Friday, March 30, 2018
Archaeological Evidence for the New Testament
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The Meaning of Fideism, the Preservation of Scripture, and King James Only
Hell is eternal torment. Even annihilation, the belief of some, is preferable. I think most would say far preferable. It's so horrible, hell, that the invention of a kind of holding tank for hell, purgatory, was invented as an alternative. Except scripture doesn't teach annihilation or purgatory. They might make sense to someone, but they aren't in the Bible. We believe in hell, what it actually is, because of what the Bible says. That's all we've got for it. It's fideistic -- no empirical evidence, against human reasoning, just based on scripture alone.
The hardest things to believe require faith. You can believe some easy things that don't seem like they are faith. I believe sin is destructive. That's not hard. I can see it. The Bible teaches it, but it's not hard to believe. Some you just believe, even though it's hard, and that's how you know you're operating by faith. I agree that scripture has to teach it, but you believe it anyway. Someone can be weak in faith and believe all the easiest things to believe. The hard things to believe are also usually where the faith is attacked the most.
Instead of preaching the gospel today, I see marketing, which is more empirical and makes more sense as a strategy. It's what happens when someone moves outside of faith, fideism. Offering small toys or a gift for coming takes almost no faith, but it's where evangelicalism and fundamentalism are at. I can go to a local evangelical church, bring the ad, and get a free gift (not salvation)! That's instead of evangelism. This is what you get when people are not living by faith. There's evidence that it works.
“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (246) This question of the relation between reason—here represented by Athens—and faith—represented by Jerusalem—was posed by the church father Tertullian (c.160–230 CE), and it remains a central preoccupation among contemporary philosophers of religion.
“Fideism” is the name given to that school of thought—to which Tertullian himself is frequently said to have subscribed—which answers that faith is in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason. In contrast to the more rationalistic tradition of natural theology, with its arguments for the existence of God, fideism holds—or at any rate appears to hold (more on this caveat shortly)—that reason is unnecessary and inappropriate for the exercise and justification of religious belief. The term itself derives from fides, the Latin word for faith, and can be rendered literally as faith-ism. “Fideism” is thus to be understood not as a synonym for “religious belief,” but as denoting a particular philosophical account of faith’s appropriate jurisdiction vis-a-vis that of reason.
19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: 20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
I will neither presuppose Christianity is true apart from the need for positive evidence (fideism, presuppositionalism or Reformed epistemology) or suppose that by amassing legions of historical facts we can convince someone of Christian truth (evidentialism). Rather, I will offer a variety of arguments that verify or confirm the Christian worldview as superior to its rivals, thus showing that Christianity alone makes the most sense of the things that matter most.
C. Stephen Evans in Faith Beyond Reason (pp. 17-19) classifies famed presuppositionalist Cornelius Van Til as an irrational fideist. Then Evans also classifies Alvin Plantinga as a responsible fideist (pp. 41-47). In a Dictionary of Christian Theology (p. 129), Alan Richardson defined it as “a pejorative term." Even though I think people should claim fideism in a legitimate way, and it shouldn't be considered poisonous as a label, it is very often weaponized to deligitimize a biblical belief and teaching.
Every word of God was available to every generation of believers before the English King James translation. They translated from something and all five Beza editions existed before that (1556, 1565, 1582, 1589, and 1598). Robert Stephanus had four editions before the King James Version (1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551). My position, like the Westminster divines of the 17th century, is that the original manuscripts of the Bible are not distinct from the copies in possession. What is an error in one copy is corrected in another. The words are available. You don't believe in preservation if you believe there is no settled text and that the text is in ongoing need of restoration. You don't believe what scripture says about preservation if you believe that. Scripture is evidence.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Not Believing God Is and Should Be A Problem in Denying Perfect Preservation of Scripture
Friday, March 23, 2018
Evan Roberts & the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905: His Education & "Preaching": Part 2 of 22
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
The Destructive Instinct of Evangelicalism and Now Fundamentalism for and with Celebrity
When I attended a Bible college and seminary in the 1980s, the founder and president incessantly talked about its grads going into "full time service" and touted full time service, full time service, and more full time service. He may have been wrong on his statistics, but I heard him all the time talking about 90 plus percent going into full time service. The words "full time service" are not in the Bible. I would contend that every Christian is in full time service for and to the Lord, but I also get what Dr. Cedarholm, as we called him, B. Myron Cedarholm, was talking about. He wanted the students in full time Christian service, meaning pastors, missionaries, "evangelists," Christian school teachers, and any other positions like that.
