Epistolary Encomiums and Exhortations

Regarding “Boris, Brexit and Great Balls of Fire,”

Doug, you’re a great writer in English. IN ENGLISH. Sprinkling your stuff with dainty French phrases is like making Deontay Wilder wear a skirt. Cut it out.

Steve

“He was the kind of sheep who sought out the shepherd; the shepherd did not need to go looking for him.”

Certainly sheep should be proactive sheep; however, I’ve noticed a trend among the pastorate that I suspect goes something like this:

“Since my primary duty as a shepherd is to preach the Word, I’m going to do exactly that and no more. YOU come to ME, not the other way around. I’m not going to make one effort to take the initiative and be the first reach out and check up on the doings and goings on with the members of my congregation. If something significant happens in their lives of which I am unaware, it’s their fault for not coming to me in the first place.”

I do think this is an increasing trend, and I find it to be at odds with a) the biblical example of the Chief Shepherd, and b) the historical example of pastors in centuries past, particular many of the Puritan era.

Thoughts?

Guyon

Two points.

First, I feel about doctors the same way you feel about the governing elites. They tend to be arrogant know-it-alls who think they are the fourth person of the Trinity. But those feelings aside, if my appendix bursts, I’m going to see a doctor and not some name randomly chosen from the Boston phone book. Because as arrogant and out of touch as some doctors can be, they actually know a thing or two about burst appendixes that a random name from the phone book probably won’t. Yes, they also make mistakes and don’t always get it right, but I like my odds a lot better with someone who actually has some experience performing surgery. Yes, populism sure is making life difficult for the chattering classes, but it’s also driving us off a cliff.

Second, since you like analogies, suppose the pulpit of your church became vacant and several pastoral candidates were being interviewed. Supposed it came to light that one of those candidates had the enthusiastic support of the local gay rights organization. Would you agree with me that the fact that one of your church’s most bitter enemies wants that person to be the pastor is a pretty good argument against calling that person to be the pastor?

Putin feels about the US the same way the local gay rights group feels about your church: He hates us, he wants us to fail, he wants to destroy our influence, he considers us an obstacle to his desires. And the fact that he thinks it’s a great thing that Trump is our president is frankly terrifying, or should be if the populists had the sense to be terrified. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but you and your fellow populists got snookered by someone who is not just a con artist, but a very dangerous con artist. This is not going to end well.

Mike

I was hoping you could expound upon a point that was made in the book Fidelity. The first chapter says to those young men, like myself, who are not married but struggle with sexual purity, to marry. It is added that those who are not practically able to marry are to work toward being able to provide for a wife in the future. And this is my concern: I am a student in Bible College with a part-time job, and I am wondering if it is possible in your opinion to reach a place of being able to provide for a wife while upholding my responsibilities and privileges for study. How can I wisely tend to my responsibilities of studying and work, (around 10-12 hours a week) for the purpose of being able to provide for a woman? Must I take another job? Must I spread out my credits more thin in order to be able to work more?

I read that portion of the book and immediately felt a pressure to work more hours or a job with higher pay. But I found encouragement, which I’m not sure if it is false or not, that you did not say what the line is that must be crossed, but the act of working itself for that purpose is the point.

Would you please expand on this to give practical steps for fellas like me?

Thank you very much,

Jake

I recently watched your recent interview with James White concerning clarifications about “federal vision.” However, looming like a boogeyman in the background was “Lutheranism.” You were concerned that the “oatmeal stout” variety was too Lutheran. I assume from the context it has something to do with the sacraments. As a Confessional Lutheran pastor, I’m curious: why have you made Lutheranism into a byword? I’d be interested in having a discussion about this.

Advent blessings,

Rev. Matthew

As my son tugs and climbs and scratches his way up my body; I am curious about the mentality of R Scott Clark and your other opponents. You have spent the last 17 years since the 2002 Auburn Avenue Conference teaching and preaching the Bible faithfully in accordance with the Word of God and the historic Reformed faith. As you say in your recent Plodcast you could sign a statement on Sola Fide that is orthodox and edifying and you would still be a heretic to them.

