes and no answers, Doolittle recorded the delight that children found in this exercise: they “would with great willingness for an hour or two together, answer yes or no to the questions, and so may yours,” he added to the householders to whom the published work was dedicated.

Today in Church History: Adopting Act (OPC, 1936), General Assembly (2nd: 1936)

2011-11-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, November 12, 1936, the Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America (later to become the Orthodox Presbyterian Church) convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

As commissioners met for three days in the Manufacturers' and Bankers' Club on Walnut and Broad Streets, the main item on their agenda was the report from the Committee on the Constitution on the adoption of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as the doctrinal standards of the five-month-old church. The debate centered on whether or not the church should include the 1903 confessional revisions in its version of the standards. While it was generally agreed that those revisions were Arminian and anti-Reformed, some commissioners argued that the inclusion of those revisions would bolster the church's claim of being the "spiritual successor" to the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and thus help congregations in their legal battle to maintain their property. Cornelius Van Til spoke in opposition to such expediency: "Shall we be Arminians before the courts this year, with the full expectation of being Calvinists next year?"

The Presbyterian Guardian described the outcome of the debate in this way: "When the vote was taken by roll-call on this all-important matter the result was the adoption of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, without the obnoxious 1903 revisions, by the decisive majority of 57 to 20."

-John Muether

Tolerance and Dialog – Tactical Considerations

2011-11-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in Dolly Parton and Tolerance – Tactical Considerations – Part 1, I penned the following post while writing for another Web site. Please note that since that site is no longer alive, the original comment mentioned below is no longer available.

It’s always of interest to me how people reach this Web site. Yesterday, someone found us by doing a search on Dolly Parton. When I was looking at the other Web sites and blogs that came up in the search, I noticed one called New Queer World that had commented on the same Dolly Parton interview on which I had posted. Since I’m always looking for opportunities to dialog with non-Christians, I left the following comment:

Greetings, Don. I can sympathize with Ms. Parton’s desire for toleration. I too want people to be tolerant of others with whom they disagree. That means we ought to treat them with dignity, fairly represent their views, and respectfully engage their ideas. Today, many of us fall short of this classic definition of tolerance. It’s much easier to name call and to vilify than to truly treat each other with tolerance. May we all strive for true tolerance.

In response to my comment, the author, Don Mohidin, left a comment on my Dolly Parton and Tolerance – Tactical Considerations post. I encourage you to read it. Mr. Mohidin, I believe, showed true tolerance. His comments are both gracious and thoughtful. He also took time to challenge my position. What follows is my response to his challenge.

Is Morality Ice cream?

Points of view that some will view as good and others will see as bad have no intrinsic 'goodness' or 'badness.' They are simply one (or more) person's opinion about something.

Mr. Mohidin, it would seem, is a moral relativist (moral absolutes do not exist). His claim is that ideas have no intrinsic moral properties, that they are simply one’s opinion. For example, Mr. Mohidin might like chocolate ice cream, while I like vanilla. Michael might like feeding starving children, while Bob likes torturing them—none of these views are “good” or “bad,” we all just have different opinions. (As you can see, moral relativism offers a hard pill to swallow.)

I think that what happened to Mathew Shepard was a heinous act, that it was an objective (exists outside of the mind) moral wrong. But, on Mr. Mohidin’s view, there are no objective moral wrongs. Morality is subjective (only exists in the mind). Therefore, the perpetrators didn’t actually do anything wrong, because there’s no “wrong” to do. All that exists are just different opinions.

The point will always be distilled down to a set of values the speaker holds based upon beliefs and a moral code developed during life. Who is to say whose moral code is universally correct?

On Mr. Mohidin’s view, man is a moral tabula rasa (blank slate). We collect our moral views through-out life like a ship’s hull collects barnacles. Adolph Hitler developed the view that homosexuals should be put to death. Does that make the Nazi persecution of homosexuals right? If Mr. Mohidin is consistent he would have to answer, “Who’s to say?”

It takes supreme arrogance to adopt the position that one knows the right moral code . . .

It’s Mr. Mohidin’s moral code that it is supremely arrogant to think that you have the right moral code. Assuming that Mr. Mohidin thinks he's right about that, he has shown us that he is supremely arrogant. (Example of a self-refuting claim.)

. . . because it assumes that the decider knows everything, and knowing everything, can pick out the right moral code to which all people should adhere.

I couldn’t agree with Mr. Mohidin more. No human being can know everything, and no human being can establish a moral code for all to follow. Here’s the Christian claim: Morality is based upon God’s holy, just, and perfect character. He is the standard for morality. We know this in two ways. First, we are beings created in His image; because of this, we are moral beings who are imprinted with His moral code. That’s why everyone engages in moral reasoning. Second, He has revealed His moral law to us in the Bible. Consequently, morality is objective.

Please note that I am not arguing for the truthfulness of Christianity. I’m simply stating the claim. For a thumbnail sketch as to why Christianity is true, please see my post titled, The Lazy Atheist?— The Christian Worldview (Conclusion).

Conclusion

I don’t know Mr. Mohidin. He might be a prince of a man; perhaps he gives liberally to charity, is adored by many, and performs daily acts of mercy. His character is not in question. It’s his worldview that deserves scrutiny.

