“So we must understand there are two different approaches to textual work. One expresses confidence that God has protected His Word down through history. This is a faith position — faith in God. The other presupposition says that it is up to man, through neutral, scholarly, and scientific means, to determine what the original text …
How Christ Arranged It
“The canonical books of the Old Testament are thirty-nine in number. Our Lord referred to this canonical range when He spoke of the death of certain martyrs from the Old Testament . . . (Matt. 23:35). Abel was killed toward the beginning of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Jewish canon, and …
Churches, Not Doctrine Clubs
“The headship of Jesus Christ over the church has a very practical application in issues of reformation. If a church is a Christian church at all, this means that it does not ‘have a right’ to its own doctrinal traditions. The headship of Christ means that He is the final authority, and he has set …
Not An Abstract Principle to Affirm, But a Concrete Task to Complete
But who gave any of us permission to be an eschatological pessimist? Not Jesus Christ. He said that all authority in heaven and on earth was His, and that our job was to disciple the nations. He wasn’t giving us something to shoot for; He was giving us something to do” (Mother Kirk, p. 42).
Looking Up in Faith
“This doctrine of the triumph of the gospel encourages, and the fact that we need encouraging should be evident . . . A modern Christian has been watching the news on his nineteen-inch color TV set, in the living room of his home. He switches the set off and comments to his wife that the …
Not Of Him Who Wills, Or Who Smiles for the Camera
“Before the foundation of the world, the Father chose a people for Himself, and He did so without any regard to any choices, merit, or boyish good looks on the part of those chosen” (Mother Kirk, p. 38).
Ultimacy and Infallibility
“The Bible teaches us that God has established religious authorities other than Scripture (the church and parents being two obvious examples), but these other authorities are not ultimate and they are not infallible. Ultimacy and infallibility are reserved to Scripture alone. Unlike the Roman Catholics we must not elevate other authorities to the level of …
All That We Need
“The sufficiency of Scripture also excludes the idea that there is any continuing revelation from the Holy Spirit given to the modern church — whether that revelation purports to come from charismatic ‘prophets,’ the holy-ghost-uh inspiring an utterance from the pastor’s wife, an impressive succession of bishops and popes, or from inner leadings, leanings, impressions, …
Proves Evolution
“This is true in the realm of science, so believers must assert the account of a six-day creation in Genesis, and reject the various mythologies surrounding evolution, and do so root and branch (Rom. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:13-14). Few things are as funny as the spectacle of grown men asserting a family resemblance between a …
A Long River
“With this in mind, the point is to recall the reader to the ancient biblical faith, which, as it has fought faithfully down through the ages, has acquired many different names as the war progressed — Catholics, Waldensians, Huguenots, Calvinists, Methodists, Puritans. Some names have been corrupted and lost, and others made irrelevant by the …