Jul 4th, 2008 | Christianity, Culture | No Comments
God gives us impossible conundrums in order to show us our own folly, weakness and inability. Once we understand that we can’t understand everything about God, we can then surrender the effort to try to understand, an effort that leads us deeper into self and pride. We are so committed to ourselves that we often have to invent explanations of things that are simply beyond us and suit nothing but our own pathetic minds (hearts and desires to justify our sin). Once the efforts of self-explanation or self-justification are surrendered, we are then able to drop our self-made presuppositions and read Scripture without the lens we have heretofore imposed upon it, and read it in faith. But biblical faith is not mine or yours, as if it wells up inside of us. Rather, it is God’s faith in Jesus Christ, which has been imposed upon us through regeneration.
Jun 18th, 2008 | Christianity, First Corinthians | No Comments
I am arguing that the correct understanding of the miracle of tongues, broadly speaking, is the transmission of the gospel into one’s native language. That transmission can come in a variety of ways, through both extraordinary (Acts 2) and ordinary means (1 Cor 14, in the sense of translating the gospel into other languages). The Acts 2 tongues event was a genuine occurrence of a miracle through extraordinary means. However, in 1 Cor 14 Paul was not dealing with an Acts 2 miracle of tongues, but was dealing with two other issues related to tongues (neither of which were the of Acts 2 variety). In 1 Cor 14 Paul was dealing with: 1) how to handle the plethora of foreign languages (tongues) in the Corinthian church, and 2) the imitative Delphic expression of tongues that had irrupted in the midst of the Corinthian confusion.
Jun 14th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
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May 12th, 2008 | First Corinthians | No Comments
From Arsy Varsy — Reclaiming The Gospel in First Corinthians, by Phillip A. Ross, ©2008, 352 pages, Pilgrim Platform.
And if anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, each one’s work shall be revealed. For the Day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try each one’s work as to what kind it is. If anyone’s work which he built remains, he shall receive a reward. If anyone’s work shall be burned up, he shall suffer loss. But he shall be saved, yet so as by fire. Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? — 1 Corinthians 3:12-16
May 9th, 2008 | First Corinthians | No Comments
From Arsy Varsy — Reclaiming The Gospel in First Corinthians, by Phillip A. Ross, ©2008, 352 pages, Pilgrim Platform.
And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual ones, but as to fleshly, as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with solid food, for you were not yet able to bear it; nor are you able even now. For you are yet carnal. For in that there is among you envyings and strife and divisions, are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to men? For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to each? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. So he planting, and he watering, are one, and each one shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For of God we are fellow-workers, a field of God, and you are a building of God. According to the grace of God which is given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let every man be careful how he builds on it. For any other foundation can no one lay than the one being laid, who is Jesus Christ. — 1 Corinthians 3:1-11
May 4th, 2008 | First Corinthians | No Comments
From Arsy Varsy — Reclaiming The Gospel in First Corinthians, ©2008, 352 pages, Pilgrim Platform.
What kind of title is Arsy Varsy? It’s an old Puritan word similar to vice versa. Where visa versa means conversely or a change in order, arsy varsy (pronounced ahr-see-vahr-see) means “1. (adj.) wrong end foremost, i.e., completely backward, an arsy varsy way of doing things; and 2. (adv.) in a backward or thoroughly mixed-up fashion, i.e., the papers are all filed arsy varsy. Today we might use the expression ass backward, which suggests that something is happening the wrong way, with the rear coming first. It indicates the complete reversal of the correct order.
Mar 28th, 2008 | Culture | No Comments
Elliot Spitzer was caught with his pants down. So, what’s the big deal. Sex is everywhere. Should we just get used to it?
First, the fact that immorality is everywhere does not make it moral (right). Morality is not a function of popularity, it is a function of righteousness.
The control and discipline of sexual energy and sexual activity is an engine of civilization. Sex is not simply about two people getting glassy-eyed. The connection between sex and civilization is not the sexual act itself, but the nature of the traditional marriage relationship that legitimizes or legalizes the act. Marriage is the key to a proper understanding of it, not the sex. And traditionally, marriage and sex have been held together in an exclusive union by religious and social mores — not just Christian, but biblical Christianity makes the best defense of sex being exclusively limited to marriage. Marriage fidelity is woven into the legal system of virtually every society.