At that time in fundamentalism, at least at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, full time service was normal talk. I don't remember any celebrity syndrome, at least in the circles I was in. At Maranatha, we did have a gold medal wrestling coach, Ben Peterson, who was also a Maranatha seminary graduate, married to a Maranatha graduate. While I was there, Mike Houk, one of our wrestlers, became the first world champion in United States history for Greco-Roman wrestling. Even though we had celebrities in that sense, these men were not lauded much for those accomplishments. You might say they were just regular dudes on campus, no different than anyone else for those accomplishments.
At Maranatha at the time, there was no push at all for people to go out into the world and work a "secular job." That's not what Maranatha was for. It was to produce full time Christian workers, church workers, and Dr. Cedarholm emphasized that in no uncertain terms. It was pushed and pushed and pushed. It wasn't whether you would go into full time service, but where and how you were going to serve. I don't think that whole idea was proven scripturally ever to me, but it had an influence on all of us who there in that era. I don't remember, let's call it, "celebrity-ism" being a problem in fundamentalism at that time, unless I was missing something.
Yes, there were celebrity Christians, in the sense of big-named preachers. You could become a big fish in a small pond, but there were no "worldly" celebrities that anyone pointed up. In my consideration, as I remember it, I would have been ashamed of myself if I didn't go into full time service.
The reasoning for going Christian and not secular, which is how it hashed itself out, was in no given order: time is short, the laborers are few, eternity is long, God is worth it, people are going to hell, nothing is more important, you only have one life, nothing is better, everything else is temporal, the church is the most important and greatest institution, Christians are different, believers judge importance differently, among many other related reasons. All of these still apply when you start to decide what you will do with your life.
With everything I just said, in my entire Christian school class of around 40 more or less, only two of us are pastors. I know of at least one other pastor's wife, I think, and I'm not trying to miss anybody. I attended Maranatha Baptist Academy in Watertown, WI.
Maranatha had a sports program: football, basketball, soccer, baseball, volleyball, softball, a little bit of track and field and cross country. I lettered four years in football and basketball and track and field, the latter at the college wasn't taken seriously. We didn't have a track or field. We just ran. I didn't practice the high jump or long jump. I just jumped at meets to get more points. But I remember looking over and seeing Dr. Cedarholm standing on the side of the track alone, watching us run. No one else was there. It did make an impression at the time. Dr. Cedarholm was a bit of a celebrity himself. He was a giant in the history of fundamentalism, had himself participated in the starting of hundreds of churches, but also graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1940, having lettered in football, track, baseball, tennis, and water polo. We all knew this about him, but he never ever brought it up. He would mention sports, but I don't remember him talking about his personal accolades.
Things have changed today, and mostly not for the better, especially related to celebrity. I think there is evidence for this all over. I see it with Bob Jones University invitation to Tim Tebow to come to campus there. In a bigger picture, cultural way, I'm a Tim Tebow fan. He gets attacked for his faith by the public. We should defend that aspect of and for him. However, I think it's a blatant, serious error that BJU is inviting him to campus, promoting him in a fundraiser, because of his celebrity. Sure, they can raise more money, but there are other ways this will cause serious damage, because it sends the wrong message about what is important. Tebow himself is a compromiser and contrary to the historic values of fundamentalism and by having him, it really doesn't matter if someone compromises like him.