Moral relativism is untenable. Not only is it self-refuting (e.g., “there are not absolutes” is itself an absolute statement), but it doesn’t work in real life—no one lives that way.

I bet if someone broke into Mr. Mohidin’s house he’d call the police (that he wouldn’t just dismiss the crime by saying that the burglar simply had a different opinion as to who owned the property). I bet he thought Hitler was evil. And I bet he was repulsed and outraged by what happened to Mathew Shepard. These are all appropriate moral responses—they're appropriate, that is, in a world with objective morality. But if morality is simply ice cream . . .

Whoever Calls

2011-11-10T12:51:00.000-08:00

From Great Commission Publications . . .

There is a mysterious longing in the heart of God that is captured in the words, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13; see Joel 2:32). Without prejudice to any, without restricting his benevolence to only a few, God does not want anyone to perish, “but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

The mystery for us is contained in the distinction between what God has decreed and what he has revealed in Scripture. We know from Scripture that God has decreed, irrevocably and forever, which ones will receive his electing love and thus be saved (Rom. 9:18). But Scripture also makes plain that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that they turn from their wickedness and live (Ezek. 33:11). If there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, there is no equal joy over one who des not. God longs intensely for individual men and women to repent and believe the gospel, even if they never do. We cannot fathom this mystery; we must embrace it.

The Mystery of the Gospel

Here is the mystery of the free offer of the gospel. Without distinction and with no strings attached. It is universal. Literally anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Jew or Gentile, white or black, European or Asian, the subject is the same. No special privilege is granted to any. It is uniform in its method. The one thing required of everyone is to call upon the Lord’s name. Acknowledge that he alone saves and ask him to save you. It is unerring in its results. Whoever calls will be saved, period. There is no mincing of words here, no hidden clauses.

The offer is indiscriminate. God’s benevolent love extends to all, and he deeply longs for all to repent. Think of that next time you see your neighbor grilling hamburgers in his back yard, or bump into her in the grocery store, or wave as you drive by his house. God longs for that person to hear the gospel; he longs for that person to repent.

But what if he’s not elect? First, we don’t know who the elect are, and it’s none of our business to figure it out (Deut. 29:29). Second, even if someone isn’t elect, God longs for him anyway. Jesus wept over a non-elect Jerusalem; he longed for her, though she refused him. There is the heart of God, if you need proof. Is it your hear too?

Dolly Parton and Tolerance – Tactical Considerations – Part 1

2011-11-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, while writing for another Web site, I penned the following post. I came across it recently while going through some old files and thought that the readers of this site might find it of interest.

In a USA Today interview, Parton’s Plea for Tolerance, Dolly Parton explains that her ability to identify with the outcast enabled her to pen the song Travelin’ Thru. This Oscar-nominated song was written for the movie Transamerica, which tells the tale of a pre-operative “transsexual” traveling the country with his son.

Some things are strange to me, and some things are odd . . . But I don't condemn. If you can accept me, I can accept you.
Dolly Parton

Definition of Tolerance

“Tolerance,” classically defined, refers to how you treat someone with whom you disagree. You show tolerance when you treat your opponent with dignity, fairly represent his views, and graciously engage his ideas—or, to put it simply, you don’t kill him for having divergent views.

The classical definition of tolerance has fallen on hard times. Post-modernity has refashioned the term into something warm and fuzzy—a verbal counterpart to the ubiquitous smiley face.

No longer is tolerance characterized by charitable disagreement. The modern notion is that to be tolerant is not to disagree at all, but rather that all views ought to be embraced equally—sort of.

Not only has the term been redefined, but it has also been narrowed: only those views deemed socially acceptable are accorded toleration. All other views are marginalized.

“Poor Dolly” Disclaimer

Before I comment, I want to make it clear that it is not my intention to beat up on Dolly. She seems to me to be a very sweet, decent lady (and she looks amazing for 60 years old). The reason I’m using her comments is because I think they reflect how most people view tolerance.

Judging

In Dolly’s comment above, she mentions that she doesn’t “condemn” things that seem strange or odd to her. In context, she’s talking about people’s behavior or “life choices.” Basically, she’s saying that she doesn’t judge.

The not-judging aspect of modern tolerance usually takes two forms:

“You shouldn’t judge”

“Who are you to judge?”

You shouldn’t judge.
When I’m confronted with this objection, I typically respond with a clarification question: “Is it your view that it’s wrong to judge?” After he affirms I follow-up with, “Then why are you judging me?”

You see, what he’s saying is that, in his judgment, it’s wrong to judge. This is obviously self-refuting. By pointing out the contradiction, it helps to pave the way for a discussion of true tolerance.

Who are you to judge?
When confronted with this question, respond with, “Who are you to ask ‘Who am I to judge?’”

Behind his question is a presupposition that you don’t have the authority to make the judgment. In essence, you are asking the same question: by what authority do you ask me about my authority? Responding this way shows that his presupposition dies by its own sword. Also, by using this tactic, you pave the way to talk about Who actually has the ultimate authority to judge.

