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The Confusion and Heterodoxy of Modern Version Proponents: Revisited in Light of “FBFI and the KJV,” Its Reasons and Debate
What we know about God and His will comes from His speaking about Himself and what He wants. What we know about the Bible itself we get from the Bible, whether that be inspiration, authority, canonicity, sufficiency, or preservation. Our position on preservation of scripture should be the biblical one. The biblical one would also be a historical one. If a position on preservation is different than what the Bible teaches and what Christians historically believed, that is the one that is confused or heterodox (not orthodox).
For myself, I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong about preservation. I’m willing to go back to the drawing board on this. If I’m wrong, I need to be shown scripture, but almost never am I shown scripture (I don’t remember ever). Even if it comes with a bit of mockery, I would take that in order to be corrected by scripture. Instead, I just get the mockery and not the scripture. The former doesn’t serve to convince me.
My issue with modern versions is that they come from a different text of scripture, even the New King James Version. I am not ready to embrace other modern translations of the same text as the King James Version. I believe that scripture teaches perfect preservation. I haven’t been shown the Bible teaching something different. Saying the Bible teaches something less than perfect preservation is diverging from a biblical and historical position. I’m not fine with that.
What’s curious to me is how that men don’t mind taking a position that is different than one that is biblical or historical. I understand the most conservative position of those who do not believe in perfect preservation of scripture is that all the words are somewhere on earth in an available manuscript. We just don’t know what they are. I don’t see that position reflected in the Bible. My faith comes from scripture, so I reject that position. It won’t convince me to call that confused or heterodox. I don’t believe it and no one has proven it. They assert it without proof. It seems more like propaganda or an attempt to receive applause from a particular crowd.
If people are going to live according to scripture, they have to believe it is scripture, not maybe scripture. If we aren’t sure we have what God said, why would anyone do the hard thing of doing it? It’s a major reason why there is a precipitous drop in obedience to scripture in numbers of areas. The Bible has lost its authority, in part because people are not sure about it. It is way more damaging than Mark Ward’s “false friends” and “dead words,” that criticize translation.
What spawned this post was a series of unfortunate events. The first I wrote about almost a month ago, Mark Ward’s address to the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International Conference. Mark said that the sole usage by a church of the King James Version of the Bible should result in separation by FBFI churches, because of a violation of a very strained application of 1 Corinthians 14, that requires several leaps to arrive at this severe censure. It is not the nature of most of the type of churches of which Ward approves to stretch application of the text to this degree. I can’t think of a single example of a similar practice. The Gospel Coalition, where Mark made an appeal, itself welcomes continuationists, who don’t mind unintelligibility in the form of tongues, an actual direct violation of 1 Corinthians 14 — no call for separation from Mark though for the cool guys at TGC. He veers off the road past the sidewalk into back yards to pick off those who still use the King James Version. I’m fine with separation. I would expect a better basis or explanation.
I’ve said, if Mark’s right, let’s change. I believe it. I’m happy to follow scripture. But second, the FBFI, who had invited Mark in the first place, somewhat walked back his invitation and the content of his session by authoring a post at their online publication, Proclaim and Defend, entitled “FBFI and the KJV,” by Kevin Schaal. I had already mentioned that I didn’t think that anyone in Mark’s audience actually, really believed his farfetched application of 1 Corinthians 14. I would suggest for anyone at least first believing and practicing 1 Corinthians 14 before someone starts with novel applications.
Then third, something akin to Tolstoy’s War and Peace breaks out at professing fundamentalist forum, SharperIron, to deal with this “unimportant” issue (almost always how they refer to it) with at present, 103 comments, an anthology now past the length of a theological treatise. I’ve been mentioned four or five times in the discussion, sometimes, as usual, misrepresented (sometimes I want to guest comment there to clear up the misrepresentations or at least have someone post my comment).
A word used in the FBFI article and then among the comments was orthodoxy, and this was the label claimed by modern version, eclectic-text folk. Another word used very often to classify men such as myself, was “confusion.” I want to address the ideas of orthodoxy and confusion. I also want to speak to a series of articles highly recommended in the comments by Thomas Overmiller, entitled Bible Preservation and Translation. Overmiller wrote these posts in lieu of his leading his church both to change from the King James Version to the New King James, but also to welcome visiting preachers to use the NASV or the ESV at his church. A key line among everything he wrote in his essays was the following:
Biblical evidence indicates that God preserves the words of scripture within the many ancient manuscripts that remain in the world today.
He provided no basis for this position which is the crux of this issue, the preservation of scripture. Mark Ward wants to turn the version issue into readability, where that must be the issue and nothing else, and most others don’t provide any biblical basis at all for a decision. Overmiller uses one of his articles to treat the doctrine of preservation, but he doesn’t make a connection with those passages at all to his conclusion. For the most part, he attempts to explain away the doctrine of preservation while referring to preservation passages.
