Black LIES Matter?

Doug Wilson pulls no punches HERE.

Call Me a Conspiracy Theorist but....

A Lament: How TGC is Destroying Justice and the Church...

Theoretical Inerrantists

An important article by Tom Ascol:

One of my growing concerns about American Christianity (and I include myself and the congregation that I serve in this analysis) is that we have been blessed with ready access to the Bible for so long and have seen reaffirmation of its full authority so boldly declared by many of our pastors, churches, and institutions that we have made the affirmation of its inerrancy almost meaningless. I am not saying that a full-throated affirmation of biblical inerrancy is unimportant. On the contrary, I contended for that very thing in the so-called “Conservative Resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention during the last two decades of the twentieth century.

I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in May 1979, having been convinced by a prominent member of that faculty that inerrancy was at best unimportant and that the “Fundamentalists” were storming the walls with the intent of firing all of Southwestern’s faculty and turning it into backwater Bible College intent only to indoctrinate and not educate...keep reading

Excerpt:

Theoretical inerrancy is killing the church in America. It is spreading like stage 4 cancer. Only God can stop it. If He does, it will be through the Spirit-empowered preaching and teaching of His Word. If He does, there will be deep repentance among pastors, leaders, and churches where sin is confessed, new resolve is given, and new patterns of living and ministering are embraced.

Interview with Mike Vlach on Eschatology

When your church goes woke...

Phil Johnson (Twitter @Phil_Johnson_) Executive Director of Grace to You joins us to discuss the religion 60 years in the making and what to do when your church goes woke...

Getting Israel & the Disciples Wrong

As mentioned previously, I've profited immensely from reading Reformed-Puritan materials and listening to several Reformed Pastors' sermons. As much as I love them, occasionally they'll make statements which give me pause. I'm forewarned and expect to hear the odd conflation of Israel into the church - but whenever it happens my OCD goes into overdrive. Thankfully their focus is on Christology, the Trinity, the Attributes of God, Doxology, and Soteriology etc.

During one particular sermon a favorite pastor confidently asserted that, even after 40 days of private Bible study with the Lord, the disciples still got it wrong regarding the restoration of the kingdom of Israel (Acts 1:6-7). The following week he warned that the OT had to be interpreted in light of the NT. Sadly, he's reading from the standard Reformed-Amil notebook. Citing Alec Motyer and the Catechisms etc doesn't automatically make the assertion correct. I responded (admittedly clumsily) HERE.

More recently I came across a further example of this conflation. I've been reading another favorite pastor-theologian: in fact I'll continue to read him because he has been so profitable to my spiritual welfare. He gets it 99% right...but not always.

In a chapter called "Loved with Everlasting Love: The Gospel's Wonder" this pastor recalls listening to a riveting sermon by another pastor. This latter pastor cited Geerhardus Vos: "The reason God will never stop loving you is that he never began." Vos was evoking Jeremiah 31:3: "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

The former pastor writes that. "...the truth Vos drew out from these words all but overwhelmed me." Yet the whole chapter is about God's love for Israel! See the problem?

The same God, who predestines and elects believers, also loves Israel with an everlasting love. One cannot apply these particular verses to the church without changing the identity of the entity they were addressed to. And that's what happens. I suggest this does violence to the original intent of the entire chapter (and others).

Unfortunately, this is a large blind spot within the Reformed Camp. John MacArthur addressed some of these issues in Christ's Prophetic Plans.

Steve Hays (1959-2020)

From Triablogue:

We just learned that Steve Hays has passed away in a hospice. He had cancer and heart disease. Both conditions were initially treatable, but he declined treatment. He was content to let go and die a natural death. What he lived by, he died by. He was preceded in death by both his parents...keep reading

The Last Days of William Tyndale

Here's some eschatology for us all to ponder. I wonder if Tyndale spent time preparing for the Antichrist. How did he (along with many before and after him) prepare to die for the Lord?

Excerpt:

The godly Christian who is distressed on this earth for a little while by various trials (1 Peter 1:6) is not stoically indifferent to them. He does not seek after them as if they could somehow increase his personal righteousness, after the manner of the monkish asceticism of a young Luther. Neither, however, does he complain about his lot to man or God; he entrusts his soul to a loving Father in whose eyes no sparrow escapes notice (Luke 12:6).

Read the rest HERE

Recent Steven Lawson Tweets

"We have never been so close to the second coming of Christ. I do not know when He is coming, but we had better be ready."

"Following Christ will lead us into the storms of life. But better to be in raging tempests with Him than in false peace without Him."

"If you have any doubt about where you stand with the Lord, now is the time to make it certain. Come all the way to a living faith in Jesus Christ! Now! There is no other way to be right with God."

God’s Word in Godless Times, or...

Tom Ascol's article "God’s Word in Godless Times, or the Appearance of Godliness in Signaling Virtue" should be read along with Doug Wilson's.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 3:1-7

Christ’s Prophetic Plans

I'm going through this book again. You can read a review HERE

Minneapolis Burning and Black Privilege

This looting and rioting is hitting close to home (near me) with promises of more to come. What lies at the heart of these issues? I'm nearly all talked out with frustration, and mostly frustrated by what I'm hearing from some professing Christian leaders.

But enough of what I think, agree with him or not Doug Wilson makes many thoughtful points. What do you think? Read it HERE 

He concludes with this:

So here is the gospel, straight and true. It addresses the central problem of every human heart, which is that we are all of us crooked and false.

Christ is the eternal Word of God, and He took on human flesh in order to be able to die. He lived a perfect sinless life, ran afoul of the authorities, was arrested by the police, was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, He rose again from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, where He was seated and enthroned at the right hand of the Ancient of Days. On that great coronation day, He inherited every black tribe and every white tribe, not to mention all the other tribes, and declared His everlasting purpose to do something glorious with all of them.

That “something glorious” did not include building a whites-only country club. That “something glorious” did not include looting a store and running off with a free PlayStation.

I admit to being somewhat frustrated because there is so much more to say. But here it is in a nutshell: Christ is everything. America needs to be pierced to the heart. It is Christ or chaos. If you get the chaos, it is because you loved it more.