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Dipping Now Into Application Of American Fundamentalism And British Evangelicalism
Alistair Begg’s Interview
Popular evangelical preacher, Scottish American Alistair Begg, on September 1, 2023 revealed the following account in an interview:
And in very specific areas this comes across. I mean, you and I know that we field questions all the time that go along the lines of “My grandson is about to be married to a transgender person, and I don’t know what to do about this, and I’m calling to ask you to tell me what to do”—which is a huge responsibility.
And in a conversation like that just a few days ago—and people may not like this answer—but I asked the grandmother, “Does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can’t countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Well then, okay. As long as he knows that, then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony. And I suggest that you buy them a gift.”
“Oh,” she said, “what?” She was caught off guard.
I said, “Well, here’s the thing: your love for them may catch them off guard, but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, ‘These people are what I always thought: judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything.’”
This didn’t seem to get on the radar of the rest of evangelicalism until an article about it on January 23, 2024 on Christian Headlines, almost four months later. Then the evangelical internet and podcasts exploded with mainly negative reactions to Begg’s interview.
Response of Begg to Criticism
In response to the criticism and hoopla over his counsel, Begg came out fighting. This is the biggest story right now in evangelicalism. He has elevated the story with his combativeness. Begg preached an entire sermon defending himself and he said a lot to crush opponents. Among everything, he said this one paragraph:
Now, let me say something that will be a little explosive. I’ve lived here for forty years, and those who know me best know that when we talk theology, when we talk stuff, I’ve always said I am a little bit out of sync with the American evangelical world, for this reason: that I am the product of British evangelicalism, represented by John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Eric Alexander, Sinclair Ferguson, Derek Prime.
I am a product of that. I have never been a product of American fundamentalism. I come from a world in which it is possible for people to actually grasp the fact that there are nuances in things. Those of you who are lawyers understand this. Everything is not so categorically clear that if you put one foot out of this box, you’ve got to be removed from the box forever.
Begg said some very, very harsh things in public about all of his critics, but in this section, he called them “American fundamentalists.” That is a pointed insult for most evangelicals. It’s essentially calling them an odious modern day Pharisee. He actually gets worse than that.
British Evangelicals and American Fundamentalism
British Evangelicals
Begg distinguished himself from American fundamentalism by referring to himself as a “British evangelical.” However, he was not attacked by fundamentalists. I would reckon that zero to few fundamentalists even listen to Begg It was in reality many, many evangelicals who had something in public to say about Begg, not fundamentalists. Out of ten podcasts denouncing Begg, close to ten on average were evangelicals. Among them, many big-named evangelicals spoke against Begg and his position. Yes, a few also came out in public support of him, but one might say, the usual suspects did that.
Alistair Begg said that he places himself within the British evangelicalism of John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. For his sermon, he relied heavily on an early book by Stott, Christ the Controversialist. I’m not one to coach Begg on the ins and outs of British evangelicalism, but I do understand American fundamentalism. I lived in it, took a class on it, read books on it, functioned among historic figures of fundamentalism, and wrote about it here.
Fundamentalist Movement
The fundamentalist movement is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented movements in world history. Fundamentalism deserves a critique, but secular historians and evangelical ones of all different stripes tend to slander fundamentalism. Calling someone a “fundamentalist” becomes then an ad hominem attack for an evangelist.
In his defense, Alistair Begg is saying that he’s just being his regular old British evangelicalism, but his critics are all being their American fundamentalism. In some ways, Begg is right that this behavior among his 95% plus evangelical critics seems like a historic outlier for evangelicalism in the United States. I would also agree that it looks like at least some type of neo-fundamentalist movement in evangelicalism.
If I were acting right now as a historian, I would say that this is a new, albeit small, movement in the United States, perhaps like that of Spurgeon during the Downgrade Controversy in England, a precursor to American fundamentalism. The critics of Begg are truly acting or behaving in the militant spirit of fundamentalists.
The Biblical Doctrine of Separation
Sine Qua Non of Fundamentalism
American fundamentalism was a movement in the early twentieth century within evangelicalism across denominations in defense of the fundamentals of the faith. Fundamentalists stood for doctrines that would preserve a true gospel and evangelical Christianity itself. A key feature of fundamentalism was and is separation, essentially “come out from among them and be ye separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17).