In a recent post, I mentioned that modern doctrinal statements leave out a doctrine of preservation, that was once included in historic confessions and creeds. They leave it out without explanation. I noticed that in the doctrinal statement provided by the man who began the discussion at SharperIron. They just drop it out. Orthodoxy is right doctrine, doctrine that has been established as right, connected to and in the history of Christian doctrine, what Christians have believed. The unorthodox changes that. By definition, orthodox means:
conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted as right or true; established and approved
The position that was generally or traditionally accepted as right or true, established and approved, the one believed and taught from the Bible is not the one believed and taught by these men using the word “orthodox.” They don’t give me a means to believe what they want me to believe. The new position is the unorthodox one. There is a line of truth and it veers off of it before establishing from scripture why to do that.
The people who are confused are the ones who don’t understand scripture, the ones who have had new or alien teaching draw away their minds from the teaching of the Bible. Very often confusion comes from material external to scripture and virtually everything that buttresses the modern version or an eclectic text position originates from outside of the Bible. It also confuses people as to the certainty of scripture.
The right view of the doctrine of preservation would not find a problem with a new translation. Just because someone wants to keep using the King James Version doesn’t mean that he thinks that every one of those words are the only way to translate a particular word. The impetus for a new translation from the Hebrew Masoretic and the Greek textus receptus, the text behind the King James Version, will come from the churches that use that translation and want a new one. I preached the gospel to a youngish Roman Catholic woman this week, the entire gospel, for over an hour, at the end of which she seemed convinced of what I told her utilizing numerous verses from the King James Version. Hispanic in ethnicity, she absolutely understood it, and she had no scriptural background. This occurs about every week.
Alright, now I want to deal with the supposed exegesis of preservation texts, by Thomas Overmiller. I was very disappointed by what I read from him. I wish I could be happy from his decision to look at the Bible in his attempt to persuade his own church to use a different English translation. His dealing with woeful. I have a hard time not viewing his commentary as dishonest. I know those are harsh words, but my other option is ignorant or just shoddy. Maybe that’s it too, but he’s at least terribly wrong. His first two sentences read:
The Bible provides us with helpful perspective about what to expect regarding the continuation [sic] God’s written words in the world throughout history. This is especially important to understand because the original manuscripts themselves are not available.
Those two sentences don’t seem to be directing someone to the Bible’s teaching on preservation. They do not rely on what scripture says to frame the teaching. The original manuscripts not being available itself is not a teaching of scripture. Preservation is not dependent on possessing them.
He first points to Psalm 12:6-7, which he doesn’t even believe teaches preservation of scripture. Overmiller either doesn’t understand Hebrew or he is playing off the ignorance of his audience. Masculine pronouns do refer to feminine nouns in the Hebrew and especially as they relate to scripture (read here). He leaves this point out. Gesenius’s Hebrew Grammar states that “masculine suffixes are not infrequently used to refer to feminine substantives.” There is a strong argument, especially in the psalms that you would expect the pronoun to be masculine that refers to feminine “words.” Plain reading of the passage reads as though it is teaching preservation of scripture. The whole argument on preservation isn’t buttressed by those two verses, but they should be included as teaching on the preservation of scripture.
It is an odd article that claims to be teaching on preservation and starts by explaining how a passage doesn’t teach preservation of the words of God. This is not uncommon for modern version advocates. They look for ways to explain away what God’s Word says. This is confusing and unorthodox.
Overmiller next deals with Psalm 119:89, which reads: “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” He says that again is not teaching preservation — “it doesn’t speak about preservation at all” — but that God’s Word is unquestioned and authoritative in heaven. At one point and in a wrong way among his eight essays, Overmiller speaks well of the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament. In the Brenton edition, natsab, the Hebrew word translated “settled” in the King James Version, is translated with the Greek word, diamenei. The Hebrew scholars that translated the Brenton edition of the LXX said that “settled” means to “remain, continue.” God’s Word remains or continues in heaven.
When you look at Spurgeon’s Treasury of David on this verse, Spurgeon himself says, “the Lord’s word is from of old the same, and will remain unchanged eternally. . . The power and glory of heaven have confirmed each sentence which the mouth of the Lord has spoken, and so confirmed it that to all eternity it must stand the same.” As he does in the Treasury, Spurgeon quotes others, such as Thomas Manton: “It implies that as God is eternal, so is his word, and that it hath a fit representation both in heaven and in earth.” John Trapp in his complete commentary writes on Psalm 119:89:
It is eternal and perpetual, neither can it be vacated or abolished by the injury of time or endeavours of tyrants. The Bible was imprinted at the New Jerusalem by the finger of Jehovah, and shall outlive the days of heaven, run parallel with the life of God, with the line of eternity.
