Grace in the Triad

A Short Primer on New Covenant Theology Essentials

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

By A. Blake White

The Story of Scripture can be summarized as “Creation to New Creation.” How God brings revelation, history, and humanity from creation to new creation is referred to by many as “Redemptive History.” One of the most complex yet rewarding pursuits in biblical studies is to understand the flow of Redemptive History. What is its structure? How does it progress and develop over time? How is one era related to another? Where do we find unity and continuity? Where do we encounter diversity and discontinuity? What has priority and permanence? What is temporal and passing away? These are not merely questions for the academic theologian. Since there is more material devoted specifically to this issue in the NT than to almost any other single issue, the Bible itself invites every believer to pursue this understanding of the big picture with all its theological and practical implications for life and faith.

Currently there are three main systems of theology within evangelical Christianity which address the subject of Redemptive History: Covenant Theology (CT), Dispensational Theology (DT), and New Covenant Theology (NCT). Whether or not they are conscious of it, all Christians will generally fall into one of these three systems.

Generally speaking, Covenant Theology emphasizes continuity to the expense of discontinuity. Since the Westminster Confession of Faith is structured around CT, it is mostly Presbyterians who adhere to CT, although others do as well (e.g., Reformed Baptists).

Dispensationalism, on the other hand, tends to emphasize discontinuity at the expense of continuity. It is mostly Bible churches that adhere to DT, but it is certainly not limited to them. DT is by far the most popular of the three, due in large part to its adoption early on in the Fundamentalist movement, as well as current popular marketing with fictional books and movies.

New Covenant Theology accommodates both continuity and discontinuity. It is held to by those in the “believer’s church” tradition. NCT is a relatively new label, but it is not a new method of interpretation. The early church fathers, the Anabaptists, as well as other significant figures in church history put the Bible together in a similar way.

There are six key distinctives that make up NCT. Taken individually, these points may fit into CT and/or DT, but taken together they uniquely fit NCT.

1. One Plan of God Centered in Jesus Christ

The first distinctive of NCT is that there is one plan of God throughout the Bible. This plan is centered on and finds fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the new covenant. Ephesians 1:8-10 says, “With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” CT speaks of this plan in terms of the “covenant of grace.” NCT strives to let biblical theology inform systematic theology. Exegesis should be the lifeblood of theology. This being the case, NCT does not find exegetical warrant for an over arching covenant of grace that encompasses all the biblical covenants. This tends to flatten out the Bible. There is both continuity between the covenants and discontinuity. Each covenant must be dealt with in its own context as well as its contribution to the whole. When we recognize this, it becomes clear that there is a sharp contrast between the Old Covenant and the New. DT, on the other hand, tends to chop up the Bible, not seeing the fulfillment that the Messiah brings in continuity with what has gone before.

2. The Old Testament Should be Interpreted in Light of the New Testament

The second distinctive of NCT is its insistence that the OT must be read and interpreted in light of its NT fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the new covenant. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (NIV). We take the progressive nature of God’s revelation with the utmost seriousness. We learn how to interpret the OT from Jesus and his apostles. It is our opinion that the conclusions of CT and DT are a result of beginning with the OT rather than the NT.

3. The Old Covenant was Temporary by Divine Design

The third distinctive of NCT is that the Old Covenant was temporary by divine design. God intended for it to be an interim covenant. The NT is emphatic about the fact that those in Christ are no longer under the law (1 Cor. 9:20, 2 Cor. 3, Rom. 6:14, 7:6, Gal. 3:23, 5:18, Heb. 8). Galatians is very clear about this point. The Judaizers needed new watch batteries. They failed to realize what time it was in God’s plan. The Bible depicts history as being divided up between this age and the age to come. This present evil age consists of sin, flesh, and death but when the Messiah comes, he would usher in the new age of righteousness, Spirit, and life. Paul sees the old covenant law as part of the old age (Gal. 1:4, Rom. 6:14). The Judaizers were trying to force Gentile believers to observe the old covenant law. Paul insists that its day is over. The law was given after the promise to Abraham and until the Messiah came. Galatians 3:19 says, “Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.” Verses 24-25 say, “So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” Here Paul calls the law a guardian (paidagōgos). In the first century, this referred to the household slave who was responsible for a child until they reached maturity. Paul’s point is the temporal nature of the old covenant. Once we are grown up, we no longer need a guardian. With the coming of Christ, we have grown up. The old covenant law was an intended parenthesis in God’s plan and has now been replaced by the New Covenant (Heb. 8). The New Covenant is not merely a renewal, but really is new covenant unlike the old one (Jer 31:32).

4. There is No Tripartite Division of the Law

The fourth distinctive of NCT is that the law (i.e. the old covenant and its law code) is presented as a unit throughout Scripture. CT divides the law up into three parts: moral, civil, and ceremonial. While we see how some commandments could be classified as moral in nature, as opposed to civil or ceremonial, NCT denies this “tripartite” division of the law because the writers of Scripture do not make such distinctions (e.g., skim through Lev. 19 and try to classify the commandments). The law is presented as a unit throughout Scripture. Hebrews 7:11-12 says, “If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.” Notice that the law and the priesthood are bound up together. It is a package deal. If the priesthood changes, then the law changes as well. This threefold division has no biblical basis. CT likes to emphasize that the Ten Commandments are the eternal moral law of God, but the Ten Commandments cannot be extrapolated from the covenant in which they were given. A careful reading of Exodus 19-24 bears this out. Chapter 19 is the historical introduction, and chapter 24 is the covenant ceremony. Chapter 20 consists of the ten words (20:1). Chapters 21-23 consist of the laws (21:1). In chapter 24, Moses calls both the words and the laws the “book of the covenant” (24:3, 7). One cannot have the ten words without the laws that go with them. Chapter 20 belongs with chapters 21-23.

One also must take the Sabbath commandment into account. The other nine commandments do not pose a problem, for the NT repeats them. However, the NT does not reinforce the Sabbath command. Quite the contrary! After the coming of Christ, observing days is akin to returning to paganism (Gal. 4:8-10). Romans 14:5 says that regarding observing special days, each should be fully convinced in their own mind. That is a far cry from “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Paul calls the Sabbath a shadow in Colossians 2:16-17. Again, exegesis must inform our theology.

5. We are not under the Law of Moses, but under the Law of Christ

The fifth distinctive of NCT regards its relation to law. If we are not under the law, does that mean we are lawless? No. We are no longer under the law of Moses, rather we are under the law of Christ. This phrase only occurs once in Scripture: Galatians 6:2, which reads, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Probably the most important passage for NCT is 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, which reads, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.” This helpful passage summarizes what NCT is all about. Paul is clear that he is not under the law (nomos meaning law of Moses), but he is not free from God’s law. So we see that God’s law is no longer equivalent to the Mosaic law but is now Christ’s law. The law of Christ can be defined as those prescriptive principles drawn from the example and teaching of Jesus and his apostles (the central demand being love), which are meant to be worked out in specific situations by the guiding influence and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

6. All in the New Covenant Community Have the Holy Spirit

The sixth distinctive belief is the nature of the new covenant community. In the New Covenant, unlike the Old, every member is fully forgiven and every member has the Spirit. This is another way of saying they are all believers. The prophets looked forward to a day when God would pour out his Spirit from on high (Ezek. 36-37, Joel 2, Isa. 32:15, 44:3). This is one of the major differences between Israel and the church. Not all within Israel had the Spirit. All within the new covenant community do.
NCT does not say that Israel=church as CT does. Neither do we make a radical distinction between Israel and the Church as DT does. Again, Jesus is the hermeneutical key! NCT is consistently Christocentric. The NT depiction is Israel=Jesus=church. Believers are considered the offspring of Abraham (i.e., Israel) by being united to Jesus. Galatians 3:7 says, “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.” Galatians 3:29 says, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 6:15-16 says, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—tothe Israel of God” (cf. Phil. 3:2-3, Rom. 2:28-29). All of the promises of God are yes in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20).

HT: Cross to Crown Media

Sye TenBruggencate on Edified with the Chocolate Knox

2012-01-17T20:47:00.001-05:00

Church Faithfulness: Is it Reasonable Anymore?

2012-01-15T14:48:00.002-05:00

NOTE: The following article by Jim Elliff represents my own thoughts about church faithfulness. There is a pronounced apathy for the truth of God's word, God's works, and God's incarnated Word in the evangelical churches of the Southeastern United states; i.e., the Bible belt. Elliff addresses an outward symptom of this inner apathy and does some much needed spiritual heart surgery in the process.

"On one occasion, [Michael] Faraday lectured to a distinguished panel of scientists. The Prince of Wales (after Edward VII) was present. For an hour Faraday held his audience spellbound as he demonstrated the nature and properties of the magnet. His lecture closed with a demonstration that brought the house down. The Prince of Wales rose to propose a moment of congratulation. The resolution was seconded and carried amid another thunderous burst of applause. The assembly waited for Faraday's reply, but he had vanished. He had slipped away to his little church for the weekly prayer meeting. Michael Faraday had slipped away from the presence of an earthly prince to seek audience with the King of kings." (John Phillips, Exploring Proverbs, vol. 1) Faithfulness like this is commendable. Unfortunately, it is just as unusual.

Once I attended a church in a southern state. The pastor was obviously disturbed that morning in this large, traditional congregation. With candor, he informed the church of some disturbing statistics concerning the Bible teachers of their church. Unless my memory fails me, he noted that these leaders on average missed a full quarter of the meetings of the classes they taught! That's 25%! The writer of Hebrews promoted a different concept. Here is what he said:

"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Note the words, "one another." That's at the heart of it. This stirring up and exhorting one another cannot be done while alone in your home. The New Testament is replete with "one another" commands that can only find their fullest meaning in the context of the gathered local church. God never intended, nor does He appreciate, isolation from brothers and sisters in Christ.

Paul has a favorite metaphor for the church. He calls it "the Body of Christ." Why? He means that we all have important parts to play in each other's lives. One person is like the arm, another like the foot, another like the mouth, and another like the hand. We cannot function as a body in isolation; we must be together for Body life to work out (1 Cor. 12-14).

The faithfulness of some believers is almost legendary. A man in one church had work-related travel that would take him hours away from his home. But even if he had to drive back home through most of the night, you would always find him in the gatherings of the church, faithfully taking his place serving others. He sacrificed to do what was most important, and God honored him and used him. You could depend on him. His children grew up to serve God just as faithfully. Parents who will let just anything keep them from coming to church meetings, including sports or recreational activities, are preaching louder with their actions than with their words.

I know that faithfulness to the Body is out of vogue. But not with God.

On many occasions, God has done totally unexpected and unplanned things in the meetings of believers. Regretfully, in reflecting on those special moments in the life of the church, I've often had to say, "But the very person who would have most benefited from this was not here!"

The dog of Angelo del Plato watched intently as his master was lowered into the grave. Eight years later, friends of the family acknowledged that they could not remember a day when that loving dog did not visit his master's gravesite, usually sitting a while on the turf over his master's body.
Will you commend in a dog what you will not offer to God as a believer who has been bought by the death of Christ?

Being faithful is not all that the Christian life is about, but it is not insignificant to God or others either. At a minimum, unfaithfulness indicates a temporary competing affection for the world. At worst, it represents a lost condition.

"Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some!"

New Year's Eve Outreach Raleigh, NC - 12-31-2011

2012-01-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

HT: SFofGSO

Atheist Saved by The Truth of The Sovereign God

2011-12-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

The following testimony from a former atheist warmed my soul. It reminds me of when I was a skeptic. The constant battle I fought against God to avoid the consistency of my own atheism was relentless and like Michael, God used it to draw me to Himself. Thanks to Jesus for sovereign regeneration!

"Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." John 6:44

HT: Illbehonest

How does a Christian respond,.. to bad news?

2011-12-27T12:15:00.004-05:00

"We provide a Deacon Minute each Lord’s Day to encourage you from God’s Word to serve the body AND to keep you informed of service opportunities in the body.

We serve a Sovereign Master, who controls all things, and it is this fact that provides the comfort necessary when sorrowful circumstances occur. As most of you know, six weeks ago today, we buried my father-in-law. My wife lost her father and my children lost their Paw-Paw. A couple of weeks ago Alison & Micah lost their first child & the VanDerwerker’s grieved the loss of their first grand-child. As many of you have read, the 2012 Budget for Shepherd’s Fellowship is drastically different from last year’s budget, and yesterday I was informed of the death of my friend and former co-worker, Ed Carmichael.

So how does a Christian handle difficult and sorrowful circumstances? How does a Christian respond when there is multiple announcements of what appears to be “bad news”? The only hope rests in the Sovereignty of God, for it is there that the Christian finds comfort. I will never convince anyone that it is going to be OK. Comfort and the strength to persevere, come only from God and His written Revelation.

Listen to the following verses, and join me in the comfort that comes from God’s Word.

Psalm 9:9 The LORD also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, A stronghold in times of trouble;
Psalm 18:2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Psalm 23 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 27:4-5 One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.

Psalm 34:18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Matthew 6:25-34 For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

"Ready for Christmas?" Now What Does That Mean?

2011-12-27T10:59:00.004-05:00

“Are you ready for Christmas?” I hear this question many, many times each year working in retail. It seems to be a question that customers will ask to prompt conversation. Maybe you are like me and you don’t know quite how to respond. For me, I don’t know how to respond, because I don’t know what they are really asking.

For example, do they mean, do I have all my shopping completed or am I prepared to worship Jesus on the day we set aside to celebrate His birth? Do they mean am I ready for it to be over or do they mean am I ready to take time with my family and focus on who Jesus is, what He did in his time on earth and what His birth means to a child of God?

How about you, are you ready for Christmas? Are you ready to worship Jesus? This is a GREAT year, because Christmas is next Sunday! What better day of the week to have Christmas on than Sunday? Are you ready, that is prepared, to demonstrate to your family and friends why we give gifts on Christmas? Would you consider saying a few short words before presenting your gifts this year? Consider saying, “Just as God gave His Son, Jesus, out of love for His children, to live, die and rise again, so I too give you this gift out of love for you.” Are you ready to teach your family and friends about the true account of Jesus?

For many in this body, the past few months have been a difficult and sorrow-filled time, but through Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit we can have joy unspeakable! We can reflect on the time when Jesus was born in a humble manger, to lowly parents and announced to some smelly shepherds. There is Good News of Great Joy which shall be to ALL people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord!

I pray that you will have a very, Merry Christmas. I also pray that you will look for opportunities to worship Jesus and focus the attention on Him. Not the baby in the manager, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!"

Well done Deacon Wilson!

Pastoral Implications of the Death of Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-26T17:13:00.013-05:00

Introduction: Some would wonder what could possibly be the pastoral implications of the death of a gifted God-hater. That's a fair question, but before answering that, let met briefly bring the not so informed readers of this blog up to speed as to who Christopher Hitchens was.

A Brief History

Christopher Hitchens met his maker on Thursday, December 15, 2011. He was a brilliant social and political commentator during his professional career, but what interested evangelical apologists most about him was his open, unashamed hatred for all things religious, especially Christian. Whether believer or unbeliever, foe or friend, anyone who really knew anything about Hitchens would admit that he was a very gifted writer and speaker. Sadly, he used those God-given gifts to war against the very God in whose image he was created. Given his interest in politics, his unapologetic criticism of religion, and the promotion of "free-thought" he was very much like a modern Voltaire.

Interestingly, he shared some common views with Christians (he was pro-life) and in some political respects was in agreement with many evangelicals. However, he was an outspoken enemy of religion and spent the latter years of his life attacking various forms of it, especially Christianity. Here's an example of clips from his fight against what he considered to be the "ultimate wickedness and the ultimate stupidity":

The Pastoral Implications of the Death of a God-hater

As far as I know, Christopher Hitchens died a God-hater. In light of that, I want to specifically focus on what this means for churches that believe in the doctrine of reprobation. What should be the Christian response to the death of Christopher Hitchens in light of this doctrine? How did he help us understand this doctrine better? Yes, you read that last question correctly, how did Hitchens' rage against God help the Christian and the cause of Christ? I have waited to publish this article because I wanted the Reformed evangelical world to have a few weeks to reflect upon Hitchens' death and then I wanted to listen to their responses. As expected, even among Reformed bloggers, none of them have discussed the implications of what is glaringly evident to all of us who believe in sovereign grace: Hitchens was a reprobate.

What is Reprobation?

Before offering pastoral comments on the implications that the doctrine of reprobation has for Christian congregations, let's consider a few definitions:

Louis Berkhof said,

"Reprobation may be defined as that eternal decree of God whereby He has determined to pass some men by with the operation of His special grace, and to punish them for their sins, to the manifestation of His justice." Quoted in Curt D. Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism, (Springfield, IL: Good Books, 2003), 297.

Wayne Grudem defines it this way, adding an element of God's sorrow to his definition,

"The sovereign decision of God before creation to pass over some persons, in sorrow deciding not to save them, and to punish them for their sins and thereby to manifest his justice." Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, (Grand Rapids, MI, 2000), 684.

Section III of the 1646 London Confession defines election and reprobation this way,

GOD hath decreed in Himself, before the world was, concerning all things, whether necessary, accidental or voluntary, with all the circumstances of them, to work, dispose, and bring about all things according to the counsel of His own will, to His glory: (Yet without being the author of sin, or having fellowship with anything therein) in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, unchangeableness, power, and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree: And God hath before the foundation of the world, foreordained some men to eternal life, through Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of His grace; and leaving the rest in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His justice.

Section V of the 1646 Confession's appendix says this regarding reprobation,

We affirm, that as Jesus Christ never intended to give remission of sins and eternal life unto any but His sheep (John 10:15, 17:2; Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 5:9); so these sheep only have their sins washed away in the blood of Christ: The vessels of wrath, as they are none of Christ's sheep, nor ever believe in Him, so they have not the blood of Christ sprinkled upon them, neither are partakers of Him: And therefore have all their sins remaining upon them, and are not saved by Christ from any of them under any consideration whatsoever; but must lie under the intolerable burden of them eternally. The truth of this appears unto us by the light of these Scriptures compared together. Heb.12:24; 1 Pet. 1:2; Heb. 3:14; Matt. 7:23; Eph. 5:6; 1 Tim. 1:9; John 8:24.

The Westminster Confession of Faith states regarding reprobation:

"The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice." (III:7)

So, in summary: Reprobation is non-election. According to Curt Daniel,

"Reprobation has two stages in God's eternal decree. first, there is preterition. This is His eternal decree to pass some men by. The men, of course, did not yet actually exist, but God first decreed that they will exist and then that He will permit them to fall and incur His wrath. Then God chose some men to be saved, and left the rest behind. Second, there is predamnation. Having left some sinners in their sins, He then ordained that they will suffer divine wrath for their sins. Preterition is a purely sovereign act of God, whereas predamnation is an act of pure divine justice." Daniel, 297.

This means the following:

Reprobation is unconditional, just like election. It doesn't depend upon anything in man but rests in God's sovereign decree. This means that people aren't reprobated because they are sinners, but because in God's sovereign will He chooses to leave them in their sin.
God sovereignly planned to withhold salvation from some sinners. He foreordained to withhold some or all of the things necessary for their salvation (i.e., hearing the gospel, effectual calling, faith and repentance unto salvation, regeneration, etc.). He further decreed that their final end be eternal punishment so that He would be glorified in giving them His powerful justice and wrath.
God's election of some sinners means He didn't choose the rest. God's choice to save some sinners means that He didn't choose to save the non-elect but chose to leave them to the self-destructive effects of their own sin.

Considering a few Scriptural Examples

Proverbs 16:4 - The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.

Indeed, God has a purpose for making the wicked, for they are prepared "for the day of evil."

Matthew 11:25-27 - "At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. 26 Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." (Matthew 11:25-27)

In general, the Father is pleased to not reveal truth about Jesus to the "worldly wise" and Jesus praises God for this (v. 25-26).
Jesus says that the only way He is revealed to a person is if He Himself makes it happen (v. 27). Apart from that, no one will come to the Son in faith. Indeed, Jesus affirms this teaching elsewhere (John 6:44, 65).

Romans 9:6-25 - But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED." 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. 9 For this is the word of promise: "AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON." 10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; 11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her, "THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER." 13 Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED." 14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH." 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

Though Paul quotes from Malachi 1:2-3, this doesn't refer to only nations (i.e., Edom and Israel), for Paul co-opts Malachi's statements to go on and use an obvious pagan individual (Pharaoh) to point out that God raises people up for His own sovereign purposes, either for saving or for damning.
According to v. 15 (quoting Exodus 33:19), the question as to why God loved one savingly and not another is answered with this, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." (Romans 9:15) Paul then says that all of this doesn't depend "on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. (v. 16) God is the cause of why men receive mercy.
Then Paul points to a pagan individual to show that God didn't create Him for salvation, but to show off God's power and to make God's name known throughout then then known world: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.' 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." (vv. 17-18) Paul concludes from this the following: "So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." (v. 18)
Then come the usual objections: "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" (v. 19) In other words, how can God blame me for what He's created me to do? The divine answer brings a rebuke and an answer: "On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles." (vv. 20-24) In other words: "Who do you think you are to talk back to God, cannot God do what He wants with His creation? God has prepared some people for destruction so as to show forth His justice and created some to show forth His mercy, and He's called both from among Jews and non-Jews.
The take-home point: Many Jews rejected Jesus because they were created for damnation. This is because God takes the mass of sinful humanity and creates some of them for salvation and some of them for damnation. It's all done for His glory (Romans 11:36); the reprobates glorify Him in the justice they receive from God in their damnation and the elect glorify God in the unmerited grace, divine favor, and forgiveness of sins they receive in their salvation.

1 Peter 2:8 - "For this is contained in Scripture: 'BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.' 7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,' 8 and, 'A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE'; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed."

The word "doom" isn't in the original Greek text, but the concept is certainly there, for those who reject the gospel were appointed to always reject the gospel and ultimately end up in eternal perdition. This is a sobering truth.

2 Peter 2:12 - "But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed . . ."

This is a sobering verse. It says that reprobate false teachers are like cattle that have been created to be fattened up for the slaughter of God's justice.

Matthew 11:25-26 - "At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. 26 "Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. 27 "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him."

Notice that Jesus praises His heavenly Father for being well-pleased not to spiritually reveal Himself to the religious hypocrites standing in front of Him.
Jesus says that no one knows God unless Jesus Himself wills to reveal Him to them. Thus, it logically follows that Jesus doesn't desire to reveal Himself to everyone in the sense of causing them to embrace the gospel via regeneration. Indeed this is affirmed by other passages (John 6:44, 65).

Revelation 13:8, 17:8, 13 - "All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain" (Revelation 13:8); "And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come" (Revelation 17:8); "For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled." (Revelation 17:17)

Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 both affirm that those whose names were written in the book of life were so written before the universe was created. 17:8 affirms that those who have not had their name written in this "eternal register of the elect" will not only marvel at the "beast", but will also follow after him because "God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose . . . until the words of God will be fulfilled." Everyone has a purpose for their existence, including the reprobate.

Some Important Implications

Many people you witness to will never be saved. This is because by divine decree, the way to eternal life is very narrow, and there are few that find it. The only reason some do find it is because God brings the gospel to them through some type of Christian witness and then causes their hearts to positively respond to the gospel (Matthew 7:13-14; John 6:44, 65; Romans 10:14-17).
We can't change the number of the elect or reprobate. The number of the elect and reprobate is eternally fixed, and so instead of overly worrying about not having all of your evangelistic and apologetic "i's" and "t's" crossed, trust God to use your well-prepared and faithful (yet imperfect) witness to bring the elect to faith in His time, not yours. Just do what you're Biblically responsible to do, then leave the rest to God (Proverbs 16:31; 1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
When you're faithfully preaching Christ, don't become overly concerned if people don't regularly respond to the gospel. According to Jesus, the majority of mankind will reject the gospel (Matthew 7:13-14). Assuming that you are behaving in a godly manner while evangelizing, knowing this fact beforehand will enable you to have a confident, mature, patient, and settled understanding that people are rejecting the message and the messenger because of the content of the message, not because you didn't smile enough. What causes people to embrace the message isn't ultimately tied to how white your teeth were when you smiled at the unbeliever or how sweetly you spoke when witnessing to them, but in the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.
Don't fool yourself in thinking that someone came to Christ because you were smarter than other Christians they encountered in the past. The natural man cannot embrace the things of the Spirit of God, no matter how eloquently you articulate them. This doesn't discount the use of means in conversion, but affirms their usefulness in exposing the falsehood of unbelieving systems (i.e., apologetics and polemics) and provides a platform for proclaiming the gospel (evangelism), which is the God-ordained means whereby the unsaved elect hear, receive, and believe the gospel (Romans 10:14-17).
Don't wrangle with unbelievers. I've done my fair share of this through the years, and I'm sad to say that much of what goes by the name of on-line "debate" and "apologetics" is nothing more than the sin of wrangling. There is a place for well-reasoned scholarly debate with unbelievers, but I question whether debating God-haters who have openly stated that Christianity is better ridiculed rather than reasoned against qualifies as scholarly debate. We are commanded to avoid factious people after a first and second warning knowing that such are perverted and sinning, being self-condemned (Titus 3:10-11). We are to avoid quarreling and instead, we should be "able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who oppose themselves, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:23-26). When we display those godly qualities and the unbeliever continues to wrangle after two or three attempts, we should look for someone who will listen. This is because unbelieving "wranglers" are simply looking to waste your time by making you look stupid through ridiculing your faith. Such hacks aren't interested in intelligent interaction but only in stoking the flames of their burning hatred of God. They have heard the truth over and over again and have access to the same excellent online information that you do but they still reject it. All unbelievers who never come to faith in Christ do so because they're reprobates and God is in the process of hardening their hearts so that He can display His judgment against them on the Great Day (Romans 2:5; 9:18). Thus, be discerning so as to avoid casting your pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6).
The reprobate have an important part to play in God's creation. All people have a God-given purpose for their existence. As it pertains to the reprobate, some of them will cure diseases, create helpful inventions, and do amazingly wonderful things that benefit the world at large and the elect especially. Thus, they have a God-ordained function in the overall scheme of God's plans for history. Ultimately, their denial of God will serve to glorify God not only in their damnation as God gives them over to their just deserts, but their rejection of Him also creates a playing field in the here and now that causes believers to respond to their arguments wherein they show the folly of their unbelief, the truth of Christian theism, and the unconverted elect hear and seeds are sown that eventually bring forth salvation in the lives of God's elect.

