27 Monday Dec 2010
A hymn by Martin Luther. From The Lutheran Hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, Concordia Publishing, St. Louis, MO: 1941. #80.
All praise to Thee eternal God
Who, clothed in garb of flesh and blood
Dost take a manger for Thy throne
While worlds on worlds are Thine aloneOnce did the skies before Thee bow
A virgin’s arms contain Thee now
While angels, who in Thee rejoice
Now listen for Thine infant voice
20 Monday Dec 2010
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I know it’s been a really long time since I blogged about Walther…and I still have my bookmark in Law & Gospel to resume blogging at a later date, but I was reading some things tonight which really struck me on the nature of preaching about faith.
Melanchthon is credited by Walther as being “the father of synergism (that is, synergism within the Lutheran church)” (pg. 289-290, Concordia Pub., 2010 ed.). He quotes Melanchthon and then offers his rebuttal: Continue reading
15 Wednesday Dec 2010
Posted in Book Discussion, Theology
Tags
books, confession, Gospel, Law, leadership, purity, Randy Alcorn, repentance, Scripture, sexual sin, theology
What should pastors do to keep their noses clean…or, as we say in the Christian world, themselves pure? Randy Alcorn has an article which has been highly distributed over the years which I would like to comment on.
In 1989, the book Sins of the Body was published in The Leadership Library, edited by Terry Muck. It featured articles written by a wide variety of Christian authors. The article which shares the same name as this blog post, was written by Randy Alcorn. Christianity Today has the article available on its website here. Recently, some folks asked me what I thought of Randy Alcorn. It’s been a significant amount of time since I’ve read a book by him, but I wanted to sketch out the apprehension I have for Alcorn using this article as a foil.
My operating assumption is that Randy Alcorn doesn’t understand law and gospel properly and therefore gives rather toxic advice. Alcorn offers himself as the example instead of Christ and in doing so, contributes to the problem.
12 Sunday Dec 2010
Posted in Theology
This is probably my favorite Advent hymn. I love the original two verses by Wesley, but I especially appreciate the first half of verse 3, penned by Mark Hunt.
I’m a bit of a hum-bug about Christmas, but hymns like this really do prepare my heart (through the truth of the Gospel presented therein) for the celebration of our Substitute’s birth.
08 Monday Nov 2010
Posted in Book Discussion, Personal, Theology
Tags
Gerhard Forde, Gospel, justification, Lutheranism, Reformed Theology, repentance, sanctification, Scripture, sexual sin, theology
For my Spiritual and Ministry Formation class, we’re assigned blog summaries in which we interact with material assigned the previous week. This week’s assignment was to read the Lutheran view of Sanctification as discussed in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, edited by Donald Alexander, published by IVP. The Lutheran view was articulated by Gerhard Forde. I figured I’d share my assignment on my blog.
Dr. Forde begins his discussion of sanctification as “the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace of God for Jesus’ sake. It is what happens when we are grasped by the fact that God alone justifies.” In other words, Dr. Forde asserts that sanctification is the natural byproduct of justification and thus, all of it is indeed brought about by none other than the Christ who bought us. Many people view sanctification as the “getting down to business” of the Christian life. It’s what we bring to the table after Christ saves us and is (so it is thought, anyway) the way we stay in God’s good graces. This is, Dr. Forde asserts, “entirely false. According to Scripture, God is always the acting subject, even in sanctification. ”
Repeatedly, Dr. Forde calls attention to the dangers of speaking of sanctification. All the discussion appeals to the old man, he says, becoming a verbal exercise which sounds very impressive, but lacking the necessary foundation of love which the old man is completely incapable of laying himself.
Sanctification, as well as justification, is rooted in the unconditional promise of God. This is something the old man does not know how to handle because “as old beings, we simply cannot understand or cope with the unconditional promise of justification pronounced in the name of Jesus. What we don’t see is that what the unconditional promose is calling forth is a new being. The justification of God promised in Jesus is not an ‘offer’ made to us as old beings; [instead,] it is our end, our death.”
