“There are some acts whereby men have accession to the raising and heightening of division, and oftentimes they are mutual: As . . . some men’s doing of some inconsiderate act, or writing some inconsiderate expresssion upon the one hand, and other too passionately and vehemently exaggerating such a fact, and condemning such an expression …
Calvin Got Around Some
“Besides, men like that are afflicted by an almost incurable disease. For although it makes them feel ashamed not to know something, yet they cannot bear to learn anything” (John Calvin, Concerning Scandal, p. 25).
Bow Down in Gratitude
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Our God and Lord, we come into Your presence in order to glorify and worship Your name. We know that we have no ability to do so in our own right, and so we seek to praise You through the name of …
A Chemical Reaction
Jesus said that He did not come to bring peace, but rather a sword. He taught that He Himself was the embodiment of scandal, the stone of stumbling, the rock of offense. This should not be taken as though the Lord Jesus brought scandal with Him in the same way that He brought holiness or …
Some of the Other Riff Raff
One of the most important aspects of this Table is the guest list. The food on the Table is bread and wine. The Lord of the Table is the host, the one who set the Table, and who offered His body and blood in the heavenly places in a miraculous way, such that we could …
Worldview Wheel V
Introduction: We come now to the fourth spoke of our “worldview wheel.” We are not using this illustration for the sake of some sort of mandatory hokiness, but rather to fix the point in our minds, and, more importantly, in our lives. A worldview consists of far more than the thoughts a man thinks. …
Last Post on Waters
Okay, one last comment, and I am done reviewing Waters’ book. In the bibliography, Waters says this about my lecture on heretics and the covenant at the 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. “Wilson calls for a ‘covenantal approach to heresy,’ one that recognizes the ‘objective . . . covenantal obligations’ of the heretic, who, if …
No One Blasphemes Like Christians Can
I can’t stand it.
Talmudic Layers of Revivalism
In the footnotes of Waters’ book, Cal Beisner makes this statement. “The Westminster Standards present the sacraments solely as means of sanctifying grace, not as means of converting grace” (p. 302). In his response to my essay on sacramental efficacy in the Westminster Standards, Rick Phillips makes a similar point. “In reading Wilson’s paper I …
All We Need to Know
I have been following the outbreak of hostilities in Israel and Lebanon, but thus far have refrained from writing about it. On one level the subject is enormously complex and anything less than ten volumes, researched for twenty years, would fail to do the situation any kind of justice. At the same time, on another …