If Christopher Hitchens got his wishes, he died as an unbeliever. He was one of those people whom God created for damnation; he was a reprobate. He was exposed to some of the best argumentation that Christian apologetics has to offer, yet he consistently rejected it. In his debates with Christian apologists, I have heard other Christians wonder why the same arguments that tend to strengthen our faith and really make sense to us proved totally unconvincing to him all the way to His grave. Why was this the case? It ultimately had nothing to do with the arguments themselves, but instead it was rooted in an inability to spiritually receive the love of the truth so that he might be saved. I lost count of how many times I heard Hitchens say that he was spiritually unable to understand and embrace the gospel when he told debate attendees and interviewers that hearing believers attempt to explain the faith was, to him, like listening to "white noise". Indeed it was "white noise" to him. Its high-time that Christians pay careful attention when the reprobate speak like this. They are telling you exactly what the Bible says about them. They can't hear the gospel, can't receive it, can't embrace it, and it's simply foolish nonsense to them (1 Corinthians 1:18). Unless the Son of God sets them free, they'll die in bondage to self and sin (John 8:32). As far as I know, this is what occurred to Christopher Hitchens.

IN CONCLUSION, without the sovereign grace of God opening our eyes to the truth of Christ's glorious gospel, every one of us would do just as Christopher Hitchens did by using our gifts to fight against our Creator. For His own eternal purposes, it appears that Jesus didn't choose to savingly reveal Himself to Christopher Hitchens, and in light of that sobering fact, we all would all do well to consider the implications of this in our evangelistic, apologetic, and pastoral work.

Preaching Montage at Raleigh Abortion Clinic 12-20-2011

2011-12-20T17:06:00.001-05:00

Christ, Our Example

2011-12-13T09:09:00.005-05:00

Each Lord's day our deacons and deacon candidates (those who have been called and are being taught and examined, a 15 month process) encourage our church body to serve the needs of our local body. We hope the following is beneficial to you, encouraging you to serve your local church!

"For this morning’s deacon minute, I would like to remind all of us about who our ultimate example of service is. As I was thinking about speaking this morning, I considered talking about a pastor from Barnstaple, England whose biography I read in college. While I am sure that would have been profitable, I realized that there was another Servant whose biography all of us have read and whose example of service is far more perfect than any others. This is the Servant whose birth we celebrate this time of year.

The Servant that I want to point us to is Jesus Christ. As our elders and the elders in training preach through the book of Mark, we will see over and over again Christ described as a servant. In the Old Testament, the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah all speak of the Messiah as a servant. The quality of being a self-giving servant is part of the very nature of Christ. This is the very reason that the Jews rejected Him. They were expecting Messiah to come as a conquering King - instead, they received a humble Servant who came as a baby. During the course of His earthly ministry, this Servant told His disciples, “I am among you as the one who serves,” and, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

While Christ was among his disciples, He demonstrated his Servant’s heart even through actions like washing his disciples feet. Imagine that - the very God who created the entire universe washing the dirty, stinky feet of just an ordinary person like you or me. And of course Christ’s ultimate demonstration of servant-hood is displayed in the cross, where He bore the wrath of God the Father in our place. That is the extent to which Christ served us. This Servant also called us to follow His example and serve one another.

And you know what? We, if we have been regenerated, have been born of the Spirit of Christ, and we have been given servant’s hearts. We can still be disobedient, but as Christians we have been given the ability to serve one another in a Christlike way. There are countless ways that we can serve one another, even within our small congregation. If you are already faithfully serving, then praise the Lord, and seek to excel still more. If you are not regularly serving the body, then please come and talk to one of the deacons, and will help you find a place to serve.

So, Christian, let us follow in the example of the Lord our Savior, Jesus Christ, and serve each other in joy and in love!"

Deacon Candidate Meredith
Deacon minute for Sunday, Dec. 11th, 2011

The Old Gospel for a New Generation

2011-12-02T14:41:00.000-05:00

INTRODUCTION: Are you part of Generation Z? In other words, were you born sometime between 1991 and the early 2000s and characterized by the following things?

You have grown up using savvy technology such as the World Wide Web, instant messaging, text messaging, MP3 players, mobile phones, iPods, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and YouTube.
You essentially carry the internet in your pocket on mobile devices such as iPhones or iTouches.
You or many of your friends enjoy gaming, blogging, and vlogging.

Whether you know it or not, your generation has also been born completely into an era of postmodernism, religious pluralism, and relativism. You may not know what all those big words mean, but the point I'm making is that those big words represent mindsets that affect the way you and the rest of your compadres think. Let me give you a few examples:

Postmodernism: How many times have you been in a conversation about the Bible or religion and kind of got "stuck" in the conversation when someone said, "that's just your interpretation?"
Religious Pluralism: How many times have you been in a conversation about religion when you heard someone say something like this, “All the religions of the world basically teach the same things and get you to the same god”?
Relativism: Or have you ever heard something like this when it came to arguments over religion? - “Look man, you’ve got your truth and I’ve got my truth. There is no one truth for all people, so stop trying to push your religion on other people!”

The Problem

Since the 1960’s, America has been a post-Christian nation. The truth is, we never really were a Christian nation per se (as if the New Testament actually envisioned one of those), but before the 1960’s, public expressions of Christianity were accepted as part of the warp and woof of American society. But since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, that has all been turned on its head. While putting chewing gum under desks was one of the biggest discipline problems in public schools in the 1950s, gang violence and school shootings are the biggest problems now. So what happened?

The 1920s through the 1960s were a time of great social, philosophical, and religious upheaval; both in society in general as well as the educational system and evangelical churches in the United States. After the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925, American Christianity was labeled as backwards and dimwitted with the help of the media after John Scopes, a high school substitute science teacher was fined for teaching evolution, which at that time was illegal to teach in the state of Tennessee. When evangelical Christian statesman William Jennings Bryan failed to give credible Biblical and scientific refutations of the supposed evidence for evolution offered in the interrogations of agnostic ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow at the Scopes trial, the news media promoted this as a sure sign that fundamentalist Christians were backwards, dim-witted, narrow-minded, obscurantist, anti-intellectuals that were in a war against scientific truth. Almost a decade later, the founders of modern public education were well into training the next generation of educators in their educational philosophy that implicitly promoted a godless humanistic ideal. These students eventually founded educational departments at major universities throughout the United States and thus public education in America has been formally secular ever since then. When the “space race” of the late 1950s and 1960s proved successful, Americans began to generally trust the conclusions of the professional scientific consensus. This paved the way for a greater acceptance of evolutionary theory for up and coming university students. All of that, combined with the assumption of naturalism[1] laid the foundation for skepticism regarding claims of divine involvement in the world and the Bible being accepted as God’s revealed truth to mankind.

When husbands went off to war in World War II, the wives had to take to factory jobs to provide income for the family while dad was away. Before, the wives were stay at home moms while dads worked to provide. However, when the dads came back from war, many moms stayed on the job, and for the first time in American history, many families became dual income households. Thus, the consistent loving care of mothers in the home was replaced by day-care workers, after school programs, and the hunger for that second income that mommy now provided. This was a clear step away from the Biblical pattern that women were to be known as “workers at home” (Titus 2:5).

The evangelical church of the mid to late 1950s saw its lightening rod appear in evangelist Billy Graham. Billy started well and strong as a young evangelist, but due to ecumenical[2] pressure, he eventually caved into religious pluralism[3]. Sadly, the watered down nature of Graham’s ministry has also been reflected in various evangelical denominations since the 1950s. As a result, many large churches today look more like a shopping mall or Starbucks coffee than they do the church that we find in the pages of the New Testament. This has all been caused by a pragmatic desire to do what works to bring in more people through the front doors of a church building than it does to protect and proclaim the truth of the gospel while promoting holiness in God’s people. Such is the case when success is measured by man’s standards rather than God’s (Psalm 118:8).

The civil rights movement of the early 1960s, combined with the influences of postmodernism coming from the secular universities of the mid-1960s caused a massive social and philosophical upheaval; some for the better (i.e., ending racism), and some for the worse (i.e., promoting the acceptance of open societal wickedness). The rapid spread of rock-and-roll music and the promotion of the drug culture fostered a rampant hedonism that developed among many young people in American society from 1965 to 1969. This set the stage for the hippie movement, “free-love” (i.e., the sexual revolution), the famed “Woodstock” concert that occurred in the late summer of 1969, and the open acceptance of what was heretofore considered evil and unacceptable behavior. The post-Christian era had dawned and the older era of societally accepted Biblically based morality was gone.

That very brief outline of historical events explains why Generation Z doesn’t have the philosophical and religious foundation to believe in truth, certainty, or absolutes. Worse yet, combine that brief historical overview of philosophical and spiritual meltdown with a 30 second sound-byte mentality that has been programmed to subconsciously think “you can’t hold my attention longer than 10 seconds without me being entertained via fast, flashy images and sounds” and suffers from an internet information fog[4], we wonder why Generation Z seems to be a little “distracted” and skeptical when it comes to religious truth claims. Thus, regardless of form, many older, mature teens and college students I've talked to have told me that most Christian churches they have visited seem fake, trite, and irrelevant to answering the world's problems. At best, many of them view professing Christians as people who work hard in trying to solve the world's problems by going about in all the wrong ways. I’m sad to say that I agree with many of these types of objections. So, if the problem is that the Gen Z’ers lack truth, certainty, and absolutes because of their spiritual and philosophical baggage, what is the solution?

The Solution

The solution is simple but profound. It’s so simple that it’s scandalous, and it’s so profound that theologians and philosophers are still overwhelmed by it. The solution is the person and work of Jesus. When people reject Jesus they are telling God that He is cosmically insignificant in their lives, that He isn’t interesting; that He’s underwhelming. They are telling God that Jesus wasn’t really Truth incarnate, that He didn’t come to set the captives free, that He didn’t come to free us from the willing and voluntary enslavement to our own evil passions. No, they are actually doing worse than this; they are telling Jesus to shove off. Wow. Can you imagine telling this Jesus to shove off?

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17 NAU)

Verse 15 says that if you want a visible picture of what the invisible God looks like look at Jesus. And we tell that Jesus to shove off.
Verse 16 says that Jesus created everything, and we tell that Jesus to shove off.
Verse 17 tells us that everything is held together by Jesus, including our own beings, yet we tell that Jesus to shove off.

Imagine being a soldier in the military, and your commander-in-chief gives you a direct order and your obedience to that order involves the fate of the entire nation, and instead of being obedient to the order you tell him to go take a jump in the lake. The order doesn’t involve causing harm to anyone. It merely involves refraining from doing something, namely, from thinking that you know better than the commander-in-chief. But lets make the situation more dicey than that. Let’s say that you betray that confidence of your commander in chief to his chief enemy after telling him to take a long walk off of a short cliff. Not only would you be subject to charges of treason; you would likely be hanged or subject to execution by a firing squad in many countries. Now I ask, given the heinous nature of this crime as committed against a human commander-in-chief, how much more heinous and aggravated would it be with the Ultimate Commander-in-Chief? Can you imagine any greater example of heinous arrogance than that which involves essentially telling the transcendent Creator that He’s irrelevant, uninteresting, and vapid? Such is the deceitfulness of sin.

This same lie was there at the beginning with the first human beings God ever created. God told them not to eat and the deceiver told them to, thus, a direct contradiction. What was the motive for disobedience that Satan gave to the first people? Very simple: “God is holding out on you. God isn’t looking out for your best interests but only His own interests. God’s agenda is to destroy you, but I have come that you might have the knowledge of both good and evil and have it abundantly. So if you’re weary, heavy-laden, and ignorant because of the heavy yoke of obedience to God’s law, then cast off that heavy yoke and take and eat your fill of the knowledge of good and evil!” And so they did. As a result of that act of disobedience the entire universe has been thrown into a cataclysmic storm of hurt and sin ever since (Romans 8:20-22).

But there’s more: God is deceitfully put forth to you as a hate-monger; as One who takes joy in your hurt. You see, that’s the most cruel part of the lie; for what God intends for our good Satan twists as an intention for our hurt and we buy into that masterful deception, hook, line, and sinker, just like Adam and Eve. In the end, apart from Christ, we too are left joining in chorus with Satan, “Did God really say? . . . .” (Genesis 3:1) Such is the history of Western philosophy and all other modes of thinking that seek to determine truth and reality apart from reference to God.

However, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Wisdom and knowledge can’t be had with autonomous skepticism, for skepticism is self-defeating since to be consistently skeptical we’d have to be skeptical of skepticism. Only people locked up in padded rooms really live that way, while the rest of us show by the way that we live that we really believe in our heart of hearts that the Creator is there and that we can’t escape His presence. We expect uniformity, regularity, and consistency in nature, yet the best that secularism can do to explain those things is to appeal to irrationality[5], while Jesus has told us all along that He’s responsible for holding everything together and sustaining it by His power (Genesis 8:22; Colossians 1:17). Barring disease and drug use, we expect people to be reasonable and rational, but we can’t make sense out of that either without an appeal to irrationality[6], while Jesus has told us all along that He’s created our minds to function in such a way that we can reason with Him, know Him, and love Him (Isaiah 1:18; Matthew 22:37-40). When repentance and faith comes, so comes an enhancement of the image of God in the new believer. The image of God for the believer is defined in Scripture as “righteousness and holiness of the truth” and “a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). I take that to mean that over and against the knowledge that the deceiver offered and the world now offers in its many varied forms, this knowledge is God’s knowledge found in His written word, the Bible, and most importantly, in His incarnated word, Jesus. This written and incarnate form of knowledge counters the false knowledge of the world, which offers itself to us in both written and incarnate forms. The world offers its autonomous skepticism in the gift-wrapping of hedonistic, incarnated, bodily pleasure, whereas Christ offers escape from the shackles of that deception and provides us the true light; i.e., the true interpretation of reality as well as the concomitant spiritual effects that go along with it, viz., being a God-lover, full of the joy of the Holy spirit as well as being eternally grateful for Jesus’ sacrificial provision and redeeming, transforming love.

IN CONCLUSION, if you are in Generation Z and find yourself skeptical of traditional and institutional expressions of Christianity, then get in line. I do too. However, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, for Jesus died for messes like that, just like he died for messes like yours. What I mean by “mess” isn’t a “boo-boo”, but sin. Sin is the breaking of God’s law, and it occurs when we determine that we are going to take up arms against the God of heaven and earth (1 John 3:4). Our first parents did it, we’ve all done it, and it’s evident in all of us. The mess that they created in their rebellion feeds into us today in its many and varied forms. We all like to defy God in our sin, but Christ has come to set us free from that Satanic “Kool-Aid” that wants to bring us under bondage and a heavy yoke of despair. This is why He says,

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. ³⁰ "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 NAU)

[1] Naturalism is the belief that only the natural world exists; i.e., that there is no supernatural, otherworldly realm.

[2] The “ecumenical movement” was/is a movement within Christianity that seeks to promote unity among professing Christians that deny essential doctrines of the Christian faith. These beliefs would include things like the absolute necessity of repentance and faith in Christ as the only means of salvation, the Bible as the only inspired and infallible word from God, the literal, physical, resurrection of Jesus, the literal, bodily second coming of Jesus, the virgin birth, and the existence of the supernatural. According to 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, false unity is no unity at all.

[3] http://www.ondoctrine.com/10grahab.htm

[4] The “internet information fog” was a phrase coined by Dr. James White. It occurs when someone is overwhelmed by too much information about a particular subject such that they can’t decide what to think about it.

[5] This is what philosophers have called “The problem of induction”. The problem of induction says, “How do we know that the future is going to be like the past without appealing to past instances of the future being like the past?” The problem is that when the skeptic responds with, “Well, we don’t know it with absolute certainty, but we have a high degree of probability that the future will be like the past because its always been that way in the past” then they are committing the informal logical fallacy of begging the question because they’re assuming the very thing they’re trying to prove. This is a basic problem in philosophy that can’t be solved by appeals to secular solutions. For an extensive treatment of this, see Dr. James Anderson’s paper here: http://www.proginosko.com/docs/induction.html

[6] How does one who believes in naturalism and evolution know that the deliverances of their mind are giving them a true picture of the world when the very brain that produces those thoughts is itself the product of mere time, chance, and natural processes? Natural selection doesn’t answer this problem because it would only guarantee that our supposed evolutionary hominid ancestors that had beliefs that produced survival value would be passed on to succeeding generations, not that those beliefs themselves give us a true depiction of the world. Thus, beliefs that produce survival value don’t necessarily equal true beliefs. They could just as easily be false yet produce survival value. This is what is known as the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. See here: http://philofreligion.homestead.com/files/alspaper.htm

Open Air Preaching at UNC-Chapel Hill

2011-12-01T22:15:00.005-05:00

INTRODUCTION: Today was a great day of outreach at UNC-Chapel Hill. We were in "The Pit", which is the usual stomping grounds for many "shock-and-awe" preachers, but as usual, we came with a different tact. It was hard to get a crowd going at first because there were many Satanic distractions with people singing loudly and dancing in the Pit a la "flash mob" style. In almost predictable fashion, these distractions started as soon as we huddled up in a group and prayed before the preaching and witnessing. All of this was just what you'd expect on a typical run-of-the-mill secular campus.

It was very difficult to get anyone to pay attention at first due to the distractions.

Once the loud music, singing, and flash-mob dancing stopped, we got some interested listeners.

A little crowd formed after answering questions and reasoning with people from the Scriptures.

Then the crowd really started growing:

Then the crowd got large, ranging at times between 80-100 students. At one point there were so many students standing and listening that it seemed to cause some foot traffic congestion.

At one point there were actually more students than this standing around listening.

IN CONCLUSION, what I love about doing outreaches like this is that when get decent-sized crowds, we get them for the "right" reasons; i.e., we are fielding questions, grappling with the various theological, philosophical, and scientific issues and objections that the students raise and we strive to answer their questions with Scripture and reason while being mindful to finish with the gospel. In other words, the crowds are drawn with the truth, and not flashy showmanship, shock-and-awe condemnatory preaching, or any other kooky antics. Our desire is to expose them to the embodiment of the truth, namely, Christ Jesus Himself. We never cut corners when it comes to discussing God's justice, wrath, and the sinfulness of sin, but we exalt Christ and seek to make much of Him while making little of ourselves. Our desire is to make Jesus famous for the great Savior that He is and the response we get from students is often very encouraging. As has happened many times before, both believing and unbelieving students came up and thanked us for our approach, our genteel spirit and disposition, and our desire to lovingly proclaim Christ's glorious gospel message in a spiritually dark environment. May we thank our Majestic Triune God for the opportunity to have a small part in the great work of harvesting souls.

Women "Prophets" and Abortion Clinics

2011-11-15T08:55:00.000-05:00

Below we hear a sister from Shepherd's Fellowship preaching the gospel in compassion to abortive parents and clinic workers outside an abortion clinic in Raleigh, NC. I have always believed that outside an abortion clinic is the prime place for a "woman prophetess" (i.e., a woman who speaks God's truth by the leading of the Holy Spirit). Would to God that His Spirit would breathe upon the dead bones within the professing Christian church and cause them to prophesy like this woman.

"'AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,' God says, 'THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, . . . EVEN ON MY SLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:17-18)

HT: ForLifeandEternity

Outreach Report for NCSU, UNCC, Pomona Clinic 11-12-2010

2011-11-12T20:24:00.001-05:00

A great shot of the group sans moi

This has been a great week of missionary activity for Shepherd's Fellowship as we teamed up with our dear saints Bill Adams and Scott and Patte Smith as well as Justin Edwards and his crew from Charlotte's The Speak:Truth Project. We did outreach Tuesday at UNCG, Wednesday at NCSU, Friday at UNC-Charlotte, and Saturday at A Woman's Choice abortion clinic in our hometown, Greensboro, NC. These evangelists are so encouraging to us and it is always a blessing to serve and fellowship with them. If you were unaware, Bill and Scott help plant evangelism teams in the southeast by traveling to cities to assist local evangelists in networking believers for the proclamation of the Gospel. The regional network of evangelists they are establishing has been a great blessing to us at Shepherd's Fellowship and they extend our influence in preaching the gospel throughout the southeastern United States. What follows is a video of brother Scott Smith preaching at NCSU:

Here's a snippet of brother Justin Edwards, Shawn Pander, Scott Smith, and myself preaching in the "free speech" section of the UNCC campus:

Saturday morning we preached at A Woman's Choice abortion clinic in Greensboro, NC. The young man below, who after being initially angry, then became tearful, respectful, and listened well to the gospel. We pleaded with him to quickly get his girlfriend out of there and as we were doing so, the abortionist drove up. The young man came out later, wiping tears from his eyes because his girlfriend chose to murder their child. We ministered to him even more by pleading with him to repent, gave him gospel literature and our contact information, and invited to him to church. He desperately needs our prayers. Note: This young man used profanity, thus the following videos aren't suitable for children.

Showing God's Grace Includes Giving to Believers in Need

2011-11-05T10:39:00.004-05:00

In preparation for teaching on 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, I came across these gold nuggets of gospel truth:

16:1 – “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also.” (1 Cor. 16:1 NAU) The idea behind “the collection for the saints” is an economy of abundance (2 Cor. 8:9). In other words, since God in Christ has given us everything for life and godliness, which includes giving of our resources to help believers in need. Listen to what Anthony C. Thiselton says about the word “collection” in v. 1,

“. . . it is theologically entirely appropriate to speak of the collection not as a mundane chore of ‘maintaining’ the church in any routinized mechanistic sense, but of ‘maintaining’ (in the sense of nurturing) others by passing on freely received grace . . .; by tangibly and publicly expressing mutuality and reciprocity in koinonia or partnership; and by serving (diakonia) others, even as Christ has yielded up his riches to serve. All of this brings blessing (eulogia) alike to the one who gives and to the one who receives, “for it is more blessed (even) to give than to receive.”[1]

This is exactly what Paul communicates when he speaks of giving to the poor saints in 2 Cor. 9:6-12,

“Remember this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each person should do as he has decided in his heart-- not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. ⁹ As it is written: He scattered; He gave to the poor; His righteousness endures forever. ¹⁰ Now the One who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. ¹² For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many acts of thanksgiving to God. ¹³ They will glorify God for your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with others through the proof provided by this service. ¹⁴ And they will have deep affection for you in their prayers on your behalf because of the surpassing grace of God in you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” (2 Cor. 9:6-15 HCSB)

[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, NIGTC The First Epistle to the Corinthians, (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2000), 1319.

Dr. James White: Islam A-Z

2011-11-04T07:57:00.001-05:00

Islam A to Z: Session 1 and Q&A from Lakeview Christian Center on Vimeo.

Islam A to Z: Session 2 and Q&A from Lakeview Christian Center on Vimeo.

HT: Answering Muslims

UNCG Journalism Student Reports on our Ministry

2011-11-03T15:41:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed by a pleasant journalism student last Thursday afternoon after preaching in front of the Educational building at UNCG. Here's the report of that interview:

My feature from this week’s Carolinian, only I put back in the funny parts I had to take out in order to be, like, journalistic or something:

It’s mid-afternoon Thursday, and on the sidewalk outside the School of Education building a man in a fishing-hat sermonizes from a pedestal to anyone who will listen. Most people, whether spiritually full or pressed for time, pass quickly and miss Dustin Segers discredit “rational” arguments against God: “You’re telling me that only marbles exist, and yet you’re appealing to non-marble entities to do so,” he challenges Spring Garden Sreet. Spring Garden Street offers no response.