It isn’t that we can’t get more from this verse than preservation, but that it at least teaches preservation, or adds to what the whole Bible teaches about its own preservation. To say it doesn’t teach preservation at all, but that it refers to “authority” instead, as Overmiller says, just seems like a deliberate misrepresentation. Acid washing preservation from scripture will not justify before God a lax approach to God’s Word.
In the next passage, Psalm 119:152, 160, Overmiller says these passages teach preservation, however, in my opinion attempting to downgrade the preservation teaching by saying they teach the preservation of the Torah. They apply to all of God’s Words. Overmiller should know that in Psalm 119:152, a masculine pronoun “them” refers to a feminine noun, “testimonies.” That can’t occur, right? This is his whole point from Psalm 12:6-7 and one that is sandblasted by Psalm 119:152. Everyone should take this into consideration.
The teaching from Psalm 119:152 and 160 is consistent with what the Bible teaches about its own preservation. It is regular and often. This is why so many people assume that God preserved every word, only to have that undermined by preachers, who have been duped by a rationalist approach.
Lord-willing, I’m going to come back tomorrow to deal with the rest of Overmiller in this section, where he claims to show what the Bible teaches about its own preservation. I look forward to it.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Thirteenth Post In Total)
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When we arrived to our flat in the area of Leith in Edinburgh (pronounced Edinborough) on Friday, June 8, we moved in, and I went around the corner to a city grocer’s to pick up some food for the next few days, especially for breakfast. We did this everywhere we stayed for a few nights — so far in London, when we were there from the first Wednesday night to the following Wednesday morning, and now Edinburgh, where we would stay until early Monday morning.
I pre-purchased most of our tickets before we left California, which allows skipping the lines at almost every place. Usually this means you have to arrive at a scheduled time for your visit, which we did Saturday morning, June 9. It’s about a 25 minute to the center of Edinburgh and the castle opens at 9:30am. The castle is at the end of what Edinburgh calls the Royal Mile, the main street of its old town. One can easily spend the entire day or more between Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.
From the bus stop, we zig-zagged our way together up to the castle, the most distinguishable emblem of the country of Scotland, that dominates the skyline of Edinburgh. It was a gigantic line that we skipped past because we didn’t need to buy tickets. The entrance gateway is flanked by statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, that open to a cobbled lane leading to a narrow tunnel ending with a metal portcullis gate, which dropped in front of the castle in the case of attackers.
By the eleventh century AD it was established as the principle royal residence in Scotland. Now it houses the Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, St. Margaret’s Chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh, and the Scottish Crown Jewels. What stood out to me is it’s high position on volcanic rock with an amazing view of Edinburgh and beyond, including the Firth of Forth, and the very birth room of King James VI of Scotland (King James I of England), to Mary, Queen of Scots.
We visited the day of the celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. The band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland played, along with bagpipes. They fired a 21 gun salute to the Queen with three 150mm howisters. We also viewed the changing of the guard.
The royal mile is an almost exact mile between the castle and Holyrood Palace. Not only is the royal mile crammed with interesting shops and historic sites, but also some of its famous side streets. There is an impressive statue there of a native son, Adam Smith, the economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations. He also lived on that street for a time. The Scottish Parliament is on the royal mile. The house of John Knox is there, and can be toured, the Father of the Scottish Reformation. I visited a cemetery that also had the grave of several well known Scots, including Adam Smith, but I was interested in the tombstone of Horatius Bonar.
The street performers were talented and funny. We stopped for coffee at Cafe Nero, a competitor of Costas in the U.K. We visited many, many shops with lambswool or cashmere scarves, wool being a major industry in Scotland. We finished the mile about 5pm and took the bus back to Leith. We ate pizza at Pizza Express, right next door to our flat. On the other side of the restaurant is a tavern called the King’s Wark, which was an original royal residence and armory for King James I, and a sign marks this reality.
Evan Roberts: The Translation Message, Part 13 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.
Sensing the Presence of God: Is It Biblical?
Can you sense the presence of God? If so, how do you sense the presence of God? Furthermore, is it even necessary to sense the presence of God? Why does it matter? I’ve been in meetings where the leaders of the meeting say they sense the presence of God. I have heard reports of meetings from men saying they sensed the presence of God. I’ve read missionary letters in which the missionary reported as being in a meeting where he sensed the presence of God. In almost every occasion, it is someone who felt the presence of God, so it’s predominately, as I have heard and read, a feeling.