Maranatha now has its celebrities with Nate Oats coaching Buffalo men's basketball and Tom Allen coaching Indiana football. In and of themselves, there's nothing wrong with having a job in the secular world, and these are high paying jobs, which determines a certain amount of success on their part. When I was in college, what they've done would have been discouraged for all the reasons I gave above. Dr. Cedarholm would not have emphasized these accomplishments, because it's not what he wanted. He wanted full time Christian servants. You will get more of what you emphasize. If I was good enough to have "gone on to succeed in the world," Maranatha would have seen that as a sort of failure and would have mourned the loss. Instead of preaching, he went for the worldly success is how it would have looked and been framed at the time. I would have agreed. I still do.
I don't think we should promote worldly success. I think we should be lifting up mainly those who give up their lives to preach and evangelize. I don't think we should be pushing our Christian kids in a different direction. I believe that Jesus had this in mind when He said on various occasions something like, "let the dead bury the dead." Unbelievers can bury the dead. Only believers can do the work of the Lord. We need more Christian workers. There is more to what I'm saying than just going on to worldly success. It includes the temptations for these celebrities that are emulated. How many of them stay pure in their secular roles?
I would assume that Nate Oats or Tom Allen would have benefited from their time at Maranatha. I'm sure that the biblical teaching still helps them and comes out in what they do. However, can they really live all of the Bible and remain in those positions? Should this not be taken into consideration in what they do?
The #BuffaloBulls head coach Nate Oats has expressed his commitment to LGBTQ inclusion #MarchMadnesshttps://t.co/h9xKvHDeWq pic.twitter.com/Cwk3iL1xiW— Outsports (@outsports) March 16, 2018
Scripture doesn't exalt the tentmaking of the Apostle Paul. When the disciples came back from evangelism in Luke 10 and they talked about the devils being subject to them in Jesus' name, the Lord said, "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Even certain good things He did not want them to promote. Paul's celebrity he called, "dung." Whatever he could glorify in a secular sense, he counted as loss. None of it was important.
If someone is a hardworking breadwinner, of good character, and a faithful husband and father, celebrity will not come from that. As churches, we don't want to emphasize what the world sees as popular or important. In certain instances, we want to rebuke it or repudiate it. Celebrity should not stop us from doing that, just because we feel the glow from the celebrity or the knowledge of the celebrity. It adds nothing to the value of Christ, His life and truth, and His institution.
I include in this essay my own son. He graduated first in his class from a charter school and was accepted at West Point. He served in the United States embassy in Poland. He's a Captain in the U. S. Army, who has qualified for special forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. What difference does any of that make if he's not faithful to God? Is any of that any better than if I reported that he was a local manager at a 7-11 and in his church, evangelizing weekly and living for Jesus Christ? I don't believe so. All of his accomplishments should be nothing but a means to an end. If it gets in the way of his faithfulness to God, it should not be celebrated. Like I said above, it should be mourned. If he can't and is not going to use it for God, then it is worthless. It means nothing. I see the Army as a potential threat of what is eternal and of true importance. I tell him that all the time. He assures me he wants to be used of God. I will be happy if that is the case. If I say anything on this blog about what he's doing, it's because I have people read here who know the family and would want to know what's happening.
The instinct in evangelicalism and now fundamentalism toward celebrity is a destructive one. It won't help. It could only hurt. If believers reach celebrity, we should not celebrate the celebrity. We should rejoice only that their names are written down in heaven.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Masculine Pastors: The Battle They Face and Will Face Even More
At 55 years of age, I no longer participate in competitive sports. When I did, if, as a pastor, I competed hard, like a man, some took offense to that kind of intensity, and would suggest this wasn't fitting of the office. Should the activity or manner of a pastor be conformed to others' perception of what they think he should be?
Manly talk manifests characteristics of manhood: strength, confidence, and tenacity. My experience with the men of my generation and older is that as a whole they speak in a different way than younger generations of men, the same for pastors. In general they lack the before ascribed qualities.
