Check out Laura's appearance as the featured guest on Dr. Mohler's radio show today. The topic was the Time cover story on crisis pregnancy centers.
Read More......Friday, February 23, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
Musings from Jonathan Edwards #4
“… I don’t pretend fully to explain how these things are,
...I am far from pretending to explain the Trinity
so as to render it no longer a mystery still, notwithstanding
anything I have said about it. I don’t pretend to explain
“The Father is as the substance of the sun; the Son is as the rightness and glory of the disk of the sun, or that bright and glorious form under which it appears to our eyes; the Holy Ghost is as the heat and powerful influence which acts upon the sun itself and, being diffusive, enlightens, warms, enlivens and comforts the world. The Spirit, as it is God’s infinite love and happiness, is as the internal heat of the sun; but as it is that by which God communicates himself, is as the emitted beams of God’s glory”
“There is nothing in Scripture that speaks of any acceptance of the Holy Ghost, or any reward, or any mutual friendship between the Holy Ghost and either of the either persons…”
“we never once read either of the Father or the Son loving the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit loving either of them. It is because the Holy Spirit is the divine love itself”
“...walking in the Spirit and walking in love are the same thing”
Questions:
Why do you suppose that the Father is never said to love the Holy Spirit in the Bible?
Why is it that Jesus is never said to love us (present tense as opposed to the past tense) until Rev. 1:5?
If the Holy Spirit is love and God is omnipresent, how can Edwards argue that hell is a world without love? Read More......
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
More fun questions
"Can a person be said to freely choose in the context of necessity? Are there any non-necessary choices ever made?"
Read More......Musings from Jonathan Edwards #3
Some said that that "free will, meaning the ability to determine the nature of the choices made, is the basis of moral good and evil." But Edwards thought was that the "will does not determine choices, it selects among available choices. It is not a self-determining power."
Questions:
"Does Edwards’ doctrine make God the author of sin? Did not God cause Adam to sin when He withdrew preserving mercies from him? Edwards indicates that God left Adam after he fell [(3:382), but was there not a departure before Adam’s sin as well as in consequence of Adam’s sin? Were there two types of departures from Adam? Has Edwards really presented us with an explanation of how Adam fell? Are you comfortable with saying that God withheld His grace, needful to prevent sinning, and, thereby, is not the author of sin? Edwards is willing to say that God is the author of sin in the sense that He is the cause of everything that happens. However, God did not infuse an evil propensity into Adam so as to cause an evil action; He withdrew from him [a deprivation view, 3:381]. God permits evil in this manner; He is not the cause of it."
Calvinism / Southern Seminary in the news
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1583921,00.html
So, after reading this article, I was asking myself the question ... is Al talking about actual, historical Calvinism, or about his own personal beliefs? Because my experience has been that Calvinism in practice and polemic, as regards free will, goes a good bit beyond "you can't save yourself" to the point of "Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more." In truth, there was little, if anything, I found to disagree with in what was billed as a "Calvinist apology" article.
What do you think?
P.S. Extra brownie points to whoever figures out the author of the cows quote.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Counsel or Command?
I'm reading A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams for a class - he says this: "By counsel (he didn't decide to do it on his own) Adam named the animals. By counsel he dressed the garden. By counsel he learned of the trees in the garden and the proper use of them (as well as the possible consequences of misuse). All this came after creation, to a man who was made to be dependent on God's counsel for all his life, who was capable of being changed and developed by that counsel...But something happened that led to the misery we have already mentioned: man turned from God's counsel to heed Satan's counsel" (p. 3).
I read that and really had a problem with the wording - "counsel". I mean, really, is that what was going on? Was God "counseling" Adam not to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't that a COMMAND?
Adams then goes on to say, "Man has no counsel that is strictly "his own" (John 8:34-44). If he rejects God's counsel, whatever counsel he follows instead turns out to be Satan's counsel" (p. 5).
But is it true that men cannot think up evil by himself, without the aid of the devil? Does that mean that EVERY evil thing I do is because I got the idea from the devil? What about my heart? Doesn't James say I am the source of my sin?
The only time I found a verse talking about God's counsel was in Job 15:8 - is says this: "Do you hear the secret counsel of God, And limit wisdom to yourself?"
