God-honoring and Bible-based Christian Mutual Funds
Exploring Unacceptable Degrees of Normativeness of the Book of Acts
Making the New Testament book of Acts normative instead of transitional comes from a wrong perspective and interpretation of scripture and explains much wrong doctrine and practice in professing Christianity today. Some pin the needle on bad doctrine and practice, vis-à-vis the Charismatic movement. Some of it is bad, but not quite as bad, e.g., revivalism. Some is all over both professing and actual Christianity in bits and pieces or doses. I still have some of it in my system, which I’m still getting out, so if I see it in someone else, I’m not ready to pull the trap door on him.
What about Philemon 1:22? Good question. Paul wrote, “But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.” That’s not Acts. That’s Philemon. My answer is that Paul the apostle knew that it was God’s will that he would be given to him, so he wanted him to pray that. In the end, Paul’s head was chopped off. Was there a prayer that could have kept that from happening? Faith comes from hearing the Word of God and God only answers a prayer of faith. Philemon must have known that it was God’s will for Paul to be released, so he had the faith to pray it.
Not God’s Problem: The Bible Does Answer the Question of Suffering in Lamentations
No one should be happy that Bart Ehrman gets a job teaching the Bible and religion on a state campus. Everyone should ask why it is that it must be someone like him the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill employs. Ehrman was a Moody Bible style confessing evangelical who apostatized at the latest iteration of his education at Princeton. Ehrman repackages fairly old liberal theology and writes it in a popular style for a more average reader. In 2009 HarperCollins published his book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer.
Ehrman says that God doesn’t answer the question. More accurately, Ehrman doesn’t like the answer. God answers. Oh yes. And God is God. Someone may not like the answer, but it is still the answer and it is still coming from the Creator. You don’t get to send God back to the drawing board to get it right. You conform to what He said. Not Ehrman. The arrogance, the rebellion, drips off of him.
Jeremiah wrote Lamentations over the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. You could argue that this was most horrific point in Israel’s history. The people of Israel went through a very, very difficult time. I think the best representation of it lies in the event of women debating which child they’re going to eat, because of rampant starvation.
To reduce the answer to the question of sufffering, Lamentations gives two perspectives. They suffer because of their own sinfulness. They would suffer even more if not for the mercies of God. Both aspects answering the question of suffering focus on the attributes of God.
Chapter 2 says that God is angry. He deserves to be. Anger explains what occurs. From the human perspective we get Lamentations 3:39, “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” Anyone who is suffering is alive, a living man. Should any living human be complaining about suffering, when he knows what he deserves for the punishment for sins? That’s what connects to 3:22, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting what we do deserve. If you are thinking about your suffering, then you are getting less than you deserve.
Why are men not consumed? The mercies of God (3:22a, chesed, His lovingkindness), the compassion of God (3:22b), the faithfulness of God (3:23), and the goodness of God (3:25-27). Several of the verses of chapter 3 offer a primer on how to take suffering. God has a way He wants it, probably best characterized by being silent and taking your medicine.
Sometimes when you suffer, everything else is taken away except God. That’s fine, because, 3:24, the Lord is your portion. The Lord said the same to the Levites when He apportioned their share of the promised land. The Lord would be their portion. God wants us to be satisfied with Him. I think of Paul in Philippians when he said that the high calling of God was in Christ Jesus. We are complete in Him. Jesus is good enough.
Bart Ehrman for sure is not satisfied. And since he still has trouble with suffering, he won’t ever be, because it’s only going to get worse for him from here. He’s the lost man of the great tribulation, sticking his fist up at God. He can only do it because God gave him a fist and the energy and time to shake it at Him.
What about those who cause the suffering? You can’t avoid the fact that God allows it (3:32), but again, this is less than what we deserve, whatever it is that we get. We shouldn’t complain. But just because he allows men to cause suffering doesn’t mean that He approves. You read three infinitives of 3:34-36 —
To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
To subvert a man in his cause,
the Lord approveth not.
and the answer: the Lord approveth not. Assyria didn’t make it. Babylon didn’t make it. God didn’t approve. The Hebrew word translated “approveth” in the KJV is the word for “see” or “perceive.” God isn’t just going to look at what they’ve done. He doesn’t approve of it. He’s going to do something about it. That’s a clear message through scripture.
If you’re an agnostic or atheist like Ehrman, mass murderers get away with the suffering they cause. Pol Pot. Mao. Hitler. All agnostics like Ehrman. That encourages suffering, because without God, nothing matters. The idea of Ehrman is that you don’t get a sufficient answer from the Bible for suffering, which is a big enough problem to reject the Bible and God. But without a God, what difference does suffering make, one way or another? That Ehrman even argues means he can’t logically conclude that he’s only a chemical reaction spewing at us. In a quest for human evolution, people might be encouraged to cause suffering, and have no reason to stop it. Shouldn’t that be trouble for him? No. Everyone can get away with anything and everything, which explains why it is that you haven’t seen much charity from agnostics. Ehrman noticed that too, so johnny-come-lately started up a blog that he makes you pay to read to raise proceeds to stop poverty. He makes us pay to alleviate poverty if we wish to read the drivel he writes. It does him a favor, because he can now point to it when that argument is made. That’s an agnostic’s idea of care. Troubling.
The Bible does answer the question of suffering. It’s not a problem for God. Never has been.
The Book of Life and Eternal Security–do Revelation 3:5 & Revelation 22:18-19 Teach that a Christian may Lose his Salvation?
Note that this study is also posted here.
The Root of Uncertainty: Not Can’t, Not Don’t, But Won’t
A few years ago now, Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You, told me something that I’ve now quoted quite a few times, but here goes again:
Virtually everything is clear and certain in your mind. The pomos’ pathological uncertainty is in part a reaction to the unwarranted hubris of the rigid fundamentalist perspective you represent.
I got to this quote again because uncertainty is blamed on certainty. I have read this kind of analysis from Daniel Wallace. He said in an interview:
When they place more peripheral doctrines such as inerrancy and verbal inspiration at the core, then when belief in these doctrines start to erode, it creates a domino effect: One falls down, they all fall down.
Wallace made a very similar point by calling upon the idea of a pendulum swing from certainty to uncertainty, encouraging a level of uncertainty to stop men from pushing the eject button on all of Christianity. To him, certainty would lead to uncertainty.
By the way, now Johnson agrees that the explanation for uncertainty is a new form of legalism in which legitimate Christ followers “by the current definition . . . . [are] environmentally conscious pacifists who think justice entails government-mandated redistribution of wealth.” To do this, they must “reinvent [their] understanding of atonement, redefine [their] attitude toward gender, and change or tone down all the classic biblical doctrines that don’t fit well with postmodern political correctness.” That doesn’t sound like a reaction to certainty, but, oh well, whatever happens to work, even if it is opposite of something else.
No, uncertainty doesn’t come from certainty. If it sounds like a joke (and you hear laughter), it should. There is obviously zero in the Bible that would make that point. Stick with me here. This will be profound. Uncertainty — comes from opposition to certainty. Not actually profound. More like as obvious as it gets. When someone looks at certainty and doesn’t like it, because he likes the conveniences of uncertainty, certainty hasn’t caused that. He wants it his way. That’s all. To say that uncertainty comes from certainty is itself rebellion, which brings me to the actual point of my post.
The root of uncertainty isn’t that someone can’t know. He can know. It isn’t even that he doesn’t know. He knows. It is that he won’t know. Churches today allow for doubt, and even teach doubt. And they act like it is superior. Well, that’s a farce. Maybe a satire. It’s treating Spam like it’s a filet mignon, mainly because of an investment in Hormel Foods.