Part 2

In part 2 we’ll consider the caveat to modern tolerance, as introduced to us by Ms. Parton: “If you can accept me, I can accept you." We’ll also see that those holding this view don’t tolerate what they consider “intolerance.”

Notable Quote: R.L. Dabney

2011-11-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

R.L. Dabney (1820 – 1898) on sanctification . . .

Sanctification, in the gospel sense, means then, not only cleansing from guilt, though it presupposes this, nor only consecration, though it includes this, nor only reformation of morals and life, though it produces this; but, essentially, the moral purification of the soul . . . Sanctification only matures what regeneration began. The latter sprouted the seed of grace, the former continues its growth, until there appears first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.
R.L. Dabney, Systematic Theology

Thought of the Day: Man’s Fallen Condition

2011-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

In his fallen state man is an enemy of God. He not only doesn’t seek reconciliation and entrance into God’s kingdom, but he is daily seeking to further himself from His holy Creator. The sinner’s only hope is a rescue operation—a sovereign work of God upon his heart. And this rescue operation does not depend upon the drowning man seeking out the lifeguard. Instead, our rescuer chose to save us, and to preserve us, before we ever entered the water.

Children at the Lord’s Table?

2011-11-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

New Horizons provides an outstanding insight into the paedocommunion debate. Here are links to the relevant articles, along with a brief summary:

Children at the Lord’s Table
James T. Dennison, academic dean of Northwest Theological Seminary

From at least the time of John Calvin, the Reformed churches have interpreted 1 Corinthians 11:29 as requiring a profession of faith prior to participation in the Lord's Supper. Taking the phrase "discerning the Lord's body" in the sense of implying profession is but a particular instance of the general Reformed rule: confession of faith is prior to the Lord's Table. In the nature of the case, profession of the covenant with the mouth comes before feeding upon the symbols of the covenant with the mouth.

The Lord’s Supper: Warnings for All
George W. Knight III, author, OPC minister, and teacher at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Our confessional standards understand 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 as providing warnings to all Christians. But some say that the warnings apply only to those who have sinned as the Corinthians did. Most of these desire to admit children to the Lord's Supper who are unable to do what the warnings require. This article defends the historic way of understanding the warning statements.

The Lord’s Supper and Covenant Children
Stuart R. Jones, OPC minister

A recent decision of the Christian Reformed Church (June 2006) to prepare the way for child communion within that denomination highlights the durability of that issue. The General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church received a report on this issue in 1987 in which a division of opinion was expressed. I will argue that the confessional standards of the OPC are correct in disallowing the practice of paedocommunion, because of the nature of the Lord's Supper as a covenant renewal meal.

Today in Church History: B.B. Warfield, Princeton Theological Seminary

2011-11-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

On November 5, 1851, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield was born outside Lexington, Kentucky.

The son of a prosperous horse and cattle breeder, Warfield developed interests in science before studying at Princeton College and Princeton Seminary. A brief pastorate in Baltimore preceded his appointment at Western Seminary in Pittsburgh. After teaching New Testament there for nine years, he was offered a chair in theology at Princeton Seminary in 1887, succeeding A. A. Hodge.

During his 34-year tenure at Princeton, where he taught over 2700 students, Warfield was a prolific writer and long-time editor of the Presbyterian Review, the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, and the Princeton Theological Review. In those pages he took on mysticism, naturalism, Pentecostalism, perfectionism, and rationalism, as these movements threatened the Presbyterian church. He vigorously defended the verbal inspiration of Scripture against his antagonist, Charles A. Briggs of Union Seminary in New York. Calvinistic orthodoxy lay at the heart of all of his work. "Calvinism is just religion in its purity," he wrote. "We have only therefore to conceive of religion in its purity, and that is Calvinism."

The last of the great Princeton Theologians died on February 16, 1921. Warfield's passing was a great blow to the seminary and church, as a younger colleague, J. Gresham Machen, described in letters to his mother:

Princeton will seem to be a very insipid place without him. He was really a great man. There is no one living in the Church capable of occupying one quarter of his place. To me, he was an incalculable help and support in a hundred different ways.
Dr. Warfield's funeral took place yesterday afternoon at the First Church of Princeton . . . It seemed that the old Princeton " a great institution " died when Dr. Warfield was carried out.

-John Muether

Moral Confusion—Slavery vs. Abortion

2011-11-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Most people’s moral reasoning has been crippled by Relativism. Because of this, it can be very difficult to get people to think deeply about any issue—and it’s almost impossible to get them to reflect seriously upon the most important moral issue of our day—abortion.

When discussing this matter, it helps get people thinking when you replace abortion with an already-settled moral issue. Here’s an example using Rudy Giuliani’s remarks at one of last presidential-cycle Republican debates. But, in order to make the analogy more clear, we’ll move the debate back to the year 1860, and swap Giuliani for Lincoln.

