Fear and Trembling

In response to the recent shooting in Aurora, Colorado , John Stonestreet over at Breakpoint does a good job of quickly addressing the problem of evil at this post. Evil is both a problem for academic philosophers who wrestle with God’s existence and a problem for individuals who wrestle with the pain and suffering they endure.   The two groups overlap (what academic philosopher has lived a life untouched by evil), but I have little patience for the academic problem.   Many times when someone brings up a specific example of evil that he feels invalidates God’s existence, he admits that he is not personally trying to eliminate the very suffering he finds so repugnant.   It is difficult for me to respect that.   In addition, as Stonestreet points out in his article, a person who uses the problem of evil as a philosophical argument must provide a rationale for the existence of evil.   In a materialistic world, what gives a person the right to say someth...

My last two posts have discussed antinomianism.   This one will help to point Christians to the one Person who can provide assurance of salvation in view of their remaining sin. Assurance is Christian ‘shorthand’ for the knowledge that one will be in heaven when he / she dies.   I have treated the subject of assurance of salvation in otherposts .   This post will ‘plough some of the same ground.’   From John Calvin: The consciences of believers, in seeking assurance of their justification before God, should rise above and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness…For there the question is not how we may become righteous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous. If consciences wish to attain any certainty in this matter, they ought to give no place to the law. Nor can anyone rightly infer from this that the law is superfluous for believers, since it does not stop teaching and exhorting and urging them to good, eve...

My last post discussed antinomianism.   The heresy of antinomianism teaches that true Christians do not necessarily perform good works.   This post deals with some of the logical out-workings of antinomianism.   True Christians will show their commitment to Christ in lives marked by good works.   What are we to make of the oft quoted surveys of George Barna and others that show   Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians, nine percent of Christians tithe (give ten percent of their income as the Bible commands), 80% of those who take pledges to wait for marriage are sexually active outside marriage in the next seven years, and 20% of Christians do not think premarital sex is wrong?       Is it true that commitment to Christ makes no difference in a person’s life?   (Statistics as quoted in Finally Alive by John Piper, p. 13)   Keep in mind that Barna and others define Christians based on what they say they ...

Antinomianism, crassly stated, is the idea that a person can be a Christian without doing good works.   It is a separation of good works from true Christian profession.   Sometimes called “easy believism,” the idea of antinomianism is common in some Christian circles today. I have treated the necessity of good works in the life of a Christian in a post called “Faith + Works” on this blog.   In that post, I discussed John H. Gerstner’ s approach to antinomianism.   Gerstner teaches that people must necessarily do good works if they are Christians.   Those works do not earn them salvation, but they must be present in Christian’s lives.   Martin Luther, the great protestant reformer, first used the term “antinomian.”   Luther wrote, “Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever…Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!” (“ Holiness Wars: Antinomianism in Church H...

It will not surprise my blog readers that my Easter post is late this year. I have found that I spend more and more time on Face Book when I have free time to be on the computer. I have also renewed my love for reading after graduate school at Union University (Some of the books I am reading are here , here , and here .) I did want to recount and link to several other posts that have caught my eye during the Easter Season. They are separated below under two topics. Did the resurrection occur? Debunking 3 Common Myths about the Resurrection Podcast: Glenn Peoples on the Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection Communicating the Claims of Easter Teaching Kids About the Reality and Historicity of the Resurrection Did the Apostles Hallucinate When They Saw the Risen Christ? Five Strand of Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection Top Ten Myths of the Resurrection What does the resurrection mean to me? R. C. Sproul on the Meaning of the Cross Easter for Athe...

From George Whitefield: The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Savior. I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave free will in man and make him, in part at least, a Savior to himself. . . . I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. Oh the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saints' final perseverance! I am persuaded, till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come out of himself, but when convinced of these, and assured of their application to his own heart, he then ...

Dr. K. Scott Oliphint ‘s penetrating analysis of a spat within the atheist community can be found at this link . Reason alone simply cannot provide an adequate framework for ethical decision-making. Dr. Oliphint, professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, has been doing some strong work in apologetics from the presuppositional point of view (now referred to as covenantal apologetics ) at the Reformation21 blog . Dr. Oliphint also defends the presuppositional position at The Gospel Coalition in a debate summarized at this link . I recommend Dr. Oliphint’s work because it brings much needed clarity to the subject.

It is well known that the great pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards spent 1751-1758 in the position of a missionary to the Indians in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I have always heard that either this was a time Edwards arranged to work on his writing, or else a period of exile after a bitter conflict cause Edwards to lose the pastorate of his church of twenty-two years . An article by Jonathan Gibson, a PhD candidate in Hebrew Studies at Girton College, Cambridge, puts together a convincing case that Edwards was a missionary who took his role quite seriously. The well-written and convincing article can be found at this link .