For another twenty minutes Pastor Segers preaches his logical gospel, appealing to historical texts, making philosophical arguments for the Lord. Because everybody else keeps walking away, he starts speaking directly to me, taking notes. Of course, there is some admonishing of homosexual activity, as well as of effeminacy (look out, metros!), but all delivered in a “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude that at least attempts to avoid alienation For example, he explains that “the bible doesn’t single out homosexuals — nor thieves. Things only get awkward when he starts inquiring about specific sins: “You like drinking, my friend?” he asks his audience (still just me). “Like chuggin’ on the bottle? I did.” His audience shrugs. His job seems pretty hard.

As two campus police arrive for a word, Dustin announces he’s going to give his voice a little rest, and I take the opportunity to speak with Scott Smith, coordinator behind the day’s mission. “Sometimes the police say we can’t use amplification,” he says, waving a hand at Dustin and the officers. Smith has just returned to the States from Auckland (“we were preaching rugby matches,”) and now he’s midway through a tour of the Southeast. Once founder of a preparatory school, now self-funded evangelist with ties to Presbyterianism, Smith travels year-round under the banner of Schoolmaster Ministries, contacting local preachers like Segers to help him spread the Word to college campuses, sporting events, festivals etc…

“What I love about colleges is that the kids have time, they’re open to listen, they’re still open to learning,” he says, undaunted by the spare response he’s had today. Often people are turned off at the mention of street preaching, which calls to mind apocalyptic accusations and extreme-right opinions. Aware of these perceptions, Smith does his best to preach positively—though many street-preachers rely on “shock and scare” tactics, when Smith comes to town, he calls on “[preachers] with degrees in philosophy or theology,” hoping to appeal to people’s higher sensibilities.

Whatever one’s opinions on Pastor Segers’ program, his method certainly advocates dignity. Smiling as he shakes hands with the police, then joining Smith and I, Segers explains that both officers are Christians, and have indeed asked him to cut his microphone. While Smith moves the pulpit (to his joy, the police have permitted them to preach from the shade!) and begins his sermon, Segers explains his approach a little further to me.

“The last thing we want is to be associated with the Westboro Baptists,” he states—a fairly universal sentiment, but one which here expresses fundamental disapproval for fanatical methods. Segers and Smith see themselves not as dogmatists but apologists, who want to “engage [people] in a loving, respectful way to answer intellectually their questions.” Clearly the Word will need selling, but they accept the job out of compassion. “We want to get through [folks’] intellectual smokescreens… or we’re all toast before God,” Segers explains, kneeling, grinning, while over his shoulder Smith declaims to smoking students, “1,000 trips to McDonalds won’t turn you into a fish fillet” (think about it).

What does the future hold for Schoolmaster Ministries? Dustin Segers will stay in Greensboro with the Shepherd’s Fellowship, but Smith, having already come from the University of Tennessee and Western Carolina, will see NC State next week, then “go up North and work around D.C. for a while.” And in the Winter? “We usually go down to Florida, preach FSU, get the Daytona 500,” Smith reports. “People are usually more receptive down South.”

Though its a tad snarky, that's not too bad!

HT: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/schoolmaster+ministries

Appreciating the honesty of Richard Dawkins

2011-11-02T17:01:00.001-05:00

JB: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement.

RD: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.

JB: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.

RD: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.

JB: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.

RD: You could say that, yeah.

http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/beginner/the-john-lennox-richard-dawkins-debate.htm

Noble Purpose? Ignoble Methods

2011-11-01T07:15:00.006-05:00

In the past, I've spent a significant amount of time listening to Pastor Dustin S. Segers defending the Christian Worldview to atheists. His recent efforts with Brother Sye Tenbruggencate and Brother Eric Hovind have demonstrated, for the most part, "The Noble Purpose" and contrasted "Ignoble Methods" of the atheist hosts of Fundamentally Flawed "in which Alex gets quite annoyed, and Jim calls Eric a 'liar for money' " (FF quote that describes their podcast episode).

I know better than to listen to this type of broadcast late at night,...

On my way to work this morning I heard a great quote that reminded me of 1 Peter 3:13-18 wherein the Christian is exhorted to respond gently and reverently. Ravi Zacharias (RZ) was recounting an opportunity to speak to a turkish "movie star" who thinks he is not welcome in the USA due to his acerbic comments and activities outside the White House, wherein he had resorted to screaming threats and gesticulating in a threatening manner. RZ asked him "is your position concerning the President of the United States of America a NOBLE position?" to which the entertainer responded; "Certainly!". RZ then demanded consistency with the following statement: " Then why do you employ IGNOBLE methods to represent your NOBLE position?" There was a long silence from the entertainer.

RZ was appealing to the Christian Worldview that is expressed in 1 Peter 3 where the Christian explains the Gospel of Jesus Christ to anyone who he engages. The issue for the Christian is not only the TRUTH but the manner in which he DELIVERS the TRUTH. Pastor Dustin, Sye and Eric have, for the most part, honored Jesus Christ with their gentle and reverent speech and behavior. This stands in STARK CONTRAST to the bombastic, angry steamrolling of Alex and Jim.

Alex and Jim interrupt regularly the Christians with raised voices, potting down the Christian feeds, steamrolling behavior, straw man constructs, insults (Ad Hominem attacks) and rude behavior. When called upon to STOP (PD repeats; "hold on, hold on...ho,.. ho,.. ho,..") and they (Alex and Jim) feign common courtesies and soon return to their overpowering, self-serving behavior.

It is reasonable as Christian gentlemen to demand a change in behavior, change in venue or to move on from "fundamentally flawed". If the FF Hosts cannot or WILL NOT stop their sophomoric behavior, they need to submit to a MODERATED debate where there is an authority outside themselves that will not permit them to embarrass themselves and , . . enable the listener to not only hear both sides, but to be able to weigh the merits of each.

I will guarantee that the listener will be exposed to the futility of the Atheist Worldview when their anger and tactics are mitigated. For my Christian Brothers: Well done,. . . continue to honor the Spirit of God who has made you able to respond gently and reverently, and demand a venue where you may Proclaim the Gospel!

and,.. one more thing,.. thank you Alex and Jim for not resorting to the same profanity that your remaining FF atheist participants employ. Their reprehensible behavior makes the remainder of the FF Podcast not fit for human consumption.

Profanity is a tool that conceals a weak vocabulary.

PS

* fine artwork by Jesse Riggle

Smoking Gun Proof that the Nazis were Social Darwinists

2011-10-31T13:28:00.001-05:00

The above propaganda video was made by the Nazis. It's entitled 'Opfer der Vergangenheit'. Obviously, you can see that the Nazis were influenced by Darwinian Evolution.

Many shallow-thinking atheists cannot take the fact that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were Darwinian evolutionists despite the smoking gun proof. They have blinded themselves to the facts. Naturally, atheists say that the Nazis were Christians! How convenient that they deliberately forget that over 3 million CHRISTIANS were slaughtered during the Holocaust by the Nazis! (If you're a little thick, that's not an example of being a Christian). Here's proof: http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Lucaire.htm

Also, the Nazis claimed to be "Positive Christians"! Meaning they rejected Jesus' Jewishness and they rejected the Old Testament! When it's all said and done, the Nazis were NOT orthodox! Here's proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

"Was Hitler a Christian?" by Dinesh D'Souza: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2007/11/05/was_hitler_a_chris...

Atheist Hector Avalos debates historian Richard Weikart on the issue: http://www.mickelson.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=341046
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/05/are_francis_collins_ken_miller.html

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/04/the_historical_connection_from.html

Does God Ground Logic?

2011-10-30T15:58:00.008-05:00

INTRODUCTION: He sure does, metaphysically (God's nature grounds logic's nature), epistemologically (logic is knowable because our rational God is knowable), and ethically (God provides the sufficient and necessary grounding for our obligation to know logic and be rational). However, a naturalistic atheist has made several naive comments about naturalism, the nature of logic, and has questioned that logic can be grounded in the Christian God in response to one of my articles about Christian theism, naturalism, and circular reasoning. My response below follows:

JC,

You show your ignorance by making statements like these:

In the naturalist world view, not everything that exists need be extended in space or reducible to “matter” so his conclusions fail.

While that is true that naturalism doesn't necessitate eliminative materialism, most naturalists I have interacted with are strict materialists. Thus, my syllogisms apply to them. If the naturalist wants to affirm the existence of immaterial, universal entities without grounding them in God (as Plato did) then that's fine; but it is up to them to give a successful naturalist philosophy that can ground such things. So far, the naturalist program has been unable to successfully do so without borrowing from Christian theism. Nevertheless, should the naturalist claim that naturalism doesn't usually entail some version of materialsim, I wish someone would have told atheist scholar Kai Nielsen and the rest of the gang who produced the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Religion:

“Naturalism denies that there are any spiritual or supernatural realities. There are, that is, no purely mental substances and there are no supernatural realities transcendent to the world; or at least we have no sound grounds for believing that there are such realities or perhaps even for believing that there could be such realities. It is the view that anything that exists is ultimately made up of physical components." [Kai Nielsen, "Naturalistic Explanations of Theistic Belief," in Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro, A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, Blackwell, 1997, p. 402.]

I also wish JC would have educated renowned atheistic scientist Dr. Richard Lewontin when he affirmed that no non-material entities exist as a means to purposefully exclude immaterial, supernatural entities from any involvement in reality:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. . . . Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." [Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.]

Or what if JC would have had the opportunity to inform Dr. Alan Lacey who wrote the section on naturalism in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, who defined it this way,

"What [naturalism] insists on is that the world of nature should form a single sphere without incursions from outside by souls or spirits, divine or human, and without having to accommodate strange entities like non-natural values or substantive abstract universals." [The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, (), 640.]

That would include abstract entities like the immaterial, universal laws of logic. Our naive atheist goes on to say,

It looks as though Dusman is doing nothing more than trying to appeal to the ignorance of his Christian audience since I know of no materialist that would say concepts are reducible to electrochemical reactions in the brain.

Has JC ever heard of a version of physicalism called eliminative materialism? Here's physicalist philosopher of mind Dr. Patricia Churchland elaborating on the fact that beliefs boil down to mere brain function:

Even if we grant Dusman both that logic and God are “immaterial” it does not follow that God is the grounds for logic.

This argument would follow if the immaterial God of Scripture did not reveal that He is the grounds for everything in Scripture. A similar problem faced Plato when he posited his immaterial realm of ideals to explain immaterial things like concepts, numbers, logic, etc. But we aren't in the same position as Plato since God has revealed in Scripture that all of reality is grounded in Him (Acts 17:28; Rom. 11:33-36; Col. 2:3). It seems that this is what our atheist friend is confusing the fact of grounding with the how of the grounding. The Scripture answers the former without giving us details of the latter.

Scripture tells us that there is substantial continuity between divine reasoning and human reasoning (Isa. 1:18) and that God's mind is infinite (Psalm 147:5), perfect in knowledge (Job 36:4; 37:15), and that He expects us to love Him with our minds (Matt. 22:37-40). In a nutshell, we are commanded to imitate the rational mind of God (Eph. 5:1). God does not have an authority outside Himself to determine His behavior since He's character is the ultimate standard and grounding of all that is, whether ethical, epistemological, or metaphysical (Heb. 6:13). The "all" of what "is" would include logic. Hence, God's According to Scripture, God's character is the ultimate example of rationality and we are commanded to emulate said rationality for His glory (Job 36:4; 37:15; Eph. 5:1). It follows that God is perfectly rational by nature (i.e., logical) and such characteristics are grounded in His nature and since we are commanded to imitate Him we ground rationality in His very being.

Can Atheists Have Immaterials Without God?

P1: If God does not exist then the laws of logic do not exist.

P2: The laws of logic do exist.

C: Therefore God exists.

The laws of logic are necessary and have to be grounded in an immaterial entity. The only reasonable candidate for that is the Triune God since He is a perfect, personal being and thinks with perfect rationality. Thus, He is necessarily the foundation for perfect logic and reason.

What follows are some reasons why atheistic realism cannot account for the laws of logic:

1. We have a moral obligation to be reasonable and logical and this is only possible with persons. Mere matter in motion doesn't tell me how I ought to act.

2. Without the immaterial, personal, Triune God, there’s no guarantee that people would develop correct conceptions of logic. This is because impersonal, immaterial abstract entities wouldn’t have the ability to guide and inform our cognitive faculties.

3. It is hard to conceive of immaterial entities having content apart from a Mind with thoughts that possess content. (i.e., How do immaterial entities possess content apart from a Mind that fills them with contents?)

4. It is difficult to imagine how the metaphysical foundation of logic could itself be non-rational (arational), since only persons have logical properties of this sort. So, on the atheist immaterialist's worldview, logic would not be logical, which of course, is absurd.

5. Finally, it is difficult to see how these immaterial logical laws could relate to or connect to the physical world in any sort of fashion without a personal Mind to cause such to be the case.

Again, as noted in a previous blog post, knowledge (including knowledge of logic and the epistemic normativity behind it) must be grounded in God: Dr. James Anderson puts it this way:

Careful reflection on the concept of knowledge in general, and on paradigm cases of knowledge, make it clear that this notion of ‘epistemic rightness’ or ‘epistemic appropriateness’ is an essential feature of knowledge. But observe that this notion is clearly a normative one: it pertains to how beliefs ought to be formed or held (in order to count as knowledge), rather than how beliefs are formed or held. It is not a descriptive notion, but a prescriptive one. It implies that there are epistemic norms which determine (in part) whether or not one’s belief that p is actually knowledge that p. That the concept of knowledge has an essentially normative aspect, and thus there are such things as epistemic norms (if there is such a thing as knowledge), is a point widely recognised by contemporary epistemologists. For example, Jaegwon Kim writes:
[Epistemic] justification manifestly is normative. If a belief is justified for us, then it is permissible and reasonable, from the epistemic point of view, for us to hold it, and it would be epistemically irresponsible to hold beliefs that contradict it. . . . Epistemology is a normative discipline as much as, and in the same sense as, normative ethics. (Kim, 1988, p. 383, emphasis original)
The fact that there is such a thing as epistemic normativity has interesting implications. In the first place, it poses a serious problem for metaphysical naturalism, for there is no place within a thoroughgoing naturalism for any irreducible normativity. According to the metaphysical naturalist, all phenomena are ultimately explicable in scientific terms (if explicable at all), but science is a purely descriptive discipline. Science describes rather than prescribes. It tells us how things are, as a matter of empirical fact; it has nothing to tell us about how things ought to be. As Alvin Plantinga has remarked:
[Naturalism’s] Achilles’ heel (in addition to its deplorable falsehood) is that it has no room for normativity. There is no room, within naturalism, for right or wrong, or good or bad. (Plantinga, 1998, p. 356, emphasis original)
So naturalism, as a metaphysical position, cannot accommodate the notion of right or wrong ways to form or hold beliefs. Consequently, it cannot accommodate the notion of epistemic warrant. In short: if we know anything at all, then naturalism must be false. [http://www.proginosko.com/docs/knowledge_and_theism.html]

At the end of the above paper, Dr. Anderson reviews the worldviews he's already refuted and notes re: knowledge:

Some general conclusions can be drawn from all this. It appears that any worldview whose ontology can underwrite a viable account of epistemic warrant must exhibit the following features: (1) it must be non-naturalist (i.e., it must make room for real objective normativity); (2) it must posit a fundamental ontological distinction between that which grounds or originates epistemic norms and that which is subject to epistemic norms; and (3) it must posit a ground of epistemic normativity that is personal (i.e., exhibiting features such as intellect and volition). In short, we are looking for a worldview with an ontology that includes a supernatural personal being whose character or intentions give rise to norms for human thought; that is, a broadly theistic worldview. In conclusion, then, we have solid reasons for believing that if human knowledge is possible then there must be a God. Knowledge presupposes the existence of objective epistemic normativity, which in turn presupposes an ontology that can account for the existence of such normativity. Naturalism, as many of its contemporary advocates now acknowledge, has no place for objective epistemic normativity. And non-theistic non-naturalisms fall short on other grounds: by trying to ground epistemic normativity in the non-personal, or by failing to distinguish the normative from the normed, or by leaving unexplained the connection between the normative and the normed. Only theistic worldviews have the metaphysical resources to underwrite the most defensible analyses of epistemic warrant. In four words: if knowledge, then God. [Ibid.]

IN CONCLUSION, given those problems, Biblical theism can account for the immaterial, abstract, laws of logic whereas atheistic realism and versions of naturalism cannot.

Atheist Debate on the Fundamentally Flawed Podcast - Round 2

2011-10-29T08:41:00.004-05:00

Prepare yourself for a few of these.

I had the opportunity to go on the fundamentally flawed podcast with Eric Hovind for round two of a debate with atheists Alex Botten and Jim Gardner. I'm sad to say that the discussion seemed to degenerate into mostly name-calling the last 15-20 minutes. The entire episode is full of opportunities for facepalms, so get yourself ready for some forehead slapping nonsense.

Fall 2011 Campus Missions Report

2011-10-28T19:27:00.002-05:00

INTRODUCTION: This past week we had the glorious privilege to preach the glorious gospel at Western Carolina University, Appalachain State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and North Carolina State University.

Western Carolina University

At WCU, we encountered several atheists, many homosexuals, and even a Buddhist; but all of them listened well, asked great questions, and interacted productively. After we finished preaching they clapped for us!

This crowd grew to about twice this size at one point.

After I finished preaching, the students surrounded me for follow-up questions

The following video is a sample of what was going on at WCU (sound quality poor):

Appalachain State University

On Wednesday, we headed to ASU and while we were setting up, a "shock and awe" preacher showed up. These men are usually Pelagian in their doctrine and bring a message of condemnation. These types of preachers oftentimes get a large crowd in a short period of time. Usually the crowd gets extremely angry and I'm sad to say, its not necessarily because they aren't speaking any Biblical truth, but they fail to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). Nevertheless, the cops came and told the man to move locations, his crowd followed, and we started preaching on the other side of the campus lawn and eventually his crowd slowly came to us. We had 30-60 students at one time asking excellent questions. We had several unbelievers come up to us and thank us for being there and when we finished preaching for the day, the students clapped for us and then thanked us for being there.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

It was a joy to preach at my home base, but as usual, the students were apathetic. Here's a clip of brother Scott Smith preaching the word in front of the education building:

Then I preached for a while:

North Carolina State University

It was cold when we preached at NCSU, but we lifted up the name of Christ:

IN CONCLUSION, we thank God for the opportunity to lift up Christ's name before hundreds of unbelievers. Many of them thanked us for the reasonable interaction and we pray God will use the proclamation of the word to glorify Himself and bring many of the elect into the Kingdom.

You Might Be a Pragmatist If . . . .

2011-10-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

10 Signs you might be a pragmatist, from the Grace to You blog:

If you see ecclesiology as a subset of missiology, you might be a pragmatist.
If you believe evangelism rather than edification is the purpose of the church, you might be a pragmatist.
If you are trying to figure out what works in evangelism and church growth, and you’re using resources less than 100 years old to answer the question, you might be a pragmatist.
If you turn to sociology and psychology rather than theology to help you understand human response, you might be a pragmatist.
If you think the feel of your church, the music you play, and what you wear makes it more/less likely for an unbeliever to believe the gospel, you might be a pragmatist.
If you are often counting your numbers (e.g., number of visitors, baptisms, and “decisions for Christ,” visitors to your website, sermon downloads, or any other countable sign of growth), you might be a pragmatist.
If you feel the need to quote your numbers to establish your credibility, you might be a pragmatist.
If you are more concerned with the opinions and comfort-level of unbelievers who visit your church than you are with the opinions of believers in your church, you might be a pragmatist.
If your church youth program is designed to accommodate and entertain young people rather than teach and confront them, you might be a pragmatist.
If the young set the tone and determine the culture of the church, you might be a pragmatist.

Loving the Lost

2011-10-21T12:34:00.001-05:00

Look at the above photograph and consider the beauty, grandeur, and majesty of God's creation. God's word tells us that both believers and unbelievers can enjoy life, love, joy, food, shelter, clothing, sunshine, rain, and loving relationships as part of experiencing God's common goodness (Psalm 145:9). In spite of their rebellion, unbelievers experience innumerable blessings on a daily basis, even down to their very heartbeat.

Many times I've gritted my teeth at the evil perpetrated by the lost. There's nothing wrong with righteous indignation and experiencing grief in our souls over the relentless destruction that unbelieving, autonomous thought brings to the world. But I want you to consider a few things:

Don't forget that you too were once one of them, dead in your trespasses and sins, controlled by the demonic realm, going about in the futility of your mind and while being darkened in your understanding and you were thoroughly enjoying it while spreading your version of wickedness before men (Eph. 2:1-10; 4:17-18).
Remember that Jesus Himself had compassion on the hungry multitudes who were like sheep without a Shepherd. He was distressed that such would be the case (Mark 6:34). Jesus also said, ". . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28)
When Jesus encountered the rich young ruler and the young man told him he had kept the commands Jesus quoted since he was a youth, he proved that he was terribly self-deceived. After seeing this evident self-deception, Jesus looked at him and "felt a love for him . . ." (Mark 10:21).
Paul said, "I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it." (1 Cor. 9:23) and ". . . I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory." (2 Tim. 2:10)
Jesus and Paul labored for the gospel, gave their lives for the gospel, and the results of their labor of love saw many unbelievers come into the Kingdom.

Seek to have Jesus and Paul as your spiritual role models when it comes to your interactions with the lost. Let their example of love for unbelievers motivate you by the power of the Spirit to love them enough to snatch them from the fire (Jude 23). Unbelievers do what they do because they are spiritually enslaved to their own sinful desires to do so (John 8:44). We would all do well to remember these things as we travel through this world looking unto a better country whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:16).

Do Christians Reason in a Circle? - Responding to a Naturalist

2011-10-19T14:51:00.003-05:00

INTRODUCTION: What follows is a response to a friendly naturalist named "JC" who heard mine and Sye TenBruggencate's debate with the atheists on the Fundamentally Flawed podcast. In his response he asserts that the Christian apologist is committing the logical fallacy of begging the question by assuming the very thing he's trying to prove when arguing for God. See my response below interspersed between JC's comments:

JC,

Thanks for the courteous response. I grow weary of engaging unbelievers who use nearly nothing but ad hominems. Your responses/interaction has thus far been a breath of fresh air. Keep it up my friend! :-)

It is important to note that what I previously offered is by no means extensive, but only a brief overall sketch of my apologetic. I said, "the short answer is that the proof that God exists is that without Him you can't prove anything." You responded,

This is argumentum ad consequentiam. I could just as easily say the proof that God does NOT exist is that if he did you could not prove anything. These types of arguments get us nowhere."

1. This isn't an argument to undesirable consequences; though the consequences of denying such should be undesirable for the rational person. When an argument is about a certain proposition, it is reasonable to assess the truth-value of any logical consequences of it. Logical consequences should not be confused with causal consequences, and truth or falsity should not be confused with goodness or badness. Since God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of reality, then it follows that one couldn't prove anything, much less His existence without first assuming His existence since His existence is the very thing needed for the concept of proof in the first place. Thus, the proposition itself (i.e., the existence of God) is in question, not the logical relation of the proposition to the intelligibility of reality or the issue of whether the consequences are desirable or not.

2. Everybody reasons in a circle and doing so isn't always fallacious. There are two things we need to discuss about circular reasoning: It is (1) absolutely unavoidable and (2) not necessarily fallacious. Circular reasoning is unavoidable to some degree when proving one's ultimate standard. An ultimate standard cannot be proved from anything else, otherwise it wouldn't be ultimate. Therefore, if it is to be proved, it must use itself as its own standard of judgment by which any decision is made.

God uses non-fallacious circular reasoning

God Himself uses a non-fallacious type of circular reasoning when He makes an oath. Human beings appeal to a greater authority as confirmation of an oath (Heb. 6:16). But since God is ultimate, He can only use Himself as the authority (Heb. 6:13). Thus, clearly some degree of circular reasoning is necessary when proving one's ultimate authority.

Not all circles are fallacious

Second, all circles aren't necessarily fallacious. Begging the question is often considered a fallacy because it is usually arbitrary. But it can be non-arbitrary if it goes beyond a simple circle (i.e., the Bible is true because it says so) and uses additional information to support its conclusion. If the ultimate authority is first assumed and you find out later you have good reasons for it because without it you cannot make sense out of anything, then its perfectly legitimate to reason in a circle.

All ultimate authorities must appeal to themselves as part of their own proof

In fact, any true ultimate authority must use itself as part of its own proof. Again, some degree of circular reasoning is involved, but it cannot be a simple "vicious" circle. It must be non-arbitrary. Consider logic:

1 - If there were no laws of logic, we couldn't make an argument.
2 - We can make an argument.
3 - Therefore, there must be laws of logic.