People foresee deniability in uncertainty. They see a future where they can use uncertainty as an excuse. They need uncertainty because it will allow them to take a loose position or stand that conforms to the world. They won’t have to suffer as much, because they’ll fit in more. They’ll get bigger because of that, because people don’t want to suffer. They’re looking for a convenient brand of Christianity that will kowtow to the culture. Uncertainty is part of the recipe of a larger coalition that will write a bigger paycheck and bring greater popularity. A system of celebrity in evangelicalism uses uncertainty.
Everything I’ve described above is the won’t. It knows the truth and suppresses it. Evangelicals and fundamentalists embrace an uncertainty of the Words of God. They won’t believe God preserved them without error, even though God said He would. They embrace the doubt engendered by the “science” of textual criticism. I put science in quotes, because it isn’t actual knowledge. It’s only a theory. God’s Word is truth. God said it, but men won’t believe it. And since they won’t be certain about His Words, who will be certain about what the Words mean? And if they won’t know what they mean, how will they know how they apply?
The root of certainty comes from men, including many, many professing Christians, who are unwilling, not unable, to be certain.
Same Gender Intimacy and Coition Is Bad and Worse
I’m trying to allow this article to pass through sensitive filters, so those, mainly Christians, won’t be blocked from it. That is the only reason I’m avoiding certain terms and used same gender intimacy and coition (SGIC).
The NFL had its first openly SGIC claimant drafted this year #249 by the St. Louis Rams. ESPN covered Michael Sam and his “boy friend” celebrating his success by playfully messing each other’s faces with cake and icing and smooching. Miami Dolphins defensive back Don Jones ‘came out’ with this tweet — “Horrible” — before quickly deleting. Too late, Don. Saturday night, Dolphins general manager Dennis Hickey said the team wouldn’t tolerate Jones’s actions and coach Joe Philbin echoed that sentiment. Men who don’t like male on male smooching get Hickey (sorry, couldn’t resist). He was fined an undisclosed sum, temporarily discharged from the team, and required to complete an educational training class before he can join other activities.
Horrible. The same night I heard the above news on radio, a popular talk show host, speaking of some other event, said, “Holy [expletive].” Education class for him? Nope. Anyone surprised?
I am truly interested in Jones’s mandatory class. Must he keep straight lipped while shown videos of men feeding each other cake and cuddling each other cheek to cheek? Are Christians required to remain in the closet? How could we have gone to required unmitigated support in such short time? “Horrible” less than explains a genuine Christian attitude toward the activity of Sam and his collaborator. The NFL forbids a genuine Christian reaction to this sin. Maybe Christians should boycott the NFL — no attendance, no products, no television. I’m afraid that financial loss is the primary motivation here.
My friend, Bobby Mitchell, wrote about this same phenomena two weeks ago and then half the discussion revolved around opposition to his isolated mention of former Bob Jones University president, Stephen Jones (SJ). SJ thinks the Bible contradicts SGIC, but Mitchell was decrying his softness toward it. In 2013, Jones delivered several messages on ‘same gender intimacy’ and said such statements as the following:
I want you to know that I also have close SGIC friends. Several of them are unsaved, and I’m trying to be a testimony to them. They know my position. We’re close friends. In fact one of the nicest guys I know is a SGIC.
Would Jones talk about his close fornicating friends? Isn’t friendship with the world enmity with God? And then:
Alright, so don’t feel prideful sitting there, “Well I don’t have a same-[gender] attraction, so I’m doing ok.” If you lie, if you’re a liar, God says you are an, you are abominable. Your sin is abominable. It’s in the same category. The same thing with dishonest business practices. Those who are dishonest in business, it is an abomination. God uses the same word to describe it. In fact he says everything the wicked do – their thoughts, their walk, their sacrifice, their prayer – it’s all an abomination.