Separation is a biblical doctrine found in almost every book of the Bible. The non-fundamentalist, professing evangelical does not separate. The sine qua non of fundamentalism was and is separation. Separation is of the absolute nature of God. He is holy or separate. God separates. The goal of the original fundamentalist movement was to keep the fundamentals and thus keep the gospel. The fundamentalists understood the necessity of separation for protecting the fundamentals of the faith.
Evangelical Non Separatists
Evangelicalism itself became distinct from fundamentalism. Evangelicals would not separate. Instead, they emphasized their concept of unity, which meant toleration. In order to get along and to maintain the greatest possible coalition, evangelicals look for ways to compromise.
The non-fundamentalist evangelicals in the United States began to turn into something more in nature with mainstream evangelicalism in England. Especially characteristic of evangelicals was forming bridges with or to the world through social programs. In many cases, this turned into its own form of liberalism that today manifests itself today in rampant “woke evangelicalism.” Evangelicalism turned back toward liberalism in forms of cooperation, what many labeled a “new evangelicalism.”
Cultural Issues and Nuance
Cultural Issues
A major means by which evangelicals could sustain their idea of unity is to remove much of the application of the scripture, especially on cultural issues. Cultural issues are the most offensive teachings and practices of scripture. Examples of cultural issues are the unique identities of men and women, masculinity and femininity, the distinct roles of the man and the woman, marriage between only a man and a woman, parental authority over children, and the worship of God in the beauty of Holiness. There are many more cultural issues taught in scripture.
The defense by Begg is a case study of the nature of evangelicalism, especially represented in the above paragraph by the word, “nuance.” He calls out the lawyers in his church for their support on this thought. Yet, do we treat the perspecuity of scripture like we do that of federal, state, and local criminal and civil laws? The Bible is God’s Word. Almost his entire sermon performed nuance to defend what he did.
Nuance
Nuance allows for a multitude of possible acceptable positions on various scriptural issues. Nuance means permitting differences. Allowing for many different positions is the type of unity embraced by evangelicals. Evangelicals want to keep a large percentage of biblical doctrine and practice open to numerous positions. They tolerate many various positions on numerous different doctrines and practices for the sake of unity. This requires nuance with scripture.
Many evangelicals, I can see, understand now the damage of not practicing separation on doctrine and practice, including cultural issues. They comprehend now the connection between the gospel and same-sex marriage and transgenderism. Can you believe in Jesus Christ and accept same-sex marriage? I’m not saying that Alistair Begg would say, “Yes.” However, he values nuance and nuance goes both ways. Acceptance of same sex marriage starts with tolerance of it. This is akin to the progression one sees in Psalm 1:1:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
Lloyd-Jones, A Fundamentalist?
Compared to John Stott as a professing evangelical still in the Church of England, Martyn Lloyd-Jones himself was a British fundamentalist. He was a separatist. A British publication, the Evangelical Times, reports:
Evangelical Times was launched in February 1967, four months after the much-discussed division between Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott. . . . In 1963, Lloyd-Jones quoted the Independent, John Owen, to show ‘the duty of every saint of God’ was to withdraw from a church where ‘notorious, scandalous sins had gone unpunished, unreproved’. In 1965, Lloyd-Jones dismissed arguments against separatism as ‘sheer lack of faith in the power of the Holy Spirit’ in favour of ‘trusting to expediency’.
I am not a fundamentalist, but I have much more sympathy for fundamentalism and fundamentalists. I’m not a fundamentalist, because I don’t think it goes far enough. You can’t protect the faith by diminishing doctrine and practice to fundamentals. One of the fundamentals is not “marriage between only a man and a woman.” Based on that kind of thinking, a fundamentalist doesn’t need to separate over same sex marriage. It is not a fundamental of the faith. This relates directly to this issue with Begg. This presents a problem even for the fundamentalist model of belief and practice.
Stott’s Evangelicalism
John Stott was an evangelical Anglican. How could Anglicanism coexist with evangelicalism? The framework for the Church of England undermines a true gospel. Henry VIII, who started the Church of England, didn’t deny the gospel of Roman Catholicism. He just wanted a divorce. The Church of England itself does not preach a true gospel.
Stott did not believe in a literal Hell or eternal torment. He believed and preached Annihilationism. Stott went to Venice Italy to join the Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission. He denied the inerrancy of scripture.