This argument is perfectly sound yet it is subtly circular. It's what is known as a modus tollens syllogism (i.e., denying the consequent) and in this "proof", we have assumed that there are laws of logic. Modus tollens is a law of inference in logic, and we have used it as part of the proof that there are laws of logic. In this case we had no other choice; in order to get anywhere in any argument we must presuppose that there are laws of logic.

How circular arguments can be non-fallacious

However, this example argument doesn't merely assume what its trying to prove; it imports additional information to support its conclusion. What makes this circular argument a powerful one is that to deny it would be to assume it, thus any potential rebuttal would be self-defeating. A great way to show that a particular presupposition must be true is to show that one would have to assume that the presupposition is true even to argue against it in the first place.

An argument that proves something that is necessary for reasoning, proof, and evidence in the first place is called a transcendental argument. It asks "What must first exist to make sense out of everything else?" It is not like the arguments you are used to hearing from Christians (direct, deductive arguments or indirect, inductive arguments).

The Christian's ultimate standard

The Christian's ultimate standard is like this; any attempt to refute the Bible must assume things about the world that could only be true if the Bible were true in order to get started. The Bible not only provides the criteria for itself, but it does so for all other facts, hence, the reasoning isn't viciously circular. It gives us a foundation (the Biblical God) for rational reasoning (including laws of logic), science, morality, reliability of our senses and memory, and so on.

It even gives us a foundation for why we should not be inconsistent or arbitrary (because God isn't, and we are to imitate Him - Eph. 5:1). The Bible passes its own criteria for truth (it is consistent and non-arbitrary, etc.) and provides criteria for everything else. The Christian circle is not a vicious circle, but one that can account for all human experience and reasoning.

As with the argument for laws of logic, any attempted rebuttal would be self-refuting, because it would have to use things (laws of logic, the charge to be consistent, etc.) that presuppose a universe that can only exist if Christian theism is true. Thus, we are not merely arguing "The Bible must be the word of God because it says so". Rather, we are saying, "The Bible must be the word of God not only because it says it is, but if you reject this claim you are reduced to absurdity."

Indeed, "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2:3

You said,

Your first statement “and rationality necessarily requires an ultimate, transcendent, universal, personal justification ...” is only supported by an appeal to consequences i.e. “... or else it is contingent, arbitrary, conventional, and ultimately all rationality breaks down if one is consistent”. The next statement “logic is immaterial, abstract, and universal” is also not supported and would need more clarification.

3. Logic must be grounded in God. Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with an appeal to consequences because when an argument is about a certain proposition, it is reasonable to assess the truth-value of any logical consequences of it. That logic is immaterial is demonstrated via the following syllogisms:

1. Material things are extended in space.
2. Our concepts of "logic" are not extended in space.
3. Therefore, our concepts of "logic" are non-material.
4. Some versions of materialism posit that no non-material entities exist.
5. Therefore, assuming some versions of materialism, concepts of "logic" do not exist.

Syllogism two:

1. Concepts are immaterial.
2. But some versions of materialism hold that anything that exists is material.
3. Our concepts are not material things.
4. Therefore, concepts do not exist.
5. Our concepts of "logic" are immaterial.
6. Therefore, in some versions of materialism, "logic" does not exist.

Thus, if philosophical materialism is true then logic doesn't exist. Logic exists, therefore philosophical materialism is false.

The immaterial Christian God grounds immaterial logic as God is rational and orderly by nature and originally imputed said order to His created order, especially for those created in His image. Positing an immaterial abstract realm like Plato's realm of ideals contradicts naturalism as it appeals to "other-worldly" explanations which are disdained in most modern naturalistic philosophizing, doesn't tell us how the immaterial realm of the forms informs the physical world, nor is an abstract, impersonal immaterial realm able to ground the personal moral obligation to be logical. Arguments to the contrary have been demonstrated to be unsuccessful.

Second, logic has a moral component; i.e., we are obligated to be rational and logical. Appeals to survival value via natural selection, appeals to logic as an emergent property of the material brain, or social contract theory are irrelevant as they tell us what is the case not necessarily what should be the case. To ground universal personal moral obligation, you need such obligation grounded in a personal transcendent, universal source. Such grounding is satisfied in the Triune God. Thus, unless you begin with this God in all of your reasoning, you can't account for your reasoning processes because those very processes require resources that can only exist, be grounded, and normative if the immaterial God of Scripture exists.

4. Knowledge must be grounded in God: Dr. James Anderson puts it well:

Careful reflection on the concept of knowledge in general, and on paradigm cases of knowledge, make it clear that this notion of ‘epistemic rightness’ or ‘epistemic appropriateness’ is an essential feature of knowledge. But observe that this notion is clearly a normative one: it pertains to how beliefs ought to be formed or held (in order to count as knowledge), rather than how beliefs are formed or held. It is not a descriptive notion, but a prescriptive one. It implies that there are epistemic norms which determine (in part) whether or not one’s belief that p is actually knowledge that p.
That the concept of knowledge has an essentially normative aspect, and thus there are such things as epistemic norms (if there is such a thing as knowledge), is a point widely recognised by contemporary epistemologists. For example, Jaegwon Kim writes:
[Epistemic] justification manifestly is normative. If a belief is justified for us, then it is permissible and reasonable, from the epistemic point of view, for us to hold it, and it would be epistemically irresponsible to hold beliefs that contradict it. . . . Epistemology is a normative discipline as much as, and in the same sense as, normative ethics. (Kim, 1988, p. 383, emphasis original)
The fact that there is such a thing as epistemic normativity has interesting implications. In the first place, it poses a serious problem for metaphysical naturalism, for there is no place within a thoroughgoing naturalism for any irreducible normativity. According to the metaphysical naturalist, all phenomena are ultimately explicable in scientific terms (if explicable at all), but science is a purely descriptive discipline. Science describes rather than prescribes. It tells us how things are, as a matter of empirical fact; it has nothing to tell us about how things ought to be. As Alvin Plantinga has remarked:
[Naturalism’s] Achilles’ heel (in addition to its deplorable falsehood) is that it has no room for normativity. There is no room, within naturalism, for right or wrong, or good or bad. (Plantinga, 1998, p. 356, emphasis original)
So naturalism, as a metaphysical position, cannot accommodate the notion of right or wrong ways to form or hold beliefs. Consequently, it cannot accommodate the notion of epistemic warrant. In short: if we know anything at all, then naturalism must be false. [http://www.proginosko.com/docs/knowledge_and_theism.html]

At the end of the above paper, Dr. Anderson reviews the worldviews he's already refuted and notes re: knowledge:

Some general conclusions can be drawn from all this. It appears that any worldview whose ontology can underwrite a viable account of epistemic warrant must exhibit the following features: (1) it must be non-naturalist (i.e., it must make room for real objective normativity); (2) it must posit a fundamental ontological distinction between that which grounds or originates epistemic norms and that which is subject to epistemic norms; and (3) it must posit a ground of epistemic normativity that is personal (i.e., exhibiting features such as intellect and volition). In short, we are looking for a worldview with an ontology that includes a supernatural personal being whose character or intentions give rise to norms for human thought; that is, a broadly theistic worldview.
In conclusion, then, we have solid reasons for believing that if human knowledge is possible then there must be a God. Knowledge presupposes the existence of objective epistemic normativity, which in turn presupposes an ontology that can account for the existence of such normativity. Naturalism, as many of its contemporary advocates now acknowledge, has no place for objective epistemic normativity. And non-theistic non-naturalisms fall short on other grounds: by trying to ground epistemic normativity in the non-personal, or by failing to distinguish the normative from the normed, or by leaving unexplained the connection between the normative and the normed. Only theistic worldviews have the metaphysical resources to underwrite the most defensible analyses of epistemic warrant. In four words: if knowledge, then God. [Ibid.]

I noted, “Knowledge is justified true belief or warrant. Naturalism must appeal to one's senses and reasoning to verify one's senses and reasoning. This is a classic version of question begging and it can only be escaped by appealing to an all-knowing, personal, a priori source. Hence, God.” You responded,

What do you mean by “verify” one's senses and reasoning?

I mean that to confirm or assume that they are functioning properly you have to use them to confirm and assume them. This is a classic example of begging the question because you're assuming the very thing you're trying to prove in order to prove it without going outside of the same plane of reasoning to prove it. Thus, this doesn't meet the classic definition of knowledge normally defined by philosophers as justified, true, belief. In order to escape this vicious circularity and have knowledge that your senses are valid without appealing to irrationality to do it, you must appeal to an all-knowing Source that exists outside of your senses that can confirm the general reliability of your senses (Proverbs 20:12). For more information see my article Sensation, Reason, and Christian Epistemology.

The last part “This is a classic version of question begging and it can only be escaped by appealing to an all-knowing, personal, a priori source. Hence, God” its self seems to be question begging as again you are appealing to the presupposition in question.

IN CONCLUSION, all ultimate authorities must appeal to themselves to justify themselves because that is the nature of proving ultimate authorities. Since God defines Himself in His own word as the ultimate authority (Isaiah 43:10-11; Heb. 6:13), then all of our reasoning must begin with Him. The converse of this is to undermine all knowledge claims as both I and the quotes above from Dr. James Anderson demonstrate.

Evangelizing the Occupy Wall Street Protestors

2011-10-19T12:39:00.001-05:00

I am not a theonomist, but I appreciate these brothers evangelizing the occupy Wall Street protestors:

Occupy Wall Street Preaching from pat necerato on Vimeo.

HT: GoStandSpeak

Free Pro-Life Apologetics Course

2011-10-18T10:50:00.001-05:00

The following course is taught by Scott Klusendorf, one of the pro-life community's sharpest defenders. While I recommend most of the content in the link below, I do not agree with Scott that for strategic purposes, we must give up the Bible to defend the preborn in outreach and philosophical and scientific debate.

See link here.

To understand why I think philosophical and scientific arguments are insufficient to defend the unborn, see here:

Why Philosophical and Scientific Arguments Aren’t Sufficient to Defend the Unborn

Do Miracles Undermine Science and Knowledge?

2011-10-17T20:16:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION: My atheist friend Alex, whom I debated last week has argued that if a miracle working God exists, then we wouldn't be able to do science or know that the universe was understandable since we wouldn't know whether the results of our scientific and rational investigation was God doing a miracle or whether it was natural processes. Here's how Alex summarizes his basic argument:

However, if . . . we live in a universe where miracles can happen at any moment, which leads unavoidably to us not being able to trust any observations of the world around us. If miracles can happen, if the basic functions of reality can be altered at the whim of an all knowing super being, then there is no guarantee that scientist A and scientist B will get the same results even when examining the same phenomenon.

Basically, if [this argument] is right, intelligibility is impossible, as reality can change, for no naturalistic reason, at any time. [Thus, this] argument is self refuting.

A BRIEF REFUTATION

It is a false dilemma to claim that because God does miracles that reality is unintelligible since this would mean that God could go around the universe arbitrarily contravening natural law at a whim. This argument is simply an old, re-cycled argument from the 19th c. theological liberals that has been repackaged for atheistic consumption.

Miracles are an addition to natural law

First, miracles are an addition to natural laws rather than a contradiction of them. This is because natural laws are formulated in isolated systems. For example, Newton’s 1st Law of Motion states that objects will continue in a straight line at constant speed — if no unbalanced force is acting. But there is nothing in the law to prohibit unbalanced forces acting; otherwise nothing could ever change direction!

This can be applied to skeptics who claim that Jesus couldn’t have walked on water because it would ‘violate’ Archimedes’ Principle, ‘Objects will sink in water if they weigh more than the buoyant force’. But this is true only if no other are forces operating. For example, if you were tied to a helicopter you wouldn’t sink. There is nothing that ‘violates’ Archimedes Principle, just that it can’t preclude other forces acting.

Since God exists, there is no truly isolated system. Thus there is no basis for disallowing miracles unless you could prove that God doesn’t exist, but you can’t prove a universal negative. Since Jesus is God Incarnate, He can certainly bring other forces into play without violating science.

C.S. Lewis applied these concepts to the virginal conception of Christ: that is the zygote was made by the Holy Spirit’s action on Mary’s ovum, i.e. an addition to the system. But after that, the embryo developed in the normal manner.

Natural Laws are descriptive not prescriptive

Second, your comments against miracles treats natural laws as real entities. In reality, scientific laws are descriptive of what we observe happening regularly, just as the outline of a map describes the shape of a coastline. Treating scientific laws as prescriptive, i.e., the cause of the observed regularities that rules out miracles by definition, is like claiming that the drawing of the map is the cause of the shape of the coastline. Such is nonsense, but atheists argue in this manner when they assert this false dilemma.

Any old god won't do

Third, we are not just advocating any ‘god’. Christians don't advocate just any ‘god’ who may or may not be capricious. Rather, they identify the Designer with the faithful triune God of the Bible. The Bible explains that we are made in the image of a rational God (Genesis 1:26–27), God is a God of order not of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), God gave man dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28), and He commanded honesty (Exodus 20:16), and that He upholds a general regularly to nature (Gen. 8:22; Jer. 33:25; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:3).

Applying this, as well as a correct understanding of the nature of scientific laws as description, leads to a worldview that historically led to science without jettisoning miracles.

The founders of modern science, like modern creationists, regarded ‘natural laws’ as descriptions of the way God upholds His creation in a regular and repeatable way (Col. 1:15–17), while miracles are God’s way of upholding His creation in a special way for special reasons. Because creation finished at the end of day 6 (Gen. 2:1–3), creationists following the Bible would expect that God has since mostly worked through ‘natural laws’ except where He has revealed in the Bible that He used a miracle. And since ‘natural laws’ are descriptive, they cannot prescribe what cannot happen, so they cannot rule out miracles. Again, scientific laws do not cause or forbid anything any more than the outline of a map causes the shape of the coastline.

Because creation finished at the end of day 6, biblical creationists would try to find natural laws for every aspect of operation science, and would not invoke a miracle to explain any repeating event in nature in the present, despite atheists' protestations otherwise.

So, atheists are wrong to imply that Christians are in any way hindered in real operational scientific research, either in theory or in practice. Philosopher and apologist J.P. Moreland said:

‘But some will object, “If we allowed appealing to God anytime we don’t understand something, then science itself would be impossible, for science proceeds on the assumption of natural causality.” This argument is a red herring. It is true that science is not compatible with just any form of theism, particularly a theism that holds to a capricious god who intervenes so often that the contrast between primary and secondary causality is unintelligible. But Christian theism holds that secondary causality is God’s usual mode and primary causality is infrequent, comparatively speaking. That is why Christianity, far from hindering the development of science, actually provided the womb for its birth and development.’ [Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation, Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 226, 1989.]

God is the necessary precondition for science

Regarding the assertion that the existence of a miracle working God undermines the intelligibility of reality, the exact opposite is true. Without a belief that the universe was made by the God of order and that we are made in the image of this God, we have no basis for either an orderly universe or that our thoughts can be trusted, as explained in our debate last week.

Atheists can’t prove that the universe is orderly, because the proofs would have to suppose the order they are trying to prove. This constitutes another vicious circle on their part.

Atheists can treat these premises as axioms, i.e. accepted as true without proof, but again, as noted in last week's debate, they are unable to escape the problem of induction unless they appeal to the a priori, non-arbitrary propositions of Scripture. Indeed, atheists can’t prove that the universe is orderly, because the proofs would have to suppose the order they are trying to prove. Similarly, they can't prove that their thoughts are rational because the proofs would have to assume this very rationality. Yet evolution would select only for survival advantage, not necessarily rationality or truth.

So, the idea that either God exists and He cheats with miracles, or the world obeys strict rules of action and consequence in a naturalistic fashion is a false dilemma.

However, the only rational alternative is a God of order who used miracles for creation, and in rare occasions at other times when working out His program, but normally works by what we call ‘natural law’. The logical feasibility has been amply proved in practice by the good science discovered by believers in miracles.

IN CONCLUSION, an atheist cannot derive an orderly universe from the proposition ‘God does not exist’. Indeed, you need to accept an orderly universe as a ‘brute fact’, which ironically was actually plagiarized from the Christian world view to argue against it, as we've previously demonstrated.

Atheist Debate on the Fundamentally Flawed Podcast

2011-10-15T08:18:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to yesterday's debate that I and Sye TenBruggencate of Sinner Ministries had with atheists Alex Botten and Jim Gardner of the Fundamentally Flawed podcast. May God be glorified as we seek to destroy "speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ". (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Witnessing to the Witnesses 10-13-2011

2011-10-13T12:28:00.002-05:00

Outreach Report - Downtown GS0 & NCSU

2011-10-12T22:55:00.004-05:00

INTRODUCTION: On Tuesday, 10-10-11 we had the opportunity to represent our Lord's gospel before the people of Downtown Greensboro and then the next day we brought the gospel to the students of North Carolina State University.

Downtown Greensboro

We originally had planned to do our first day's outreach at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. However, we forgot to check the academic calendar before we arrived on campus and since it was the last day of Fall break there were virtually no students there. As a result, we chose to go to downtown Greensboro and attempt to do outreach even with light to moderate rain coming down. Nevertheless, there was much activity downtown in spite of the rain and people were out and about and many were willing to discuss the things of eternity.

It was an amazing time as God caused one passerby to throw his Qu'ran in the trash after hearing of salvation in Christ alone and took a Bible instead. I've never witnessed such a thing before in my years on the streets, but I saw it for the first time today. It reminded me of those in Ephesus burning their "magic books" after hearing of the effects that Paul's preaching had against the demonic forces in Ephesus (Acts 19:18-20).

Brothers Chris and Dane stretched their preaching wings and lifted up the name of Christ in the open-air for the first time on Tuesday in the rain. Way to go guys!

Brother Chris' first open-air

Brother Dane's first open-air

Chris bringing more good news.

Me preaching the gospel to the lunch crowd while Scott Smith looks on.

Brother Bobby McCreery doing what he does best, preaching the gospel!

Dane witnessing to a homeless man.

Sister Patte Smith holding a sign during the preaching

The "crew" proclaiming the gospel through signage.

On Wednesday, we traveled to NCSU to proclaim the gospel open-air and do one-on-one evangelism. We came across the usual types of unbelievers one encounters when evangelizing at the university (skeptics, atheists, agnostics, homosexuals, false converts, etc.). All of the unbelievers I interacted with (except one) were respectful, polite, and generally willing to engage in serious discussion about the truth claims of Christ. All of the more experienced brothers had at least one opportunity to preach open-air and many people heard the good news.

The first photo below is of brother Don Kairns. I've heard many good things about this otherwise quiet man. This is the first time I met him and it was a real privilege. He is a seasoned evangelist that seems to be a natural magnet for crowds. He stood for hours with a crowd around him proclaiming the truth of creation over and against the lie of evolution. He is rich in the word and the Lord really used his knowledge of the Scriptures to cause the students to give heed whether they liked it or not. Before I left campus to travel back to Greensboro for our Wednesday night prayer meeting, he hugged me like he had known me for 20 years. It just goes to show that when you're in the family of God, you're in!

Don Kairns preaching the gospel. He's a "crowd magnet."

The next brother is Rick Schaefer and this also was my first time meeting him. He is a PCA pastor that desires to get involved in Biblical outreach methods that glorify God. Here is a photo of his first time preaching in the open-air. He chose to "take the plunge" for the first time at a large university and that took some genuine Holy Spirit created boldness. Good job Rick!

Pastor Rick preaches the first time in the open-air.

Rick reasoning with some students.

Me preaching during a class change.


Me preaching on a stool to a crowd of about 30 students. They asked great questions and respectfully waited their turn to get answers.

Brother Bobby McCreery discussing the gospel to a small crowd. This type of thing was happening all day long.

IN CONCLUSION, God was glorified in this mini, two-day "mission-trip". I am eternally grateful to God for using these like-minded saints to labor with me for a few days in the gospel and that we had the opportunity to encourage one-another in the faith. I'm pretty worn out as I type this, but its a satisfied fatigue; one that comes from knowing that you are tired because you have worn yourself out doing God's work. In occasions like this, my only regret is that we don't get the time to fellowship more, but that's what heaven is for. I look forward to laboring with these brethren more in the future, and I thank God for our church, Shepherd's Fellowship, a church that financially and prayerfully supports me to be an elder of our church and a missionary to our "Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria". Soli Deo Gloria.

A Brief Critique of Deism

2011-10-07T15:20:00.008-05:00

INTRODUCTION: In a recent combox exchange, an unbeliever made the following assertions,

. . . there are numerous alternative explanations for the "rules". . . . I don't believe in any number of the alternative explanations, but they are just as valid as Christian theism when it comes to explaining where the "rules" come from.

In other words, our unbelieving friend thinks that there are many worldviews that can account for the things needed to under-gird science and rationality. In other words, the things most people take for granted each day when they reason and do science such as logic, the uniformity of nature, the moral obligation to be rational, logical, etc. This is what this unbeliever means by "rules". Then our unbelieving friends says this,

I believe that the Great Bombus created the universe about 15 billion years ago. She decided that the universe would follow certain patterns. Then she flew off into the nearest wormhole in the space-time continuum and went off to pollinate other universes, leaving this one to run on its own. It’s as good as any other explanation.

Our unbelieving friend threw out a mockagodafarian objection (i.e, Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Invisible Pink Unicorn, The Great Pumpkin, ad infinitum, ad nauseum), which I have responded to in detail here: Twelve Questions for Mockagodafarians.

Identifying "the Deism Objection"

Our unbelieving friend's version of the mockagodafarian objection above had an interesting twist to it. Take note again of the following statement, "Then she flew off into the nearest wormhole in the space-time continuum and went off to pollinate other universes, leaving this one to run on its own."

This is the classic "deism objection". This occurs when an unbeliever attempts to undermine our arguments against naturalism and for Christian theism by positing an essentially contentless god as the sufficient answer to the Christian apologist's attack against naturalism. The unbeliever wants to show that the existence of the Judeo-Christian God is not necessary to make sense out of human experience, but that positing a deistic god can sufficiently provide what's needed to make reality intelligible. Thus, for the unbeliever, using this objection shows that an appeal to any revealed religion (esp. Christian theism) is unnecessary and superfluous. This was confirmed when our unbelieving friend said earlier in our exchange,

What you’ve made here is an argument for deism, not Christianity.

Since this has become a popular, knee-jerk response to Christian apologists, I will address it below.

What is Deism?

Deism is the teaching that a god exists who created the universe and everything in it, but that this god stopped being involved in the universe after making it. The deistic God "wound up the clock" as it were, and is now allowing it to wind down in accordance with the laws of nature without any further intervention. Thus, deism teaches that miracles don't occur because god is no longer involved in the world. This logically means that for the deist, any claims to revelation must be spurious from the outset since this god hasn't revealed itself beyond the creation event. In other words, no miracles and no revelation. This would obviously negate the idea of the Bible (or anything else) being inspired of God as well as the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection Jesus of Nazareth. The World Union of Deists define their beliefs this way,

“Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation." [http://deism.com/deism_defined.htm]

Natural Religion vs. Revealed Religion

Deists claim that their religion is "natural religion" and not revealed religion. In other words, they derive their beliefs of morality, God, truth, purpose, etc., not through any direct revelation of God such as the Bible, but through the observation of nature and their use of reason. Thus, they emphasize empirical and rational means to take in knowledge of the world. Make a mental note of that last sentence, for it will be very important for our critical review of deism.
Deists affirm personal responsibility, positive choices, and reject negative attitudes and ideas. Some even claim religions are the reason for the problems in the world. They also say that God is a “universal creative force which is the source of laws and designs found throughout nature.” [Ibid.]

A Critical Assessment

I will divide my critique into two sections, (1) a Biblical critique and (2) a philosophical critique.

A Biblical Critique: Deism is obviously unbiblical since Scripture proclaims that God is involved in the world, has intervened in it many times, and currently maintains its existence (Acts 17:28; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). Matt Slick of CARM summarizes,

First, it denies the person of Christ as the only means of redemption.

Second, it is man-centered because there is no revelation of God or his divine will. Any religious doctrines developed without God have to originate with man’s understanding and preferences. Therefore, it cannot be God-centered.

Third, morality cannot be derived by watching nature. Animals kill, eat each other alive, and are brutal.

Fourth, all reason from a deistic mindset is subject to human limitations and failures. Without divine intervention and clarification, people will do what is right in their own eyes, and this subjective system of reason leads to confusion and inconsistency.

Philosophical criticisms: There are many basic inconsistencies with deism. The two we will focus on are (1) the inconsistency of having a creator god yet rejecting miracles, and (2) deism is unable to provide the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of human experience.

