Fear and Trembling

This is part four of a multi-part series on “He Has Spoken,” a study published by the Colson Center .  This post discusses the third presentation and discussion in the five lesson DVD curriculum.  This lecture is titled “The Big Picture: Grasping the Purposes of Scripture.”  Any lecture which opens with a T. S. Elliot quote gets my attention, and this one is no exception.  Elliot said there were two questions we ask when we find something new: what can I do with it, and what is it for?  Of course, what is it for (what is its purpose) is the most important question.    This reminds me of Captain James T. Kirk’s comment in The Wrath of Kahn : “You have to know why things work on a starship.”  To me, the Bible answers the “what is it for” question for itself in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God[a] may...

I have taken several months off from blogging.  I have used the time to prepare a series of Sunday School Lessons on J. I. Packer’s wonderful little book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God .  I will lead a discussion of this book at my little church in Troy, TN .  I want to put in a plug for this book. One of the things that put me off of Calvinism when I was first introduced to the doctrines of grace was the idea that Calvinism destroyed the motive for evangelism and missions.  It took a long time for me to come around.  There are many others who reject Calvinism for the same reasons. Packer is clear in his book that the “antinomy” between God’s sovereignty (God’s control of all things) and man’s free will (man’s freedom of choice) is a mystery that will not be completely sorted out in this life.  Along with others, (see John Piper’s short article here , and a discussion by R. C. Sproul in Chosen by God ), I am somewhat troubled with the use o...