When I was younger, because I heard the above types of statements, I wanted to feel the presence of God or understand how someone could feel His presence. On a regular basis, other people with great confidence said that they could feel God’s presence in their life. I thought I must be missing out on that, because I didn’t feel it. Sometimes I prayed to God that I would feel his presence or know that His presence was in my life. After I prayed that, I looked for some kind of sign that it was true, a feeling of some kind. I started to interpret sensations as His presence, not knowing whether they were His presence or not. All of this was because others had said it was something I should expect.
Perhaps you’ve considered the Christian song, written in 1847 by Scottish Anglican Henry Francis Lyte, “Abide With Me,” that in addition to being a prayer by Christians for God to abide with them, contains this verse:
I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
This is a favorite of revivalist southern gospel quartets. It exacerbates this yearning for a feeling of God’s presence or a sense of His presence that is subjective and mystical. When I read through all of the verses, I don’t think the contents are taught in scripture. The message of the song clashes with the teaching of scripture. God promises to abide with us, if we are saved. No man can pluck us out of His hand. We couldn’t be closer to Him and we don’t need to pray for His abiding or think that we could miss it.
The biography of Lyte, the author of “Abide with Me,” reveals a revivalistic influence on his life that would yield such lyrics. The song has been not just a favorite of the saved, but also the unsaved, including both King George V and VI of England. It has been sung at the English Cup soccer final since 1927 by the entire crowd (story). Concerning his song, modern hymnologist Erik Routley writes in his A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (p. 45),
Perhaps the centrally ‘romantic’ hymn of all hymns is the intensely personal yet, as it has proved, wholly universal hymn, ‘Abide with me.'”
He calls it a “romantic hymn,” which is a product of a period, not scripture.
In addition to the language of “sensing God’s presence,” I’ve furthermore heard men announce that they had prayed for “God to come down” or “asked God to be with us in a special way.” In 1 Kings 18, fire comes from heaven in answer to Elijah’s prayer that burned up the “sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” Sometimes I’ve heard the prayer for God’s presence is worded like “fire coming down.” The Shekinah glory of the Lord came down in the newly dedicated temple of Solomon.
These occasions in the Old Testament are not normative for today. David could lose the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit was upon him in a unique “upon ministry” (not “in”) of the Holy Spirit for his service as King of Israel. It was symbolized by the anointing with oil. In Ezekiel we read of the presence of God leaving Jerusalem because of an apostate nation. We don’t read anything like that in the New Testament. The filling of the Spirit comes by yielding to the Holy Spirit, rather than quenching the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is already in a believer and will not leave a believer, but will not fill the believer, that is, control him, when he is not submitted to the Holy Spirit.
I don’t know of one passage of scripture that says anything about sensing or feeling the presence of God. Maybe I could end this essay right there. What we do know is that God’s presence is everywhere. That’s called His omnipresence. He is present everywhere, but there is more to the presence of God than His omnipresence.
God is everywhere, but He is with believers in a unique way (Is 41:10). God is everywhere, but He is in a unique way not in Hell, because only sinners are there (2 Thess 1:7-9). Before the Holy Spirit came, Jesus wanted believers to pray for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). Once the Holy Spirit came, they didn’t keep praying for Him to come, to be baptized by Him, even to be filled with Him. He’s already there. You don’t ask for what you already have. You just believe that you have it. That is living by faith.
Jesus is said to walk in His churches or to be with the group (Revelation 1:19-2:1, Matthew 18:18-20, 28:19-20). He is not with the Laodicean church, but not because they weren’t praying for Him to stay. He wasn’t there because He wasn’t welcome in the church, which is to say that the entire church had turned away from Him. This is an apostate church full of apostate believers, a church full of Judases.
Further than the reality of God’s presence is the sensing of God’s presence or feeling of it. If God is there, how do you know He is there? It isn’t through “sensing” it or “feeling” it. When people tell you they sense God’s presence, it is akin to a Charismatic experience, where Charismatics attribute to the Holy Spirit certain events or activities that are unscriptural or non-scriptural. Most of those they are just making up, telling a tale. They’re not true. I’m saying they’re lies. It’s the same with the sensing of God’s Spirit.
Men will say they sense the Holy Spirit with a voice of authority or with a complete sense of conviction. They believe they have sensed the presence of God. The statement is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone wanted it, so he felt it, and then he reported it. Now it’s true. It isn’t true, except that he said it.
What gives credence or authority to the one saying he sensed God is others saying nothing to refute it. They don’t want to, because it’s offensive to the one saying it. He’ll argue. He’ll become angry. It’s normal for Charismatics to whom I talk. They want none of it. Usually they say you’re unloving, because you questioned their experience. Christians will just give up on talking to this person and that adds to the experience. He thinks he’s getting advocacy now. When no one speaks up, others think it’s true. It must be. This person with great credibility said it happened.