In reading about this terminology, “God’s ideal,” I found this is language used by those who divide between qualified acceptance and non-acceptance. Those who claim to be Christian and give qualified acceptance will use the “God’s ideal” type of language to indicate that. They usually add that the person didn’t choose to be born that way, so it is a condition for which he doesn’t have control. And, we should be sensitive to that condition, like we would other ones. I’m not saying that SJ believes the latter, but he uses the language of qualified acceptance, blows that particular dog whistle for it.
Qualified acceptance language poses as evangelistic compassion, arguing that SGIC will listen better to the saving message and feel a drawing kind of “Christian love” by the qualified acceptance. I contend that the acceptance is a bow to the culture, which requires it, and Christians today feel shamed by a new morality. SGIC requires acceptance. Acceptance lessens the guilt and doesn’t properly represent God’s hatred of the sin. We become children of God, not by the will of man, and this strategy smacks of pelagianism, attempting to fan a spark within the dead soul through human means, instead of using the law as a schoolmaster (Gal 3-4).
Is it true that SGIC is morally equivalent to lying and idleness and other sins? SGIC is listed with other sins in the Bible like a lifestyle of and lack of repentance over those sins mark a lack of conversion. It’s true, but that doesn’t make each of them equal in abhorrence. I don’t think we should say that the abomination label makes a sin equal to other sins with that label. It really gives no information except that the act is an abomination or in certain cases the person is one. SGIC is an abomination. Abomination is a more serious designation than “not God’s ideal.”
Romans 1 makes SGIC sound more serious than just any other sin, based on a legitimate argument. Romans 1:26:27 portray SGIC as reaching the apex of rebellion against God, as the chief indicator that God had given up the participants in SGIC. No other sin is mentioned as that. We can see that it is a sin against nature, that is, a sin against design. Read it:
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
If you read all the verses around these above two, you see that it is the essence of unthankfulness. At the root of God’s work as Creator is His designed distinctions between the genders. SGIC erases those distinctions and says there’s a better way. SGIC adherents shove in the face of God at the root level their hatred of how God made them. Nothing is more basic than man and woman and the people reverse that in favor of their own lust. Nothing rebels against God like SGIC. It’s in its own category.
I probably overuse the metaphor, “if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” The hoofbeats say that SGIC is worse. SJ and others are looking for zebras.
The NKJV—Just “Easier to Read,” or an Inferior Translation that, Among other Problems, is Weaker on Sodomy?
the NKJV simply an easier-to-read update of the King James Version, or does it
alter—for the worse—the sense of the KJV?
Consider, as a representative example, the following passages from the
KJV:
23:17 There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite
of the sons of Israel.
14:24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did
according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before
the children of Israel.
15:12 And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed
all the idols that his fathers had made.
22:46 And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days
of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
23:7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were
by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
passages are rendered as follows in the NKJV:
23:17 “There shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel,
or a perverted one of the sons of Israel.
14:24 And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according
to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD had cast out before the
children of Israel.
15:12 And he banished the perverted persons from the land, and removed all
the idols that his fathers had made.
22:46 And the rest of the perverted persons, who remained in the days of
his father Asa, he banished from the land.
23:7 Then he tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons
that were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for
the wooden image.
you notice something that is missing? Yes, every reference to the abomination
of homosexuality is gone in these passages. In fact, the word “sodomite” is
entirely absent from the NKJV. The NKJV is weaker on homosexuality than the
KJV.
it is outside the scope of this post to examine this question in detail, the
translation “sodomite” is correct and indubitably superior to the translation
found in the NKJV in these texts. In the
words of a non-KJVO and modern-version supporting scholar:
connotations belong to the Hebrew. . . . Rather, the terms of both the Hebrew
text and the LXX suggest cultic prostitution and homosexual practice. . . .
[H]omosexual practice cannot be eliminated from the range of meaning in light
of the linguistic and cultural contexts.
renderings have much to contribute to modern discussions of the Biblical
teaching regarding sodomy. The Scriptures address sodomy in Gentile (universal)
contexts (Gen 18:25; 19:1–8; Judges 19), in everyday Jewish legal settings
(Leviticus 18; 20), and in religious worship (uses of qades in Deuteronomy and Kings). The sense is always condemning.