I recently had the chance to comment on an atheist web site that prides itself on requiring testable hypotheses in order to gain any knowledge. I formed one of Alvin Plantinga’s arguments into hypothesis testing format. The point is that arguments for God’s existence are based on verifiable, testable data and that science assumes the validity of higher-ordered mental functions in the experimentation process. The comment is reproduced below with some modifications and some links included. This will be an observational study using the data we find in the known universe. The null hypothesis is that our faculties of reasoning which allow us to develop higher-order beliefs arose from chance guided by natural selection. The alternative hypothesis is that our faculties of reasoning which allow us to develop higher-order beliefs arose from a process guided by God or an event brought about by God. This is a valid way of describing the problem at hand. We have data in the known univer...

[This article was written for a series for my local paper .] This series of Soli Deo Gloria articles is focused on the Heidelberg Catechism . This catechism is a series of questions and answers written in 1563 to teach people the Christian faith. The writers divided the catechism into 52 Lord’s Days so a person could learn it in one year. Today’s article discusses Lord’s Day 17, Question 45. Q 45 How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us? A. First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, so that he might make us share in the righteousness he obtained for us by his death. (Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:16-20; 1 Pet. 1:3-5) Second, by his power we too are already raised to a new life. (Rom. 6:5-11; Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 3:1-4) Third, Christ’s resurrection is a sure pledge to us of our blessed resurrection. (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:12-23; Phil. 3:20-21) John Warrick Montgomery , a prominent Lutheran defender of the Christian faith, presents a strong evidential case for the truth of Christiani...

[This article was written for my local paper in a series on the Heidelberg Catechism .] We continue our series of articles on the Heidelberg Catechism . The catechism is a series of 129 questions and answers on the Christian faith. Theologians wrote the catechism in 1563 to teach people the Christian faith. The questions are divided into 52 Lord’s Days, one for each week of the year. Today’s article covers Lord’s Day 16, Questions 40-44, as we continue our discussion of the Apostle’s Creed. Q 40 Why did Christ have to suffer death? A. Because God’s justice and truth require it: (Gen. 2:17) nothing else could pay for our sins except the death of the Son of God. (Rom. 8:3-4; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 2:9) How does a holy and just God forgive sinful human beings without becoming unholy or unjust? Humanly speaking, this question presented God with a problem. On the one hand, God loved His people and did not want to punish them. On the other hand, since God is just, he must punish their ...

John Piper comments on the horror of abortion ( link ). David Powlison posts a video on how to heal after having an abortion ( link ). Justin Taylor explains why we should not ‘go for the home run.’ A series of ‘base hits’ might do the job, or at least most of it ( link ).

Thanks to Apologetics 315 for a link to a presentation by Richard Bauckham on the topic: The Gospels as Historical Biography . Click through for the link to the video. Bauckman is one of my heroes, and his excellent book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony can be purchased at this link .

[This is the full text of an article that I recently wrote for our local paper.] We will look at the Apostle's Creed in more detail this week in our series on the Heidelberg Catechism. From a close look at the outline of the creed, we can see the doctrine of the Trinity clearly displayed. Question and answer 24 read, “How are these articles divided? Into three parts: God the Father and our creation; God the Son and our deliverance; and God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.” The catechism introduces us to the three Persons of the Trinity and their role in our salvation when we have true faith. Almighty God, the Father of all Christians, creates us and sends the Son and the Spirit. God the Son, Jesus Christ, delivers us from our sin and misery by His life and death. In addition, God the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, empowers us for the Christian life and makes us holy. Question and answer 25 clearly state the nature of the Trinity, “Since there is only one divine being (Deu...

Having accomplished much of what I had planned to do in 2011 , I have now turned to the Bible reading plan I will use in 2012. I hope to get back on track with a regular, through-the-Bible reading plan. My sporadic reading of the Bible in 2011 left me unsatisfied. My plans are to tackle Reading God's Story: A Chronological Daily Bible arranged and authored by George Guthrie . The organization of the Scripture text in this book’s format intrigues me. It claims to have a memorable format organized by acts and scenes like an unfolding play. It will be interesting to see how this organization plays out, and especially what the over-arching theme of the “play” will be. I may abandon it if the theme does not prove to be the story of Jesus. I also wish Reading God's Story was available in something other than the Holman Christian Standard Bible translation. It will also be interesting to see how this translation compares to the ESV that I normally use for detailed stud...

[This is the full text of an article I was able to publish in the local paper.] I hope you have been following Soli Deo Gloria’s series on the Heidelberg Catechism . The Heidelberg Catechism is a collection of questions and answers written in 1563 and used to instruct children and adults in the faith. As we continue the articles, we approach Lord’s Day 7, which contains four questions and answers. These four questions and answers reference 27 passages of the Bible in the original catechism. Question and Answer 20 reads, “Are all people then saved through Christ just as they were lost through Adam? No. Only those are saved who through true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his benefits.” We must hold this truth near and dear to our hearts. Some teachers say that people can be saved without conscious faith in Christ, or even without direct knowledge of what Christ did in His perfect life and sacrificial death. It is an awful sin to fail to tell someone the gosp...