Letters Appear, as if By Magic

Thank you for faithfully pointing us to God’s design as revealed through His word.

Within your October 21st response to Rachel Miller, in your 8th paragraph, you wrote:

“If my fundamental identity is to be found in Christ, which it is, then I must accept that fundamental identity. I must receive it. And what I am—my nationality, my ancestry, my sex—are all part of the I that must accept that identity. And when we surrender to Christ as our ultimate reality, the things that describe us, such as our sex, are not zeroed out. Rather they are surrendered, and then glorified. Redeemed men and women will be men and women, respectively, forever.”

Most human beings, professing Christians included, are preoccupied with their self-defined identity. Christians honor God by enjoying the differences He created among us, and Christians sin against Him by elevating any part of our identity above our union with Christ. Some elements of our created identity, like our bodies, will endure through eternity even as they will be perfectly changed. Meanwhile, some elements of earthly identity will not (e.g. I won’t remain married to my wife in heaven). Somewhere in between ends of that spectrum, I think, we would find factors like ethnicity, nationality and all of our personal preferences. You said that “Redeemed men and redeemed women will be men and women, respectively, forever.” What more can you say about how we ought to rightly weight facets of identity, particularly elements that will endure eternally vs. others that perhaps won’t, in light of our fundamental identity in Christ?

Looking forward to November.

Alec

Adam and Eve on the Inside

On point as usual.

“And this is what I mean by a false alternative. She is assuming that there are two options. Either the Bible begins and ends with authority and submission, OR it is the story of Jesus from start to finish. So which do you choose? Authority and submission or Jesus? I choose Jesus! Was that the right answer?”

Tim Keller does this all of the time on twitter.

Here’s one example from him: “There are only two ways to read the Bible: is it basically about me or basically about Jesus. What must I do, or what has he done?”

Yes if those are my only two choices Jesus all the way. But

Question 5

What do the scriptures principally teach?

The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Tim

R.E. Marriage on our own terms. You mentioned in a letter to the editor you may have to write more on this subject, I would kindly petition you to do that. If marriage is on our own terms, then what we are asking is for God to respect our autonomy.

Justin

You have been an enormous blessing to me and my household. I have learned more from you than I even realize and am grateful to God for how he has used you to shape me into the man I am today. Just want you to know where these thoughts come from . . .

I appreciate your willingness to learn here. I am not as studied as my wife, Tiffany, is but we talk about these issues an awful lot because of vaccine injuries to two of our four children (#3 and #4). She has compiled mountains of research, but a quick perusal through the comments on this post and I can tell that if I were to pile them up here there is no way you would get to them (you have thousands of other ones to read first!). We could point you to resources, for example, that prove the complete unreliability of vaccine safety (they are not tested for safety) and that prove the corruption of the regulatory agencies themselves (CDC, FDA). For today’s purposes, it is probably true that the two aborted children (from 1964 and 1970) who were used in vaccine manufacturing are not disputed, but there are also only-God-knows-how-many-more children being murdered to advance the cause of vaccine research today.

For example, Walvax-2 fetal cell line was developed in 2015 in China to replace the MRC-5 fetal cell line. 9 babies were aborted during the development of Walvax-2 (Sorry, I don’t know why the link isn’t active. If you copy/paste the following in your browser it should work)…

Next, here is a youtube clip of the deposition of Dr. Plotkin (regarded as one of the central figures in the development of vaccines from aborted fetal cells), which details 76 children being murdered for a single vaccine study (copy/paste)…

In addition, here is a well written article that was a response to Joe Carter’s laughable article on The Gospel Coalition (included in this article is a link to the whole deposition of Dr. Plotkin, if interested)…

As they say, there is more where that came from.

Chris

Dear All,

I read this article with especial interest primarily due to 2 reasons;

1) I followed Pastor Wilson’s writings for a long time; to be precise since 2001 so I hold him in regard for his biblical position on certain social topics

2) I develop human vaccines for a living and an especially concerned with some of the perspectives put forth which shows a technical lack of understanding

I hope I can speak authoritatively on the following points while trusting God that He will clarify this difficult topic for us.

1) It is not completely true that vaccine development are premised upon using human derived cell lines in these modern times. All the vaccines in our pipelines are based on non-human derived cell lines.

2) It is also not true that host cell lines regardless of non-human derived or otherwise will run out of supply. If the inventory are properly managed with a two-tiered cell banking approach, it can last for centuries.

3) Some of the discussion regarding residual host cell DNA which may be valid is older licensed but no longer valid for vaccines of these modern times. All the vaccine is product developed by my company undergoes DNA and comply with the specifications set forth by applicable health authorities. In fact, when the process is able to deliver product with residual host cell DNA at the level of ng/ml, it speaks very powerfully about the impurities removal efficiency and effectiveness of the modern vaccine manufacturing process.

If anyone has any specific questions that I can help answer on vaccines development, I will be happy to do so.

Thanks

Lawrence

I wanted to let you know I am thoroughly enjoying Man Rampant season 1 on Amazon Prime. I am currently on episode 3 where you converse with Aaron Renn.

Before I contest a statement made by Renn during that episode, I have to first qualify it by stating that I highly appreciated his newsletter and the tremendous amount of thought and work that he put into them. I also want to testify to his generous character in that prior to his recent discontinuing of his newsletter he reached out to all subscribers and committed to sharing the email addresses of those who were interested in making contact with fellow subscribers in their area. I imagine this required a good bit of work on his end, but it was a commitment to which he made good on only a couple of days later.