Indeed the divine judgment exercised on Sodom is intended to be a perpetual
warning to Gentile nations as well as to Israel (Luke 17:26–37). Homosexual
conduct validated Sodom’s evil (Gen 13:13; 18:17–21). It was culpable before
the “judge of all the earth” (18:25).
contribution to ethics and civil law (cf. Rom 1:26–27; 1 Tim 1:8–11). Western
society should heed this revelation in the formulation of its ethics and laws.
There is Biblical and historical precedent for the criminalization of
homosexual practice. . . .
the KJV . . . [is] not in error when [it] use[s] “sodomite” in the places
discussed above. . . . If terms such as “male cult prostitute” or the
collective “cult prostitute” are used, marginal references should make it clear
that sodomy is at least included in these terms.
of the KJV have simply not considered the total linguistic and cultural
settings. The LXX translators seem to have exercised deliberation and concern
to reproduce appropriately the impact of the Hebrew to their contemporaries
centuries after the Hebrew was written. While they use terms more explicit and
contemporary than the Hebrew, they have not distorted or contradicted the
meaning of the Hebrew, for a homosexual idea was there already. The
reinterpretation of modern critics has strayed too far and is fairly termed
revolutionary and revisionist. (pgs. 176-177, “The
Contributions Of The Septuagint To Biblical
Sanctions Against Homosexuality,” James B. De Young. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34:2 (June 1991)
157–177).
modern Bible versions—on sodomy in the texts above is another of the many
reasons why the NKJV and other modern Bible versions should be rejected and
English-speaking Christians and churches should use only the Authorized, King
James Bible.
TDR
Answering the TR (Textus Receptus), Perfect Preservation of Scripture Question. One More Time.
Scripture teaches presuppositionalism, and being a presuppositionalist, I look at the problem of volition versus intellect. Applying this to the doctrine of bibliology, specifically what the Bible teaches about the preservation of scripture, I think most misunderstandings are a matter of the will and not the intellect. Almost all of them.
Like most other truth, where people are wrong, they are rebellious against the true, scriptural position on the preservation of scripture. I can’t tell why for each individual, but I could give you a long list of why it is that people won’t believe it, that relates to “won’t” rather than “can’t.” Again though, I don’t believe it is intellect, but volition. People just won’t believe what the Bible says. For most, I think it is pride, but a multitude of sins comes out of pride, so that’s an easy one of the reasons.
To start, I got this position from the Bible, from reading it and studying it. There is not a whiff of anything else taught in the Bible. Then when I went to find out what the historical doctrine of preservation was, I found the biblical position was also the only historical Christian position. I have never had anyone prove what I’m saying in this post to be wrong. No one. I’m not saying people won’t say it’s wrong. They do say it’s wrong, but they don’t give you any biblical reasons why it is wrong. They don’t have any. You will read no other position in history, so, in other words, every other position is brand new and is assuming that the only historic Christian position was apostate — all genuine believers were apostate on this position. How possible is that? Then that brings up another point, that is, can there be a brand new position or can there be a position that was totally apostatized in the history of biblical Christianity? You’ll have to believe the brand new position in addition to the total apostasy of the true position for centuries and centuries if you reject the position I’m espousing here. Enjoy that. I won’t be joining you.
The Bible teaches that God would preserve every one of His inspired Words in the language in which they were written, accessible to every generation of believers.
What I want to repeat is that we believe that God would preserve His Words. Words. We are not saying God preserved the paper or parchment or vellum of the original manuscripts or one perfect copy that made its way down through the annals of history. Scripture doesn’t teach that. It teaches the preservation of Words and letters, and so that’s what I believe.