Moderator: Let me ask Mr. Lincoln, do you want to respond to this? Because it seems like across the room here, this strong, unrelenting anti-slavery position. You seem to have a nuanced position on this. Many people think you're pro-slavery. Could you define it in a couple of seconds?
Abraham Lincoln: Sure. This is a very, very difficult issue of conscience for many, many people. In my case, I hate slavery. I would encourage someone to not take that option and enslave Africans. When I was a member of the House of Representatives, I encouraged emancipations.
But ultimately, since it is an issue of conscience, I would respect a slaveholder’s or slave-trader’s right to make a different choice.
But ultimately, I think when you come down to that choice, you have to respect a slaveholder’s or slave-trader’s right to make that choice differently than my conscience.

We cannot even conceive of Abraham Lincoln being this morally confused. When it came to the issue of slavery, the greatest moral issue of his time, Lincoln understood that there was only one question that needed to be answered: Are black folks human beings?

And when this new principle [that African Americans were not covered by the phrase "all men are created equal"] -- this new proposition that no human being ever thought of three years ago, -- is brought forward, I combat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil design; I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the negro -- to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make property, and nothing but property of the negro in all the States of the Union.
From Abraham Lincoln’s last debate with Stephen Douglas, 1858

What makes the analogy work is the question of humanity: for Lincoln, as mentioned, Are blacks human beings? If so, then there is no justification for their enslavement. If not, then do with them what you will—no justification needed.

For us, Are the unborn human beings? If so, then there is no justification for abortion. If not, then do with them what you will. This is the question with which we must press those in favor of abortion. All others are secondary.

A Little Levity

2011-11-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you combine an insomniac, agnostic, and a dyslexic?

A person who stays up all night wondering if there is a dog.

The Gospel Call

2011-11-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

When thinking of salvation, it is appropriate to step back and understand that salvation is the work of the Trinity. In eternity past, the Father marked out those who would be saved. This is referred to as “election.” At the appointed time, the Son came into the world and secured the redemption of His people. Finally, the Spirit, working through the word, applies that redemption to the elect. A key part of this process is the gospel call, which takes two forms.

The general (or external) call

We find in Scripture that the gospel call is distributed indiscriminately. This call to repentance and faith goes out to all hearers. The great Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon was once asked why he didn’t preach to the elect only. His response is reported to have been, “If I know the elect had yellow stripes down their backs, I would be running around London lifting up shirts.” The elect is known only to God. Thus those responding to the Great Commission proclaim Christ to all.

This external call includes (1.) A declaration of the plan of salvation. (2.) The promise of God to save all who accede to the terms of that plan. (3.) Command, exhortation, and invitation to all to accept of the offer mercy. (4.) An exhibition of the reasons which should constrain men to repent and believe, and thus escape from the wrath to come. All this is included in the gospel. For the gospel is a revelation of God's plan of saving sinners . . . This call is universal in the sense that it is addressed to all men indiscriminately to whom the gospel is sent. It is confined to no age, nation, or class of men. It is made to the Jew and Gentile, to Barbarians and Scythians, bond and free; to the learned and to the ignorant; to the righteous and to the wicked; to the elect and to the non-elect.
Charles Hodge (1797-1878)

For many are called, but few are chosen

Matthew 22:14

5) "The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up.

6) "Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.

7) "Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out.

8) "Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great." As He said these things, He would call out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

11) "Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.

Luke 8:5-8, 11

The Effectual (or inward) call

For the elect, a special inward call from the Holy Spirit accompanies the general call. This call brings the sinner, who is dead in his sins (Gen. 2:16–17, 3:1–7; Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1–3; Col. 2:13), to life. By this work of the Spirit, through the Word, faith is granted to the sinner—he is enabled to believe all that is promised in the gospel.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins

Ephesians 2:1

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Romans 10:17

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God

Ephesians 2:8

Top Twelve Theology Books of Christian History

2011-11-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Over at Scriptorium Daily, Fred Sanders offers a list of the top twelve theology books of Christian history, as used at the Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University. Here are the books:

Selections from the Bible: Paul's Letters and John's Gospel
Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (circa 150)
Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation (circa 325)
Gregory of Nazianzus, The Five Theological Orations (circa 381)
Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ (circa 440)
Augustine of Hippo, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love (circa 430)
Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man) (circa 1100)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae selections (circa 1270)
Martin Luther, Selections (circa 1530)
John Calvin, The Institutes (circa 1559)
The Heidelberg Catechism by Ursinus and Olevianus (circa 1563)
John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (circa 1678)

Click here to learn more about these selections.

Today in Church History: Martin Luther, Protestant Reformation

2011-10-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation when he nailed his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door.

Contrary to modern impressions, the Augustinian monk's action was not a defiant and revolutionary gesture, but rather a dispassionate invitation for his fellow academics to debate the power of indulgences, and especially their abuse under the salesmanship of John Tetzel. The theses begin and end in this way:

1) When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said, "Repent," He called for the entire life of believers to be one of penitence.

2) The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, i.e. confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

94) Christians should be exhorted to be zealous to follow Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hells;

95) And let them thus be more confident in entering heaven through many tribulations than through a false assurance of peace.

In the years that followed, Luther's struggles to reform the church prompted him eventually to strike at the heart of the Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation, as he embraced the doctrines of sola Scriptura (the Word of God cannot be subordinated to human tradition), sola fide (justification is by faith alone and not dependent on works-righteousness), and sola gratia (salvation is a gift of God's grace and not earned by human merit). Though his rediscovery of the gospel took shape over the course of years, it was foreshadowed in the posting of his 95 Theses. Thus it is fitting for all Protestants, including Orthodox Presbyterians, to commemorate October 31 as "Reformation Day."