In addition, the old way of talking as a man is now not tolerated, especially by the younger generation. They don't want the kind of talk that comes from older men. When the younger generation wants to say whatever it wants to say, it expects capitulation from the older. The younger may term the older, "thinskinned." What I often hear from the younger generation is what my generation calls a "smart mouth," which has a definition: "an ability or tendency to make impertinent retorts; impudence." My generation didn't tolerate a smart mouth. Today it is expected.
Today many of a softer generation would see the strength of a former to be an instinct to authoritarianism. Every generation sees some tendency to authoritarian leadership. Today talking with a command voice and speaking with authority is confused for authoritarianism. Authoritarians do both, but being a leader necessitates authority, which also requires both command voice and authoritative manner.
I understand that there are verses that taken apart from the rest of scripture might seem to portray a softer view of a church leader. Two come to mind.
2 Timothy 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Kethiv / Qere and King James Only (KJVO) or Perfect Preservation
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Why Should Men Protect or Defend Women If They Aren't or Can't Be In Charge of Women?
Friday, March 09, 2018
Evan Roberts & the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905: His conversion (?): Part 1 of 22
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
Wednesday, March 07, 2018
The Epistle to the Galatians and Evangelicalism or New Evangelicalism: Slaves or Sons
The slave and the son are the same person in Galatians. The Master and the Father are also the same Person. It's a matter of perspective. Slavery isn't a goal. It's a means to an end, and parents can understand. You want a child who believes in what the parents are telling him, so that he'll do it on his own. He'll do it out of love because he believes.
The son has a change in nature. The theology of it is that he is a son because of the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, so that he now has the nature of a son, instead of a slave. He can keep the requirements now and he wants to keep them now too. If you don't see him keeping the requirements, you can question his sonship. He can't or won't fulfill them on his own.
Evangelicalism and new evangelicalism have as a whole spotlighted the content or the standard, which isn't the issue in Galatians. Those who focus on the standard do so because they either want to add or take away from the standard, which occurs in one of two ways in Galatians. However, both are fixating on the standard.
The corruption of Galatians, where the standard is the focus, occurs one of two ways. The two ways could be reduced to just one. The false teachers added either circumcision, dietary restrictions, or calendar. Those three were not even requirements any more and this is where the two ways dovetail. The other way is not keeping requirements, which is turning liberty into license. Why circumcision, dietary restrictions, and the calendar? These were things you could do as a slave, they weren't hard to practice. You could easily conform to those standards.
Once you were circumcised, nothing was required, which would have been the occurrence for every Jewish male. If you were female, no requirement there. Dietary restrictions were how you grew up eating, if you were a Jew -- that was only hard for a Gentile, who wasn't accustomed to it. The days were also just how you lived. What was impossible was fruit of the Spirit and abstaining from works of the flesh. Those were impossible as a slave.
When you reduce righteousness to the keeping of a few requirements, then you are all set to opt out of other requirements. Love doesn't drop requirements. It does them with a different perspective. It does even more than if it was just a requirement. The son, differing from the slave, keeps all of the requirements because he wants to do them, but it is even more. He's got a great attitude while he does it, because he can, due to his new nature, and because he really wants to please His Father.
Galatians is a reminder of the story of the prodigal son, because slave and son are both part of the story. As an unbeliever, a son feels like a slave. When he chooses sonship, he wants the slavery. Paul said he was a bondslave, which is a slave, who wants to be a slave. You get to be one, because you want to be one. And you can perform as a slave, because you are really a son, with the nature of a son. Ironic for the prodigal before he returned as a son was that he was a slave in the hog lot of this world, forced into a slave relationship to sin.
Galatians isn't make room for the lasciviousness of evangelicalism and new evangelicalism. It isn't changing the requirements for Christianity, but empowering or allowing the performance, proceeding from faith in Christ and out of love for Him.
Monday, March 05, 2018
Point of 2 John: Truth the Boundary of Acceptance
Friday, March 02, 2018
Help the Homeless: Buy Them Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco?
Most homeless people are not as honest as this. |