I Think My Daughter's an Arminian

A response to: "I Think My Wife's a Calvinist." In reality, my daughter is only 9 years old ... though she does read the NLT for her devotions.

Part 4-You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe

The Post-Tithe View: Giving in the New Covenant

The Resurrection

I read a sermon by G. Campbell Morgan today on 1 Cor 15-the resurrection of Christ. He made some great statements:

- "When He was crucified all the little company of people that had been gathered about Him left Him. I am not criticizing them; the more I know of my own heart, the less I can do that."
I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing so much fault in the disciples, seeing them as foolish at times. But as I explore my sinfulness, the darkness residing in my heart, the criticisms of them seem hypocritical ... I probably would have done worse.

- "The reverberation of the hammer that drives the nails is the thunder that scatters His followers."


- "He was the Son of God or the most disastrous deceiver that ever trod the earth."
That famous question - was He Lord, Liar, or Lunatic - is addressed here. He couldn't have been a moral man, for he was a deceiver, the worst deceiver ever. The centrality of the resurrection is sure.

- "When you tell me the story of the resurrection was a fraud, it was a fraud which made men pure and strong, and this is to reveal the absurdity of the charge."
Here he uses the argument of the transformation of the disciples. How can someone argue that they made up the resurrection and that this fake story made them into courageous men ready to die for Christ? That truly is absurd!

- "One has heard in these recent days that what happened on the road to Damascus was that Paul had an epileptic seizure in a thunderstorm. Supposing that were true, then I should set to praying for epilepsy and thunderstorms at once."

The resurrection is truly a central tenet to Christianity. Without the truth of the resurrection, our faith and our preaching are in vain. But, praise the Lord, they are not! For Christ has truly risen from the grave, victorious over death, victorious over sin, and proclaiming himself to truly be the Son of God.

Part 3-You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe

Tithing in the New Testament

Amazing Love

A few excerpts from G. Campbell Morgan's sermon "Amazing Love!"

- "Apart from the cross of Christ you will never persuade me that God loves me."

- "You ask me how I know it, and I take you, not to the infinite spaces where stars march in rhythmic order, not to the hedgegrow where God smiles in flowers; but to the rough and brutal cross of Calvary, to the hour o the dying of the Christ."

As I meditate upon the cross, my worthlessness overwhelms me, but a sense of His love fills me as well. What an act of love that is!

"Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!"

Let us love Him today with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Part 2-You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe

Part 2 covers tithing in the Mosaic Law and Malachi 3. Not all the passages on tithing are covered in this study, but the most important one's are.

You Mean I Don't Have to Tithe?

I was recently asked to teach for a month at a Wednesday night Bible study at my church, Old Forest Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA. I basically summarized my dissertation on tithing and giving in four parts. The link below is Part 1: Definitions, History, and Tithing before the Mosaic Law.

Two Aspects of the Great Commission-August 2008

NEW DISCOVERY: Not only Jesus' bones, but the Holy Spirit's, too

Scholar's have identified through nuclear powered microscopes and DNA testing that the mysterious bones in the now famous "Jesus Tomb" were actually the bones of the Holy Spirit. How through DNA? Well, they had samples before a person was saved, compared them to after a person was saved, and the difference helped them decipher the genetic make-up of the DNA of the Holy Spirit. The picture of the bones are below.

From CT

This is from Christianity Today's website. While the Haggard situation is not funny, this misquote is:

"This story incorrectly stated that James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, believes people who don't practice what they preach should undergo an exorcism. His quote, in a TV interview about reaction to the firing of evangelical leader Ted Haggard for 'sexual immorality,' was: 'Everybody gets exercised (worked up about it) when something like this happens, and for good reason.'"
—A correction to a November 23 Rocky Mountain News article on Dobson and Haggard, which had the subhead "Dobson: Haggard not a hypocrite, just in need of exorcism."

Live and Learn

It's amazing the "loopholes" students can find. I decided to be gracious to my Gospel of John class and allow them to turn their papers in before the end of the day, since I would be in my office until late that night. As I started the class (after I announced this), a student asked me a question about the paper. I answered it and got about 1 line out of my lecture, when I looked back at him.