John Muether

The Reformation

2011-10-30T06:02:00.000-07:00

If you ask most kids what they celebrate on the last day of October, they would say Halloween. Would the response be different from a Sunday school calls? As the poet said, “The world is too much with us!” This is the season for thinking about the Protestant Reformation. With Halloween so spiritually questionable today, shouldn’t we be more concerned about our spiritual heritage?

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 these to the door of Wittenberg church on October 31, 1517, that was the beginning of the greatest spiritual awakening since the days of the apostles. Not only Luther, but Hus of Bohemia, Wyclif of England, Calvin of Geneva, and Knox of Scotland were used of God to kindle the fires of reform.

The basic doctrine of the Reformers was that the Bible is our only infallible rule of faith and practice. Not the pope, not human tradition, not church councils, but the Word of God must be our final court of appeal in matters of belief and conduct. This soul-liberating truth needs fresh emphasis in every generation.

Another doctrine rediscovered in the Reformation was justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Our salvation can depend on nothing except the perfect righteousness of Christ. The means of laying hold of the perfect righteousness is faith. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,” Paul says, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Without this truth there is no gospel, no good news for sinners.

Another truth stemming from the Protestant Reformation is the universal priesthood of believers. We depend on no priest or minister for our access to Almighty God. Jesus is the “high priest whom we confess.” Only through him do we have the right of direct access into the presence of a holy God.

We who are heirs of the Reformation have so much to thank God for. And yet we dare not think the battle fought by the Reformers has been won. In every generation, even the Protestant churches, that battle needs to be joined and, by the grace of God, won again. For the sake of the faith once delivered to the saints, we must be willing today to say with Luther, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me!”

—Great Commission Publications

John Calvin the Theologian

2011-10-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

Reformation Ink posted an excelent address by B. B. Warfield called John Calvin the Theologian. Here’s how it begins . . .

The subject of this address is "John Calvin the Theologian," and I take it that what will be expected of me is to convey some idea of what manner of theologian John Calvin was, and of his quality as a theological thinker.
I am afraid I shall have to ask you at the outset to disabuse your minds of a very common impression, namely, that Calvin's chief characteristics as a theologian were on the one hand, audacity--perhaps I might even say effrontery--of speculation; and on the other hand, pitilessness of logical development, cold and heartless scholasticism. We have been told, for example, that he reasons on the attributes of God precisely as he would reason on the properties of a triangle. No misconception could be more gross. The speculative theologian of the Reformation was Zwingli, not Calvin. The scholastic theologian among the early Reformers was Peter Martyr, not Calvin. This was thoroughly understood by their contemporaries. "The two most excellent theologians of our times." remarks Joseph Scaliger, "are John Calvin and Peter Martyr, the former of whom has dealt with the Holy Scriptures as they ought to be dealt with--with sincerity, I mean, and purity and simplicity, without any scholastic subtleties....Peter Martyr, because it seemed to fall to him to engage the Sophists, has overcome them sophistically, and struck them down with their own weapons."

You can read the entire address here.

New Roman Catholic Bible—Same Old Problem

2011-10-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have been hard at work on a new translation of the Bible. From what I’ve read much of the changes are innocuous, like changing the word “booty” to “spoils of war” and “cereal” to “grain.” One alteration, however, is quite consequential:

One change may set off alarms with traditionalists, in a passage many Christians believe foreshadows the coming of Christ and his birth to a virgin. The 1970 version of Isaiah 7:14 says "the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel."
The 2011 text refers to "the young woman" instead. It elaborates that the original Hebrew word, almah, may, or may not, signify a virgin.

Here are the verses impacted by the change as translated in the NASB:

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14

21) "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

22) Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23) "BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US."

Matt 1:21 – 23

According to Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon, almah can refer to “damsel, maid, virgin.” The Greek word is partheos, which Strong’s Greek Lexicon renders, “a maiden; by implication, an unmarried daughter:--virgin.” As you can see, the Greek word used by Matthew clearly means virgin.

Of course, common sense also dictates that that the prophecy is about a virgin. If you’re a prophet in search of a job and the star accomplishment on your resume is that you predicted a young women would have a child, then you had better get used to food stamps. And can you imagine Matthew arguing for Jesus’ messiahship down at the local pub, “Guys, I’m tell’n ya, it’s really him! His mother was a young women. A YOUNG WOMEN! What else could it mean?”

Not only is Rome pulling the Scriptural rug out from beneath the doctrine of the virgin conception, they’re also challenging the Bible’s authority.

God doesn’t err
The Bible is God’s book
Therefore, the Bible doesn’t err

For Rome to be right, then Matthew must be wrong, for clearly the book of Matthew affirms that the prophecy is about a virgin. But of course, this is just a new chapter in an old story—Rome versus the Bible. And as always, God’s Word is subordinated to her councils, magisterium, traditions, and pontiffs.

Was John Calvin a Monster?