I'm having trouble seeing Adams' point of view...it seems like he has a subject and is proof texting an idea that he made up. Why not just be Biblical? Is the Bible not enough? Why should I say "counsel" when the Bible clearly shows that it was a command?
And why should I blame the devil for all the evil I do, when the Bible makes it clear that I am evil and need no help?
Sorry, I'm a little tired, and ranting - but I had to dump it somewhere :)
Friday, January 19, 2007
Free Willy-Nilly
Doesn't the idea that our choices are determined by our greatest inclination born out by every-day experience?
Why did I choose to come to a coffee shop to study, instead of hanging out with my fiancee? Because strongest and most desirable inclination is to get my reading done for school. I didn't make the decision arbitrarily.
If my choice is determined by my greatest inclination, where does that inclination come from? Wouldn't it come from my nature, or, as Scripture might say, the condition of my heart (i.e. stone or flesh)?
What of Scripture saying "I will give you a new heart and new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to obey my rules"?
Doesn't this imply that a person's obedience is contingent upon that person being filled with the Spirit and having a new Spirit-installed heart and spirit?
Captive Will
"Freedom is not the ability to act contrary to willingness – what we find pleasure in is dictated by our nature."
Well, that's his opinion. I think it's balderdash, personally. Our nature dictates what things will be attractive to us, but it doesn't dictate which we will choose. Life is a series of choices between different pleasures -- delayed gratification and instant pleasure, sinful and godly desires, noble and ignoble means, etc. We need God's help, surely, to ultimately succeed in our efforts to choose the good ... but the statement "man has no ability to choose right and wrong" just doesn't line up with scripture.
Honestly, if you had no choices and were only able to choose the right when God changes you to desire only good, Jesus would not say stuff like, "Go and don't sin anymore." He would say, "Hold on, I'll zap you with special powers and then you'll never sin again."
The reformed tradition has given us many great things, but this idea -- that human beings lack moral agency -- is not only untrue, contrary to reality, and dangerous, but in the end no one really believes it. How many times have you counseled a person in sin thus: "Well, you don't really have any choice except to beat your wife. We're going to pray that God will make it so that you don't want that anymore." Obviously, this is something you want to pray for, but the first thing you say to them is, "Stop doing what you're doing!"
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Musings from Jonathan Edwards #2
Freedom is the ability to choose what you please based on the options available to you.
Freedom is not the ability to act contrary to willingness – what we find pleasure in is dictated by our nature.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Is the church the main impediment?
Response to Nathan's comment --
You know, one thing I've been realizing lately is how dangerous it is to say "the church" when you mean "this one church in particular". The truth is, every church is different. I think that my experience the last few years has been of church that (from my perspective) was robbed of the spiritual and the personal. I guess I can't really speak for the church at large ... it's more of a "this is something to avoid, that I have encountered".
So, is the church holding people back? Yes and no. God's plan (I assume) is that people come to faith, and are strengthened by the church discipling them and the Spirit transforming them. I think of it as the two elements of music: technicality and inspiration. The church is meant to be a means of improving your "technical" spiritual skill so that when inspiration strikes, it is more effective. If the church is not accomplishing its duty effectively, then it certainly is an impediment. But God is sovereign; he places people in situations with His eyes open; and if I was to blame my music class for my own failure to produce a Gold record then I would be laughed at.
Now that I think of it, though, the church may really be intended more as a family -- and your family shapes so much! Your morals, your values, tons of stuff that you don't even notice. If I said, "My parents abandoned me, so I didn't have the confidence to succeed," then I didn't have to fail because of what they did, but they certainly set me up for it. In this same way, the church will not stop you if the fire of God is in your heart, but they can hold you back a great deal ... and if you were on the brink of failure, then the church can destroy you!
... but it really is a continuum. There are some churches that are doing a horrible job and some that are doing a great one. No church is perfect, and I would guess that there are few true churches that will leave you worse off, in the end. I don't know.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Musings from Jonathan Edwards #1
Sin is not voluntary because all men sin.
There must be a cause to sin because all sin – for if we sin voluntarily then some must not sin, but because all sin, it is therefore not voluntary – for there cannot be an uncaused cause (except God).