I was recently engaging with a fellow who I’m guessing is a RSC fanboy and he was going after your Federal Vision No Mas article and saying it wasn’t clear what you were saying but you are still a FVer or whatever. He made the point that you could sign such a statement and that he still wouldn’t believe you. Here are his exact words . . .

“Part of the issue is that we suspect these men not merely of being heretics, but of being dishonest heretics. We suspect them not merely of holding to hellbound views but also of lying about it. I think there is a definite place for mercy and charity but I also don’t think it’s quite as simple as ‘listen to their denials.’”

And there you have it, an unanswerable argument. Hopefully your dialogue with Dr. White today will make a difference.

Soli Deo gloria!

Anthony

I read Brandon Adams’ blog post to which you recently responded. In the interaction he had with Pastor Toby, Toby admitted that he takes issue with the original Federal Vision Statement at the following:

“We deny that continuance in this covenant in the Garden was in any way a payment for work rendered.”

Toby said that this is a clear overstatement, and Brandon responded by claiming it was “not simply careless overstatement. It precisely states Shepherd’s carefully articulated view.”

In your Federal Vision No Mas post you stated

“I would still want affirm everything I signed off on in the Federal Vision statement, but would also want to point out two things about that statement. First, it was a consensus document. I would now want to go further in some directions with that statement while other signatories would almost certainly want to go further in other directions . . . Some of those areas of divergence would be highlighted in the postscript to the statement . . . In short, I believe the statement was fine as far as it went, but does not say everything that needs to be said.”

I know ellipses can be dangerous. Hopefully I didn’t leave out anything crucial. My questions are

1) Given the recent critique by Brandon and subsequent interaction with Toby, do you affirm the original Statement about continuance in the Garden covenant not being “in any way” a payment for work rendered? Do you, like Toby, consider it an overstatement?

2) Does the postscript to the original Statement and your mention of it in the quote above address the differences Toby and presumably you have with the aforementioned part of the Statement about the covenant in the Garden? Honestly it didn’t look to me like it did, though it did mention a difference in how some FV people thought about Christ’s sacrifice. As I read it did not directly address Adam’s covenantal obligations.

Please pardon any oversight if the answers were in plain sight and I overlooked them on my part.Thank you.

David

Just wanted to say a completely unqualified and heartfelt thank you for everything you plodcast and write.

Douglas

I watched the first of the Reformed Basics videos last night and thought it was pretty good. It almost begs a longer discussion of God’s sovereignty to follow it. This is a critical issue in the church today because it is a stumbling point for most.

Coming out of a dispensational background myself, I wrestled with the clear statements of man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty throughout scripture. What finally tipped me over was the very defense of Arminianism: God knows who will accept Christ and those are the elect. I realized that if God knows who will ultimately accept Christ of their own will and knows those who will not accept Christ, and if God is good and desires that everyone of their own will accept Christ, then why would He create anyone who would not accept Christ? The only two answers that came to mind were: 1. God doesn’t know who will accept Christ—in which case he’s not God; and 2) In order to set up the situations where the elect will accept Christ there needs to be non-elect to provoke the decision for Christ—aka an exceedingly weak form of predestination. At that point I accepted the clear statements of Scripture regarding the sovereignty of God in salvation.

I still wrestled with man’s responsibility however. But two illustrations helped me out—you gave similar ones in the video. When an author writes a murder mystery, say about a serial killer, no one decries the author as evil because they have evil characters in the book, even though it is the author’s story. Moreover, the story isn’t about the crimes, it’s about the apprehension of the killer. Scripture says the Lord is the author of salvation, not the author of sin. The story is about the salvation, not about the sin.

The other illustration is more esoteric. Two parallel lines by definition cannot have a common origin—the lines never cross. But you can posit a common origin if the origin is a point at an infinite distance away. We have a hard time understanding how God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility can “cross,” unless we understand that both originate in the infinite God who is outside the system.