2011-10-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

The nineteenth-century German Reformed church historian Philip Schaff asserted that Calvin "must be reckoned as one of the greatest and best men whom God raised up in the history of Christianity." Most moderns would hardly concur. But why? There are at least two reasons of which I am aware. The first is that Calvin's image has been purposely distorted by his opponents, and this distortion is simply parroted by their students who have never read Calvin for themselves. The second is that Calvin's Master warned his disciples: "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours" (John 15:18-20). John Calvin merited reproach like his Master.
One would hope that even those who staunchly disagree with Calvin's theology would treat Calvin with the historical fairness accorded Calvin by his nineteenth-century French opponent Ernest Renan who called him "the most Christian man of his age." Such, however, has not been the case. The first notable detractor was Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec, a Roman Catholic, who in 1577 accused Calvin of being an ambitious, presumptuous, arrogant, cruel, evil, vindictive, and above all, ignorant man. In 1688 Bosset launched a more subtle attack asserting that Calvin was an ambitious, quick tempered autocrat, with a morose and bitter spirit, displaying a "serious sickness" in the way he pursued his adversaries. In 1841 J. M. Audin wrote a biography of Calvin, authorized by the French Roman Catholic Church up until World War I. In it Calvin is portrayed as an egocentric coward, who "never loved." "He has the nature of a snake." Most recently, in 1951, Father André Favre-Dorsaz wrote what Calvin scholar Richard Stauffer describes as "the most destructive book about Calvin with which I am acquainted." According to Favre-Dorsaz, Calvin was a cruel, sadistic dictator, a superficial theologian, and a believer whose religious feeling was of a doubtful character. Finally in 1955 Daniel-Rops summed up modern opinion by identifying Calvin as "the perfect type of fanatic."

Was Calvin a monster? Was he a cold-hearted theolog? Gregory E. Reynolds sets the record straight in the article The Humanity of John Calvin from the Ordained Servant.

Today in History: God Created the World, at 9 a.m.

2011-10-26T05:50:00.000-07:00

John Lightfoot (1601 – 1675), vice-chancellor of England’s Cambridge University, was one of the original members of the Westminster Assembly. His scholarship and lucidity translated into him being one of the key-figures in the formation of the Westminster Standards. A committed preterist, he wrote persuasively on end-time issues, such as Daniel’s “weeks prophecies” (Dan. 9:24-27). His studies led him to believe that God did His creative handywork on today’s date . . .

Heaven and earth, center and circumference, were made in the same instant of time, and clouds full of water; and man was created by the Trinity on October 26, 4004 B.C., at nine o’clock in the morning.

Now we know.

John Calvin: Father of the Reformed faith

2011-10-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

"I labored at the task [writing The Institutes] especially for our Frenchmen, for I saw that many were hungering and thirsting after Christ and yet that only a few had any real knowledge of him."
With his brother and sister and two friends, John Calvin fled Catholic France and headed to the free city of Strasbourg. It was the summer of 1536; Calvin had recently converted to the "evangelical" faith and had just published The Institutes of the Christian Religion, which articulated his Protestant views. He was a wanted man.

Click here to read this interesting sketch of John Calvin’s life.

Love vs. Justice

2011-10-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

For he chose the way of the cross, where mercy triumphs over justice because of love.
(God the “Father” speaking of Jesus in The Shack, pg. 164)

In our modern, feminized version of Christianity, many find the thought of God exercising judgment upon men distasteful (even immoral). Or some, like best-selling author William Young, pit God’s love against His justice. But is it true that a good god would never punish people, or that God would forgo justice in the name of love?

The Back-story

When God created man, he created him “good, and after His own image, that is, in righteousness and true holiness”; however, after succumbing to the temptation of the devil, our first parents rebelled against our creator. Because of this disobedience, “our nature became so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin.” Furthermore, because of our corrupt nature, “we are wholly unapt to any good and prone to all evil.” This means that we are not only born with Adam’s guilt (because he represented us all before God), but we also “daily increase our guilt” through our own sins.

Although God is merciful He is also just, and will not allow our sins (i.e., not conforming to, or acting against, His law) to go unpunished. How can mortal man escape this just judgment? How can we sinful mortals repay a debt owed stemming from crimes committed against an infinitely holy God? How can we “escape this punishment and be again received into favor?” Answer: Satisfaction must be made “either by ourselves or by another.”

But, because we “daily increase our guilt,” we ourselves cannot make such satisfaction. Furthermore, no “mere creature can sustain the burden of God’s eternal wrath against sin.” It seems hopeless. The only way to bridge the chasm separating us and God is to have a mediator and redeemer “who is a true and sinless man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is at the same time true God.” But who is such a mediator and redeemer? “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is freely given us for complete redemption and righteousness.”

(All quotes taken from the Heidelberg Catechism, Q and A 6 – 18.)

God as Judge

As seen above, mankind has rebelled, and continues to rebel, against his God and has earned the Creator’s wrath. God, however, has made a way of escape—faith in Jesus Christ. By rejecting that way of escape, men will stand before the Just Judge of the Universe and give an account. Their punishment will fit their crimes; since these men can never repay the dept owed, they will bare God’s wrath for eternity. This is just. It also matches their desire—they wanted nothing to do with God, and they’ll get their wish, forever.