Miracles

It seems inconsistent to claim that a divine being could bring the universe into existence from nothing but couldn't or wouldn't perform lesser miracles. What good reason would the deist have for rejecting all post-creation miracle claims if they believe that the universe was created? Thus, it appears to be self-defeating to claim that a god created the entire universe yet can't or won't do lesser miracles. It seems the only rejoinder would be to argue that there are no credible miracle reports but this would beg the question as to what constitutes a "credible" report.
Scientists today consider the laws of nature to be general, not necessarily universal. Thus, a general uniformity of nature holds insofar as inductive experiments have confirmed, but this doesn't necessarily rule out miracles nor would a local miracle violate the general principle of the uniformity of nature.

Deism cannot make sense out of human experience

Deism posits a unitarian, impersonal god that is uninvolved in the world beyond the initial act of creation. An impersonal, detached god cannot ground personal, moral obligations. But since we experience personal moral obligations, deism cannot be true.
Deism offers no objective revelation from a personal, theistic God. To ground objective morality, one needs an objective, transcendent, universal, personal source such as with Christian theism. Deism provides no objective, personal, transcendent, and universal source to ground morality. Therefore, deism cannot ground objective morality. As a result, deists are ultimately left with secular ethics; which always devolve into some type of relativism.
Deism offers no assurance that nature will operate in a uniform and law-like way in the future because the creator set it up that way. To argue that such will be the case from past experiences without an appeal to divine revelation doesn't tell us what future experiences will be like. Therefore, deists succumb to the problem of induction when they beg the question by assuming that the future will be like the past based upon past experiences of the future being like the past.
Deists derive their beliefs about morality, God, truth, purpose, etc., through the observation of nature and their use of reason. But truth and purpose are culturally and independently relative if there is no transcendent objective standard that exists outside of us by which we can determine whether or not we are achieving truth and purpose. Deists beg the question by assuming that their senses and reason are valid in order to investigate the world around them. Thus, they are in the same quagmire of empirical and rational skepticism that the atheist, agnostic, and skeptic falls into when assume the validity of their senses and reason to prove the same. For more information on solving this problem from the Christian perspective, see my Sensation, Reason, and Christian Epistemology
Deists emphasize empirical and rational means to take in knowledge of the world. But not only do the deists beg the question by assuming the validity of their senses and reason to prove the validity of their senses and reason but as noted above, deism provides no objective, transcendent basis for grounding moral obligations and thus, cannot tell us why we are obligated to be rational or logical.
Deism's unitarian God cannot provide an answer to the philosophical problem of the One and the Many. This problem essentially states, "Which is more ultimate, the one (i.e., the universe), or the many (i.e., the concrete, finite, particular things in the universe - i.e., trees, people, cars, stars, jars, etc.)?" Christian theologians have long answered this problem by appealing to the very being of the Triune God Himself. Since the Triune God is both one and many then this problem can be answered that both the one and the many are equally ultimate. But unitarianism can never answer this question since it doesn't have the features needed to answer it.

So why must it be the Judeo-Christian God?

Because the Bible tells you so. Philosophically put,

Metaphysical: The immaterial, universal Personality of the Triune God grounds personal (He is personal), immaterial, universal entities (He is immaterial and universal), moral obligations (He is a moral being), solves the problem of the one and the many (because He is both one and many), and provides an a priori certainty that the universe will generally operate in a uniform, law-like way till the second coming of Christ (Gen. 8:22; Pro. 1:7; Acts 17:28; Col. 2:3; Heb. 1:3).
Epistemological: We have a certain, indubitable foundation upon which to rest our knowledge claims because God created us to be able to generally trust our minds and senses (Pro. 20:12).
Ethical: Unlike deists, atheists, and skeptics, we aren't left trying to determine how we ought to live by studying how we live (Pro. 1:7). Instead, we can ground personal, objective, moral obligation in the unchanging character of God. Transcendent, objective, personal, moral obligations can only come from an objective transcendent, personal moral Lawgiver. Contra deism, Islam, and other unitarianisms, the Triune God of the Bible has eternally enjoyed the intertrinitarian relationships in His very being (I-thou distinctions in the Trinity allow for eternal personality), and hence can ground personal moral obligation since personality is necessarily part of His nature as the uniplural, multipersonal Creator God. We are also obligated to follow God’s objective moral norms as revealed in Christ’s law because the Creator who owns you has the sovereign right to tell you how to live.

IN CONCLUSION, if we start with the personal, theistic, transcendent, uniplural God of Scripture, we can not only ground logical laws and various other abstractions, but we can also ground and show the normativity of morality and the obligation to be rational. Indeed, as Peter said, when we start with Scripture, we have “a more sure prophetic word” than the empiricism and relativism of the deists (2 Peter 1:19). Hence, if knowledge, then God.

Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

2011-10-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

Listen to Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader and himself a former Hamas operative describe the Qu'ranic teachings of Islam:

HT: Wretched Network

Responding to Non-Responders - Part 2

2011-10-05T14:36:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION: This is part two of an evaluation of a debate that took place on 9-30-2011 between Christians Sye TenBruggencate and Eric Hovind and atheists Jim Gardner and Alex Botten on the Fundamentally Flawed podcast.

What follows is my continued evaluation of atheist Jim Gardner's blog article offering some post-debate thoughts about the debate. I'll post the relevant parts below with my commentary in between:

TAG poses a series of questions which are worded to sound simple, but which don’t have a Yes or No answer.

Starting @ 8:24, Sye states that Alex and Jim will be unable to answer questions posed to them and as a result it will expose their folly. After a few preliminary questions to determine where each man stood, this is exactly what happened, for the third question that Sye asked these men was never answered. Here's that question starting @ 12:30 and Sye asked that never was answered and we'll let the readers decide whether this question can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no":

Is it possible for God to reveal some things to us such that we could know them for certain?

The question required a simple "yes" or "no" response. Were I the atheists, I would have said "no" for consistency's sake. But had they said "no" Sye would have reduced him to absurdity. This was a simple question that required a simple answer. These men refused to answer it because they didn't want to be backed into an intellectual corner and shown to be the fools that they were. As an aside, their appeal to the common red-herring known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster are addressed in my article here: Twelve Questions for Mockagodafarians
Jim goes on,

It [TAG] employs some extremely disingenuous phraseology and semantic slight of hand, so that explaining why the questioner can’t apply his own question to his own worldview without hitting upon the same problem, is seen as a dodging of the issue. The most obvious of TAG’s flaws arise when you give either a Yes or a No answer to the question, because regardless of whether you answer in the positive or the negative it allows the questioner to go to the next stage of their pre-rehearsed script.

Again, this is nothing more than fear-avoidance behavior. Fear of getting intellectually backed into a corner. The intellectually honest thing to do when asked a tough question is to (1) attempt to reason through it, or (2) say something like, "Hey, great question, I'm not sure what the answer is but I'll get back to you later with an answer." That is how rational discourse ought take place, but sadly, it was not modeled by our atheist friends at this point in the debate.

What is even more problematic is that when Sye started asking more fundamental questions @ 21:28/@25:55 (summarized as: "What do you know and how do you know it?") our atheist friends responded with viciously circular arguments (i.e., I sense that my senses are valid) and interact at a level that would challenge their own knowledge claims about reality.

Sye’s argument (as far as I can work out) is that because you can’t say for certain that something exists by experience and empiricism alone, therefore — and I’m not making this up — logic itself is based upon a presupposition that logic is logical and is just as much of a circular argument as saying the bible is true because it says so in the bible; or “You can’t account for my misunderstanding, therefore my argument is valid”.

The above paragraph is somewhat incoherent, but it seems that Jim understands Sye to be saying that if a person can't know for certain that something exists through experience and empiricism alone, then they can't say it exists at all. (?) If so, then this is a complete misunderstanding of what Sye is saying. Sye says (along with Scripture) that unless you begin with God in all of your thinking, you undermine all knowledge claims, whether empirical or otherwise (Pro. 1:7; Col. 2:3).

By the way, did I mention that if you don’t believe this is the way in which the creator of the universe chooses to demonstrate his basic existence to people who already believe he exists, but not to those who don’t . . .

The above is simply an ad hominem that does nothing to further rational dialogue. This is typical of atheists; they can't, don't, or won't answer the arguments, so they start name-calling. This also begs the question as it mockingly assumes that God hasn't revealed Himself such that people can know some things for certain. This is also typical of atheists; no rational discourse, just mockery. Every time Jim and Alex engaged in such mockery it only further confirmed to the Christian listeners that what God says about atheism is true: They hate the God they deny exists and they hate His followers too (John 16:18ff).

you’re going to be tortured for eternity in a place you can only go to if an all loving God sends you there? It might seem a little harsh, I admit, but trust me it’s in the bible so it must be true.

More mockery. Again, further confirmation that they know they are accountable to Him (Rom. 1:32). Not only does Jim mischaracterize eternal judgment and the nature of man by (1) implying that God unjustly punishes innocent people, and (2) that most people are basically morally upright, he goes on to insinuate that Hell is "harsh". But if there's no God, how can anything be "harsh" if there's no objective standard to measure harshness from non-harshness?

In the comments section under the blog article, Jim articulates how he can know things with a high degree of probability:

Senses: . . . my “justification for accepting the validity of my senses” is that my experiences of common phenomena are not unique to me, but are demonstrably shared by other homo sapiens; . . .

Jim appeals to the common shared experiences of sensation from mankind as his justification to trust his senses. However, as Sye pointed out in the debate, this is still viciously circular. Why? Because appealing to the shared sensory experiences of others requires you to still empirically evaluate those shared experiences by using your own senses; hence, a vicious circularity. Jim could appeal to as many experiences as he wants, but this will at best leave him with (1) an infinite regress, and (2) appealing to his own eyeball experience to justify his own eyeball experience. This is why the "brain in a vat"/Matrix argument became so popular among secular philosophers in the 1960s and apart from an a priori justification for sensation, the "brain in a vat" analogy has never been answered. Such is the case when men reject God's revelation.

Having accurate senses can only be known by having them grounded in some indubitable, infallible, omniscient, personal, a priori justifying source. For the Christian, this is God (Pro. 20:12). Since our all-knowing, all-powerful God has given us the responsibility of caring for His creation, we trust in the general reliability of our senses because God has created them to work for the specific ends He has in mind. Also, we would not expect the senses to work perfectly all the time because the world has been subject to corruption through the effects of the fall (Gen. 3:1-17; Rom. 8:20-22 - disease, birth defects, injuries, etc.). However, since God expects us to be able to hear and read His word (sensory experiences) so as to obey it, it follows that our senses must still be basically reliable enough to accomplish this. Moreover, even though some blind and deaf people are sensory deprived, many of them still have been exposed to God's word through various mediums, have been saved, and live lives to the glory of God. For more information on this subject, see my article here: Sensation, Reason, and Christian Epistemology.

Reasoning: Do my actions cause harm or affect good? What do we mean by harm? A deliberate action which we know, before we perform it, will decrease the happiness and wellbeing of others. What do we mean by good? A deliberate action for which it is our specific intention to increase the happiness or wellbeing of another. How do we know it’s good to be good? Because we would not wish others to deliberately enact harm upon us and so we treat others the way we would wish to be treated: the Confucian golden rule (which predates Christianity by some 500 years).

All of this is arbitrary. Why should Jim's definitions above be the selected standard for determining the difference between harm and good as opposed to some other view? Because Confucius said so? Why not Hitler's standards? How about Pol Pot's? How about Marquis de Sade's? Christians agree with Confucius' understanding of the "golden rule" but not because Confucius said it, but because what he said is consistent with the Judeo-Christian worldview. The fact that Confucius, Buddha, and ancient Jewish rabbi's made such statements is consistent with what the Bible says men already know of God in their conscience and in so knowing, they often (but not always) exhibit similar essential moral norms (Rom. 2:14-15). Notice that Jim is giving evidence that He believes in this God because he, along with Confucius is unknowingly borrowing from the Biblical standard. Given the Christian worldview, we should avoid causing unnecessary harm to people because (1) God says so, (2) people are made in God's image, which means people have inherent, God-given value, but also because (3) God Himself doesn't cause unnecessary harm. This doctrinal teaching has been the philosophical foundation for building hospitals, starting organizations like the Red Cross, and other invaluable ministries of mercy. I can make sense out of those things by starting with the Judeo-Christian God, I just don't know how Jim does without being irrational.

Without appealing to the Biblical God, right and wrong are reduced to mere personal preferences. In a naturalistic worldview, the statement "murder is wrong" is nothing more than a personal opinion on the same level as saying "vanilla is my favorite ice cream flavor." If others have a different opinion, we have no objective basis for arguing against their view, but only personal or societal opinion.

Now I realize that Jim will disagree that God is fair and just to carry out eternal, conscious torment on unrepentant sinners, but what Jim cannot understand is that God is amazingly patient with wicked people like him who spit in His face. God daily provides life, breath, food, shelter, and clothing for Jim, yet Jim hates God for His justice and ignores the many good things God has given him every day and lives as though those good things came from Jim's own hand and not God's. Jim is ungrateful and behaves so wickedly that he debates the existence of the God that he knows exists with people who have lovingly called him to repentance. Then he wonders why God would give him justice when Jim has not only acted against sinfully against the knowledge God hard-wired in him to the point of self-deception, but he has also rejected the message of the gospel that has been presented to him in various ways throughout his life. Should Jim read this blog article, this will be yet another example of his hearing the message to repent and believe in Christ. Let's pray that God gives him ears to hear.

Memory: Our recollection of events is extremely susceptible to outside influence. . . . But our “justification for accepting the validity of our memory” isn’t merely limited to what we see or hear. It is constrained by what is possible.

Jim then goes on to define what he thinks is "possible" in typical question-begging fashion. Justifying one's memory is very difficult apart from grounding it in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Jim appeals to various tests to determine whether our memories are accurate, but this is the same problem that he has both with his reason (reasoning that his reason is valid) and sensation (sensing that his senses are valid). If one's memory is tested, that person would have to presuppose a basic reliability of memory in order to determine how well they did on the test, which is a clear case of vicious circular reasoning. Of course, the Christian has justification for this claim since God has made our minds to remember past events, though not always perfectly because of the effects of the fall. But in a naturalistic universe, why should the atheist trust that their brains can recall the past accurately at all? According to them, the brain is the accidental end product of random mutations over billions of years that somehow increased our ability to reproduce. Given that scenario, there's no fundamental reason to think that we should be able to reliably remember the past in an evolutionary universe.

IN CONCLUSION, Jim and Alex need to repent of their sin and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from that, they will continue in the same folly that Sye and Eric exposed in this last debate with them and worse, they will get what they deserve, which is the unmitigated justice of God. May God open their eyes to see the glorious gospel of Christ lest it be too late (2 Cor. 4:4-6).

Responding to Non-Responders - Part 1

2011-10-05T10:29:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION: On 9-30-2011, Sye TenBruggencate of Sinner Ministries and Eric Hovind of Creation Science Evangelism had a debate with atheists Jim Gardner and Alex Botten on the Fundamentally Flawed podcast. Listening to the exchange was painful as the atheists refused to answer the first question put to the them because according to them, "regardless of whether you answer in the positive or the negative it allows the questioner to go to the next stage of their pre-rehearsed script." Thus, they refused to answer direct questions for fear of being intellectually backed into a corner. In contrast to this, every question they asked Sye TenBruggencate was answered directly and quickly. This made for an interesting but frustrating listening experience.

To make matters worse, they behaved like the very fundamentalism they abhor by laughing at some of the things their detractors said rather than refuting their arguments. This not only displayed an unwillingness and inability to respond to their detractor's arguments, but it actually confirms in the minds of the Christian listeners that atheism really is stupid (Psalm 14:1).

Nevertheless, they put together a blog article to offer some post-debate thoughts about the exchange. I'll post the relevant parts below with my commentary in between:

Sye did most of the talking and . . . most of it was the same brand of circular reasoning we’ve heard a billion times before; which essentially revolves around an appeal to authority fallacy, in order to make a hypothetical question about the nature of logic itself sound like a more sophisticated question than it actually is.

The appeal to authority fallacy only applies when the authority in question isn't a legitimate authority [cf. Irving M. Copi and Carl Cohen, Introduction to Logic, (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998), 165]. By nature of who He is, the God of the Bible is a legitimate authority on everything, therefore appealing to God to argue for Christian theism doesn't cause one to commit this fallacy. Worse, this response is a philosophically naive for two reasons: (1) It assumes that all circular reasoning is fallacious, and (2) fails to admit or understand that everyone assumes the very things they are trying to prove when proving ultimate authorities. I addressed this in my article Is Circular Reasoning Always Fallacious?:

There are two things we need to discuss about circular reasoning: It is (1) absolutely unavoidable and (2) not necessarily fallacious. Circular reasoning is unavoidable to some degree when proving one's ultimate standard. An ultimate standard cannot be proved from anything else, otherwise it wouldn't be ultimate. Therefore, if it is to be proved, it must use itself as its own standard of judgment by which any decision is made.

In that article I go on to note,

God Himself uses a non-fallacious type of circular reasoning when He makes an oath. Human beings appeal to a greater authority as confirmation of an oath (Heb. 6:16). But since God is ultimate, He can only use Himself as the authority (Heb. 6:13). Thus, clearly some degree of circular reasoning is necessary when proving one's ultimate authority.

Second, all circles aren't necessarily fallacious. Begging the question is often considered a fallacy because it is usually arbitrary. But it can be non-arbitrary if it goes beyond a simple circle (i.e., the Bible is true because it says so) and uses additional information to support its conclusion. If the ultimate authority is first assumed and you find out later you have good reasons for it because without it you cannot make sense out of anything, then its perfectly legitimate to reason in a circle.

In fact, any true ultimate authority must use itself as part of its own proof. Again, some degree of circular reasoning is involved, but it cannot be a simple "vicious" circle. It must be non-arbitrary. Consider logic:
1 - If there were no laws of logic, we couldn't make an argument.
2 - We can make an argument.
3 - Therefore, there must be laws of logic.
This argument is perfectly sound yet it is subtly circular. It's what is known as a modus tollens syllogism (i.e., denying the consequent) and in this "proof", we have assumed that there are laws of logic. Modus tollens is a law of inference in logic, and we have used it as part of the proof that there are laws of logic. In this case we had no other choice; in order to get anywhere in any argument we must presuppose that there are laws of logic.

However, this example argument doesn't merely assume what its trying to prove; it imports additional information to support its conclusion. What makes this circular argument a powerful one is that to deny it would be to assume it, thus any potential rebuttal would be self-defeating. A great way to show that a particular presupposition must be true is to show that one would have to assume that the presupposition is true even to argue against it in the first place.

An argument that proves something that is necessary for reasoning, proof, and evidence in the first place is called a transcendental argument. It asks "What must first exist to make sense out of everything else?" It is not like the arguments you are used to hearing from Christians (direct, deductive arguments or indirect, inductive arguments).

Then I go on to note the following about the Christian God:

The Christian's ultimate standard is like this; any attempt to refute the Bible must assume things about the world that could only be true if the Bible were true in order to get started. The Bible not only provides the criteria for itself, but it does so for all other facts, hence, the reasoning isn't viciously circular. It gives us a foundation (the Biblical God) for rational reasoning (including laws of logic), science, morality, reliability of our senses and memory, and so on.

It even gives us a foundation for why we should not be inconsistent or arbitrary (because God isn't, and we are to imitate Him - Eph. 5:1). The Bible passes its own criteria for truth (it is consistent and non-arbitrary, etc.) and provides criteria for everything else. The Christian circle is not a vicious circle, but one that can account for all human experience and reasoning.

As with the argument for laws of logic, any attempted rebuttal would be self-refuting, because it would have to use things (laws of logic, the charge to be consistent, etc.) that presuppose a universe that can only exist if Christian theism is true. Thus, we are not merely arguing "The Bible must be the word of God because it says so". Rather, we are saying, "The Bible must be the word of God not only because it says it is, but if you reject this claim you are reduced to absurdity."

Indeed, "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2:3

See Part 2 here.

The Man Who Wouldn't Read His Bible

2011-10-04T16:06:00.001-05:00

Introduction: The following article from Jim Elliff sadly expresses the state of many church attenders these days. How many "nice people" do you know that have been going to church since they were children but are more interested in things like fishing, football, and french fries than Jesus? Professing Christians read everything but their Bibles because they don't want to read their Bibles. Such a prolonged lack of desire is outward evidence that there is an inward problem; the problem of an unbelieving heart. As you read the following article, be sure to think about the eternal destiny of those whom you know who are like this and think about how you can act on it.

Author: Jim Elliff

He could read it, but he didn’t.

Clifford Averill Foster went to Earl Buel Grade School in Drane County. He learned to read like all the others. He wasn’t the best reader—certainly not the fastest—but he could read. That’s the point.

Clifford read what was necessary in High School to earn him a “C+” grade point average. He read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway for English class. He read his science book and his history book, though he liked neither. He read the driver’s manual in order to pass the driving test for his license. He read The Lord of the Flies on his own, or at least most of it. He read the typed letter his dad set on his bed when he divorced his mother. He did that perhaps twenty times.

In community college he read for a “C” average. Not impressive, but it was not because he did not read what he was supposed to. He even read “King Lear” by Shakespeare, though his comprehension was minimal. From High School days until the day he died, he devotedly read the sports page of the paper. Never missed.

Back when he was in High School, tenth grade, Cliff says he was converted to Christ. He was part of the youth group of an average-sized church. At a retreat, the youth director, Marv Paley, discussed the meaning of Christ’s death with him. Cliff had been thinking about becoming a Christian. This was the time if it would ever be, he thought. He certainly believed he was sincere. So, he prayed a simple prayer that the youth director called, “the sinner’s prayer,” and later was baptized at the church building. His parents were happy; he was happy. Since that day, Cliff was much more faithful in the church. You would not want to say that Cliff was totally faithful, but his misses were a respectable number, and they were never frivolous. He would only miss if he were sick, or his son had a soccer tournament, or for hunting season, or something like that.

When he was converted, the youth director made a point to encourage Cliff to read his Bible. He had a modern translation which read easily enough, so he started out immediately. But after about ten days or so, at a rate of a chapter a day, reading became more sporadic, and finally ended.

Once, in college, the director of Christian Campus Ministry gathered some students together to teach them a six-week course on the basics of their walk with God. Cliff started eagerly, but missed the third, fifth and sixth meetings. He used his Bible once about a year after that, looking up some answers in the first few lessons for a fill-in discipleship book. Then, later, when he was around 34 or 35, there was an emphasis at his church which called for people to read the book of Mark together. He committed to do it and made it about a third of the way through.

That’s it. Clifford Averill Foster could read the Bible, but didn’t.

Why didn’t he?

Cliff didn’t read his Bible because he didn’t want to read his Bible. He had time to do what he wanted to do, but never had time for God’s Word because he never had any inclination to read it. It’s that simple.

Years passed. Still no interest. He became a deacon in the church when he was in his forties. He could work with his hands and did some needed repairs on the building. He never really talked about God that much, and he only endured sermons, but he liked some of the people. He especially felt comfortable with those men who were just like him, real men who let their wives do most of the spiritual things. He was even somewhat more faithful now than in earlier days, with the exception of special days when his football team demanded his attention. He usually kept his mouth shut when he was in Sunday School class. He voiced few opinions about any passage of Scripture. He wasn’t shy, because he could talk about sports and weather well enough before the class. He just didn’t want to be embarrassed.

Finally he died and was buried. He went to hell . . . where people who don’t care about Jesus have always gone.

_______

You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them. (Mt. 13:14-15)

Do we call Him "Lord, Lord" but don't do what He says?

2011-09-30T15:27:00.003-05:00

Why do we believers so often do the opposite of what Jesus tells us?

Jesus told His disciples to go; we ask people to come (Matt. 28:19-20).
Jesus instructed His disciples to make disciples of all nations; we ask people for decisions.
Jesus said he will build His church; we try to do it for Him (Matt. 16:18).
Jesus told his disciples to teach people to obey His commands; we teach them all about His commands (John 14:15).
Jesus told His disciples to go out as lambs among wolves; we go out in fleshly strength.
Jesus told his disciples to be hospitable, yet we Christians are often known for our hypocrisy and judgmentalism (Rom. 12:13).
Jesus was known as a friend of sinners; we are scared of being contaminated by them (Lk. 7:34).

Jesus loves His children in spite of those sins. We are all a work in progress, pressing into the Kingdom as we travel the rocky road of sanctification as we sometimes stumble and fall along the way. May God use us to pick one another up when that happens by encouraging one another, bearing one another's burdens, and loving one another as Jesus loves us so that we all may press into the Kingdom with joy and delight as we fix our eyes on Him.

Do You Love Sinners Like This?

2011-09-29T11:27:00.000-05:00

Scott and Patte Smith are some of my living heroes. I have had the pleasure of ministering beside them and I can testify that they are the genuine article. They are devoted to reaching unbelievers through full time evangelism on college campuses, public events, and outside abortion clinics. As you watch this video ask yourself this question: "Do I love the lost like this?"