When someone says he sensed God’s presence, it authenticates what he’s done. What he’s doing might not even be the right thing, but it is the right thing because he sensed God’s presence while it was happening. That authorizes the event. Now it must be right and it can’t be questioned. The authority comes from the experience.
The sensing of God’s presence is also considered to be evidence of an answer to prayer. Someone prayed for the presence of God, which wasn’t necessary and was faithless, but he could say that he got an answer. “God is answering his prayers.” Because God is “answering his prayers,” then what he is doing must be right. It becomes a means of validation.
What occurs then is that other people start looking for the experience of sensing God’s presence. If they don’t sense it, they think of themselves or feel like they are second class Christians. They are missing an experience that Christians are supposed to have. It’s not true. They don’t have to “sense the Holy Spirit or God.” They don’t have to feel anything like that.
What should Christians expect that would indicate they are saved people and, therefore, have the presence of God in their lives, His special presence? It is objective evidence presented by scripture. As a brief summary, the presence of God shows itself: fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), usefulness in the church (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12), boldness in preaching (Acts 4:31), obedience to scripture (Colossians 3:16), and the right relationships (Ephesians 5:18-6:6). Furthermore, a person remains faithful to God, endures in his faith in Jesus Christ, doesn’t give up on the Christian life, and depart from the church. All of these manifest his abiding in Christ and Christ’s abiding in him. These are objective and measurable. Every Christian can do them. There are no spiritual have-nots.
If these of the previous paragraph are the objective witness of the presence of God in a believer’s life, what is it that these other men feel or sense of the presence of God? It’s very ambiguous with a lot of deniability. It’s like a spiritual rorshach test. They can see whatever they want in whatever impulse or feeling. If you criticize it, they can just deny it. Was it a feeling? “Oh no!” Unless it was. At the moment of your question, no, it wasn’t. They still had the sense though.
What happens in five or ten or twenty years and the whole movement falls by the wayside? What’s the explanation for the sudden disappearance of the presence of God? In most of these cases, God was never there in the first place. Someone depended on these highly subjective experiences, which weren’t even true.
What I’ve noticed is that the experiences are produced by people. They use music. They use a particular speaking voice. They create an environment that people can feel. They stay positive, their audience then feels positive, so they are happy. Their upbeat, happy disposition says, Holy Spirit’s presence. These effects can be caused. Sometimes people feel guilt and they want to rid themselves of the feeling of guilt. When they don’t feel guilty any more, absolved by the effects of a special service, they’ll leave feeling better. It may be that nothing really happened, except for the impression that everything was now fine. It wasn’t fine and it isn’t, but they felt like it, so they assumed it was.
Men should stop talking about sensing or feeling the presence of God. It isn’t something anyone should expect. No one should look for it. Whatever feeling someone may have could only cause deceit or confusion. Being faithful to God, actually faithful to Him, requires trusting in the presence of God, whether the feeling is there or not.
Gender Distinctions and Professing Christians Not Handling the Truth: Revisiting the Case Study of Bob Jones University
Last week I talked about Bob Jones University rule changes. The girls wear pants to class now. I haven’t heard why, but other people have explained for BJU out there, let’s call it pantsplaining, providing many different explanations. Let me explain. Pants at one time were masculine, a symbol of manhood, which is also one of authority, headship, being in charge, wearing the pants. Everyone knows that. It’s a symbol on the door of the men’s bathroom.
Several things have happened. The country has turned away from fundamentals of the truth of the most basic social unit, the family. This dovetails with a lack of conversion. If you are saved, you follow God’s design. This is an attack on scripture and, therefore, God. Take away God’s design and then created order, and you can have egalitarianism. The symbols have to go. The representation of the roles have to change. Women now wear the pants. This was forbidden in the culture and then accepted.
Professing Christians, who could not handle the truth, dealt with pants on women with a flurry of options, taking away certainty. It makes my head spin. They complicate a very simple issue and then say it’s complicated. Since you can’t really know anyway, pants are fine. If they still believe in a male garment, they say there are male pants and female pants. There aren’t female pants. None are pointed out. Nothing is designated. The biggest differential that is noticeable is tightness, which can’t be admitted either. If women are wearing pants, they’re tighter, and immodest.
The world mocks the idea that women shouldn’t wear pants. Now professing Christians mock the idea that women shouldn’t wear pants. If they aren’t ridiculing the practice or the requirement, putting space between them and those who hold to it, then they are talking about how unimportant it is.
Bonobos, which I had never heard before the last two days, is called a “menswear brand,” Walmart owned, I have come to learn. In an advertising campaign the company is calling “project 172,” it attempts to sell its product by “redefining masculine.” Bonobos is calling this “evolve the definition.”
