Just a few more comments in response to Green Baggins’ latest. I think we have already covered the basic issues, but a few points really need to be emphasized. The first is that I agree that our inability to get the church in history to correspond name-for-name with the church in the eschaton is not …
The Halfway Covenant
Lane continues to interact with my book in his recent post on the relationship of a profession of faith with the half-way covenant. This is an issue that, in my view, requires some untangling. First, let me summarize was the half-way covenant actually did. The New England Puritans were paedobaptists, but they required a (high-bar) …
Vipers in Diapers?
Green Baggins is nearing the end of his chapter by chapter review of “Reformed” Is Not Enough, and thus far I think it is fair to say that he has not found anything that would place me outside the pale of Reformed orthodoxy as he defines it. He has found multiple places where he think …
What Ritual Can Do
Baptism in water can be a complicated subject—and yet the author of Hebrews treats it as one of the Christian “basics.” This should make us wary because the evangelical Christian world doesn’t have this sorted out yet, and yet it should also make us eager to sort it out—to grow up into maturity as our …
When God Drops the Rope
If we hear a word enough, we think we know what it means. We live in a Christ sub-culture that has strongly emphasized the need to be “born again.” Without denying this need for regeneration at all, we still have to place the reality in a biblical context, lest we turn it into something entirely …
By Faith, Not By Sight
Greeen Baggins has picked up the thread again, and so shall I. There is not a lot to talk about here, but rather just a few questions to answer. Lane gives three basic ways to take the “I am righteous” language of the psalter. One is say that the psalmist is not claiming a perfect …
This Will Happen to Us Too
I was reading this morning in Luther’s Table Talk, and came across an insight that is more than a little relevant to some of our confessional and dogmatic controversies. When someone had proposed the collected works of Luther, he said this (the emphasis is mine): “I’d like all my books to be destroyed so that …
A Foundational Prayer
It is sometimes said that what is called the Lord’s prayer is not really the Lord praying, but rather is the Lord’s prayer offered to His disciples, for their use. This is helpful, but we still must not forget that this is the master of prayer teaching praying. “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our …
Christ the Lord of Song
Our motive for all that we do is to be the glory of God — even if it is something as mundane as eating or drinking (1 Cor. 10:31). How much more should we be seeking the glory of God when we are in the act of worshiping Him? Certainly, most Christians would agree that …
Is Discipline a Mark of the Church?
Church discipline is relatively rare in the modern church and, because it is rarely done, when it is done, it is too often done poorly. As with everything, we have to turn to the Scriptures for guidance and protection. “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet …