Fear and Trembling

It is good for Baptists to listen to the voices of their critics. I found a great post here that reminds me of this fact. Here’s a bit of it: The charge is bandied about that the new breed of Evangelical Seeker-Sensitive pastors are preaching a Me-Centered Gospel, a watered down gospel or are preaching a Christless form of Christianity. But in my conversations with Church Planters and in taking the time to listen to thousands of hours of their sermons I can definitively state that their theology isn't technically 'Christless' and that they believe with ALL of their hearts that they are fulfilling the calling to which they feel Christ has called them. The problem lies in their popularized form of Baptist theology and its Material and Formal Principles. The center of their religion is off and as a result they are focusing on the wrong things and are trying to produce the results they are seeking with the wrong tools. I know this sounds like an outrageous and conceited charge...

Thanks once again to Between Two Worlds for a link to an interesting Walk Street Journal article here . A radio program I enjoyed, Issues, Etc., has been recently canceled by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. The show’s passing has also been lamented by my friend at Extra Nos and my friend at Extreme Theology . The show’s abrupt cancellation leaves us without one strong voice for historic, confessional Christianity in the mainline Lutheran church. The show will be missed, and I pray God would bring it back.

Do we always need complicated historical arguments for the Bible? Do we have to prove that the Bible is God’s Word to everyone? While I do think there are good reasons why we can trust our Bibles (see here ), I do not think all people need this kind of persuasion. The gospels are the Word of God written by men empowered by the Holy Spirit to write directly and forcefully. In John 14:26 and 16:13-14 , Jesus promises the Holy Spirit’s presence to help the Apostles remember His teaching. This power is evident in the writings themselves. One church historian puts it like this: "They carry about them a self-evidencing quality. They carry their uniqueness on their face. They have always exercised, and still exercise, an unparalleled power upon the lives of men." (Bruce L. Shelley. 1995. Church history in plain language, Second edition . Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing. p. 61) This self-evidencing quality lead Charles Spurgeon to say that we do not defend the Bible in the same way ...

'They Want Jesus Instead' is an article from Chuck Colson that outlines some hopeful trends in the Muslim world. The text is here . See more information on conversions to Christianity for Islam here .

Thanks again to Between Two Worlds for a great link. A satellite map overlay to the approximate places of key events of Passion Week with a harmonization and sequence can be found here .

I had a difficult time getting into the Spirit of the Easter Holiday this year. I started a couple of posts, but I just find it difficult to add to the words of the Apostle Paul. The Passion "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, ESV The Resurrection “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made aliv...

Thanks to Between Two Worlds for the link to a JAMA article here . I’ve heard about this article for years, and I’ve always wanted to read it. The conclusion, based on the testimony of the gospels, is that Christ did in fact die on the cross. Hardly seems startling news to me, but some people need more convincing than I do.

Ben Stein has produced a movie called “Expelled.” It will be running in limited theaters soon. The movie is about the experiences some science professors have as a result of commitments to the intelligent design movement. More details can be found here . I hope to see it soon, or at least rent it when it hits stores.

I have spent many hours contemplating the relationship between faith and works. I have found it difficult to establish this relationship in my mind. Christ often speaks in such a way as to warn us that works are the basis of our judgment before Him (e. g. Matthew 16:24-26 and Matthew 25 ). Jesus also speaks of the fact that we are justified by faith ( Luke 18:9-14 , John 5:24 , 6:47 ). I have found one illustration to be helpful to me, and I have come to the place where I accept the truth behind the illustration completely. I am taking this example from a series of lectures by John H. Gerstner on sale from Ligonier Ministries here . Another example of Gerstner’s writing on this subject is here . The relationship between faith and works in church history can be summarized by three equations: FAITH + WORKS = SALVATION FAITH – WORKS = SALVATION FAITH = SALVATION + WORKS I’ll take these in turn. FAITH + WORKS = SALVATION This is a summary of the traditional Roman Catholic approach. ...

Ligonier now has a blog here . This should be well written and informative.

I found the article here regarding the New Perspective on Paul by M. S. Horton to be very helpful.

Matt Chandler over at the Resurgence has an interesting post here . He uses the Ned Flanders character from the Simpson’s show as an embodiment of the things he is troubled by in evangelicalism / fundamentalism. As a guy that was raised in a fundamentalist church, I identified with much of he post. Here’s an excerpt: …For years before I began to pastor a church I knew just what the problem was in American evangelical culture, and it wasn't sin, it was church people, it was Ned and his friends. The "frozen chosen" I think I have heard them called. They were old, tired, non missional, unmoved by the gospel, and thought the Left Behind movies were a great idea. They had driven our precious Lord's bride into the ground and deserved at least to be mocked in our young, hip, missional conversations and sermons and maybe even killed in some sort of Old Testament fashion… It's a strange thing to wake up and find out you are the very thing you hated and rebelled against t...

If the article here turns out to be true, I think ice is now forming in a formerly very hot place.

Excellent commentary on the tornado which struck Union University in Jackson, TN, can be found here . Donations to rebuild the campus after the F4 tornado struck on Feb. 5 can be made here .

Thanks to Debbie for a link to an article h ere . The article highlights the plight of women in Islamic society. This is a list of legal cases tried an sentenced in Saudi Arabia, a country supposedly friendly to our interests in the Mid-East. See more information on the life of women under Islamic rule here .

Recent conversations with John on this blog reminded me of an article I had seen a couple of years ago called “The convert” by Cal Thomas. The full text of the article is here . An excerpt follows. …[Sam] Soloman was brought up in the Islamic tradition and became a "recruiter," which he says is something like an assistant teacher. One of his responsibilities was "brainwashing people in the Koran." He tells me "The suicide bombers go through stages, and the most important stage is not when they blow themselves up. The most important stage is conforming them to the [Muslim] ideology. Once they are conformed to the ideology, the rest is easy. That is the role I had." …Mr. Soloman is in double trouble. Not only did he abandon Islam and the terrorists' objectives, he has become a Christian, which has marked him for death… Mr. Soloman speaks with knowledge, credibility and conviction. He has memorized large sections of the Koran and tells me, "There...

It is discouraging to see the Christian church in America abandoning whole-sale the pursuit of doctrinal education. I find the remarks below to be a firm prophetic voice. “… It is the neglect of dogma [or, doctrine, the official teaching of the church] that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama… That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God “by whom all things were made.” His body and brain were those of a common man; his personality was the personality of God, so far as that personality could be expressed in human terms. He was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”; he was God… So that is the outline of the official story—the tale of the time when God was the underdog and got beaten, when he sub...