God preserved all the Words of scripture and they were all available for believers of every generation. That is not saying that all those Words were, again, in that perfect copy that made its way down through history — you know, just one perfect copy. Scripture doesn’t teach that. That particular view is one of the main straw men. No one teaches that or believes that. We should believe what God said, no more and no less. Even if there was no evidence that a perfect copy made its way all the way through, it doesn’t prove anything that there is no evidence. The straw man is more than what the Bible teaches, so it can’t be defended. I don’t want to defend it. It’s not in the Bible and I don’t believe it. We live by the Words, not by the parchment or vellum or scroll that the Words are written on, or even by the ink. Those are what God said He would preserve.
The Words accessible to believers in the 16th century were what they received, hence the received text. They had them. It’s not “which TR?”. It’s that the Words are available. The King James Translators translated. The King James Version is a translation. They translated the New Testament from Greek words into English ones. The Greek words from which they translated were available. They didn’t translate from Scrivener’s (1881/84). They translated from what was available then.
When you compare all those various editions of the TR, you have very few differences — in the low hundreds of variants. And most of those are spellings. We’re not talking about entire passages, entire verses, just individual words and sometimes just letters. What I’m saying is that those editions are nearly identical. But all the Words were available, and that is the biblical standard. Since they were available, they were the ones that God preserved. Perfect preservation is that God perfectly preserved all of the Words.
I own and I believe you can still purchase an annotated Scrivener’s that marks each difference from the 1598 Beza. 1598 is before 1611. Just thought I’d tell you. The differences are very little. You would hardly notice it in a translation. For those who say that Scrivener is some type of reconstruction, they really are giving you the wrong impression of the differences. They are tiny. Some would say that if there is one difference, open wide the door to textual criticism or don’t believe the doctrine of perfect preservation. Again though, the belief is that we have all the Words accessible, and I’m saying that believers came to an agreement about which those Words were. They were already almost identical to begin with, so the “which TR?” question indicates either misunderstanding or it’s trying to give a false impression that these editions were vastly different.
I know that next is where the most major rub will come in, for those who choose to doubt God’s promises. Do we know what those very Words are? Historically, Christians have said, yes. This is in their doctrinal statements, in their sermons, and in their writings. How do we know which words are the exact ones? We know by means of the canonicity of the Words. God promises the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth, and the church has agreed what the Words are. This is how we have been directed, just the same as we were directed to the very books. The Holy Spirit directs or guides the believers to the very ones. The providence of God is involved, just like it was in the preservation of the Godly line that led to Jesus, the preservation of the nation Israel, and the preservation of our eternal souls.
The King James Version comes from the Words that were available to believers. The Words behind the modern versions weren’t available. They weren’t what Christians agreed upon by faith. They had agreed on the text received by the churches. Since I believe we will also know what the Words are, when it comes to those 300 or so differences between the editions of the TR, then I see that God’s people agreed on what was behind the King James Version. Can we know what those Words are? I believe we can. Are they found in one edition? If you want those, you will get Scrivener’s. That is what represents what God’s people have received.
At this point, the critics of the biblical and historical view have various attacks. They don’t offer a biblical point of view. They look for inconsistencies in the application of the biblical position. They’ll say that the text of scripture was reverse engineered or that the Greek text comes from the trajectory of the English. I’ve already answered those two criticisms in the paragraphs above. They will also say that there are a few words that are unsure or uncertain. They want to argue about the scientific veracity of those examples. Were they the actual Greek words from which the English translation comes? Are they found in an existent hand copy? I don’t think those questions should lead to a wholly unbiblical and new point of view. They don’t merit it. I am glad to discuss them, especially since that’s where the critics want to park. They don’t want to talk about the doctrine. I just believe God did what He said He would. We don’t need to keep looking for God’s Words. We’ve already had them throughout all history since their inspiration.
Thoughtful Fundamentalists?
In a classic case of poisoning the well (a logical fallacy), Kevin Bauder concludes that “thoughtful fundamentalists” will be “OK” with Clarence Sexton preaching at their FBFI conference, because he’s now got an acceptable KJO position. I’m not kidding: if you don’t agree with Bauder, you are not a “thoughtful fundamentalist,” which, of course, he is, along with anyone who agrees with him.