It would be unjust for God to simply say, “Hey, no problem. I’m a loving God. Here’s your Get Out of Jail Free card.” For example, if Mr. Young was robbed and assaulted, and went to the police to swear out a complaint, would he be satisfied if they said, “We caught the guy, but let him go because we’re a loving police station”? Do you think Mr. Young would respond, “Great! I’m so glad that mercy triumphed over justice because of love.” On the contrary, I bet he would rail against such an injustice.

The truth is, if you sacrifice justice for love, you have likewise sacrificed love—for love demands justice. Thankfully, this is a false dilemma—one does not have to be sacrificed for the other. God is both loving and just—and we see both God’s love and His justice in the doing and dying of Christ.

John Calvin: Theologian and Pastor

2011-10-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

John Calvin was such an extraordinary theologian, we often overlook—or are simply unaware—that he was also a dedicated pastor. New Horizons offers a fine article, penned by James Edward McGoldrick, showing the various sides of Calvin. Here’s an excerpt related to his pastoral work . . .

The major theme of Calvin's theology was always the glory of God. In his zeal to promote the divine glory, he demonstrated deep concern for human beings, God's image-bearers, whom he longed to enlist in the cause of reformation. The eternal and temporal well-being of people occupied his attention, for he understood he could do nothing for God directly, but could honor God by assisting others to know their Creator and to realize their obligations to love and obey him. As a scholar, he lectured to candidates for the ministry in Latin; but as a pastor, he preached in French to communicate with common people. To learned and unlearned parishioners alike, he proclaimed, "The whole life of Christians ought to be a sort of practice of godliness." He defined godliness as a "pure zeal which loves God as a real Father and looks up to him as a real Lord; it embraces his righteousness and detests offending him more than it does dying."
To encourage the piety of God's people, their pastor taught them from Scripture, for he knew spirituality requires the truth of divine revelation as the basis for personal life and its healthful development. As the Holy Spirit leads Christians to accept sound teaching, that knowledge must regulate all of life. Even in his Institutes, Calvin sought to promote sincere piety as well as sound theology, and to demonstrate the connection between them.
With sympathy and compassion, Calvin sought to help believers as they struggled with temptation in their quest for spirituality, that is, for "reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces." Calvin recommended regular reading of Scripture as the principal means of progressing in sanctification. As the Holy Spirit creates faith in the Word of God, piety requires believers to organize their lives around Scripture, applying its teachings in all areas of their endeavors. They must participate in public worship to hear the Word expounded, and they must reinforce that with private study and meditation on biblical teachings.

You can read the entire article here.

Along these same lines I recommend the article John Calvin: Servant of the Word published in the Ordained Servant.

Think and Smoke Tobacco

2011-10-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

I am both a cigar and a pipe smoker (traditional pipes; not the kind that need water). I’m also a connoisseur of good Reformed theology. What a treat it is to have these good gifts brought together by Scottish churchman Ralph Erskine (1685-1752) in Think and Smoke Tobacco. So grab your favorite pipe and read on!

Part I
This Indian weed now wither'd quite,
'Tho' green at noon, cut down at night,
Shows thy decay;
All flesh is hay.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The pipe so lily-like and weak,
Does thus thy mortal state bespeak.
Thou art ev'n such,
Gone with a touch.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,
Then thou behold'st the vanity
Of worldly stuff,
Gone with a puff.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within,
Think on thy soul defil'd with sin;
For then the fire,
It does require.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Then to thyself thou mayest say
That to the dust
Return thou must.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Part II
Was this small plant for thee cut down?
So was the plant of great renown;
Which mercy sends
For nobler ends.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Doth juice medicinal proceed
From such a naughty foreign weed?
Then what's the pow'r
Of Jesse's flow'r?
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The promise, like the pipe, inlays,
And by the mouth of faith conveys
What virtue flows
From Sharon's rose.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

In vain th' unlighted pipe you blow;
Your pains in inward means are so,
'Till heav'nly fire
Thy heart inspire.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The smoke, like burning incense tow'rs
So should a praying heart of yours,
With ardent cries,
Surmount the skies.
Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)

So Great a Salvation

2011-10-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

Our first parents, through the instigation of the Devil (Rev. 12:9), chose to rebel against our most holy God (Gen. 3:1-6). The result of this rebellion was the entrance of sin into the world (Rom. 5:12-14). The nakedness for which Adam and Eve were ashamed extended far beyond mere clothing—they and their progeny were now separated from God and in need of reconciliation (Rom. 5:12-21).

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Genesis 2:16-17

As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.”
Romans 3:10-12

Saving Grace

Grace (Latin: Gratia; Greek: Charis; Hebrew: Chen) refers to the undeserved favor shown from one to another, particularly from a greater to a lesser.