He had his laptop open and a stack of books next to it that looked like John commentaries. I said: are you actually working on the paper right now?!" He said yes. Unbelievable! I couldn't believe it, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt for an hour. He was actually going to try to finish the paper during class. That took nerve!

Wright's Simply Christian:Part 1

I’ve been reading N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian over Thanksgiving Break and have found some interesting tidbits I thought I’d share over the next few posts.

Saying “It’s true for you” sounds fine and tolerant. But it only works because it’s twisting the word “true” to mean, not “a true revelation of the way things are in the real world,” but “something that is genuinely happening inside you.” In fact, saying “It’s true for you” in this sense is more or less equivalent to saying “It’s not true for you,” because the “it” in question—the spiritual sense or awareness or experience—is conveying, very powerfully, a message (that there is a loving God) which the challenger is reducing to something else (that you are having strong feelings which you misinterpret in that sense). [Pages 26-27]

He gives a great argument (I think) against an oft-used argument.

Billy and Inclusivism

Billy Graham appeared on Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power” on May 31^st, 1997, and here is the transcript:

Schuller: Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

Graham: Well, Christianity and being a true believer–you know, I think there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ. And I don’t think that we’re going to see a great sweeping revival, that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name.

And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.

Schuller: What, what I hear you saying that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they’ve been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?

Graham: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

Schuller: I’m so thrilled to hear you say this. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

Graham: There is. There definitely is.

Dr. John MacArthur, in one of his mailings, said this about Graham and Schuller’s conversation:

This has certainly leaped from Aristotle to the Catholic Church into evangelical Protestantism. Now we have a kind of Protestant viewpoint that says Muslims and Hindus and whoever are going to be in the Body of Christ, in the Kingdom, in Heaven, with salvation whether they ever get a Bible or whether they ever hear the Gospel or whether they ever know about Jesus Christ. The Billy Graham organization affirmed that this position is the same as the one articulated in an article in Decision magazine which Billy wrote in 1960, so this is not something new.

Very interesting …

MacArthur

MacArthur on evangelism:
"If I had an hour to talk to someone about Christ, I’d spend 55 minutes talking about their sin and their condemnation, and I’d spend the last five minutes talking about the solution."

Net or Gross

Interesting article today on BP News ... any thoughts?

Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard is loved by many evangelicals, especially those who are embracing the Emerging/Emergent Church. Here's a quote from his own website. This is a hypothetic discussion with a girl. Right at the end of the (hypothetical) discussion, she says:

"But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I'm not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?"

Dallas Willard ... on his own website ... responds:

"I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: 'God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.'

What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that? I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say 'he can't save them.' I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: 'There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.'"

Interesting ... any comments on this man who was interviewd by Christianity Today and the interviewer said:

"He teeters on the edge of openness theology, saying God can choose not to know the future if he wants to, but he doesn't go as far as many openness adherents, whose views he believes 'slip into process theology.'"

Thoughts, please ....

Red-Letter Christians

Red-Letter Christians? It would be convenient for some to throw out much of what Paul had say, wouldn't it.

Patterson, Calvinism, & Revelation

A post on www.ratemyprofessor.com said this about Paige Patterson:

"Very knowledgeable. Very smart. Well-read. If he has a weakness, it may be that his Calvinism definitely comes through too often. This concerns me, b/c calvinists often don't make very good missionaries or evangelists."

Then, on amazon.com, this was a comment about his forth-forth-forthcoming commentary on Revelation (in the NAC series):

"This volume reminds me of Chrysostom's commentary on Romans. Patterson, like all great exegetes, does not tell us what to believe; he simply gives the student the information he needs to make up his own mind about this book. Regarding the great mysteries of the Revelation, Patterson does not pretend to have the answers, he does not give us what he thinks, he just gives us what he thinks we need. A true wordsmith; the words leap off the page. You will likely never read a negitive review on this commentary, Patterson has seen to that. My only regret is that it is currently unavailable; I seem to have misplaced my copy."