More to Come
The Real Dovetailing of Future Antichrist Agenda and World Power Now
Satan
Maybe people don’t know that Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:36, 16:11). Jesus uses this title of him. He is a usurper as a monarch over this world, taking the place of man and specifically, the God-man, Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, Satan holds sway over the world.
As a result, “the world” in the Bible, most often does not speak of the earth, the planet within a solar system. No, it s “the world system.” “The world system” means the entire Satanic organization functioning in the world of men against the plan of God.
Subjection Unto Angels
In Genesis 1:28, upon the creation of man, God mandated him to subdue and have dominion over the earth. Hebrews 2:8 says, “Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” “His” refers to “man.” That’s the purpose of God. God will fulfill that purpose through His Son, Jesus Christ, when Jesus comes back and sets up a kingdom on the earth. Men will reign with Jesus Christ and complete that God-ordained task.
Later in the same verse in Hebrews, the author writes: “But now we see not yet all things put under him.” Okay, so if man is not in charge, then who is? An earlier verse in the chapter, Hebrews 2:5, gives a clue:
For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
So the angels won’t be in charge of the world to come. What’s the deal with that? The present world, the one in which we live, is under the subjection of angels. See above with Satan. Even though this is clear in the Bible, I would say a vast majority of people do not know this. They should consider with every imagination of the world and the world specifically around them, that Satan is in charge of it. That’s a big reason it is the way that it is. This significant truth is rarely mentioned, only sometimes in preaching, but seldom. This truth that angels rule over the present world fits with what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
You can read there “the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
“Conspiracy Theory”
What I’m writing about the world and Satan and his angels, demons, some might call a conspiracy theory. I’m saying the overall direction of this world, it’s in Satan’s plan. However, the way he accomplishes his rule is through men, who work for him. That is where the “conspiracy theory” really comes into play.
What I’m writing is not taught in schools. No one mentions Satan as a significant feature of worldly existence. No. The only acceptable worldly position is that we’re here alone, trying to troop through on our own, us men, or people. This itself is part of a Satanic conspiracy, that Satan will work unrecognized, like he is completely camouflaged in this world. Don’t look behind that door — nothing to see there.
“Conspiracy theory” as a terminology is mainly used today as communicating that someone is telling a crazed lie. It would be like saying that Jesus is God. That thought does not belong to polite society, except hovelled away in very private religious places.
The Antichrist
The human personification of Satan in the Bible is the character, the Antichrist. There have been antichrists, who are types of the future antichrist. They are antichrist, but they are not The Antichrist. When I talk about the Antichrist, I believe that it is easy to see the agenda of the Antichrist in this present world. Why wouldn’t we see a parallel agenda, since Satan will also hold sway the antichrist, even as he does his underlings today?
While Bible believing and practicing people like myself go our sweet way, doing evangelism and discipleship with results coming at a glacial pace, the path toward the fulfillment of Satan and the Antichrist’s agenda keeps moving along much more quickly. I’m all for the former. Even though I do believe it is the answer, that does not mean that the latter isn’t also occurring. It also does not mean that someone should not say something or do something to expose the present agenda of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist in the future will do his thing, as we can read in Revelation and related passages. It will occur and he will lose. What he and Satan want now is against what true believers do. Many powerful people today though are working with and toward the agenda of the Antichrist. It is a globalist agenda, a one-world-order. You hear this language today and it is easy to see how many policies pushed by the most powerful institutions glove fit with the Antichrist.
Tools of Control of the World
When the Antichrist finally takes charge, he will inculcate many of the same instrumentation or tools to control everyone and send them in a path roughshod against God. That path already exists. It is a globalist super high way pushing an agenda that accords with Satan.
If anything, one of the most important means of Satan and the Antichrist is shutting down voices that damage their agenda, that do the most to impede their goals. They want to give you the impression that you possess a suitable voice for your message, as long as you don’t stop the treads of their machinery from operating at their highest speed. Keep your little audience. Barely make a noise that will interrupt the march toward the final form of Satan’s rule over the world through the Antichrist.
Case of Alistair Begg
Counsel to a Grandmother
Consider the pressure that even professing preachers feel. A mini-explosive event occurred the last several days in evangelicalism. A fairly conservative evangelical, albeit already compromising preacher, Alistair Begg, got in trouble with prominent figures for publically encouraging a grandmother to go to her grandson’s transgender wedding. The idea here with Begg was compassion and not condemnation. In Begg’s assessment, compassion would be going to the wedding, condemnation was not going.