HT: transplantministries

Watching Men Die

2011-09-28T09:59:00.003-05:00

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2 NAU)

Unless Jesus comes back first, we are all going to die (Heb. 9:27; 1 Thess. 4:15-17). Every time I have visited a funeral home, buried a person, or been to a hospital to visit the terminally ill or worked with them as a therapist, I have been starkly reminded of my own mortality. I take it to heart.

Most people avoid the issue of death. This is why they don't visit nursing homes. They don't want to be reminded of the inevitable. But its better to be reminded of it in the here and now than in the hereafter.

As a repentant old man writing about the futility of life without God, Solomon tells us that materialism, worldly happiness, and luxury ("a house of feasting") only blinds people to the truth of the inevitable. This old guy knew what he was talking about, for he had drunk deeply from the worldly pleasures associated with wine, women, and false religion (1 Kings 11) He had more of it than you could shake a stick at, yet at the end of his life, he reflects upon the benefits of being exposed to death rather than the passing pleasures of worldly gladness. He says that the negative effects of blinding worldly pleasures are nothing in comparison to the sobering effects of being hit hard with our own mortality. Here's a few things his brief reflection brings to my own mind:

Death reminds me that I'm going to appear before the Judgment seat of Christ and be given rewards for faithful service grounded in pure motives or that I'll enter the kingdom with little to show for it (2 Cor. 5:10).
Death reminds me that I get only one earthly life and that I need to make it count for King Jesus (Heb. 9:27).
Death reminds me that the wine, women, and the riches of the world are an exercise in futility, hopelessness, and vanity (Eccles. 1:13-14, 17-18; 2; 1 John 2:15-17).
Death reminds me that "in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." (Eccles. 1:18).
Death reminds me that I'm not God.
Death reminds me that you're not God.
Death reminds me that Satan wants to destroy believers (1 Peter 5:8).
Death reminds me that my resurrection is certain because Christ's resurrection is certain (John 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 15; 1 Thess. 4:15-17).
Death reminds me that Jesus overcame it on my behalf (2 Tim. 1:10).
Death reminds me that I'm going to experience God in His fulness without the ravaging effects of sin (Rev. 21:4; 22:3).

That's a lot to think about, but its worth it. Think about death. Meditate on it. I'm not calling for morbid introspection, but healthy, beneficial reflection. See if you can add to the above list and make us all think further about this issue. We get one earthly life before the return of Jesus, so let's live it for His glory and think hard about how to use it for Him and avoid wasting our lives.

Gospel expectation in Ezekiel 18

2011-09-26T07:26:00.001-05:00

At Shepherd's Fellowship of Greensboro, we believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God and that all of it is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (1 Timothy 3:16b-17). Because we hold a high view of Scripture - its perfection, profitability, and place in the life of the believer individually and church collectively - we read through an Old Testament passage and a New Testament passage as part of our weekly Sunday morning meeting. Every week, the Scripture is profitable, but some weeks it is more profitable than others. For instance, a passage that clearly speaks of the Gospel and its implications is going to be more edifying to the believer than, say, 1 Chronicles 9.

This past Sunday we were blessed with a very rich passage from Ezekiel. I would recommend that you read the entire chapter of Ezekiel 18 before finishing this post.

Did you read it? Good.

First, a little background. After the Exodus from Egypt, before Israel was allowed to enter the Promised Land, God delivered His Law to the people of Israel to act as their national moral and legal code. This covenant was a two-sided covenant: the people were bound to obey the Law, and God determined to dispense blessings for obedience and judgment for disobedience. When Moses first revealed the Law to Israel, "All the people answered with one voice and said, 'All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do'" (Exodus 24:3). However, we all know that the people of Israel did not do all the things that the Lord had spoken. Collectively, they fell under the judgment of God. Although there was a remnant of righteous persons within Israel, the nation as a whole became apostate.

In light of the conditional covenant that God made with Israel, it is not surprising that God would would promise blessing and judgment on an individual level in Ezekiel 18: "If a man is righteous and does what is just and right... he shall surely live, declares the LORD God. If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, [etc.]...he [the wicked son] shall surely die." (vv. 5-13). God likewise promises that if a wicked man fathers a righteous son, that man will be judged for his wickedness, but the son would live for his righteousness. The point is that each person would be judged based on his individual actions, not the actions of his ancestors.

This is not in and of itself Good News. The soul who sins shall die. Which one of us has perfectly done what is just and right? Which one of us has never committed idolatry (which is much broader than bowing down to a wooden figure)? Which one of us has always acted in integrity in every aspect of life? I know that I have not, and I don't have to go out on a limb to say that you have not either. This passage ought to drive the natural man to hopelessness because he cannot fulfill God's righteous requirements. However, there is One Son of Man who did fulfill that Law of God perfectly, and that Man is Jesus Christ.

You see, the nation of Israel became like the unrighteous man, collectively engaging in idolatry, sexual immorality, and every kind of injustice. But that unrighteous Israel fathered Jesus Christ, a righteous Son. That Son perfectly fulfilled the Law of God. Unlike His father Israel, Jesus Christ deserved to live because of His righteousness.

But herein lies the Good News for us. Christ, the righteous, died. He died so that we, although unrighteous and despicable to God, would be imputed with the righteousness of Christ. We are wicked sons, and righteousness cannot be inherited - it must be imputed. In his death, Christ took our wickedness upon Himself, and in His resurrection, He gave us His own righteousness and life. This is good news. Ezekiel said, "The soul who sins shall die." Christ says, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Now we must recognize our own sinfulness and look to Christ to be our righteousness. Unlike the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, we must say, "All the words that the Lord has spoken, HE has done."

Come Unto Me . . .

2011-09-22T15:08:00.000-05:00

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is 1easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

For two-thousand years, those verses have been a Spirit-inspired source of joy, comfort, and encouragement for many souls as they have gone through the dark valleys of grief, despair, and brokenness in this fractured world. Why? Because they are divine promises from the resurrected Jesus. The resurrected Jesus comes clean on His promises. He's not an "Indian-giver", doesn't hem and haw, and doesn't take back what He initially promised. This makes Him a formidable source of potential joy, comfort, and respite for those who are deeply burdened.

Note that Jesus says that the requirement for the weary and heavy-laden getting rest is that they must come to Him. This offer of rest is given to all who hear the gospel, but very precious few respond to it positively. Why do you think this is? Why would they turn down such a great offer?
Note that Jesus says He has a "yoke". A "yoke" is the thing placed on the neck of an ox that hooks up to an old-fashioned plow. This means that effort is required to follow Jesus. It isn't a cake walk.
Note that Jesus says His yoke is easy and that His burden is light. His yoke is easy to wear and His burden is light to bear compared to the burden and weight of the weary and heavy-laden soul.
Note that Jesus commands the weary to "come" and "take" up a yoke from Him. These commands are rooted in His love. He loves those who are hurting and lovingly invites them to come through commands. Its as if He's saying, "Friend, are you heavy of heart and burdened? Come to me in faith, receive my love, and enjoy my spiritual rest, comfort, and joy as you take on the responsibility of following me."
The result: You will find rest for your souls.

My friend, do you have that rest? Does Jesus bring you an amazing yet quiet sense of joy, comfort, and spiritual rest? I partook of that rest 17 years ago and have never looked back. I lovingly invite you to do the same. If having that kind of rest sounds appealing to you, then turn from your sins and trust in what Jesus did on the cross to bear your judgment and make you right before God, and you can be sure you will have it. For believers, may God guide you into His perfect peace as you keep your focus on Jesus as your eternal source of joy and rest.

If Morality, Then God

2011-09-12T11:28:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCTION: We like to mix it up with a variety of topics here at Grace in the Triad, so here goes an apologetics article for you. The following notes are lecture notes for a worldview presentation given on 9-13-2011. These notes use minimal philosophical terminology so that most people can understand what I'm saying. They are also a work in progress with thoughts that I'm continuing to develop, so for the more philosophically minded readers of this blog, critique away! - DSS

Fundamental Atheistic Beliefs: Atheists deny that we need God (1) to be good, (2) to know what’s good, and (3) to ground morality.

Fundamental Christian Beliefs: (1) God’s existence is known through creation and conscience [Rom. 1:18-21; 2:14-15]. (2) It is impossible to ground objective morality in anything other than God [Pro. 1:7; Col. 2:3].

Two Versions of the Moral Argument for God (MAG):

If objective moral values and duties exist, then God exists.
Objective moral values exist.
Therefore, God exists.

If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Objective moral values exist.
Therefore, God exists.

Put simply: If morality, then God.

Three questions that must be answered:

Reality - What must exist in order to ground objective moral obligations?
Knowledge - How do we know objective moral obligations exist?
Ethics - Why ought I follow objective moral norms?

My contention is that the God of Scripture is the sole, necessary grounding for the existence, knowledge, and obligations associated with moral realism [1]

Atheists usually fall within three camps when attacking the MAG:

Empiricists will disagree with premise 2 and argue that moral realism doesn’t exist because only material entities exist and moral behavior is merely a social convention.
Some atheists believe in moral realism and so agree with premise 2. They attack premise 1 to refute the MAG.
Some atheists attack premise 1 and are moral relativists.

The Challenge:
To quickly determine whether or not someone believes in moral realism, I ask them (1) whether or not they think atrocities like child molestation and rape could ever be right, and (2) if so, whether those actions could be right if perpetrated against them or someone they love.

Two answers:
“Absolute moral laws don’t exist.”

Response: “If you don’t believe that some actions are inherently immoral, then let’s start with having your little girl raped and tortured for fun!”

Morality isn’t like Ice Cream, it’s like Insulin: A denial of objective morality reduces moral norms to mere preference, like ice cream flavors.
"Is/Ought" Fallacy: If people determine morality, then moral norms reduce to statistics. But what is the case doesn’t necessarily tell us what ought be the case.
Argument from Power/Majority Rule/Reduction to Absurdity: Given social contract theory, rape and child molestation aren’t inherently wrong, they’re just socially unacceptable. But if man is the measure of all things, which man and which society? If someone with enough power happened to like rape and molestation, what would be wrong with the person or society that has enough power to impose their morality on you if might determines right? If the majority of people in a society determines what’s right and wrong, upon what basis do you condemn Nazi society for following their self-imposed morals? Why did the Nazi society not have the right to break from the tradition of morality in western civilization if society determines what’s moral? There is no question that societies have different interpretations of morality but if you examine the following sentence you will see the illogic of thinking that societies determine morality: “The majority of the people in our society participated in that evil deed.” If morality was up to society, that sentence would never make sense, but we know that morality is beyond societies and thus, such a proposition is possible.
A Self-Defeating Position: The moral relativist denies that absolute moral laws exist but they appeal to them all the time when they argue for just laws and better societies. They say that rape is wrong because they intuitively know that it is not just against their personal preference, it is an inherently evil action (Rom. 2:14-15). Many moral relativists deny with their lips they know in their hearts to be true (Rom. 1:32). It is obvious that some actions are evil. The existence of morality is most obvious when we suffer by being personally offended or violated. When we are wronged, we quickly feel the moral imbalance.

“Absolute moral laws exist.”

Response: “If so, then given naturalism, (1) how do you ground them, (2) how do you know that they are objective, and (3) why am I obligated to follow them?”

Re: (1), how do you ground immaterial, universal moral laws in a materialistic universe that is inherently impersonal and amoral?
Re: (2), how do you know that they are universally binding?
Re: (3), why ought I be moral?
Re: (3), why ought I be rational? Since logic has a normative component (i.e., you ought to be rational), what obligates me to be rational since according to the atheist there is no objective, transcendent, personal, theistic moral lawgiver to ground moral obligations?

“I don’t need God to be good.”

Response: Yes you do. There are no good people (Rom. 3:10-11). You need to be counted good by God even though you’re not and the only way that happens is if you are forgiven of your sins through faith in Christ (Romans 4:4-5; Phil. 3:9). When you repent and believe in Him, you are credited as perfect even though practically you still sin (Heb. 10:14).

“I don’t need God to know what’s good.”

Response: Yes you do. Regardless of what you believe, if you didn’t have a God-given sense of right and wrong, you wouldn’t know the difference between the two (Rom. 2:14-15).

Other atheistic objections:

Evolutionary Ethics: A more comprehensible attempt to refute the moral argument suggests that a naturalistic explanation of morality can be given by the theory of evolution. Given a world in which the resources necessary to support life are scarce and danger is all around us, people will have to compete to survive. Those that compete well will survive and reproduce more people like them; those that compete poorly will disappear via natural selection. Groups of people that cooperate are more likely to survive and reproduce than are groups of people that do not. Natural selection, then, will favor those forms of behavior that we call moral, because they have survival value. Over time, this process will lead to a moral instinct in human beings, a natural propensity to act well. Atheists will sometimes appeal to various forms of the Golden Rule[1] as an example of a universally accepted rule that has come about through human evolutionary development.

Response: However plausible this explanation may be for some elements of morality, there are other elements of morality that cannot be explained in this way,

Altruistic behavior is not in one’s own interests. The extreme of altruism—giving up one’s life in order that others might live—cannot be the result of conditioning through natural selection. Those who give up their lives for others are eliminated from the gene pool. Extreme self-sacrifice is a trait that natural selection not only does not encourage, but should even eliminate from society. The selfish are more likely to survive and reproduce than are the selfless.

Even Richard Dawkins, recognizes this. In The Selfish Gene, he wrote:

“My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop it being true... Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.” [Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press (1989), 3]

Even if it were possible to explain our moral instincts using evolution, this would not explain morality so much as it would explain those instincts away. We would then be in an epistemological quagmire, wondering which moral intuitions we should reject as evolutionary leftovers versus those that we should protect in order to perpetuate the species.
We believe we are subject to moral obligations; i.e., that we ought to act in certain ways. An evolutionary explanation of those beliefs would completely undermine them because it would tell us why we have those beliefs but it would give us no reason to think that they are true nor would it obligate us to follow them now3. Thus, it would explain why we have those beliefs even though there really is no such thing as objective morality. Consider the following quotes from Charles Darwin and physicalist philosopher Patricia Churchland:

“With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind if there are any convictions in such a mind?” [Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin (London: John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1887), Volume 1, pp. 315-316.]

Plantinga's argument contends that natural selection, as it is currently understood, is not thought to produce in organisms the ability to reliably perceive the external world — let alone construct accurate cosmologies. He quotes contemporary philosopher of mind and philosophical naturalist Patricia Churchland to buttress this claim.

“Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principal chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.” ["Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience," Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 84 (October 1987), pp. 548-49. Quoted in Alvin Plantinga, Evolution vs. Naturalism, http://www.uw.ruf.org/evolution-vs-naturalism]

Thus, if we believe that there really are moral principles that bind us and other people, then this appeal to evolution does not satisfy because (1) it tells us why we believe, not whether those beliefs are true, (2) it tells us what we believe, not what we should believe, and (3) it doesn’t show us that these morals norms are objective and universally binding.

“Why does it have to be the Judeo-Christian God?”

Response: Because the Bible tells you so. More specifically:

Metaphysical: The immaterial, universal Personality of the Triune God grounds personal, immaterial, universal moral obligations. Transcendent personal moral obligations only come from a transcendent, personal moral Lawgiver; i.e., God. The God of the Bible, contra Islam, has eternally enjoyed the intertrinitarian relationships found in His very being (I-thou distinctions in the Trinity allow for eternal personality), and hence can ground personal moral obligation since personality is necessarily part of His nature as the uniplural, multipersonal Creator God.
Epistemological: You know objective moral obligations exist by the light of conscience, Scripture, and given the conjunction of those two, by the impossibility of the contrary.
Ethical: You ought follow God’s objective moral norms as revealed in Christ’s law because the Creator who owns you has the sovereign right to tell you how to live.

IN CONCLUSION, if we start with the personal, theistic, transcendent, uniplural God of Scripture, we can ground, justify, and show the normativity of morality. Indeed, as Peter said, when we start with Scripture, we have “a more sure prophetic word” than the empiricists and the relativists (2 Peter 1:19). Hence, if morality, then God.
________________________

1. Moral realism is objective morality. “Objective” moral values aren’t person dependent.
2. “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.” (Matt. 7:12). The Golden Rule is found in negative form in rabbinic Judaism and also in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It occurred in various forms in Greek and Roman ethical teaching. Jesus stated it in positive form. It is a widespread teaching because God has put this on every human heart (Rom. 2:14-15).

A Letter to African-American Followers of Christ

2011-09-09T14:46:00.005-05:00

INTRODUCTION: The following letter was written by a black sister to her predominantly black congregation. I reproduce this letter in full with her permission. I detest racism with every fiber of my being, and it always grieves me to see it expressed in the body of Christ; especially when those distinctions are supposed to have been eradicated in Christ (Acts 17:26; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). My desire as a pastor has always been to have a multi-ethnic church because such is consistent with New Testament teachings, is a glimpse of what the multi-ethnic church in heaven will be like, and it makes a powerful statement against the sin of racism. The sister's letter expresses my thoughts better than I ever could. May you be blessed and sobered by what you read below, regardless of the color of your skin.

A Letter to My Fellow African-American Followers of Christ

Dear Men and Women of God,

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” -I John 4:20.

How many times have we heard this scripture? Do we really understand what this passage means and the implications of a professing Christian not loving other Christians? Let’s assume that we do fully understand this passage. How is it then that so many Black Christians exhibit such hatred and disdain for white people? Is a white man not our “brother” in Christ because he is not a “brother” in complexion? We call white people all kinds of names, accuse them of all manner of evil, and make assumptions about them simply on the basis of them being white. Isn’t this racist behavior and way of thinking exactly what we criticize “them” for? Then how do we feel justified to participate in such behavior? Does God justify us in such remarks and thoughts? Certainly not!

Ok, so our excuse is we are only talking about the “bad” or “racist” white people when we call them crackers, pink people, “other” people, evil, nasty, etc. Well, define who are the “bad” ones? Do we clarify this when making our reviling accusations and spewing our racist remarks? Usually not. It usually goes something like this “white people are greedy”, “white people only wanna tear us down”, “white people are to blame for …..”, “only crackers do that crazy mess”, etc. These and much worse comments have all been heard coming from the mouths of those who profess to be followers and lovers of Christ. And would clarifying that we are only talking about racist whites really make unforgiveness and hatred ok? Not if we actually practice the Word that we say we believe.

“But love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”- Matthew 5:44

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” – Luke 6:45

Now before getting all in an uproar because you think I am calling you “evil”, stop. We, as Christians, may not be “evil” if we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but we can still certainly have evil thoughts and feelings. Take a quick minute and search your feelings and thoughts about white people. How do you really feel about them? What types of comments have you made about them during discussions in the beauty salon, in the barber shop, after church on Sunday, at a family gathering, in a moment of confidence between you and a friend? Are these thoughts and feelings holy? Would God honor the wishes that you have towards white people? Well then how did we as a people come to accept that such ill-will and disdain for white people was acceptable? Oh, you want me to get off my high horse, right. Stop acting as if I just love everyone and have no problems with anyone. I’ve made my share of racist comments and have harbored hatred in my heart. Everyone sins. Everyone has horrible thoughts and feelings sometimes. But are we truly repentant when we say horrible things? Do we feel ashamed before God that we just thought what we did? Or do we feel justified in our hatred. Do we feel we have the “right” to tear down and speak ill of an entire race of people because of what “they” have done to “us”?

Black people all face a moment in our lives where we have to reconcile our feelings about the slavery, oppression, and other heinous acts committed against our people and everything it encompasses. Usually, one of two things will happen. We will come to a place where we forgive the perpetrators and their descendants who committed heinous acts against our ancestors, grandparents, and great-grandparents, thank God for deliverance, and make sure we honor the doors opened by those who fought, suffered, and died for our freedom and rights. Conversely, we will choose to nurse the anger, hatred, bitterness and disgust in a neat little self-justified package and somehow think it’s ok to separate that sin from the application of God’s Word. Which path might Jesus condemn and which might he praise? Which path are you on? What are you going to do about it now that it has been brought to your attention?

Written with Love,

XXXXX

GTCC Outreach Report 9-7-2011

2011-09-07T14:31:00.002-05:00

INTRODUCTION: Today was a beautiful day for evangelism on the campus of Guilford Technical Community College. I was thankful to have brother Steve from our church join me in this outreach. To my knowledge, Steve had never really done anything like this before, but, because he knew his faith so well, he was able to immediately help out and have conversations with folks like he'd been doing it for years. Praise the Lord for this brother, he is an answered prayer!

He and I had several enjoyable conversations with professing Christians and unbelievers. We had the opportunity to present the gospel to many, but we had one conversation that stood out above them all.

Cultural Relativism gone to seed

Steve and I approached two young men who were hanging out at the edge of the Administration building sitting on a bench and listening to music and we handed them our Shepherd's Fellowship ministry cards, explained our purpose for being there, and asked them the $64 million dollar question: What do you think it takes for a person to get to heaven?

They both said that you have to be a good person. I asked them the usual questions ("Do you think you're a good person?) and that led into a discussion revealing their cultural relativism. One of them asked "What do you mean by good?" I said "Excellent question!" Then I told them that my fundamental presupposition was that the Bible is the word of God and that God defines what good is. I asked them how they determined what the difference between good and evil is and they said, "our parents, our society", etc. Thus, they argued that morality is culturally relative. We discussed this for about 15-20 minutes and Steve and I asked questions like this:

If society determines what good is how can you condemn the actions of Nazi Germany?
If society determines what good is what basis would you have to say that my punching you in the face is an unacceptable way to greet you if our society deemed it acceptable?
If society determines what good is what basis would have to condemn torturing little girls for fun? What about if it was your daughter?

As usual, their cultural relativism quickly imploded in on itself. At this point one young man had to leave and we thanked him for his time and we then spent the next hour talking to his friend Chris. I then took Chris through a modified form of the "good person test". He admitted that if a righteous, holy, and just God was fair with him, he'd get what he deserved and go to Hell. I then asked, "Do you know what God did so that people don't have to go to Hell?" he said, "No, I don't go to church." I told him that going to church doesn't make someone a Christian anymore than going to MacDonald's makes someone a hamburger. I then tried to explain the gospel to him with an emphasis on the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement and justification. Both Chris and his friend that left earlier were courteous, patient, listened well, and asked great questions in light of what we already said. Here's some great questions that Chris asked that we were able to answer and give follow-up literature about:

What is faith?
What about science and faith? (i.e., Chris assumed the false dichotomy of faith vs. reason).
What about aliens and UFOs? (How does this fit in with the Christian worldview. I was able to give him an excellent little booklet about this from Creation Ministries International).
What about fossils and evolution?

We were not only prepared to answer these questions from the foundation of the Biblical worldview, but we also were ready to give Chris follow-up material from Creation Ministries International and our own church. I recommend this outreach pack to provide follow-up material for questions regarding creation/evolution issues. Chris was grateful for the time we spent with him and joyfully the materials. I have noted that when I do three simple things, God provides plenty of opportunities for productive discussions like this: (1) pray, (2) know the Bible, (3) be nice.

IN CONCLUSION, we will continue to pray that God will water this huge seed that we planted in Chris today. We gave him much literature, explained the gospel to him, told him to read the gospel of John, and told him if he had any follow-up questions just to give me a call. May the Lord present you with similar opportunities as you live your life day-to-day for the glory of God!

Islam 101: The Five Pillars of Islam

2011-09-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

Special thanks to Dr. Nabeel Qureshi of Creed 26 Ministries for this video about the pillars of Islam.

Appreciating the Anabaptists

2011-09-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

I have finished reading The Reformers and their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin. This book is a classic work on the Anabaptists concerning what they believed and how they were persecuted by the Protestant Reformers. This book is recommended by some New Covenant Theologians as an introductory treatise on New Testament body life and ecclesiology as well as the historical persecutions that the Anabaptists faced at the hands of the Protestants because of their beliefs. NCT adherents have argued that Verduin's work is especially valuable to remind us of the negative consequences of trying to tie the church and state together and how not only does doing so often compromise the gospel in some way, but also brings about great suffering to those who dissent from the religious status quo and such is directly contradictory to the teachings of the New Testament.

Like other religious groups, the Anabaptists had their share of radicals and heretics. However, according to Verduin, even mainline Anabaptist leaders thoroughly condemned such radicalism as contrary to the teachings of the New Testament. According to Verduin, most of them held to a Biblical understanding of justification by faith and the relationship of the church to the state. The following is an excellent overview of Biblically orthodox Anabaptist theology from the mouths of one of their own, Peter Tesch:

We believe and confess from the heart that we and all the children of Adam are so corrupted by original sin that we and all men would be with justice condemned by God forever, we along with our and their good works. Also, that we receive forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit, freedom, and the new birth and salvation, only through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we truly and with the whole heart believe. This is that first righteous-making, which the Scriptures ascribe to faith in Christ, without any work or merit or contribution by man, yes, without his will, prayer, or desire, solely through faith in the mercy and grace of God in Christ Jesus. However, this faith must be engaged in all good works through love, which it is capable of doing, in Christ - all things being possible and even light, which were previously unpleasant and arduous. Of this kind however there are, if we look carefully, but every few as yet, persons who have a true, a livign, a potent and saving faith; Instead we see, by and large, a dead, barren faith and an empty imagination, in that men do not only omit to do the good but also perform the evil, voluntarily and freely. Therefore it will not help those who boast of such a faith, with which they put themselves at east in teh midst of all boldness, lasciviousness, and excess . . . . .