Redefining masculine is here, but before that, it was capitulating on the distinctions in role and the elimination of the symbols. Truth lost support. Is it is a gospel issue? 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
The family is the means by which truth is passed down. Less people believe the gospel because of the apostasy of the family. You can’t deny the truth and believe the gospel. They go together. Except a man repent, he will likewise perish. Don’t let these professing Christians fool you. It affects the gospel to accept role reversal.
Today there’s a threat even to say something like I have written here. It’s not going to change if we can’t admit something is wrong. Writing this is a bigger offense today than the actual behavior. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the gospel, said that the effeminate shall not inherit the kingdom of God. You can be right on the Trinity and wrong on this and you will not enter the kingdom of God. You can be right on the deity of Christ and you will not enter the kingdom of God.
If you can change the symbols and their meaning, then don’t be surprised when the meaning of masculine changes too.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Twelfth Post In Total)
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We left California on a Sunday night and now we are to Friday of the following week, June 8, 2018, the twelfth day. All of us slept in the same room and we ate our breakfast there. We packed up and left our luggage in the room. No one would stay there that evening, so we could come back to get it that night. We were about 400 yards from where we would catch our train, more of a train stop in the town of Alnmouth, very close to Alnwick, the latter pronounced “Annick.” We walked to a bus stop and I had enough cash to pay for a round trip ticket into Alnwick.
The little country road on which we stayed and walked to the bus stop had no sidewalk. We stayed as far over to the side of the road as we could and the few cars that came by could see us from a distance. To our right were fields, some with gardens, and quaint houses on both sides of the road. Off in the distance, we could see the North Sea, in proximity to Alnmouth. We took the bus West about twenty minutes on rolling hills, where sheep often dotted the green grass.
We considered this a sort of relaxed day, because we were going to one location, Alnwick Castle, and its gardens. After exiting the bus, it was a little walk to the entrance of the castle and then up a very long driveway to its front. We were arriving right as it would open. There were not many people there, perhaps 30 people total at that time of the year and that day. To the left of the road up to the castle was a wooded area and to the left were green fields down into a valley (as pictured below, photo taken by me). We walked uphill to the castle, which looked very much like a castle. It was as castley as a castle could be.
From both inside and outside Alnwick Castle gave spectacular views. It was cold that day. We stood outside freezing really, waiting for our tour guide, slightly under dressed still with jackets on.
I thought the tour was the best of the trip, all included with the ticket. We started within the walls, but not yet in the castle itself. An older, thin, funny Scottish sounding gentleman gave the outside portion and he gave a great explanation of castles, how they functioned, including living there, working there, and the defense. He told the history of this area and how the castle played in it.
Alnwick Castle has been in several films. It’s one of the most filmed castles in all of England. The tour guide was a major player there, long time employee of the Duke and Duchess, and he had been there for some of the film shoots. Directors and producers told him there was no bad shot there and nothing that needed to be done to the place.
There are only 31 dukes in the UK and Ireland, some of which are royal dukes, who do not go back so far. They are all part of the royal family. Ralph Percy, the Duke of Northumberland, is 19th on that list. We couldn’t take pictures in the house. The Duke and Duchess live there six months of the year. They would live there longer except for all the visitors. We asked the staff how many people the castle would house, and they answered, 300 or so. We asked how many lived there now. They said, two. Only those two people live in the whole gigantic castle. There are a lot of staff that come every day and work there, but only those two live there.
My wife really liked the interior and mainly because people lived there. This was their furniture, how they had it decorated. If you wanted to get a good idea of the interior, you could see the 2015 and 2016 Christmas episodes of Downton Abbey. It wasn’t something of which we knew, but they had a room where you could sit and watch the castle scenes of those two episodes. It is in the film as it is now. Everything seemed the same.
Two notable furniture pieces came from the Palace of Versaille. They are original, Louis XIV, furniture pieces, picked up by a former Duke in a sale after the revolution. It was not then popular to live in a palace and be a King. Once they started attempting to put together the Palace for tourism, those two pieces were sold. They don’t really fit the decor of the castle, but when we later saw the Palace on the trip, they did fit Louis XIV’s palace.
We ate there at the castle that had its own food service. English food. I mentioned in a previous post the bangers and mash in Yorkshire pudding. I ate that there, and loved it. It’s my kind of food, when I get to eat it, which I don’t, because I try to live healthy.
It reminded me some of the sourdough bowls at Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. You ate the meal and the bowl. The bowl is Yorkshire pudding. Pudding? It’s no Jello brand, American pudding. This is pudding in England. This is the best use of the banger, a very mild, plump sausage, rather than at the English breakfast. It does quite nicely with a bite of mash with gravy and some peas mixed in. This does seem like a strange meal at a tourist place, but perfect for very far north in England.