When Begg started getting kickback for his counsel, he did what many called, double downed. He did not retract. He would not repent of his counsel. Many podcasters went after him. Others defended him. Public leaders stood on either side of his decision.
The Pressure
What’s the pressure on a Begg to answer a public question with a weak, unscriptural answer? He lives under that pressure. The Antichrist will have pressure during the Tribulation Period to control men. He will wield many different means of coercion. Someone summed up the issue with this paragraph:
From the accounts I have seen, we are not exactly sure what we are dealing with, but it is bent however you look at it. Either the grandson was marrying a woman who pretends to be a man, in which case the marriage itself is an actual marriage, and the homosexual delusion (pretending you are marrying a man) is still a sick delusion, or he is marrying a man who thinks he is a woman, and so you have both actual sodomy and quite a different delusion, just as broken. But for our purposes here, it doesn’t really matter. The issue is the lawfulness of a Christian’s celebratory participation at an event that is truly dark.
Why would a godly leader not tell the grandmother not to go? The grandson will feel the sting of her rejection. He would not experience suitable affirmation. Begg knows this too. But it really isn’t that. It is that the present world, the one so against God, requires approval.
Approval of the Counsel or Activity
Who was for the counsel by Begg? The world and its groups that support transgender ideology. They would not throw him much of a biscuit, but they would look maybe somewhat admiringly. Who would be against? Godly people. People against the world system. There is very strong pressure to please the former at the risk of the latter. Just say you’re sorry to your people and they’ll understand. Some Christians will applaud, because they also want approval from the acceptable, appropriate people in the culture of the world.
The Antichrist will ask for full approval from everyone in the world. His forms of coercion will surpass whatever kind Begg presently feels to impel him to give the kind of counsel he did. It still follows that this is what Satan and the Antichrist want to become irrelevant, something that is an abomination to God. They gladly accept the capitulation in the present. The trajectory of such counsel is the future total domination of the Antichrist agenda.
More to Come
Surprisingly Harsh Words from Jesus to Dispense Now with Contempt
The Flesh
What the New Testament labels “the flesh” is just one nasty piece of human fallenness still possessed by every person living on earth. “The flesh” operates in both true believers and unbelievers. Unbelievers function only in the flesh. The old nature offers up no opposition, so sin dominates the life of an unbeliever.
On the other hand, God changes a believer. He gives him a new nature. God justifies the true believer and the Holy Spirit indwells him the moment of his justification by faith. Scripture describes many different ways the victorious new life of the believer through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
A born again believer must recognize the continued operation of the flesh in him. God persists at saving him by sanctifying him. A believer can still see though certain objective evidence the ongoing action of the flesh in himself.
Inferiority of Self Righteousness
Overestimation of Self Righteousness
Believers and unbelievers both overestimate their own righteousness. The Lord Jesus typified this in Matthew 5 with his six illustrations of the inferiority of self righteousness (verses 21-48). People overestimate the quality of never having killed anyone. A spotless clean lifetime slate for murder says very little about a person’s culpability for murder before God.
Jesus Unmasking Self-Righteousness
Until Jesus said what He did in Matthew 5:21-22, people maybe didn’t understand the severity of having and then showing contempt of and to others. Contempt for others is very common for anyone. Jesus says some surprisingly harsh words as to the true nature of contempt:
21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
There’s actually a lot to unpack in just these two verses. The “judgment” in verse 21 refers to a civil court. It isn’t the judgment of God. It’s the judgment of men like “them of old time.” This isn’t Moses. These are the men in the Talmud or Mishnah, their interpretations the tradition men followed. Their judgment of murder fell short of the glory of God.
Thou Shalt Not Kill and Murder
Physical Murder
Exodus 20, it’s true, in scripture, one of the ten commandments, says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Numbers 35:30-31 affirm the truth of the danger of judgment for murder. Those are both scriptural. However, the Talmud and Mishnah, the expressions of Pharisaical tradition do not account for the Divine judgment of murder itself. Jesus reveals that in three different ways in verse 22. For this post, I want to focus mainly on one of those three, the second, which says:
whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council
Raca is an untranslatable epithet, so is not translated. It is transliterated. The Greek and English word both are “Raca.” It’s essentially any expression of contempt toward another person, treating that person as worthless. It’s an easy way to objectify and marginalize someone. It casts someone instantly into a category, treating the person as less than human.