Helping Question: If sin is voluntary, why do infants (who do not sin by choice) die? Read More......
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Monday, January 08, 2007
Test
Just wanted to test the e-mail notification system. If you don't want to be notified by e-mail when someone posts something new just remove yourself from the google group I added you all to.
-Nathan
Dreary Days
Weather affects mood...
We're fallen and so is our planet. My weakness manifests itself so clearly, because yesterday it was cold and dreary, with rain either drizzling or pouring all day. I started getting really depressed, for no apparent reason. I mean, sure, life is a bit stressful right now, but Laura and I spent hours registering for stuff people are going to buy for us. It's not like it was a bad day.
But, still, toward evening I was completely depressed. Laura and I had spent time praying, then reading and discussing Scripture. After that we made pizza and chocolate milk and cookies and watched TV.
I was trying to cast myself on the Lord, because he is sufficient. And my spirits lifted some, for awhile, but soon I was back into that funk. And, really, I think it was because the weather was crummy yesterday. Because today it's sunny, and I feel good.
Jesus is the same today as he was yesterday. He held yesterday's rainy world in his all-powerful hands like he has and will all other days throughout history. It's so hard, because I knew it, deeply, understood it. But I felt like the clouds would never lift, and it had only been a few hours of darkness -- not even darkness, but just cloudy. My fickle heart frustrates me. That's why it's good to know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Registry
For all you married types: what is something you wish you had registered for?
Read More......Friday, January 05, 2007
Because...
I realized after Outback when we were all in town a few weeks ago, that I really miss talking with you guys.
And then I was like, oh yeah, we all have a blog together.
I figured if I was posting stuff, and other people were posting stuff, we'd all be posting stuff. All of which equals the semblance of communication.
But, still, nothing beats talking over free bread and cheese fries.
So...
Nothing happened here for a few months and then all of a sudden there is a flurry of activity, what's the deal?
Read More......
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
What Holds People Back?
Fundamentally, the idea of being "sold out" for Christ isn't all that helpful , because there are truly only two types of people: those "in Adam" and those "in Christ." I mean that we are either dead or alive and there isn't an in-between. But I think the point of the question is a good one: "Why are there so many resurrected souls who look a lot like zombies?" By "zombies," I mean "walking dead," and my point (which I think is the question's point too) is that many Christians don't live like Christ.
I think that maybe part of the problem is a faulty view of being "sold out." We have to remember that different people have different portions and not all are called to be Paul or St. Francis or George Mueller or John Piper. Like Jesus said Peter about John living forever: "What is that to you? You follow me!" We must be clear (and I agree with Ben here) that Christ's calling will look different for different people. An "in Christ" plumber might be completely faithful by reading the Word three times a week, teaching Sunday school, leading his family, doing his job well while trusting and thanking Jesus in and for all things.
Focusing on externals is dangerous, because it can smack of justification by works. I know we can't chuck it out the window, because those who are alive by the Spirit will increasingly walk by the Spirit (Gal 5). But we need to focus less on ourselves and more on the amazing Jesus the Bible describes. Maybe that's the problem--people don't know Jesus. The question's intonation shouldn't be "Why aren't more people sold out for Jesus?" but "Why aren't people more sold out for Jesus?"
Our practical concept of Christ is far too small. He is the incarnated God almighty, who made the heavens and the earth and speaks all things into existence and sustenance. He is the resurrected Lord of lords, the reigning and conquering King of kings. We must live as those who, in Him, have been crucified and raised and given His own Spirit of promise. The Spirit has been given as the down payment of the future and final revelation of God's holy and awesome Christ. When He is revealed in glory will be like him, because we will see Him as He is. That's the key now, too--seeing and knowing Him. And Our change will come in direct proportion to our intimacy with Him through Scripture and the Spirit.
But too often (even as I wrote the last paragraph I struggled) when we see Him we don't love Him because our hearts are dull and flabby and our eyes are weak to see true glory. I get excited about a piece of dirt where there will be a small-ish house, but not about the Cornerstone of God's holy temple. And it's so sinful. I thank God that the blood and righteousness of Christ covers even this sin, in this moment!
People's Jesus, like mine, is too often too small. A big and true Jesus as the Scripture describes Him will demand and accomplish big and true change in tiny people like me.
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