Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Psalms - to sing, or to recite little snippets! YES, both!
Just to interject a bit of pot-stirring into the 'conversation', check out this, from House of Cards: What Regulative Principle?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Am I missing something here? Need 'the rest of the story'.
10 Ideas
Changing
The World
Right Now
The global economy is being remade before our eyes. Here's what's on the horizon:
- Jobs Are the New Assets
- Recycling the Suburbs
- The New Calvinism
- Reinstating The Interstate
- Amortality
- Africa: Open for Business
- The Rent-a-Country
- Biobanks
- Survival Stores
- Ecological Intelligence
- P.S. Uhh, amortality? "It is appointed to man(kind).to die.......". Read that somewhere! S'pose they're looking for delayed judgment?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Nothing New - at all
The root of all heresies is the same impulse: Someone, somewhere in the name of Christianity says, "I have a new idea!".
This is to be expected. The human mind is a factory of idols. Always has been, always will be. The quest to find something new, something novel, something that will change everything is a part of our nature.
But, when it comes to doctrines in the Church of Jesus Christ, it's a part of our fallen nature. And that's the bad news. God gave Adam and Eve a perfect home, perfect health, perfect well...everything, and what did they do? They fell for the first new idea that was pitched to them: Has God said?
And so it has gone ever since for their descendants. We fall for everything that is packaged as "new".
"Now wait just one minute Classical Fuddy-Duddy!", You may say. "The whole protestant, reformed thingy you say you adhere to was just one big new idea in the 16th Century!"
And there, you'd be wrong. The Reformation was an unearthing and recovery of some very old ideas. Ideas and teachings as old as the One who laid the foundations of the world. Ah, for the days of the great Charles Hodge! He knew what the Reformed faith was all about: "There has never been a new idea taught at Princeton Seminary." What a man!
I'm thankful for new medicines, new software, new fishing lures and new ways of feeding starving people. I like new most of the time, really! But not in the realm of ideas. It's just shoddy argument to assert that your arguments/ideas/doctrines or plans for the church are new. It just shows that you're on the quick, wide and easy road to heresy.
Remember the New Testament word, "mystery"? It means something that was previously hidden, but that is now revealed. Like the coming of Christ to suffer and die in the place of sinners. This was the only way out of our fall into sin and death. Those who deserve the wrath of God for their unrighteousness, now--by the cross of Christ--receive full pardon and eternal life by grace through faith.
Jesus was not a new person. He was a very old person and the plan that He came to accomplish was as old as the foundation of the world.
Now, we forget that sometimes. I know I do. We forget, obscure, hide and seek to deface this fact from time to time. But when God allows the recovery of this "faith once delivered", what we are doing is not proclaiming something new. We are telling what God has given us to proclaim: News to us that is everyday reality to God.
So come with me friends! Let's grow old together!
Did he 'just hafta' say that?
This deals my inner-pietist a severe blow:
"It is nowhere forbidden to laugh or to eat one’s fill or gain new possessions or enjoy oneself with musical instruments or drink wine.”- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, on ‘Christian Liberty’
To my knowledge, my mom never had the name John Calvin uttered in her presence, nor did she see that name in print. She was much loved, and is much missed, but she was a thorough-going pentecostal pietist. She never accurately 'worked-through' the concept of christian liberty. Sadly, that was the cause of a life of stifling repression of even moderate expressions of joy. Did she have joy? She thought so, but it was evidenced in ways that did not resonate with many of her more perceptive on-lookers.
Was Mom a victim? Well, yes - she did read the same Bible (not the same version - the KJV had not yet been published) that John Calvin read, but her conclusions were vastly different from his. Those conclusions were formed by the system that she embraced. She was a victim of a system of hyper-piety that bore the marks of Wesleyan entire sanctification, higher/deeper life, second work of grace emphases. In looking back, I see how incredibly flawed that entire environment was, and is, and in looking forward from that, I see how great, and how gracious, is "the God of all grace". No, I don't want to sin, but there are things indifferent, that is, things that are a matter of Christian Liberty. Folks of Mom's persuasion, she was by no means the worst, have their sin-o-meters, into which everyone is required to breathe. Don't even entertain the notion that you might be able to take an unmonitored breath.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
No Other Name - No Other Way!
Click to read: No Other Name – Part II
If nothing else, read Quick Summary in the left column. It’s a Pdf, so you’ll need Adobe’s Acrobat Reader.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Might set your teeth on edge!
Dr. Al Mohler has an interesting take on