Fear and Trembling

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 ).