This is predicated of the bold, the audacious, the unfruitfully believing Christians (who in reality are unbelievers) and it is not applicable to the weak, the right-minded believers or the imperfect Christians, who can still slip and slide and fall, but who remain unrejected, seeing that hey love the moral improvement in Christ. Therefore we think it necessary that in the sermons everywhere a faithful warning and admonition be given and that it be insisted on that even as the inability to do the good is in us by reason of original sin so that ability to do the good is present through faith in Jesus Christ, from God and of grace . . . , so that if one is somewhat faithful (which is much) so also will the greater that is needed unto salvation be given. In this way offensive men may have taken away from them the false excuse for their open blasphemy. [The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, 219]

After I read that quote in Verduin, I found myself shaking my head in agreement and saying under my breath "Amen!" Since there are plenty of online reviews of this book I am not going to write one, but I want to draw attention to Verduin's important work whether you agree with his assessment of the Anabaptist movement or not. Not only do I highly recommend that any Baptistic believer read this work, but also take the time to listen to the audio review of it done by Geoff Volker and Paul Honeycutt of In-Depth Studies:

Sermon Hymns I: The Gospel of Jesus Christ

2011-09-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

The following musical, verbal, and visual composition was produced by our music director and elder-in-training, brother Cody C. Curtis. May you be blessed by what you see and hear.

HT: CodyCCurtis

Women in Church

2011-09-02T10:54:00.003-05:00

INTRODUCTION

According to 1 Corinthians 14:26, the purpose for having an interactive church meeting is for the mutual edification of the saints; not to provide a platform for people to promote confusion, preach false doctrine, or engage in protracted debates that can lead to the ruin of the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14). We have seen that tongues and prophecy are gifts that were to be practiced in an orderly and intelligible way. And now we come to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, a controversial text that has been much abused and often misunderstood for the last 150 years simply because it places order and decorum on the behavior of women in the gathered assembly. Many commentators agree that some of the women in the Corinthian church were interrupting the church meeting by asking questions during the teaching and that this was improper for a woman to do so in church because of the God-ordained gender roles established at creation.

The Bible is clear that husbands bear the primary responsibility to teach their wives and children. Thus, when doctrinal controversy ensues, it’s the husband’s responsibility to help resolve any doctrinal disagreements that his wife may have outside of the church meeting, and if further clarification is necessary, then they can consult with the elders privately. When it comes to a discussion of the “silence of women” in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35, there are several considerations that need to be addressed from a pastor’s perspective to his own dear congregation. The first is that the husband is responsible before God to lead spiritually in the home and secondly, the husband must lovingly teach his wife the importance of knowing her place in the church and the home so as to avoid shame (v. 35) and promote godliness.

TEACHING & APPLICATION

The elders of Shepherd’s Fellowship have attempted to do some fairly extensive reading and research on the issue of gender roles in the home and the church. This is more technically known as the debate between evangelical egalitarians versus evangelical complimentarians. Evangelical egalitarians hold that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God, but they also believe that the restrictions on women’s ministries found in certain passages in the New Testament are culturally conditioned by that first-century society and thus are no longer binding upon Christian women today. If this is true, then Christian women can be pastors/elders/overseers and can do anything else that a man can do because, “there is neither . . . male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). Some even believe that the command for a wife to submit to her husband is no longer binding, though few hold this position. Complimentarians also hold that the Bible is inspired and inerrant but believe that there are some ministries that are not open to women because men and women have complimentary, God-ordained roles that are gender-related and because of this, they are prevented from serving in certain spheres of Christian ministry. In order to correctly handle the Scriptures, We have attempted to do extensive work on this issue and we have learned that the arguments can often grow very complex and confusing on both sides. After much study, we believe that the clear teaching of the New Testament is that of complimentarianism. We have tried to thoroughly study the two passages that are always the primary focus of this debate: 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15. In this teaching, we will look at these passages and discuss them to determine what a godly woman’s conduct should be in the Lord’s Day meetings. Let’s first look at the issue of a woman being “silent” in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 during the gathered church meeting on the Lord’s Day.

I. 1^st Corinthians 14:33b-35

The two[1] primary evangelical interpretations of this passage are as follows:

1. A corporate abstention - Calling for silence of women in regards to publicly addressing the entire mixed adult congregation during the Lord’s Day church meeting. This silence is in reference to public prophesying (i.e., preaching), teaching, tongues, and other ministries involving public verbal instruction, exposition, and direction from the word of God. Obviously, this would not include congregational singing, laughing, whispering, testimonies, brief, non-instructive edifying comments, corporate prayer, calling down unruly children, etc. An historic representative of this view is the Calvinist Baptist scholar John Gill, who in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34 provides this clarification, “All speaking is not prohibited; they might speak their experiences to the church, or give an account of the work of God upon their souls; they might speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; or speak as an evidence in any case at a church meeting; but not in such sort, as carried in it direction, instruction, government, and authority.”[2] (This is the traditional view held throughout church history. All conservative Protestant scholars held this view until 1965. John MacArthur Jr., Dr. James White, and many modern Reformed and Protestant scholars hold this view as well).

2. A partial, limited abstention - Calling for women’s silence in reference only to authoritative teaching and the judgment of prophecies in the context of the Lord’s Day meeting. So, this view teaches that women can give prophecies during the Lord’s Day meeting per 1 Corinthians 11:5, but they cannot judge them because to do so would be to assume an authority that only belongs to the men of the church. (D. A. Carson, Wayne Grudem, John Piper, and other modern Reformed thinkers hold this position.)

After much reading, thinking, and deliberating back and forth in my mind between interpretation 1 and 2, we think that interpretation number one makes the most sense given the immediate and far context of 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35. Some commentators conclude that Paul never told all women everywhere in every church to be silent but that he was only specifically referring to the women at Corinth because they were out of order. This would mean that any church located anywhere other than Corinth would be exempt from Paul’s command. Now, if that were all Paul had to say on the subject, we would be willing to join the preachers who say that Paul was simply telling the women in Corinth to be silent, as opposed to all women in all churches of the saints (cf. v. 33b). But, that’s not the end of his teaching on this issue. This brings us to 1 Timothy 2:11-15.

II. 1^st Timothy 2:11-15

At the end of his ministry when he was writing from a Roman jail, Paul gave Timothy his last bit of instructions for the care and health of the churches. He wrote, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.¹² But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.¹³ For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.¹⁴ And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.¹⁵ But [she] will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” (1 Tim 2:11-15) This time Paul was clearly writing a rule for all Christian churches (1 Timothy 3:15). The basis of his argument was not heathen temples, priestesses, deviant rituals, or rabbinic tradition. He reached back to the beginning of the book of Genesis before sin entered the world and said that women (Peter’s “weaker vessel”) owed their quiet and silent status in the church to Adam being created before Eve, thus showing Adam’s headship and rule in the family. Even though she is blessed in childbearing (a blessing men cannot participate in), Paul would never allow a woman to openly teach the congregation on the Lord’s Day or exercise ruling authority that was given only to men because it violated the creation order of Genesis 2. Women are to be quiet, receptive learners like all good students and they are to remain silent under certain circumstances. Therefore, this leads us to believe that Paul’s command to the Corinthians was based on his convictions about the church at large; i.e., all churches everywhere, and not just a one time instance. Thus, regardless of which interpretation one takes above on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, the following combined teaching from both passages is agreed upon by all complimentarian scholars:

Women are to learn quietly and receptively like everyone else in the church meeting.
They are to recognize the headship and authority of the men in the spheres of the church and home and put themselves in subjection to that authority.
If a woman has a question or concern about a particular teaching, edifying remark, or insight that has been offered by an elder or someone else that she heard during the church meeting or even if she (or he) desires to learn more beyond the normal time required to answer a question during a teaching or Q&A time, then she should avoid debating publicly with the teacher and instead ask her husband at home since he has the obligation to teach his wife the word.
While women can publicly lead in prayer or prophesy (i.e., preach) outside the gathered assemblies on the Lord’s Day, it is shameful for a woman to publicly speak up during the church meeting for the purpose of teaching, preaching, judging, questioning, rebuking, and criticizing anyone’s verbal statements because to do so is to usurp the God-ordained authority of her husband and her elders per 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. The elders and the adult males of the congregation have the responsibility and authority to openly weigh, test, sift, and judge everyone’s comments by the word of God (1 Corinthians 14:29). A woman’s silence in this regard will encourage the adult males to speak up and exercise their God-ordained responsibility for engaging the truth of God’s word as well as maintain and promote doctrinal soundness and purity within the congregation, thus encouraging them to do so in their homes as well.
For a woman to teach, criticize a prophecy or teaching from an adult male in the gathered congregation is a reversal of the God ordained order of things according to Paul [1 Timothy 2:12-13].
These ordinances are in accordance with “the Law”, i.e., the Old Testament teaching in Genesis 2:18 and the rest of the Old Testament with its emphasis on male leadership.

Finally, it is important to reiterate that all conservative complimentarian scholars agree on these six things regardless of their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

Naturally, these are not particularly popular doctrines in most churches. Sadly, in most cases, if enough people in a church disagree with God’s word, they simply ignore it and do it their way. But, that does not change God’s word or Paul’s clear instruction. Of course, male elders lead our church, and that’s as it should be. However, the women in our church have been free to publicly speak and participate in discussion and prayer in the past. So, why do we allow our women to speak during teaching, Q&A, and prayer? Well, because we are confident that most of them understand their place in the home and in the church. Our women are silent in regards to teaching, preaching, tongues, prophecy, and weighing prophecies in the weekly Lord’s Day meeting and that is the context in which Paul commands them to be silent. John MacArthur sums up our thoughts on this quite well,

But the underlying thing that I want you to understand here is this, this does not mean that a woman can never under any circumstances speak in a group of Christians. What this speaks to is the women who usurp that, who push themselves in the place of prominence. Remember, God used Miriam to speak a word for Him. God used Deborah and Huldah to speak a word for Him to very important men. God used Anna for scores of years in the temple, speaking of the coming Messiah to anybody who came there. So there's no reason to believe that on the right time and the right place woman can't speak. When Paul traveled on his trips through the book of Acts it says that he went into an area to a church and . . . he dialogued with them out of the scriptures, I believe there were men and women, I believe honest questions could be asked by women in right format and could be answered by the Apostle Paul. I think there was a time and place for women to speak a testimony of praise to the Lord. I don't think that he's saying that they can never do that. What he is saying is they cannot rise to leadership in the church so that they become the ones who dominate the church with their authority and their teaching and their gifts. There is a place, of course, when it is the right environment and we ask for those to ask questions where a woman has every right to ask a question in a right spirit just as a man does. There is a time when we ask for praise to be offered to God when a woman has every right to praise God just like anyone else does. That's when the preacher or teacher deflects the communication responsibility to his congregation and says I want to hear from you. But that wasn't the issue here. The issue here was interruption. The issue here was usurpation, that's a different issue.[3]

Usually, the problem isn't with rebellious women as much as it is with the men who are failing to lead spiritually in the home and the church. The Bible also has more to say on the subject than Paul’s particular admonitions to the church. Women have played a very significant role in the spread of the gospel. In fact, the first people to ever preach, “He is risen,” at the command of the Lord were women! (Matthew 28:1-8; John 20:16-18) The ministry efforts of women in this church are absolutely essential and crucial to the effectiveness of the ministry of Shepherd's Fellowship. Thus, we fully support the idea of organized women study groups (Titus 2 meetings) and we believe that women “prophetesses” exist today in the sense that they boldly speak the word of God to other women. We think it’s great whenever a group of people gather around the Word and glean from its riches. We especially like such groups if they are under the auspices and headship of a male pastor/elder. We think that can be a healthy part of body life. It does not usurp any authority and it's usually done in homes, not the weekly Lord’s Day meeting. So, that's pretty much our answer on the subject. It's not the popular view, but we are used to that. Most of the theology we preach is unpopular with the majority of the church. We are willing to let them continue down the liberal path, doing those things that please men, and we will obstinately cling to the clear and obvious teaching of Scripture.

IN CONCLUSION, a Biblical church must be willing to make any changes necessary to ensure that we are being Biblical. In the meantime, we will proceed as usual with our teaching and Q&A format, we just want to avoid public debating with the teacher for anyone involved (male or female) and we want to do as much as possible to avoid a situation where the wife or women in our congregation could be perceived as usurping the authority of her husband and the elders in the church meeting, thereby bringing shame upon herself or her husband. Most importantly, we want to encourage him to lead spiritually in the church and home so that both husband and wife can fulfill their God-ordained roles.

[1] There are actually four interpretations that are held, but the other two are not pertinent to a brief discussion on the subject of a woman’s role during the weekly church meeting since one interpretation holds that the verses are non-authentic and the other that they are merely a quote from the Talmud. Both interpretations are considered dubious amongst conservative Reformed, evangelical scholars, hence, not suitable for our discussion here.

[2] John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible, Commentary on 1^st Corinthians 14:34 at http://www.freegrace.net/gill/. Accessed 9-22-09.

[3] John MacArthur, God’s High Calling for Women: Part III at http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/54-16.HTM. Accessed 9-22-09

UNCG Outreach Report 8-31-2011

2011-08-31T15:57:00.003-05:00

INTRODUCTION: The campus was full of life and activity today at UNCG. Students were everywhere and there were crowds of them just milling around and talking, enjoying the weather, etc., a perfect recipe for one-on-one evangelism and open-air preaching.

I decided to do only one-on-one evangelism today since I had no one else with me to minister to those I would be preaching to. I typically like to do open-air preaching when I have someone else with me who can go into the crowds and give people literature and/or reason with them from the Scriptures. Before I highlight an interesting conversation I had with a headstrong young lady, let's consider what "the toxic trinity" is and the effects it has on students in particular.

The "Toxic Trinity"

Many students hold to what I call "the toxic trinity". The "toxic trinity" has three essential components:

1. Postmodernism.
2. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
3. Darwinism.

Postmodernism has some good elements. For instance, it recognizes that people can be very diverse and that diversity is not necessarily a bad thing because the beauty that is inherent in all cultures can enrich and enliven our culture. That is certainly a praiseworthy thing (Rev. 21:24). However, postmodernism also affirms that there's no ultimate transcendent purpose, meaning, or reason for existence since no objective, universal standards exist, or if they do, we can't know them. For example, consider logical laws, the principles that we use to determine correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning. Many postmoderns would argue that basic fundamental logical laws (Law of non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, law of identity) are not universal (apply to all people, places, and times), invariant (can't be changed), and necessary (have to hold always) but are human constructs that can change from time to time, place to place, and from person to person. To prove this they would appeal to the many competing and contradictory systems of logic and then assert that all can have equal truth value as long as they work to promote order and function in whatever society uses them. Thus, logic wouldn't be universal and necessary; instead, it would be a culturally relative concoction of society. The problem is that this is self-refuting, for to argue that there are competing and contradictory logical systems assumes that the law of non-contradiction necessarily holds when judging between those two competing systems. Thus, to deny the universal necessity of this particular fundamental law of logic, you would have to use it in order to deny it. Thus, the fundamental law of logic known as the law of non-contradiction necessarily and universally holds, even with examples of dialetheism or other such paradoxes; you will always have to utilize the law of non-contradiction to deny the universality of the law of non-contradiction. But, I digress.

For Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, see my treatment of that here under "1" of the heading "Types of Unbelieving College Students".

Regarding Darwinism, I'm speaking of that well-known philosophical acid that has eaten through nearly everything since Darwin's Origin came out in 1859. It is well known as the General Theory of Evolution.

While I spoke with many professing Christians and out of the 10-12 or so I spoke to, I met only one that could articulate the gospel in any meaningful way (i.e., the problem = sin; the solution = faith and repentance in the cross work of Jesus). As usual per my past outreach reports, most of them gave answers that related to the "toxic trinity" or simply were universalists or pantheists of some kind. However, I do want to mention a noteworthy conversation I had with a female student.

A sweet but hard-headed young lady

This young lady was the last detailed conversation I had of the day. She attended a Moravian church, was very polite and willing to engage in a conversation about the things of God. She noted early in the conversation that she had a problem telling people of other religions that they are wrong. I asked her why she would say that, and she said that she didn't think it was her business to tell others that their religion was wrong. I asked her why she would say this given the New Testament teaching about the exclusivity of Christ and then a conversation ensued about ultimate authorities.

A Battle of Ultimate Authorities

She seemed to really struggle with the Scriptures and noted that different groups interpret those passages differently and I asked, "If a blind friend was about to walk off a cliff only to fall to a sure death below, wouldn't you do all in your power to stop him from walking over the edge of the cliff? Wouldn't you be willing to tackle him if necessary to save him?" She said, "I see where you're going, but its not the same." I responded, "You're right, because not telling your unbelieving friends that they are wrong to not repent and believe in Jesus is worse than going over the edge of a cliff, because where they are going lasts forever." She seemed frustrated at this point, and so I asked, "Why would you, a professing Christian disagree with me on this?" and she said, "I just don't feel like its my duty to go around telling people that their religion is wrong." I responded, "I understand, but I'm not suggesting you necessarily go tell everyone, I'm talking about you speaking to your Buddhist friend about Jesus as God gives you opportunity. After all, didn't Jesus say that there's no other way to get to God except through Him and that those who do not believe in the Son will perish?" She admitted that the Bible said this, but didn't pursue that line of thought any further and I then changed subjects on her by stating, "The word of God calls us to submit to God's authority in His word whether we like it or not. There are two ultimate authorities in the universe that you can bow down to; yourself or God. It seems to me that you are essentially saying (though you have been careful to deny this in word) that you are the ultimate authority and that even if the Scriptures clearly say in context that believers are to lovingly share Jesus with others as God gives opportunity lest they perish forever in Hell, you are saying, 'No, I will not do that because I do not think it is right.' In a nutshell, you are denying the sovereign authority that God has over you. Why would a professing believer do that?" She was stymied at this point. I remained silent to attempt to give her a chance to respond and she finished with, "Well, that's just the way I see it. Some people understand the Bible different than I do, and I'm okay with that." I responded, "Even if your understanding contradicts the clear commands of Scripture, you're okay with that?" She shrugged her shoulders, I thanked her for the conversation, and I was off to my car. I hope that the Lord used my winsome attitude and Scriptural arguments to get her thinking in the right direction, for a denial such as this is indicative of a greater spiritual problem.

I need help!

Perhaps you live in the Piedmont-Triad area, are doctrinally like-minded, are in good standing with a local evangelical church, and you have a real heart for the lost. If you have the time to come out and help evangelize for a few hours on a weekday I could sure use your help, for the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Luke 10:2).

IN CONCLUSION, I praise the Lord for your prayers as I function as a missionary to the city of Greensboro. My prayer is that God is glorified in our outreaches, the hearts of the lost are pricked by the work of the Spirit, and that God brings many souls to Himself.

Are Calvinists a Bunch of "Do-Nothings"?

2011-08-30T07:54:00.002-05:00

See for yourself:

Conference Aims to Normalize Pedophilia

2011-08-29T15:38:00.001-05:00

I told you this was coming:

Conference Aims to Normalize Pedophilia

I am not one to regularly post links to sludge stories like this, but this time it is necessary. It doesn't take a brilliant Christian philosopher to figure out that if you reject God's design for marriage and family and adamantly demand a "right to marry" another person of the same gender because you were "born that way", then you can ultimately justify nearly any type of sexual behavior imaginable under the sun. Consider the following:

1. If I am born X, then I have a right to do X.
2. I am born X.
3. Therefore, I have a right to do X.

Given the context of our blog article, let X stand for any type of deviant sexual behavior: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, rape, etc. God told us long ago what happens to society when it throws off God's transcendent, objective standards:

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25 NAU)

When we reject the transcendent personal Creator-God of heaven and earth who owns us and as a result of His owning us He gets to tell us what to do; then we have cast off all limits for what goes for acceptable in the realm of sexual ethics. Such things are evidence of God's judgment on a people that has rejected Christ's truth. I have hoped that God would grant repentance in the midst of judgment, but after nearly 40 years of the murder of @ 4,000 babies per day and the overwhelming societal acceptance of homosexuality, America is ripe for destruction. "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker" (Isaiah 45:9 NAU).

You just wait, bestiality is next.

Hearers and Not Doers

2011-08-27T10:02:00.004-05:00

Note: What follows does not apply to those who are in faithful fellowship with a local church.

Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. 22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. James 1:21-25 NAU

With pastoral ministry, I have seen many people come and go. I also have rubbed shoulders with many who have claimed to love the doctrines of God's sovereign grace but they never get plugged into a local church. They love watching videos at Illbehonest.com (I do too!) or listening to Grace To You (I do too!), and praise the Puritans for their stand on the truth. They claim to love hard, Biblical preaching from guys like Paul Washer and they post video after video on their Facebook accounts of hard, Biblical preaching. They praise online discernment ministries that expose the heresies of the seeker-sensitive, emergent church, neo-liberal theology, and other heretical movements. Yet when you ask them what fellowship they are a part of, they start to hem and haw around and claim "we haven't found a Biblical church" even though they are visiting your Biblical church. I've seen it time after time. They'll give me reasons like this:

"We're still looking around for a good church and want to look at all our options."

Of course, there's nothing wrong with patiently checking out your church options, but sometimes I have followed-up with these people several years later and they still are "looking for a good church" or they are "doing church" at home because they can't find anyone that is "like-minded". I don't have a problem with house churches and I certainly believe it is important to be part of a "like-minded" church. However, what they really mean by a "good, like-minded church" is that they want a fellowship that will allow them to be their own authority versus submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ and His qualified leaders (Heb. 13:17). People like this are autonomous brigands and firebrands that tend to be the loose-cannons and wrecking balls of Calvinistic Christianity. They are the spiritual Bedouins of Reformed evangelicalism and if they've ever come into your fellowship, they can do much harm because that is their modus operandi. There are two reasons I have consistently noted for their unwillingness to commit themselves to a New Testament church: (1) They want to hide their sins by being the ones in control lest their own sins be exposed by the accountability of a New Testament church, or (2) they know that if they attend a New Testament church they have to actually live out the commands of the New Testament and since that can be pretty messy at times, they choose comfort over faithfulness and choose a church where they can go and hide because there is no accountability or they just stay at home and justify it by saying "we couldn't find a like-minded church". In a sense, they are right that they couldn't find a "like-minded" fellowship because they are the ones determining what a good church is based upon their own mind and not based upon God's mind as revealed in the pages of the New Testament. Let's take a look at the next excuse.

"Well, we decided that we would rather go to X church because they have X."

What is interesting is that the very videos they place on their Facebook account directly contradicts the message and ministry philosophy being upheld by the church they have chosen to attend. The church they have chosen to attend doesn't preach the word, and is all about programs, numbers, and entertainment. They are part of an organization that is empowered by the strength of man's flesh rather than the Holy Spirit. However, they don't really care because they reason that since there is a "safe" social environment for their children via the multiple programs or that they are "being fed" by the preaching, they can justify attending a doctrinally compromised church. When you lovingly and patiently challenge them on their inconsistency you get no meaningful, rational response, only a brushing off type of response that's essentially saying, "leave me alone, I don't want to be consistent."

There are other excuses they have heard, but the two above are the most prevalent.

So what was their problem? They were hearers and not doers.

If there's one thing I've learned about pastoral ministry it is this: many people don't mind listening to hard, Biblical preaching. Its the doing they're not interested in.

They don't want to be bothered with things like New Testament fellowship, accountability, and being subject to the sole authority of Jesus Christ. They don't want to submit to their elders (Heb. 13:17), and they certainly don't want to get their hands messy by bearing burdens (Gal. 6:2).

IN CONCLUSION, dear reader, if I have described you, it is high time to repent by becoming part of a New Testament fellowship. The apostle James says that those who are hearers of the word but aren't doers are self-deluded (James 1:22). Don't delude yourself into thinking that you are living out New Testament Christianity by merely listening to the gospel. God calls you not only to hear, but also to do (James 2:24). May God grant you the ability to live out your profession of faith to His eternal glory and for the good of His people.