Then there was this one:
"Revelation--a word that strikes terror into the hearts of its hearers. Great minds like Calvin and Luther have skated past the aisle of the apocalypse, passed up a second helping of Great Dragon in a Lake of Fire, and cancelled flights on Air Revelation. But not Patterson. In this timeless wonder of a book Patterson sees this plate of mystery and says, "Yummy." Patterson's revelation is so concise with a kind of scholarly brevity that one wonders, "how did he do it?!" One reads with stupefied wonder, the words "I just can't believe he actually wrote it" going through one's mind. The excellence of the Summa Nihilo cannot be put into words. As Alison Krauss so astutely remarked, "You say it best when you say nothing at all." Throughout his exposition of the depths and mystery of the Revelation, Patterson has ingeniously found a way to retain these mysteries from cover to cover. Still, the profound scholarship herein causes the reader to often ask, "What is he saying?" just before realizing, the true genius is in what he is not saying. His utter humility in acknowledging the vast mystery of the book of the revelation causes the pages to virtually turn themselves. It is almost as if you are through with the book before you even start reading it. The only fitting words with which I may conclude are those of the author himself: "

And finally:
"It is not what you see in this commentary that is so remarkable. It is what you cannot see.
As shrouded as the meanings of the Book of Revelation, so is Patterson's illumination of the text to the prospective reader. The reality of his words must ever give way to the invisible pictures conjured in the mind as one meditates upon the depths of the Book of Revelation and upon the years, even decades Patterson has invested in the commentary's production.
As any commentary is forever a work in progress, this commentary is no exception. Only in the imagination of the consumer and Bible student does this work take full flight. Some would say that what we now see is as nothing at all by comparison. I would differ.
What we now see is what we now have. And what we have may be all that there is.
When that is said of a commentary, what more could be said?
Five stars."

Worship Songs

Christianity Today online has an interesting article about an atheist visiting churches after he sold his soul on ebay. One particular line jumped out at me:

"He was also impressed with the live music, something absent from the atheist conventions he attends. The quality of the words, however, was another story: 'I have no idea who writes the lyrics to this stuff, but it sounds like what a four-year-old could write: "God is good. God is strong." And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.'"

Ouch!!! Let me give a defense of these songs ... well, um ... okay, I can't. He's right. So many of the worship songs used today are written by those with a convenient and superficial theology. Why? Why is it that this criticism, which has been ongoing for years, has persisted?

Well, when 'contemporary' music began to be used in the churches, most churches and schools that were capable of training people how to plumb the depths of the Scriptures were anti-contemporary music. So, who could these people go to? Where could they learn the Scriptures?

That created a problem: those who were writing good (or at least decent) music with so-so lyrics were not going to be exposed to great Bible teaching because they were shunned from those camps. Today, most (not all) of these people are in Charismatic circles (Matt Redman, Paul Oakley, etc). Typically (and yes, I'm stereotyping), they aren't known for their great Bible teaching (though Calvary Chapel has some very good Bible teachers). So, the song writers of today are drinking from a very shallow well ... and I think that is at least partially why so much of the contemporary music is shallow.

Don't get me wrong, I think some of it is GREAT. Some of it isn't shallow, but fairly deep. However, most of it isn't, and this atheist's comments were right on the mark.

Darrell Bock and the gospel

Darrell Bock comments on sin and hell and ends up highlighting a real important distinction in how the gospel is presented today. I think what he touches upon here is one of the reasons we have so many "Christians" that never experience the abundant life ... they are just trying to avoid hell.

"The point is how often do we present that gospel as if the goal is to avoid something rather than to enter into something God desires for us. (I am speaking of emphasis here) When we ask, "if you died today would you know for sure you will be in heaven," it sounds like the core of the gospel is avoiding hell. But to me the key to the gospel is God moving to fix a broken relationship and giving his son to bring us to himself, something that starts before we die and lasts forever. Yes, we do avoid hell, but far more important is the restoration and reconciliation that is the gospel. It is not what we avoid that is key, but what we enter into and get to participate in that is central. Now that is really good news. He rescues us from sin but does not leave us there. So the bottom line is not avoiding a fate, but entering into a new state of unbroken relationship with God. This aspect of the gospel message often needs more highlighting or can get obscured if avoiding a fate is emphasized."

Marvelous! Bock nails this important issue; the gospel really is good news, not just the avoidance of bad news!