The gardens were an idea of the present Duchess, perhaps to make the castle even more of a destination, to help pay for the place. They were gorgeous, not worth the price of admission, but if you’ve gone all the way there, you may as well visit. The fountains are spectacular and most interesting was the poison garden, where every plant was poisonous. I don’t know how many, but all sorts of them to varying degrees of poison, even deadly, with a tour by an English gentleman. He didn’t need to say, don’t touch. No one was touching.
We walked back to town after our visit and ate at a local Italian restaurant. We really did get there in time to sit, eat, and get to the bus in time to get our luggage at the house and get back to the train stop, except that European restaurants again are very slow. They aren’t even trying. We sat a long time before the waitress came the first time, a long time for our still, not sparkling, water, a long time to actually order, and then a longer time to get the food. It’s a super long wait for the check. They just refuse to bring it. We missed the bus. We made literally the last bus, which gave us less than thirty minutes from the bus stop to get the luggage and make it back to the train stop. My wife stayed at the train stop near the bus station and my two daughters and I ran the 400 yards to the house and back, the return trip with the luggage. We made it.
Our evening train ride was from Alnwick to Edinburgh, pronounced, Edinborough. There were great views of the sea. We arrived after 9pm and were a little confused as to where our bus was. We walked a ways further into town. Edinburgh is unique as a European city. Years and pollution gave its stony buildings a dark hue, which gives it greater appearance of age. We took the bus about ten or fifteen more minutes to Leith on the water there (where we stayed, just to the right of the Pizza Express in my photo).
The next morning we would rise and take a bus back into the center of Edinburgh, starting with another castle.
Sing Koine Greek
aiºmati.
ei•, Ku/rie,
thn do/xan
timhn kai« thn du/namin: o¢ti su e¶ktisaß
pa¿nta, kai« dia»
qe÷lhma¿ sou
kai« e˙kti÷sqhsan. . . .
e˙sti to aÓrni÷on to e˙sfagme÷non labei√n
du/namin kai« plouvton
sofi÷an kai« i˙scun
timhn kai« do/xan kai« eujlogi÷an. . . . ei˙ß touß ai˙w◊naß tw◊n ai˙w¿nwn.
ever.
ga»r fronei÷sqw e˙n uJmi√n o§ kai« e˙n Cristwˆ◊ ∆Ihsouv:
morfhØv Qeouv uJpa¿rcwn,
arpagmon hJgh/sato to ei•nai
Qewˆ◊, aÓll∆ e˚auton e˙ke÷nwse,
dou/lou labw¿n,
oJmoiw¿mati
geno/menoß:
sch/mati euJreqei«ß
a‡nqrwpoß, e˙tapei÷nwsen
geno/menoß uJph/kooß
qana¿tou,
de« staurouv. (Repeat last two lines)
oJ Qeoß aujton
e˙cari÷sato aujtwˆ◊ o¡noma
pa◊n o¡noma:
twˆ◊ ojno/mati ∆Ihsouv pa◊n go/nu ka¿myhØ
kai« e˙pigei÷wn kai« katacqoni÷wn,
glw◊ssa e˙xomologh/shtai
Ku/rioß
Cristo/ß,
do/xan Qeouv patro/ß.
and things under the earth;
Lord . . .
τὸ εὐαγγέλιον . . .
τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν
ἡμέρᾳ
ἀποθνήσκουσιν,
ζωοποιηθήσονται. . . .
ἡμῖν τὸ νῖκος
Χριστοῦ. . . .
ἐν Κυρίῳ.
unto you the gospel . . .
. . .
scriptures; and that he was buried,
day
that he was seen . . . was seen . . .
alive.
giveth us the victory
. .
. . .
the Lord.
Dress Standards Matter: Case Study Bob Jones University
Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University, just announced changes in the dress standards especially for females, two in particular: (1) permission to wear pants or slacks to class and (2) “shorts” for athletics that rise to two inches above the knee. It didn’t seem odd, but representative of BJU and the churches that send their students there. This really is who they are and where we are today. Most seem to celebrate this news.
DISCERNMENT
THE STANDARD
When you look at history, it’s easy to see that in dress Christians have moved with relativity to the world. As the world changed, Christians stayed a few steps back, so that now Christian dress is more lax than the world not that long ago. There are a few related good questions to ask. Was the old standard a non-biblical standard? Is the basis for the new standard the actual biblical one that overturns the old unbiblical one? Or is this just a reaction to keep up enrollment?
The Bible is the standard, so something should be able to be proven from scripture. It would seem that should happen either direction. What is the objective standard? When I watched Pettit in his presentation, he related change to the business world and asks what comes across in a professional manner. This reads something modern and innovative into appropriateness. The biblical concept of appropriateness relates to God and conforms to biblical living.