Are you putting YOUR old man to death?
26 Tuesday Oct 2010
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I’ve decided to switch up my email and have been converting it over to another GMail account (all my accounts are still used and checked; I’m simply running everything from an online ‘hub’ rather than from Outlook for the sake of my convenience). In the process, lots of random emails from the last 4 years have come across my screen. One of them contained a reflection I wrote in December of 2008. It reads,
It fascinates me that people are willing to talk about their feelings, but not deal with the actual Scriptural realities behind what they believe and are called to do in Christ.
Are you listening to anyone except yourself?
I don’t recall the context; it was a retort to something on a forum of which I used to be a part. But I can’t say much has changed. People would rather air their feelings about God instead of do the hard work of searching out what the Bible says about this concern or that situation. Call it a product of my ENTJness, but seriously…WWBD? (That’s “What Would the Bereans Do?”) 😉
29 Wednesday Sep 2010
Posted in Theology
Tags
Calvinism, false teaching, fanatics, Gospel, Holy Spirit, preaching, rant, Reformed Theology, Scripture, theology
The Holy Spirit said *what* to him??
Lately, some folks have been totally taken over by frenzy. They put down their Bibles and want to reach out to God in another way. These guys criticize others who preach from the Bible, saying that we’re “just following the dead letter of the law.” Here’s what I want to ask them: where do they get this Spirit that shows so much contempt for biblical teaching as being so low and childish? If they want to tell me that it’s the Spirit of Christ, I’d tell them they’re being ridiculous!
None of the apostles or early church-goers were ever taught to hold the Bible in such contempt…not by the Holy Spirit. Instead, they had great respect for it…dare I even use the very old-fashioned word ‘reverence’? The Holy Spirit taught of His ruling over His people when he spoke through Isaiah, after all: “My Spirit is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring…forevermore” (59:21). This is the way the Church is happy: by being ruled over by the Spirit of God in his Word!
04 Saturday Sep 2010
Posted in Personal
Tags
books, C. F. W. Walther, Calvinism, discussion, false teaching, friendship, Gospel, Law, Lutheranism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Reformed Theology, Scripture, seminary, theology, witnessing, work
Last night, I was working at the store and a Oneness Pentecostal guy came in. I told him I had relatives that had gone to ABI (Apostolic Bridal Bible Institute) and instantly he wanted to talk, which was cool.
It was a fascinating discussion. We talked about imputed righteousness, eschatology, holy living, the marks of a true Christian…all in the space of one hour. I was in it more to hear how he heard my questions and how I might ask them better of someone I’m trying to share the gospel with, so it was a fruitful time.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him, however, that not only was I not baptized “in Jesus’ Name,” but that I’ve never spoken in tongues. He did get to the point however, where he would refer to himself and me in terms I’d relate to “the invisible Church.” He put a high premium on inspiration (his own) through sermon prep and even at one point claimed to have seen the backside of God in a dream.
20 Friday Aug 2010
Posted in Book Discussion, Theology
Tags
books, C. F. W. Walther, Law, Lutheranism, preaching, theology
Part 8 of a series discussing C. F. W. Walther’s important treatise Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible.
So far, we’ve enumerated five differences between law and gospel. They are,
The sixth and final difference between Law and Gospel relates to the persons to whom each must be preached. The Law must be preached to secure sinners and the Gospel to those who are alarmed in their sin.
16 Monday Aug 2010
Posted in Theology
Quoting from the Fjords of Zion blog:
08/13/2010 by Haydn
Wow… I never thought I was dangerous until this week. I threaten Christendom itself and the heart of Biblical interpretation. I was told this yesterday by someone commenting on a comment that I made this week about the Bible. My comment was that it isn’t necessary for people to read the Scriptures in order to be close to God; reading Scripture is a good thing, but it isn’t necessary for people loving God more or understanding His love better. The person responding to me said:
So Scripture is a box. Now we ask, is this how Paul or Peter talks about Scripture?
Gay and Evangelical 