Contempt toward Others
Self-righteousness tends toward seeing self as better than others. The righteousness compares with other people, not God. No one stands up to the righteousness of God. However, he can see himself as righteous compared with other people. An indicator of his own worth or value is seeing others with contempt. Others do not rise to the standard, so are worthy of the put-down, like “Raca.”
Striking at the Image of God
In Genesis 9:5-6 after the Flood God mandates the death penalty for murder, what someone might call the Divine institution of human government. He says to Noah and the few people left alive on the earth:
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Notice that the reason for the death penalty there is that murder strikes at “the image of God” in man. I’ve read one person who called it “hanging God in effigy.” Murder makes a false judgment on another person, an ultimate act of contempt toward a person, treating him as without the image of God, a falsehood.
Assessment of Contempt
Before someone strikes at God’s image by murdering someone, he sees that man with contempt in his heart. He takes an idolatrous role of usurping God’s judgment on a man. God says, “he’s in my image.” You say, “False, I judge him not in the image of God.” This is contempt.
Murderous Contempt
Before anyone does the killing of murder, he murders in his heart with contempt of another human being. God says that person is in danger of indictment. He deserves the death penalty. When we move along in the verse, the ultimate for contemptuous judgment is the danger of hell fire. In other words, eternal damnation.
According to Jesus, God ranks contempt with murder. For almost everyone, this is surprisingly harsh. It says that we’re all guilty of murder and we all fall short of the glory of God.
Contemptible Contempt
Contempt and murder are works of the flesh. As characteristics or lifestyles, they exhibit the lost condition of someone. The Holy Spirit does not indwell this person.
The believer can still show contempt towards people. It’s become far too acceptable for those who call themselves truly saved. Our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees. God is not contemptuous toward His creation. He loves mankind.
When someone possesses imputed righteousness, he does not claim self righteousness. He does not see himself as better than others and so justify his contempt for other people. You can see this contempt in the New Testament for the beggar Lazarus and the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair. This contempt is not righteous at all. It is murder.
Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Three)
War Against the Soul
A non-stop, real war exists through the history of the world between light and darkness. As a part of that war, Peter expresses an unstoppable advantage for guaranteed longstanding victory. He says in 1 Peter 2:11:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
The appropriate part of the verse to declare an aspect of war and victory is at the end: “which war against the soul.” What wars against the soul? “Fleshly lusts” do. Abstinence from fleshly lusts eliminates a crucial component for losing this war with darkness. .
A question might and should arise, “How do fleshly lusts war against the soul of a person?” Fleshly lusts cause spiritual and psychological disadvantages in the war against the soul. You need your soul and spirit operating in an optimal way and fleshly lusts wound them.
Confidence in Christ
Confidence in Christ functions within the soul and spirit, not the flesh. Six different thoughts come to my mind on this, not necessarily in this order.
Persuasion
First, confidence is persuasion (peitho). You can behave with strength, because you have confidence, confidence in the Lord (2 Thess 3:4) and not in the flesh (Philip 3:3-4). Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you alway” (Matt 28:20). Jesus is sanctified in your heart, so you’re ready to give an answer of the hope within you (1 Pet 3:15). Readiness comes by fortifying the soul.
Uppermost Affections
Second, you can please God by faith because God abides in the uppermost of your affections (Heb 11:6). You live like He’s your Judge and He does not lie. This rest in Him provides a settled peace that isn’t moved.
Thinking on These Things
Third, anxiety comes not from victimhood, but from not thinking on what is true, honest, just, etc. (Philip 4:8). You’ll remain anxious if you adopt victim status. You’re not one. The peace of God keeps you through Christ Jesus, but only by thinking on it. That’s in your soul.
Sidelining Deflation
Fourth, Satan wants you a casualty, someone out of the fight. He uses those fiery darts that penetrate the heart, not in a deadly manner, but in an injurious or incapacitating way. The Apostle Paul had an open door in Troas, but because he had no rest in his spirit (2 Corinthians 2:13), he missed an opportunity. People become incapable of fulfilling God’s will because they subject themselves to fear and discouragement. Their deflation keeps them sidelined.
Boldness
Fifth, Paul twice asked church saints, once of Ephesus and once of Colossi, to pray that he would have boldness. Boldness comes when the Spirit fills a believer in his inner man. He speaks the truth in love and the Spirit encourages him.