Bauder’s view here represents an intellectual vacuum in fundamentalism. His kind of thoughtful reminds me of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 18, as he considered allying with Ahab. His father Asa had been in utter separation with the north, but the perceived benefits (18:2,3) of a northern alliance, perhaps lofty images of coalition grandeur, the man who reunited a divided kingdom, influenced his thoughts. I’m sure he was thinking, but his thinking was patently wrong. Bauder’s is too.
Thoughtfulness for Bauder is looking at the wording of Clarence Sexton’s school website for minutiae on the Crown College use of the King James. Like Ahab, Sexton knows how to tweak a statement in order to attain an alliance. But Bauder, like Jehoshaphat, can’t see through it. He digs into butchered sheep and oxen served by Ahab and decides everything’s OK now.
Bauder crawls over 1-2-3 pray with me, the false gospel, the silly carnival atmosphere, the irreverence, the superficial theology, Jack Schaap, hero worship, the lack of church discipline, rank pragmatism of the highest order, Jack Trieber, Tony Hudson, and all the rest of the fragmented and unrepentant remains of the Hyles coalition to find subtle wording in one version of a statement on the use of the King James. This is his “thoughtful fundamentalism.”
Quite a few people would agree with Bauder. KJO is their major separating issue. With this criteria, Bauder concludes, Sexton OK, KJO bad. I was enlightened by Bauder’s article, because I had never heard explained how that KJO had risen to the level of a false gospel. Now we can see it’s worse than a false gospel, but I had never heard an explanation. From Bauder, we get one.
He says KJO is a serious error because it denigrates the Word of God by saying that other versions are not the Word of God. As I see it, many KJO, such as myself, believe (for the dreaded doctrinal reasons) that there is only one Bible, one set of Words, like Christians have believed for centuries. I wouldn’t say about other versions, “This isn’t the Word of God,” because a biblical position is more sophisticated than that. In other words, those versions do contain the Word of God. However, words that contradict each another can’t both be the Word of God. Only yellow is yellow. Red isn’t yellow. Bauder, I guess, expects people to accept contradictory words. This should help you understand how messed up fundamentalism is. Unless you agree that red is yellow, you’ve reached a level of serious error.
Knowing what Bauder has said and written about separation in the past, his explanation in this post somehow means that KJO undermines the gospel. Now Sexton actually undermines the gospel by, well, encouraging a false gospel, but Sexton is now approved by Bauder solely because he’s cleaned up his act enough on the King James. If you didn’t think before that the King James wasn’t the third rail of fundamentalist politics, you should now. This is not just unthoughtful. You’re required to park your brain at the door. It’s no wonder that men have complained that fundamentalism isn’t very mental.
I don’t care if fundamentalists separate from me because I believe in the perfect preservation of scripture. If they think that’s false doctrine, they should separate. But fundamentalists don’t separate from false doctrine. They’re not even separating in this case over a false gospel, among many other good reasons to separate from Sexton.
Bauder’s post doesn’t surprise me about fundamentalism. I watched the online video introduction of Steve Pettit as the new president of Bob Jones University. Pettit has introduced many fundamentalists, bridged the gap, to Getty, Townend, and Kauflin. Pettit was there when Northland went where it did. He worked with Matt Olson for many years while Northland was tanking. What hope does anyone have that Bob Jones won’t continue its slide? I write this, knowing it really is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. These are not institutions either in the Bible or that God has promised to preserve. They have zero biblical authority.
I was reading comments about the transition to Pettit, and one fundamentalist complained that he was one of those guys who believed women shouldn’t wear pants. Not long after, someone produced a picture of a woman working with Pettit wearing blue jeans. Instant relief. All is well again among thoughtful fundamentalists. Pettit’s women wear pants. Phew!