“. . .grace is an attribute of God, one of the divine perfections. It is God’s free, sovereign, undeserved favor or love to man, in his state of sin and guilt, which manifests itself in the forgiveness of sin and deliverance from its penalty. It is connected with the mercy of God as distinguished from His justice. This is redemptive grace in the most fundamental sense of the word. It is the ultimate cause of God’s elective purpose, of the sinner’s justification, and of his spiritual renewal; and the prolific source of all spiritual and eternal blessings.”
Louis Berkhof (1873-1957)

Man can do nothing to earn (merit) God’s grace. If he could, then it would be a wage not a gift, and would be grounds for boasting before God.

8) For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9) not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

Mankind has rebelled against God, and, as a result, stands condemned. But God, for His own good pleasure, chooses to spare some—to show mercy. By its very nature, grace does not come about by anything man does—we don’t pray our way into it, chose our way into it, or anything else. It is completely, from first to last, an underserved gift from God. Thus the appropriate response is to fall down before a gracious God who does not give us what we deserve.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness
Romans 1:18

When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”
Acts 11:18

When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
Acts 13:48

This message of grace, therefore, is essential to the gospel message, as Puritan John Owen explains . . .

Gospel promises then are: (1) The free and gracious dispensations; and, (2) discoveries of God’s good-will and love: to, (3) sinners; (4) through Christ; (5) in a covenant of grace: (6) wherein, upon his truth and faithfulness, he engageth himself to be their God, to give his Son unto them, and for them, and his Holy Spirit to abide with them, with all things that are either required in them, or are necessary for them, to make them accepted before him, and to bring them to an enjoyment of him.
John Owen (1616-1683)

Conclusion

Because of the fall man is separated from God. And left to his devices he’ll continue in his sin and rebellion. But God, in His great mercy, chooses to grant a stay of execution to some—not only that, He chooses to adopt the condemned! This message of God not giving us what we deserve should make us fall to our knees and sing along with John Newton . . .

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Baptism Resources

2011-10-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

New Horizons magazine offeres two fine articles regarding baptism.

Baptism in Our Confessional Standards

In this article Rev. Alan D. Strange, professor at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, takes us through a guided tour of baptism in the Westminster Standards. Addressed are topics such as the . . .

Nature of baptism

Efficacy of baptism

“Improvement” of our baptism

You can read the entire article here.

A Better Case for "Infant Baptism"

In 2006, Rev. William Shishko, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, N.Y., debated Reformed Baptist and apologist Dr. James White: "Resolved: The subjects of Christian baptism are only those who have personally repented and believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord."

Rev. Shishko explains the reason for the article this way: “The purpose of this article is to reflect on this debate. We can learn from projects like this, and become better able to respond biblically to those who differ with us.”

You can read the article here.

Thought of the Day: Objective Morality

2011-10-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here’s the Christian claim: Morality is based upon God’s holy, just, and perfect character. He is the standard for morality. We know this in two ways. First, we are beings created in His image; because of this, we are moral beings imprinted with His moral code. That’s why everyone engages in moral reasoning. Second, He has revealed His moral law to us in the Bible. Consequently, morality is objective.

Dog-Nawpers, Churchwardens, and Ale-Houses

2011-10-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

From Forgotten English . . .

Dog-nawper: A church beadle . . . with his long wand of office [for] tapping (nawping, we lads called it) the heads of either sleepers or unruly youngsters.

Dog-Whipping Day

At one time, any dogs found on the streets of York on October 18 were subject to being whipped. This practice commemorated an eighteenth-century incident in which a dog had consumed consecrated wafers in York Minister Cathedral. Many English churches of that time employed wardens who not only supervised the canines that accompanied their owners to church but also were at times assigned to keep parishioners awake during services. But these minor officials’ duties were not confined to the church.

As Frederick Hackwood’s Inns, Ales, and Drinking Customs of Old England (1909) explained: “The practice in the later centuries was for the churchwardens and the beadle . . . to sally forth on Sunday morning at the commencement of the reading of the second lesson, and to visit all the public-houses in the neighborhood of the church. Anyone found tippling during the church service was instantly apprehended and placed in the stocks, which not infrequently stood near the churchyard gates.”

Notable Quote: C.G. Kirkby

2011-10-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

C.G. Kirkby on the sacraments . . .

Only two sacraments are known and administered by the Church in the New Testament era – Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are both equally signs and seals and intended to be attached to the Word. The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin term SACRAMENTUM and is equivalent to the Greek term MYSTERION which in the New Testament denotes the divine plan of salvation hidden in past ages but now brought to light in the preaching of the Word (Rom. 16:25, 26). They are called “mysteries” or “sacraments” because they have enabled men to participate in the mysterious union of God and man through the atoning death and resurrection of Christ.
It was Augustine who first gave the general definition of a sacrament, which later became traditional, as “an outward and temporal sign of an inward and enduring grace.” Accordingly to the catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” The Reformers insisted that the sacraments were given to the Word of God. This predominant purpose of a sacrament is for a sign and a seal. It is to declare to us what God has done for us and to us and within us..
Signs and Seals of the Covenant

Thought of the Day: Those Who Have Not Heard

2011-10-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

If you died after not having chemotherapy, you died not because of the absence of chemo, but because of the cancer. Thus men suffer God’s wrath not because they didn’t hear the gospel, but because they’re sinners rebelling against a holy God—the gospel is the solution, not the problem.