I believe it is true that the so-called cultural fundamentalists, which for the longest time was all fundamentalists, had not done well at instructing the biblical basis for the way they dressed. Part of this was a widespread lack of expositional preaching. Fundamentalists assumed rather than proved. When dress became a major problem, it was tough to put this back in the bottle. I don’t remember my leadership in fundamentalism providing a basis for how we dressed, except for rule books. Now fundamentalists treat dress standards like they did originate from a rule book, independent of scripture, which is false.
Two inches above the knee isn’t explained from the Bible. Whatever the reasons for skirts and dresses, there should be biblical reasons to go the other way, other than “scripture says nothing.” Scripture teaches coverage of the human body with detail about the female. It also instructs about designed gender distinction, both Old and New Testament. God wants His design approved by His people. It differentiates Christians from unbelievers. Clashing with the historical teaching is also unbiblical. Church tradition that proceeds from scripture shouldn’t be overturned. This is sola scriptura versus nuda scriptura. Jesus was sanctified by the truth, and He expects that of saved people.
IMPORTANCE
You can think about more than one thing at a time. I can hold a right view of the gospel and still think about how I should dress. They even go together.
We’re saved from something unto something else. True salvation yields sanctification. The from something is the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the unto something is the teaching of scripture, in precept and principle. We know how we’re supposed to dress. It isn’t relative. The objectives of it actually never change. It does matter, because old things are passed away and all things are become new. All things.
Lutherans and Anglicans: True Gospel?
This last week going evangelizing door-to-door I encountered a young family, who attended an Anglican church in San Francisco. I had just been in the U.K. and visited a few well-known cathedrals there, including Westminster, so the Anglicans had been on my mind. I could not remember ever talking to an Anglican in California — Episcopalians yes, and many of them, but Anglicans no.
The Anglicans said they were very involved in their church. The husband and wife had both graduated from Asbury University in Kentucky and lived in California for about 6 months. They claimed to believe the gospel, didn’t think salvation was by works but by grace, and that the Lord’s Table was only a symbol. They couldn’t keep talking at that time, but their church interested me, so I went home and looked it up.
The church of the young Anglican family believed the 39 articles, which date back to 1571. They were better than I thought. From history and my knowledge of Henry VIII, I thought they would be worse. They have good differences that distinguish them from the doctrine of Roman Catholicism. The following article is the biggest problem:
BAPTISM is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.
How does this relate to Lutherans? I lived in Wisconsin for 13 years — jr. high, high school, college, and graduate school. We played several Lutheran schools in sports in jr. high, high school, and college. After games, I evangelized players on their teams. They were not saved. I never talked to a saved Lutheran. My next door neighbor, really a rarity in our area, is a Lutheran, conservative one, and not saved. He’s depending on his works for salvation and doesn’t need any help — nice guy but lost.
I follow the Pyromaniacs twitter feed, because I like to look at their linked articles. I noticed that Phil Johnson was at a Lutheran church in Minnesota and preaching at a conference with Lutherans. The mention of Martin Luther at times by these conservative evangelicals has been disconcerting to me. I evangelized many Lutherans when I was in Wisconsin and they were not saved people, not friendly at all to evangelism. The Lutheran Church where Johnson spoke was American Association of Lutheran Churches. It has a short doctrinal statement with these sentences.
The Holy Spirit, through the Word, reveals our sinful nature and God’s perfect, eternal nature. Through Baptism, the Word works through water to bury our sinful nature and raise us to a new, eternal life in Christ. In the Lord’s Supper, the believer receives the forgiveness of sins through the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in bread and wine.
The church claims to believe the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, which is very similar to the Anglican Church of the earlier young family. That confession says:
Of Baptism they teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that through Baptism is offered the grace of God, and that children are to be baptized who, being offered to God through Baptism are received into God’s grace.
The Anglican statement on baptism might be a little better than the Lutheran one. This is a corruption of the gospel by adding a work to grace. When I have talked to those who believe like Anglicans and Lutherans, I have gone to Galatians 1:6-9 and Galatians 5:1-4.
How many works need to be added to corrupt the gospel? Just one. Adding circumcision corrupts the gospel. Christ becomes of no effect. You replace circumcision with baptism and you’ve got the same, very serious problem. Paul says if someone preaches another gospel, let him be accursed. That’s different than preaching with them. Preaching with them is not saying, let them be accursed.
Evangelicals and Catholics together have violated Galatians 1:6-9. Evangelicals and Lutherans or Evangelicals and Anglicans together do the same.
Evan Roberts: Confusion on Assurance of Salvation, Part 12 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.
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