Perhaps here is a thoughtful question. What has Sexton done to merit an FBFI national conference speaker status? What does anyone do to get that slot in a national conference? Is it because he has been faithful to the Word of God? Is it because his church is a model of biblical obedience? Is he a model of biblical preaching? Bauder concludes by saying that a good reason to allow Sexton on your platform is to encourage him for having his feet pointed in the right direction on KJO.
Let’s think through this in an attempt to be thoughtful. If someone is bound in horrible, deceiving, gospel undermining error and you think he might be changing, because he’s tweaked one point in one of his doctrinal statements on one of his websites, you would do well to have him preach in a national meeting in order to encourage him to go further with these types of moves. Go straight to the national meeting with him. Dangle that carrot to make him move further. Is this a good motivation for change? Isn’t this just politics? Isn’t this really just more fundamentalism?
Limited Atonement or Unlimited Atonement? Calvin Was Right About the Extent Of the Atonement – everyone ought to agree with him on it
Atonement,” usually represented as the affirmation that only the sins of the
elect were laid on Christ, while the sins of the rest of the human race were
not. The Bible is very clear on this question—see my article on it here. What, however, did
Calvin teach? Consider the following quotation from his commentary on Romans
5:18:
all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came
upon all men unto justification of life. . . . . He does not say the
righteousness — dikaiosunen, but the justification — dikaioma, of Christ, in
order to remind us that he was not as an individual just for himself, but that
the righteousness with which he was endued reached farther, in order that, by
conferring this gift, he might enrich the faithful. He makes this favor
common to all, because it is propounded to all, and not because it is in
reality extended to all; for though Christ suffered for the sins of the whole
world, and is offered through God’s benignity indiscriminately to all, yet all
do not receive him.
of all men without exception, as Christ suffered for the
sins of the whole world.”
world only, but the whole human race.”
lost:
perish who were bought by the blood of Christ.” (Sermon 6, 2 Tim 2:19,
pg. 83, A Selection of the Most Celebrated Sermons of John
Calvin, John Calvin)
Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary and renowned Reformed scholar Richard
Muller:
the vague language of “limited atonement” . . . there is also a body of
material, including statements made by Calvin, most notably in commentaries and
sermons, that points toward several non-speculative forms of hypothetical
universalism, notably as found in the thought of Davenant and DuMoulin, as
argued within the bounds of the traditional formula, sufficienter pro omnibus,
efficienter pro electis, [sufficient for all, efficient for the elect.] . . .
He . . . prefer[ed] to speak of the valor and virtus of Christ’s work as
extending to all sin or to the redemption of the world, undergirding the
indiscriminate preaching of the gospel and the promise that all who believe
will be saved. . . . Calvin taught that the value, virtue, or merit of Christ’s
work served as sufficient payment for the sins of all human beings, and
provided the basis for the divine promise that all who believe will be saved,
assuming that believers are recipients of God’s grace and that unbelievers are
“left without excuse[.]” . . . On the other hand, Calvin assumed
that Christ’s work, albeit sufficient payment for the sins of the world and for
securing the salvation of all human beings in even a thousand worlds, is by
divine intention effective for the elect only[.] . . . In the case of the
doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction for sin, since Christ paid the price of all
sin and accomplished a redemption capable of saving the whole world, his
benefits are clearly placed before, proffered, or offered to all who hear . . .
Calvin’s approach to the value, merit, or sufficiency of Christ’s work assumed
that it was unlimited and could therefore undergird the universality of the
promise and the indiscriminate preaching of the gospel[.] (pgs. 104-106, Calvin
and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation,
Richard A. Muller. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).
was a payment for the sins of all men, not for the elect alone. Calvinists
everywhere should give heed to what John Calvin said and recognize that the
sins of every individual of the human race were placed on Christ, who suffered
for them all, since God so loved the world—not the elect only—that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all (Jn 3:16; 1 Tim
2:6).
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