I once heard R.C. Sproul, Jr. speak about the Calvinist “cage stage.” This is that typical period when a young Calvinist, so zealous for the truth, starts blasting people with the more explicit predestinarian texts. Sproul, Jr. suggested that when someone becomes a Calvinist, they be locked up for two or three years until they relax. I couldn’t help remember this comment when I saw the following comics. Read the rest of this entry »
Author Archive
Was Adam an Historical Figure?
Pete Enns continued his series on creation in the Old Testament as cosmic battle for the BioLogos Foundation. The latest is titled Adam is Israel. Enns writes
But there is another way. Maybe Israel’s history happened first, and the Adam story was written to reflect that history. In other words, the Adam story is really an Israel story placed in primeval time. It is not a story of human origins but of Israel’s origins.
Everyone has to decide for themselves which of these readings of Genesis has more “explanatory power.” I (and other biblical scholars) come down on the second option for a number of reasons, some having to do with Genesis itself while others concern other issues in the Bible.
A Tour of T4G Libraries
Sovereign Grace Ministries has linked to several video tours of a few impressive libraries. T4G speakers R.C. Sproul, Ligon Duncan, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, John MacArthur and C.J. Mahaney each walk us through their collections and study centers.
On Writing Well
The following is from William Zinsser’s classic On Writing Well. His comments can just as easily be applied to preaching.
[T]he secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.
William Zinsser, On Writing Well (Collins, 2006), 6-7.
A Treasure on 1 Peter
Leonard Goppelt wrote a gem of a commentary on 1 Peter. I’ve been studying it as I prepare to exhort on the amazingly redemptively-historical 1 Pet 1:10-12. Here is a typical quote from Goppelt on the text:
Prophecy enables the Church to understand the Christ-event preached to it as fulfillment, as eschatological salvation, and, therefore, to appropriate proclamation as gospel.
It makes the biblical-theological heart warm, doesn’t it?
12 Steps to Productivity
I’m not a big fan of 12 step programs, but I’ll except Web Work Daily who have posted a very helpful plan for increasing productivity. These tips should prove useful for all people.
Zagat for Churches
ChurchRater is a controversial new website that acts as a Yelp or Zagat for churches. Here is how ChurchRater describes their purpose.
Every Sunday close to 350,000 churches open their doors to the public. How do you know what you’re walking into? What will the pastor be talking about? What kind of people attend? ChurchRater lets you read what others say about the church and rate your own experience. ChurchRater lets you talk back after sitting through a sermon. ChurchRater lets you… find a church that fits.
ChurchRater is paying reviewers who are accepted through their process. Churches will contact ChurchRater seeking people to come rate their church. ChurchRater then posts an ad on Craigslist and selects from those who respond to the ad.
Jolie O’Dell at Read/Write Web had this to say:
The site began as a rather natural extension of two of the co-founders’ book, Jim and Casper Go to Church. The premise for the book “could be the pilot script for a sitcom: a pastor hires an atheist to help him critique several Christian churches throughout the United States.” Jim Henderson, the pastor, and Matt Casper, the atheist, traveled to several churches around the U.S. to get a fresh perspective on how people worship. The website now allows any user to essentially replicate that feedback process.
Is a church service quantifiable? Is this generally a misguided idea? Or is this simply an extension of the conversations you would have with people anyway when speaking of different churches?
A Scot at Work
Here’s a quote to chew on regarding the ethics of labor.
… we can [...] be quite sure that a great many of our economic ills arise from our failure to recognize the sanctity of six days of labour. Labour is not only a duty; it is a blessing. And, in like manner, six days of labour are both a duty and a blessing. If this principle were firmly established in our thinking, then the complications and hypocrisies often associated with the demand for a five-day week would not have so readily afflicted our economy, and moral degeneration would not have proceeded at the pace we have witnessed.
John Murray. Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 83.
Vos on Cross-Transfer
I just invented a new Kline-esque term in “cross-transfer,” but I trust it gets at the point of what Vos is saying in The Pauline Eschatology on p. 48.
The cross is represented as effecting an absolute separation between two worlds, so as to have cut loose the Apostle from the world to which he at first belonged, and having transplanted him into another.
How seriously do we, as believers, take Paul’s language? I know that too often I consider myself a partaker of this present evil age. Surely I sin and the old man is daily being mortified through the Spirit’s work in me, but I don’t consciously think of having been transplanted into the age-to-come. But as Christians, we must also look forward to that reality – not simply as a future. We have been transferred to a new life at the cross and we must live upon the foundation of that truth.
Christ the Center of Soteriology
When expressed in terms of the model of a chain of causes and effects, the traditional ordo salutis runs the danger of displacing Christ from the central place in soteriology. The fruits of his work may be related to one another in the chain of cause-and-effect sequence, rather than viewed fundamentally in relation to the work of the Spirit in bringing us into union and communion with Christ himself. Thus, election is spoken of as the cause of regeneration, which in turn is the cause of faith, of which sanctification and perseverance are the invariable and inevitable effects. The relation of each to Christ himself is thus obscured or even minimized.
Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 99.
photo by Tyler Ingram