While holding Aaron with high regard I want to contest his negative statement on Driscoll’s character and ministry.
In the episode Arron states, “Driscoll’s ministry imploded. (Jordan) Peterson is very clear that he feels empathy and that he’s there to help. Peterson actually shows a concern for them. In the military they break you down but they also build you back up. Driscoll was much more, ‘I am going to break you down and I am just going to keep breaking you down.’ And there was never that much building up. You have to give somebody something that they can use.”

As someone who has highly benefited from Driscoll’s teaching and preaching (through distance learning only), I never felt that way about him or got that impression from his ministry. Part of the reason I highly appreciated (and still highly appreciate) his ministry was due to the very fact that I was never left torn down but was always built up with the gospel. I owe much of who I am today to that man and his ministry (the seriousness in which I take my relationship with God, my better understanding of important biblical doctrines, the assuming of my God-appointed masculine responsibilities towards women in general, and understanding my God-appointed mission to think long term and to think godly legacy by taking on the responsibility of a wife and raising children in the Lord). I attribute a large part of my growing up in to mature manhood in Christ Jesus (which includes exercising godly sympathy and authority) to Driscoll.

Though I don’t know for certain, just from the outside looking in to the ministry at Seattle and basing it solely on what I experienced from him in the pulpit and what I know about the nature of weak men with beta syndrome (particularly when it comes to biblical truth bearing down on their lives requiring obedience), my deductive reasoning leads me to believe that it “imploded” due more to church politics and officers who worked against him in so much of the good work that he was trying to push forward than to him just being harsh and never caring about people. When I recommended his sermons to other men, I usually found that those who never really appreciated his teaching or were turned off by him were those that never really wanted to be built up in the first place. Not all that different from the typical sentiments towards your sermons and teachings. I don’t attribute this to you guys missing something, but to you guys being on to something.

And I’m not certain if it’s fair to say that his ministry “imploded” (if that meant he wasn’t faithful) any more than it would be fair to say Paul’s ministry imploded when he was stoned and ran out of cities and left for dead or because he was battling for authority with the Corinthians. Or if Johnathan Edwards’s ministry “imploded” when he was fired out of his church over his views on church discipline and communion. Could it be possible that Driscoll was truly pursuing righteousness but just got out-maneuvered by the opposing team? He lost that battle but he’s still waging war.

Even if Driscoll did have issues in his ways of dealing with individuals and leaders within the church that he needed to change (and by his own admission he did recognize some things), I wouldn’t have been one to burn the entire forest down just because of few rotten trees. He’s just done me too much good and provided me to much help when nobody else had the courage to do so. You won’t catch me filing any hurt feelings reports on him.

Rope

I watched the episode of you and Ben Merkle on Man Rampant on Amazon Prime. After watching that episode, I felt like the kid on the tricycle at the end of the Incredibles movie: “That was totally awesome!” I will make sure to put the other episodes on my list to watch on Amazon. I didn’t have the time to binge watch the series, so I’ll have to plod (gleefully!) through these. Thank you all for creating it!

David

In all your studies on masculinity, I wonder if you’ve come across a little book called The Way of Men by Jack Donovan. The author is certainly not a Christian, and the substance of his positions depart significantly from biblical notions of manhood, but there certainly is no small degree of overlap of what he is saying and what you are saying. I’d love to see you review and/or interact with the book. It’s very short and to the point.

Joe

As the DNC debates escalate I am noticing one candidate who seems to be the cream of their crop. Andrew Yang shares some of the same social liberalism as his peers (which disqualifies him in regards to my vote) but to be fair it seems to be a Lite version. What intrigues me is his UBI plan. I have listened to him discuss it in long interview form (on Rogan, Durbin, Shapiro) and it almost seems to be rooted in capitalistic ideals. I’m not sure if you have even looked into it but I’d be interested in your thoughts. He is definitely distinct from most of the drivel from the DNC, with Tulsi seeming to be the only other sane adult.

Regardless, looking forward to November.

Marcus

On Monday, May 13, 2019, DW wrote a post on Inescapable Incrementalism. While I enjoyed the post, I think I discovered a small error in the reference to Romans. According to my research, the Colosseum was not built until after the letter to Rome was penned. This would account for a lack of reference to the games in the letter, not a strategic omission as suggested. I don’t know if you make edits afterwards or if I am in error, but I thought to bring it up for your consideration. Thanks for all the great posts, I really enjoy this blog.

David

I thank God for your ministry and for what he is doing thru you. I enjoy your way of writing and explaining a point thank you and God bless you.

Isaac

In regards to A Grand Puree of Sorrow.

I used to think the woke crowd was believing in the infallibility of black people, but they reject many blacks. Now I think they believe in the infallibility of the “black experience.” The white experience is inherently false as it is built on a lie, but the black experience is inherently true. We must accept the claims about the black experience without any criticism, doubt, or hesitation. We must also reject the claims about the white experience as not only is it false but also undermines ones understanding of the gospel. This is, as best as I can tell, the essence of getting woke.

Additionally: Why is it that the woke crowd is always lecturing white people on their blindspots but never mention blindspots non-whites have including themselves?

Timothy

Would you be willing to interact with Thabiti’s post making a biblical case for the principle of reparations?

Nick

Off topic question: Given your enthusiasm for Lewis, I have been reading a fair bit of his work. He absolutely confuses me in Transposition when he speaks about Heaven. First, do you have any idea where he is getting his frankly bizarre ideas? Second, can you give me a sentence or two about what you teach regarding what we will be like in Heaven?

Thanks for all your work.

BJ