Why “Identifying the True God” Is a Major, If Not Most Important, Factor in Salvation or Conversion
The Claims of Religious Leaders on a Doctrine of Mere Identification Rabbis, imams or ulamas, and priests (particularly Catholic priests) from non-Protestant or non-evangelical Christian religions often critique the Protestant/evangelical doctrine of salvation by grace alone — especially the popular evangelical emphasis on “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior” or simply believing in Jesus […]
Cheap Grace Theology of Most Evangelicals Reinforces Destructive Stereotypes of the Gospel
Today when I hear either Roman Catholic, Jewish, or Moslem theologians, the former sometimes called “Priests” or “Bishops,” next referred as “Ulema” or “Alim,” and the latter titled “Rabbis,” they will give their representation of Protestants or evangelicals. As to the numbers, there are 1.5 billion Catholics, 200 million Eastern Orthodox, which includes Russian, Greek, […]
The Destructive Practice of Treating Biblical Truth as Less Than the Truth (Part Two)
Part One Faith and “The Truth” An aspect of diminishing biblical truth, so that it is not “the truth” anymore relates to the biblical doctrine of faith. Knowledge or wisdom gained by faith is less than the truth according to empiricism, which says that access to knowledge comes through the human senses. If you can’t […]
The Destructive Practice of Treating Biblical Truth as Less Than the Truth
In my series, “Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly,” I have shown how people and groups outside of scripture changed a truth of scripture, namely the perfect preservation of scripture. You can trace this occurring. Churches and church leaders in alignment with the authority of scripture believed, taught, and wrote confessions stating […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Eight)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Textual variants were not the reason for the change in doctrine on the preservation of scripture. Those began to exist after men started making hand copies of the Greek New Testament from the originals. Everyone […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Seven)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six The quotations for this series rate as worth two or three times the gargantuan amount already provided, because they represent what biblical theologians, pastors, and churches thought and believed. Even if men are going to claim those confessions […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Six)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five In 1743, Benjamin Franklin — yes, that Benjamin Franklin, a printer — printed the first edition of the Philadelphia Baptist Confession (PBC) of Faith. It essentially embraced still the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, except adding two articles to that London […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Five)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four The views on the preservation of scripture in 1.8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith didn’t start there. They represented the historic doctrine of preservation. It didn’t stop there either. Chapter one of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith on the “Holy Scriptures” […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Four)
Part One Part Two Part Three Westminster Confession of Faith 1.8 in the section on the Holy Scriptures reads: The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most […]
Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly (Part Three)
Part One Part Two Why a Journal Article on This? Why do modern textual criticism and multiple contemporary version advocates want to read a novel message into the writings of members of the Westminster Assembly of the 17th century? It’s a big enough deal that they include their argument in the Journal for the […]