The DON'T Speak Truth Campaign

2011-08-17T08:16:00.002-05:00

Introduction: What follows is a blog post by one "Pastor Dennis" of Open Hearts Gathering, a neo-liberal emergent church in Gastonia, NC that is going to oppose our evangelistic efforts at the homosexual Charlotte Pride event on Saturday, 8-29-2011. They will be out there to affirm the homosexuals and "love" them straight into hell. I'm praying our group will be able to graciously minister to them as well. Here's the link to their facebook event page, and below is the short article from "Open Hearts Gathering" titled For those of you that can make a stand at PRIDE Charlotte 8/27 for GLBT Justice:

by dennis on August 16, 2011

PRIDE Charlotte will take place Saturday, August 27. There are several Christian groups that are planning “God Has A Better Way”, an evangelizing effort to “reach out” (sic) to PRIDE participants to let them know that being gay, lesbian, et. al. is not an “orientation”, and is something people can “repent” of (e.g. the “Rainbow Promise Gospel Tract” that will be handed out). Nice to know that Christian groups like this have everything figured out for us already….

In response to this, groups like Canyon Walker Conncetions would like Christians and all others to sign on to a petition, as well as some other actions you can read about here. You can also plan on attending the event with OHG people like Steve K., and others, that are organizing through this Facebook event page. Please consider coming out and taking a stand for real GLBT Justice, that Christians like us experience and embody through the God we know in Jesus Christ. If you’re not Christian, we ask you to also stand with us against such horrible Christian bigotry. Thanks for your help!

-Pastor -D

This scheduled "counter-protest" is nothing more than a result of one thing: a denial of Biblical authority. This denial is literally as old as dirt (Gen. 3:1). It is also more insidious than rabid atheism because it claims to uphold God's truth in principle while denying it in practice by calling into question the clear teaching of God's word on the issue of homosexuality. Theological liberals have always been experts at twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction, and the above is another example thereof (2 Peter 3:16). The only difference now is that they wear cool glasses and skinny jeans, love drinking FiveBucks coffee, and really dig U2. Your prayers are much appreciated.

HT: The Speak:Truth Project

When God Uses a Titus 2 Woman

2011-08-16T15:23:00.002-05:00

Mom never worked a day outside the home. We were her life. The house was always clean and comfortable, and she would always be baking cookies or bread or making something special for us to eat. When I went to college near home, I could count on finding her there, cooking, reading, knitting (needles and yarn were always close by or in her hands). She made an immense impact on our family. Along with my father, she raised us four children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We all grew to know and love God.

Perhaps the most important choice my parents ever made in raising my sisters and me had little to do with us directly. It didn't concern where we went to school or how often we received discipline. It didn't hinge on when we went to bed or what we ate for dinner. The most important choice they made as parents was their commitment to pursue a godly marriage. [Ian H. Murray, John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2011), 10-11.]

Recovering Biblical Womanhood

2011-08-15T15:24:00.002-05:00

The Christian's Responsibility to the State

2011-08-09T13:29:00.007-05:00

INTRODUCTION: I have recently noted an increased volume of both e-mails, private conversations, and talk on the internet about the Christian's responsibility to be salt and light in a wicked culture. Of course I agree that we must do so, for Matthew 5:16 commands as much. However, I think that the way God wants Christians to be "salt and light" in their culture is not what many Christians think it is and as a result, I think many Christians are well-meaning but misguided on this issue. For example, consider the following e-mail I received from a brother in the Lord whose ministry efforts I appreciate and respect greatly:

In case you haven't noticed, our nation is sinking faster and faster into the depths of depravity, particularly in the area of our nation's government. It's no secret that many of their decisions in the past have been in direct opposition to God's laws and the gospel, but in the recent months, it seems to have gotten worse.

We've seen ungodly, tyrannical and unconstitutional decisions in the areas of abortion, the definition of marriage, inappropriate involvement of the civil government in churches, family and personal lives of individuals (BIG government), homosexuality, over taxation, fiscal dishonesty, national debt, exaltation of pagan ideology, squashing freedom of speech, the removal of parental rights and the list goes on an on.

As a result our God is mocked, our God-given freedoms and blessings are being taken away and our nation is headed towards complete fiscal, physical and spiritual ruin.

With all the said, _______________ and __________________ is looking for "patriot street preachers," if you will. Those that are willing to become a part of a brand new "operation" to stand against ungodly, tyrannically government, throughout the nation, with the Gospel of the Kingdom, on a wide, united scale.

The first aspect of this project, which is why I am sending this message, is to recruit like minded street preachers throughout the USA that are willing to strategically preach the gospel in specific locations, with a reformational message, particularly up until the 2012 Presidential Election. More details will be available soon, but this is the gist of the project.

We will be launching a new portal for this project within a week or so. In the meantime, if you're a street preacher, you're fed up with America's tyrannical, ungodly government, you're seeking reformation and you would like to see our nation reclaimed for Christ, please pray about joining this project.

In light of that e-mail, the critical question to ask is this:

How is the believer to respond to cultural depravity, political corruption, and the institution of evil laws by an unjust government?

This question can only be answered by appealing to what the New Covenant Scriptures teach about the Christian's relationship to the state. To begin sorting out the Church/state issue, the necessary starting point is Romans 13:1-7. Here we find the definitive statement concerning the purpose of the state:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (Romans 13:1-7 NAU)

What Can We Learn From Romans 13:1-7?

1. All governmental authorities have been established by God.

This scripture assumes that our God is in absolute control of the affairs of this world.
No civil authority exists that has not been brought into being by God Almighty.
This truth creates havoc with our desire to sift through all of the various authorities and determine for ourselves which ones are worthy of our submission.

2. Rebellion against government authorities is rebellion against God.

It is easy to confuse the position with the personality. For example, as Geoff Volker notes, "The policeman who pulled me over may have an obnoxious personality, be an habitual liar, a thief, and have bad breath; but this does not interfere with the fact that I went through the red light and broke the law. Therefore, the officer is well within his rights to issue me a citation, and I am obligated biblically to submit to it. If I refuse to obey this particularly unpleasant civil servant, I am rebelling not only against his position of civil authority but also against God." [The Anabaptist Vision]
Thus, it is clear that a corrupt state is just as established by God as one that isn't. It should also be noted that Paul wrote this letter to the believers at Rome while he was under the jurisdiction of the Roman empire; a civil authority that was more wicked than anything America has ever experienced.

3. The government has a right to tax its citizens.

Our forefathers in-part justified their revolt against King George by appealing to taxation without representation as a heinous crime worthy of revolution.
The problem is, that given Romans 13:1-7, there is no way to biblically justify the American Revolutionary War.
Romans 13 couldn't be more clear; the government has the right to tax its citizens. You and I are obligated by the Lord to pay them. Biblically speaking, the issue of unjust versus just taxes is irrelevant. We are to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." (Matt. 22:21 NAU)

4. Believers are bound by Scripture to give honor and respect to those in authority.

Our responsibility toward civil authority goes far beyond obedience. We are called not only to obey but also to show respect and honor to those in positions of authority (cf. 1 Tim. 2:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-14).
This Biblical teaching seems to really bother us. However, it removes any reason that we might try to use to justify mocking or ridiculing those in authority.
We are bound by Scripture to disagree in a respectful fashion that honors the God who placed them in the position of authority.

Now for a section from Geoff Volker's paper titled The Anabaptist Vision (The Relationship Between Church and State),

The Anabaptist Vision

In order to grasp what the Bible teaches concerning the Church/state issue it is helpful to understand the Anabaptist Vision. The Vision is the understanding that the Anabaptist, the stepchildren of the Reformation, had of the relationship between the Church and the state. The Anabaptists occupied the middle ground between the Reformers and the Church of Rome. They had the dubious honor of persecution from both sides. They embraced justification by faith alone, along with Martin Luther and the rest of the Reformers. They also were resolutely against the Roman Catholic Church, but differed with the Reformers in their understanding of the relationship between the Church and the state. They saw the Church as being a completely separate entity from the State.

"Authentic Christianity is firmly committed to the idea of non-sameness, to the idea that people are never to be thought of as all being in the same category in the matter of ultimate convictions. Authentic Christianity sees human society as composite, that is, consisting of people of diverse ways of thinking. It does not expect to encounter unanimity in human society; it expects to find some men stumbling at the very same cross in which other men glory." Leonard Verduin, Anatomy of a Hybrid, page 7.

The Anabaptists believed in the separation of the Church and state. They viewed both the Church and the state as holding and using a sword. The state uses the sword of steel to enforce its laws. The church uses the sword of church discipline to enforce its decrees of excommunication. The state is made up of both believers and unbelievers. Belief in Jesus Christ is not a requirement for participation in the state. On the other hand, only those who profess Christ as Lord are allowed to participate in the life of the Church. They never expected to see a truly Christian state. The Anabaptist Vision can be better understood by noting the marks of an Anabaptist. Marks of an Anabaptist (from The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, by Verduin)

1. The Church is made up of those who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

2. The Church is a voluntary association of professed believers.

3. Because they held to a Church made up of professed believers, rather than all those living in a given area, they were called Heretics.

4. They rejected the idea of salvation through baptism.

5. They gathered in out-of-the-way places for worship.

6. They believed in rebaptizing those who has been baptized as infants but had come to a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

7. They were committed to materially caring for one another.

8. They believed in the remnant principle, that true believers would always be a distinct minority in a hostile unbelieving world.

The Realm of Common Grace

The Anabaptists believed that the state was in the realm of common grace. Common grace refers to the relationship between the Creator and all mankind, to the benefits given to mankind solely on the basis that they are his creation and made in his image. Common grace has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone is a believer. Anything positive that an unbeliever experiences in this life is due to common grace.

"You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Matthew 5:43-45. (NIV)

Another aspect of common grace is evident in the divine government or control of human society. It is true that human society is in a state of human fallenness. Were it not for the restraining hand of God, indeed, our world would long since have degenerated into a self- destructive chaos of iniquity, in which social order and community life would have been an impossibility. That a measure of domestic, political, and international harmony is enjoyed by the generality of mankind is due to the overruling goodness of God. ...He even calls secular rulers and magistrates ministers of God, since their proper concern is the maintenance of order and decency in society. -- Philip Hughes, "Common Grace," Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, page 480.

Civil government is not a Christian institution but an institution established by God to bring order to a fallen world. The mistake that some well-intentioned believers make is to try to organize civil government in such a way that only Christians would qualify for participation.

The New England Experiment

The Puritan Vision for America was to establish a new "Israel." Hence, unlike modern liberal democratic ideas, the New England Puritans were not primarily individualists seeking a neutral republic open to all religious views. Rather, they held to a Christian commonwealth, which they hoped would aid in reforming the rest of the world by being a "city set on a hill" based on the true Reformed religion. Thus they were not inconsistent with their own values when they in turn persecuted dissenters or heretics in the midst, such as the Baptist Roger Williams. He was forced to leave Massachusetts and became a found of Rhode Island, which was set up to tolerate various "denominations" of Christians. -- Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World; The Influence of Calvin on Five Governments from the 16th Through 18th Centuries, page 126.

Though the need for limited government was recognized and though church polity [government], in its congregational opposition to episcopacy, had a democratic look to it, Puritan New England was anything but democratic. It was in fact an oligarchy in which the ruling party consisted of only ten percent of the population. To vote or hold office in the Massachusetts Bay colony, onehad to be a "freeman," one has to be admitted to church membership -- and membership required approval by the elders and the whole congregation with reference not only to doctrinal belief but also to conduct and to "the works of grace upon his soule," or "how God hath beene dealing with him about his conversion." -- John Warwick Montgomery, The Shaping of America, page 43.

Putting All the Pieces Together

How should a Christian view civil government? The following are some of my thoughts that might help you sort through the subject.

1. There is no requirement for leaders of the state to be believers. All civil authorities are God's servants

2. Common grace is the basis for the state, while special grace is the basis for the Church.

3. The transformation of society is NOT the primary agenda of the believer in the New Covenant era. The example of slavery shows that the believer is not commanded to abolish slavery, only to regulate it when he has the opportunity to do so. The fact that the application of biblical principles, such as the priesthood of all believers, will eventually bring the believer to the point of rejecting slavery does not change the issue that the elimination of slavery was not of first importance for the believer.
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from our heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." -- Ephesians 6:5-9. (NIV)

4. True believers will always be a distinct minority in a hostile unbelieving world (Matthew 7:13-14). The best that believers can hope for is to have a majority of citizens sympathetic to biblical ethics.

5. The believers' role in society is to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). They are to seek to influence their country in a biblical direction.

6. Belief in the God of the Bible can NEVER be forced on a society. The nation of Israel was the only nation that God outwardly controlled. Belief was forced on Israel because it served as a physical picture of the true people of God.

What About Civil Disobedience?

"Peter and the other apostles replied: 'We must obey God rather than men!'" --Acts 5:29 (NIV) Is it ever right to disobey the government? The answer is yes, but a qualified yes. The believer must disobey when he is ordered by the authorities to do something that Scripture forbids him to do, or he is forbidden to do something that Scripture commands him to do. It is only in this circumstance that disobedience is honoring to the Lord. The fact that I might think that a particular speed limit is ridiculous is and irrelevant concern -- to willfully break the speed limit is rebellion against our Father in heaven.

Our critical question was this:

How is the believer to respond to cultural depravity, political corruption, and the institution of evil laws by an unjust government?

Answers:

The church’s agenda for the unbelieving world is to preach the gospel to them, not to fix their own sin-created problems.
The church’s agenda for believers is to engage in mutual encouragement, edification, and building up the body for more useful service to the King.
Many of these societal problems are remedied simply through conversion. People don’t abort children and marry people of the same sex when they have regenerated hearts because they love Jesus and desire to do His will (1 Tim. 5:18; 2 Thess. 3:10; John 15:12).
Sometimes cultural wickedness is part of what God has ordained to drive people to faith in Christ. Suffering is often a means to drive people to God for hope in Christ (Matt. 5:4; 11:28-30). Suffering also drives God's people to greater faithfulness to the law of Christ.
Societal corruption will continue until the New Heavens and New Earth because we live in a cursed world with fallen, evil people. We neither have the ability nor the responsibility to undo all cultural evils because that is Christ’s responsibility at His return (Isa. 9:6-7). Our job is to live faithfully in the context in which God has sovereignly placed us to His eternal glory and as we do that, we watch God effect change in our spheres of influence as we live by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, while the church isn’t responsible to rid the earth of cultural wickedness, this doesn’t mean that believers will not positively affect society. It just means that we will use any power or influence we have to affect society by first and foremost living for King Jesus and by preaching the gospel. This has a seasoning effect on our surrounding culture that stems from the ground up and not from the top down. This means that we live the gospel before our co-workers, our families, and our next-door neighbors. This also means that we can use any lawful means available to petition the government for a redress of grievances and vote in accord with our Christian conscience as permitted by the United States Constitution (Acts 22:25-30). However, our agenda is not political activism, but spiritual transformation through gospel proclamation.

IN CONCLUSION, we don’t get to rebel against the God-ordained government through tax-evasion schemes nor do we have the prerogative to shoot abortionists, for as Paul says, we must “Never take [our] own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19; cf. also 13:1-7). As followers of the Lord of Glory, our task is not to rebel against the secular government and hate the unbelievers that make up the wicked culture around us because that contradicts the clear commands of Scripture. Such commands promote the furthering of the gospel rather than the hindrance thereof (Matthew 5:44-45; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). Instead, God calls us to genuine, heartfelt “consideration” for “all men”, both Christian and non-Christian. Such display of “consideration” or “gentleness” is a necessary fruit of the Spirit in the life of a Christian. We are to seek to live in this corrupt world in subjection and obedience to the God-ordained authority structures while seeking to be considerate to all men by doing good deeds for them so that we can bring the maximum glory to God in all that we do (1 Cor. 10:31). When unbelievers see the transforming power of the gospel through our meek demeanor and gentle spirit, they see the powerful evidence of the grace of God working in otherwise hopeless sinners and such evidence is a majestic display of the mercy and grace of God in salvation.

Anders Behring Breivik was NOT a Christian

2011-07-31T15:05:00.002-05:00

Why We Can't Recommend Dr. Robert Morey

2011-07-31T15:03:00.001-05:00

Note: Though some of what Dr. Robert Morey has written over the years has been profitable and helpful, Shepherd's Fellowship has always had to recommend some of his material with reservation because he has made many off the wall comments both in print and in his audio presentations. However, we can no longer recommend his material whatsoever due to the following information. Below is written and audio documentation that Dr. Robert Morey advocates dropping a nuclear bomb on the Kaba/Mecca:

THE ACHILLES HEEL OF ISLAM

The path to Paradise, according to the Five Pillars of Islam, involves the city of Mecca and its stone temple called the Kabah. Muslims pray toward Mecca five times a day. What if Mecca didn't exist anymore?

They must make a pilgrimage to Mecca and engage in an alaborate set of rituals centered around the Kabah once they arrive. What if Mecca and the Kabah were only blackened holes in the ground?

What if Medina, the burial place of Muhammad, was wiped off the face of the planet?

What if the Dome Mosque on the Temple site in Jerusalem was blown up?

The great weakness of Islam is that it is hopelessly tied to sacred cities and buildings. If these cities and buildings were destroyed, Islam would die within a generation as it would be apparent to all that its god could not protect the three holiest sites in Islam.

The Sword Held Over Their Heads

With American ships stationed around Arabia and troops on the ground within Saudi Arabia itself, it would take about seven minutes for cruise missles to take out Mecca and Medina. These cities could be vaporized in minutes and there is nothing that the Saudis or any other Muslim country could do to stop us. The Israelis could take out the Dome Mosque at the same time. It could happen so fast that no one would have the time to respond. With these surgical strikes, few lives would be lost. And, with three strikes against them, Islam is out!

The Threat

The US government and its allies must agree that this is the final solution to the Muslim problem. We must tell all terrorist groups that the next time they destroy the lives and property of Americans at home or abroad, we will destroy Mecca, Medina and Dome Mosque. They will be responsible for destroying the three most holy sites in Islam and bringing the religion to its knees. We must tell all the Muslim countries that are presently supporting and harboring terrorists that if they do not cease and desist at once, we will destroy the heart of their religion. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Islamic World would, for the first time in their bloody history of oppression and tyranny, have to give civil rights and human rights to women and non-Islamic religions. They would have to allow their people to decide for themselves what religion, if any, they want in their lives. The 'religious police' would be disbanded. All Islamic laws would have to give way to the UN declaration on human rights, civil rights, women's rights and freedom of religion. Once Muslim governments took their foot off the neck of their people, millions of Muslims would convert to Christianity as they have had enough of oppression and violence from their Imams and Mullahs. [Robert A. Morey, Winning the War Against Radical Islam, (Las Vegas, NV: Christian Scholars Press, 2002), 168-170.]

For audio documentation, listen to the "Tough Love" speech by Dr. Robert Morey on YouTube starting @ 22:00 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmimg1wli5o&feature=channel_video_title

If the U.S. military wants to drop a nuclear warhead on Mecca, then that's their business. However, advocating such things has no place in the ethical instruction of a Christian theologian as it directly contradicts Christs command in Matthew 5:44-45,

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

IN CONCLUSION, it is our assessment that Dr. Robert Morey is a certified "loose cannon" and we can no longer recommend his material as we cannot trust what crazy, unbiblical nonsense he's going to say next. It is the Christian's responsibility to test all things and hold fast to that which is true (1 Thess. 5:21) and preach the gospel, knowing that our lives may have to give way to our enemies so that they can be granted eternal life as they hear the gospel from our dying, persecuted lips.

NCT ThinkTank 2011 Conference Videos

2011-07-30T09:08:00.008-05:00

This past week I had the pleasure of attending my first New Covenant Theology ThinkTank in Canandaigua Lake, NY at LeTourneau Christian Camp. This was hands-down, the best conference I've ever been to. The reasons were as follows:

1. Like-minded fellowship with people who obviously love Jesus.

2. Excellent theology.

3. Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued by the other conference participants in light of Scripture. This promotes further refining of our views so that they conform to Scripture.

Our meeting was held from July 25-28, and we covered a variety of topics related to coming to a further understanding of biblical theology through the hermeneutic of the New Covenant – Jesus Christ our Lord, following the redemptive-historical view of Scripture.

Listed below are the links to each of the sessions on video. Manuscripts will be added later after each presenter refines their papers for publishing. Some papers may be more detailed than the presentations.

The Earth Stove Society will be publishing an extensive reading list that encompasses the whole range of our think tank topics over the past few years. Contrary to some, NCT is rooted in good scholarly study as demonstrated in the following presentations. Many authors have contributed to the ideas of a solid biblical theology, although in the overall, they may not be what might be labeled as “NCT”. But, in those pages are foundational elements of a true biblical theology, in the historic-redemptive approach which is Christ centered and God glorifying. There will be references to books, commentaries, journals, articles and web site content. Some of the references will be annotated.

Session 1 John “Jack” Jeffery
Severino Pancaro: The Law in the Fourth Gospel – The Metamorphosis of “Nomistic Termini” and The Law in the Fourth Gospel – The Transferal of Symbols for the Law to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.

Session 2 John Jack Jeffery
Carl F. H. Henry, “The Holy Spirit and Christian Ethics”.

Session 3 Dustin Segers
NCT and Apologetics

Session 4 Joseph Krygier
God’s Glorious Mission – Toward a Biblical Theology view of Mission(s) Rooted in the Attributes of God

Session 5 Ed Trefzger
Apart from us they should not be made perfect: A survey of views on Church and Israel (including a surprising NCT view)

Session 6 Ed Trefzger
Apart from us they should not b perfect – my thoughts on an NCT-informed view of OT/NT saints and the Church.

Session 7 Chad Bresson
The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law

Session 8 Dustin Segers
NCT and Social Justice – Is the Tim Keller model biblical?

Session 9 Shane Becker and Joseph Krygier
God’s Glorious Mission – Toward a Biblical Theology view of Mission(s) looking at The People on Mission

Session 10 John Dunn
A Look at OT parallels, couplets, and typology of the redemptive historical theme from the Garden through the Nation of Israel

Session 11 Moe Bergeron
The Promise and the Necessity of The Spirit

HT: Earth Stove Society

Evangelism Memory Verses - Beginner's Version

2011-07-22T12:29:00.000-05:00

Note: For all those dear saints at Shepherd's Fellowship who labor with us in reaching Greensboro with the glorious gospel, what follows is a list of memory verses designed to help you become a better tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – The unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 5:27-28 – Whoever looks at another person with lust commits adultery in their heart.

Luke 16:15 – Self-justification before men; that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

Romans 2:5-6 – Unrepentant sinners storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath.

Romans 3:10-12 – There are no good people. No one seeks after the true God.

Romans 3:20, 23, 6:23 – Nobody is justified by keeping law because nobody can match up to its standard of perfection. The eventual payment for sins is physical and spiritual death, but eternal life is found in Jesus Christ alone.

Romans 3:28; 4:4-5, Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-6 – We’re saved by faith alone apart from works.

Colossians 1:20-22 – Jesus died on the cross to bear the punishment of sinners.

Matthew 12:36 – People will give an account for every careless word on judgment day.

John 3:36 – The wrath of God abides on those who do not believe in the Son of God.

Luke 13:3 – Jesus said that if you don’t repent, you’ll perish.

John 3:16 – God has a general love for all, but eternal life is granted only to those who believe.

John 14:6 – Jesus is the only way to get to God (an exclusive truth claim).

John 14:21 – The one who loves Jesus strives to keep His commandments.

1 John 1:8-9 – If you say you haven’t sinned you’re a liar. If you confess them to God, you’ll be forgiven through Christ.

Acts 17:30-31 – God commands all people everywhere to repent because He’s going to judge the world by Jesus Christ, whom He raised from the dead.

Acts 4:12 – Salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone and no other religious leader.

Isaiah 53:5-6 – Jesus bore the wrath due to sinners on the cross (He paid the fine they couldn’t pay).

Luke 18:13-14 – A genuine prayer of repentance.

What about the Ten Commandments? The Ten Commandments are the summary of the covenant document given specifically to the nation of Israel (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13). Christians aren’t under the Mosaic Law, but are under the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:20-21; 2 Cor. 3; Gal. 6:2; Heb. 8:13). Nine of the Ten Commandments are brought over into the New Covenant and have become part of the law of Christ (cf. Matt. 5:21-22; 27-28; 31-32; 44-45; John 13:34; Eph. 5:1-5; Rom. 7:7-9; 13:8-10; Eph 6:1-4; 1 Tim. 1:8-10). The only exception is the Fourth Commandment or the Sabbath, which was fulfilled in Jesus as our Sabbath rest (cf. Acts 15:28-29; Rom. 14:5-6a; Gal. 4:21-31; Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 4:1-10). Thus, don’t take a lost person to Exodus 20 to show them their sin; take them to Christ’s law.

Questions for Torah Keepers

2011-07-21T15:07:00.001-05:00

The following video was posted in response to some friends who teach that New Covenant believers must keep the portions of the Old Covenant Law of Moses that pertain to food laws (Lev. 11), festivals, and Sabbaths (Lev. 19:3).