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.