Lastly, where Paul says where sin abounds grace abounds more, profoundly affected me. I’m of the opinion that those whom God ordained to salvation are more strongly affected (infected) by the sin principle than those who are not ordained. They may or may not have visible, symptomatic sins equal to the “infection,” but the sin infection is stronger. So there is no cause for pride in salvation, rather it is an overwhelmingly humbling gift from God to the point of wonder. How could He possibly choose me? The contrast between the Pharisee and the publican becomes very personal: it always brings tears to me.

Anyway, I think the video was a pithy advertisement for a more in-depth treatment. Looking forward to watching the other two.

James

As one of your blind readers, it was very helpful adding the ability for us to hear your blog posts read by an actual human voice instead of a screen reader.

So how much more of a treat it was to hear you reading Heidelfog.

There is just something about hearing an author narrate his own writing.

I know you probably can’t do it for all your posts but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate it!

I really enjoy your work and have benefited from you for several years.

Blessings,

Michael

Re: Heidelfog. While emerging from American Fundagelicalism, I took the time to read and understand the Westminster Standards to the best of my humble ability. Even though I didn’t end up subscribing to them and am no expert, I think your positions relative to paedocommunion, theonomy, and postmillenialism are rather clear and easy to describe—you are a consistent Presbyterian. So you got that going for you.

Grace and peace,

David

Pastor Wilson, man, I am proud of you for addressing this. I just read all 208 pages of “Reformed Is Not Enough” yesterday, and although I was not comfortable with all the language, maybe one could say, redefining of some concepts, you have been wrongly attacked on this Federal Vision issue for far too long.. And I agree, it’s the softness of many of those who claim to be reformed that champion this attack.

Nicholas

I am a Reformed Christian pastor not living in the USA (hooray! … I am in Africa). :-)

I have tried through many years to read as widely as possible within the reformed tradition, also all or most sides of “Machen’s Warrior Children” (Frame), past and present. Not always easy to follow or understand.

I try to read both sides of the debates, and in RS Clark’s newest article, he says this:

“That congregation is controversial because of its senior minister, Doug Wilson, who is notorious for publishing a plagiarized defense of southern slavery, a plagiarized book on Christian ethics, as well as for his advocacy of the self-described Federal Vision theology. Wilson was rebuked by his own federation of churches for his mishandling of two pastoral cases, one involving a pedophile and the other involving a rapist. The documentation of these controversies is noted below.”

Now I want to hear both sides of this issues, can you refer me to any online articles that I can read about these issues from your side, and if you going to answer this latest article by RS Clark?

Thanks, would really appreciate any answers.

Some will say, don’t bother, stay out of it, but both you and RS Clark’s ministries/books have been helpful to me and others, and one need to know about these accusations, and what one recommends to the sheep, hope you understand.

Slabbert

I was reading your book, The Rhetoric Companion, and in chapter 3 you said that you want students meaning both the practicing student and the lifelong student) to read good books and read a lot of books. You mentioned examples of writers for the “good books” section, but not for the “a lot of books” section. You said that students at New St. Andrews read, “. . . one or two (good) books a week.” What constitutes a “good” book in this sense? I was just wondering. Does it have to be Dante’s Divine Comedy or will something else suffice as “good”?

Colton

I was quite surprised to see you surmise that “John Mark” was the rich young ruler, when it seems evident that the naked young boy in Mark was Mark. Seems like at least a decade of difference.

Lance

My wife and I finally finished Man Rampant. First, I want to say well done, from production quality to content, you all knocked it out. I am hopeful that many Christians are encouraged to do the same when it comes to these things.

My question comes from the talk with Uncle Gary. I am a FLF club member so I have benefited from hearing all I can on post-mil and as a staunch pre-mil dispensationalist, I want to understand how to reconcile 2 Tim 3:1-7 with post-mil. If you have written on this already, I would appreciate those references.

Also, my friends who are also pre-mil and I have met and had a council . . . resolved: we would like you to know we love all you are doing, but we don’t believe we are defeated and we are strong pre-mil not soft. (That comment comes with us buying your drink in love).

Keep up all you are doing!

JP

Our present culture (both secular and ecclesiastical) certainly is giving you plenty of material to address.

One day, years from now, when postmillennial becomes a thing rather than a term of reference, your successors will sit and wonder what to write about.

Until then, thanks for all your work.

Laurence