Once there was a woman who lived for the holidays. She absolutely loved the time of year, and the decorations, and the role she had in shopping, and pretty much everything else about Christmas. The only thing that was an irritant to her was the fact that the others in her extended family did not …
Living Faith
When God creates, He does so with authority. He commands light to shine out of darkness, and it obeys. He commands the earth, and the mountains to stand forth, and they do so. It is the same with our new life in Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Now in the Federal Vision controversy, when we speak …
Thanksgiving 2008
Comes now another Thanksgiving, and I have to say that I can’t get enough of them. This is a glorious harvest home music festival, one that strikes all the right notes. One of the things I have noticed over the years is that the so-called sons of Issachar (1 Chron. 12:32) tend to be on …
Different Kinds of Differences
Lane thinks that I am taking him to task because he simply affirms that saving faith must contain the element of notitia, which I also affirm. Lane requires this of adults, but argues that even infants have nascent understanding, a view I am also sympathetic with. The reason I said that Lane was (unwittingly) messing …
Saving Smarts
Here comes my latest reply to the ongoing discussion at Green Baggins. Lane is interacting with the section entitled “Reformed Catholicity” in the FV Joint Statement. As an illustration of just how much we are talking past each other, Lane says that this “statement in and of itself does not necessarily exclude all works from …
The Heart of Romans/Romans 3
INTRODUCTION: The gospel is not faith, but the gospel cannot be understood or appropriated apart from a living and evangelical faith. As the Westminster confession puts it, the faith that justifies is “no dead faith” (11.2). Another name for “not dead” is alive, or living. The gospel is objective and outside of us. But the …
Not Even by the Blackjack Dealer of Current Scholarship
The Lord “has not come into His house to be trifled with, and to have His words shuffled like a pack of cards” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 378).
Principles and Methods
The Bible tells us to strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). The many aspects of this require much thought, study and work. One particularly important area is the important distinction between principles and methods. “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes …
Pretend the Church Is a Bar
Lane has answered my catch-up posts in one post here. I will just touch on a few things in response, and then await his next installment. On the first matter, I don’t think we differ anymore. The disagreement now has to do with whether I have changed my views on this (which Lane thinks), clarified …
Called to Be an Apostle/Romans 2
INTRODUCTION: In the first message, we considered the overall nature of the book of Romans and the fact that it was a fund-raising letter. In this letter, Paul set out his gospel in a systematic fashion so that the Roman Christians would know the nature of the gospel that he desired to preach in his …