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...

My favorite Christmas Carol this year is Joy to the World.  (Please note that this changes each year.)   This hymn stands out to me as the one song we sing at Christmas time that has a missions focus and a focus on end-times.  The lyrics, with commentary inserted, are below. Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room. And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven and nature sing. This is a straight-forward request for us to receive the living Christ into our hearts by faith and repentance.  Every heart should prepare Him room. Joy to the world! The Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ. While fields and floods, Rocks, hills and plains, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. This is a call to unashamed praise to the Christ, the Savior of the world. No more let sin and sorrow grow, Nor thorns infest ...

This is part three of a multi-part series on “He Has Spoken,” a study published by  The Colson Cente r.  This post discusses the second presentation and discussion in the five lesson DVD curriculum.  This lecture is titled “Being Biblical: How We Miss the Point of Scripture.” John Stonestreet comments that we often hear misconceptions about the Bible’s authority, what the Bible is.  Two of these misconceptions could be called ‘the Bible as a rulebook’ or ‘the Bible as a collection of inspirational nuggets.’  But these misconceptions do not explain the Bible’s non-inspirational portions, which Stonestreet calls “scary."  Some describe the Bible as God’s love-letter to His people, but even that relatively accurate description does not account for the descriptions of God’s wrath and the stories of how that works out in history.  The Bible is also often seen as a book that tells stories about heroes of the faith, but these heroes are often flawed. ...

(This is an article written for our local paper.) A Christian view of death and dying sounds very strange to the modern ear.  This is especially true because Christianity has long seen death as true and right in one sense and evil and wrong in another.  It is seen as not a part of God’s perfect will, but it is seen as a part of his decretive will. God’s perfect will, or will of desire, is expressed in His commandments as contained in the Bible.  It does not contain sin or the consequences of sin.  God’s perfect will is what He would have, not what He would allow. God’s decretive will contains those things which He does not desire in and of themselves, but those things which He allows.  This will includes all things that actually happen (Ephesians 1: 11).  God allows death in this sense, and He allows death for good reasons. In Christianity, seen from God’s perfect will, death is an enemy to be destroyed, not an event to be accepted. Christ ha...

(This is an article written for our local paper.) Our last article explored certain philosophical problems with the existence of evil.  I wanted to explore the personal side of evil’s presence it in this article. Knowing that evil “is,” that it exists, is enough to convince me that there is a God. We cannot define evil without defining good. Evil is in some way good’s opposite, a falling short of the good. Knowing that evil “is” leads us relentlessly to a God who is the definition of the good. Without Him, we would not know evil when we see it. Of course, Christianity does not stop there. It also offers hope for deliverance from evil. In the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ we find ultimate deliverance from “the last enemy,” death (1 Corinthians 15:25-28). In Christ, we find deliverance from the power of evil and the forces that bring it about (Colossians 2:8-15). In my own life, many things have not worked out the way I had hoped. I have been quite disa...

(This is an article written for our local paper.) Much has been written about the philosophical problems the existence of evil poses for the Christian faith. The philosophical question is simple: how can God be both all-powerful and all-good while allowing evil and suffering? I am not about to try to give a comprehensive explanation for how evil came to be. God created men with the ability to sin and the ability not to sin, but I cannot reason beyond that. I do not know the “how”; I just know the “is.” I know that evil exists. I know evil is present. I know evil is real. What must exist in order for evil to be truly wrong? Does not the existence of evil itself  require a standard of good? Should I just accept evil as a part of the way the universe works? Should I accept a view of evil based on social convention, or the DNA encoded in my cells? These things vary from one person to the next, or one time to the next, but we do not find a definition of evil that changes grea...