Dear Joel, Thanks for your prompt reply. Let me suggest a format for our letters, if you don’t mind. I would like to respond to your letter in this one. After I do so, the ball is still in my court to move on to the next issue. If you respond to this response, then …
Timeless Truths?
In his essay on how the Bible can be authoritative, N.T. Wright takes issue with the concept of “timeless truths.” He allows that there is a sense in which the Bible is a repository of timeless truths, but he is generally at war with the concept. “All three methods I have outlined involve a certain …
True Lovingkindness
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Our God and Father, we worship You now, in accordance with Your Word, and in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. We offer our thanks to You, for we are Your people, and You have thrown down Your enemies, to the …
Worship Topples Idols
The fundamental center of all human history is the issue of worship. In the faithful worship of the true God, we contend with the worship of all idols. Idolatrous societies structure everything around their idolatrous assumptions, and their constant ploy is to try to get true worshippers of God to share in those assumptions somehow, …
Becoming Israel
The Lord Jesus arrived in Israel two thousand years ago in order to show Israel a new way of being Israel. Of course this “new” way was the way that God had always intended; the new way was actually the old way. A new commandment I give you, John said, but it is not actually …
Rewards
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 44 Heavenly things drive earthly things. What we assume about ultimate reality is going to dictate how we behave in day-to-day matters. If we assume that the whole idea of “rewards” is somehow less than spiritual, then we have to …
The Central Thing
Speaking of the doctrine of Scripture, N.T. Wright says, “But such a doctrine usually has to be inferred. It may well be possible to infer it, but it is not (for instance) what Isaiah or Paul are talking about. Nor is it, for the most part, what Jesus is talking about in the gospels. He …
All Particulars
Our Father in Heaven, we glorify Your name, and we do so through Jesus’ name. Father, Your kindness to us extends into all particulars, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to rest before You in this way. We rejoice in the fact that it is through the rest of Your saints that the …
Petty Traditions
John Robbins continues to display one of his chief polemical attributes, which is kind of a bad attribute for a rationalist to have, to wit, his inability to follow an argument. He has recently said that one of our tactics is that of quoting John Calvin, who said “some foolish things about the sacraments.” He …
Private Judgment
Dear Joel, Thank you for bearing with my delay as I have been doing two things. First, I have been assembling my thoughts on this complicated issue, and secondly, I have been looking for an opportunity to lay them out in systematic fashion. In the letters that follow, I am not assuming that every issue …