Filled with the Knowledge of God’s Will
Sixth, Paul prayed that the knowledge of God’s will would fill the saints of the church in Colossi (Col 1:9). Furthermore, he says this knowledge of God’s will is in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. God’s will is not arbitrary. It is based on wisdom and understanding and not a feeling proceeding from the flesh.
Fleshly lusts debilitate everyone, both believers and unbelievers. It is a very sad tale when they strafe the souls of believers. They bring this on themselves. Believers have all the resources in the grace of God to abstain. They just won’t. The worst thing very often that you can do to one of these professing believers is exhort or admonish them about it. They are quick to speak, slow to hear, and quick to wrath.
Beach Heads or Gates
John Bunyan clued true believers to the methodology of fleshly lusts. Before him in Pilgrim’s Progress, it was James 1:13-16. The gates through which fleshly lusts pass are akin to the allies taking the beaches in the South Pacific and at Normandy. The flesh forms a beach head through the eye gate, the ear gate, and the three other lesser senses: touch, taste, and smell. Abstaining from fleshly lusts means guarding those gates, stewarding them.
The Nazis had deadly holds on the Beaches of Northern France. Those required removing for victory to occur. Allied soldiers eliminated them at great cost. Professing believers instead contribute to the fleshly strongholds in many different ways. They talk like God gives them liberty to keep those deadly beach heads.
More to Come
Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Two)
Fleshly Lust and Priesthood
Peter commands his readers (1 Peter 2:11): “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” It is a crucial or key verse in 1 Peter as Peter moves into the primary message of his epistle. It’s also a mandate or instruction, or at least similar one, as in other passages and from other authors.
In the Old Testament, being a priest was a privilege. The priest could go directly to God unlike an average Israelite. Jesus, however, makes every believer a priest, as seen in 1 Peter 2:5:
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
You can see in that very verse: the New Testament priest “offer[s] up spiritual sacrifices,” ones that are “acceptable to God.” The priesthood requires responsibility. The sacrifices are a sacrifice. And the sacrifices are spiritual and acceptable unto God. The priest can’t give to God just any old thing.
If the priest must offer spiritual sacrifices, then he must abstain from fleshly lusts. Fleshly lusts run in absolute contradiction to spiritual sacrifices. God will reject a fleshly sacrifice. Evangelicalism offers non-stop fleshly sacrifices to God. He rejects those offerings. Yet, evangelicals will count them as accepted because of their feelings. What they feel, they feel is acceptable to Him. They even very often think they feel the Holy Spirit in an ecstatic experience produced out of their passions.
Deprivation of the Soul and Idolatry
Posing as Worship
What does rejected worship do for someone’s soul? It deprives the soul. Fleshly lust hollows out a professing priest of God, leaving him spiritually famished. In the realm of spiritual warfare, this fleshly lust wars against his soul.
Professing Christians pose as worshipers. Like the priests of Baal with Elijah (1 Kings 18), they major on their expression of worship. It originates from their own passion, just like sin arises from their lust (James 1:14). True worship humbles itself before God, subjecting to the truth, which is only His truth. That is authentic worship, not the unique expressions of ones own feelings, but that proceeding from Words of God.
Fleshly lust parallels with idolatry, as revealed by Paul in Colossians 3:5, when he writes:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Mortification
Mortify your members, Paul writes. The members are body parts. Passions arise from body parts. Fleshly lust abides in body parts, as does indwelling sin. Body parts must be brought under subjection. Then they become instruments of righteousness unto God.
The first falling domino that ends in fornication is idolatry. Next is covetousness. Functioning in the realm of fleshly lust betrays fruit of the Spirit. It’s why Paul also commanded in Romans 13:14: “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
“Abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh” relate to idolatry. Both result in not offering spiritual sacrifices unto God. God doesn’t accept worldly and fleshly worship, which also means the perpetual offering of a person as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).
Soundtrack for a Life
Commands and Disobedience to Them
Christians walk according to the soundtracks of their lives, what they might call their playlist. The reformed theologian and author, Douglas Wilson, who wears the mantel of father of modern classical education, wrote this:
While working on this post, to take a snippet of my playlist at random, I have listened to “Feelin’ Alright” by Joe Cocker, “Rivers of Babylon” by the Melodians, “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, “Lonestar” by Norah Jones, “Almost Hear You Sigh” by the Stones, “Watching the River Flow” by Dylan, “Motherless Child” by Clapton, and you get the picture. Now here is a quick quiz. Get out your Bibles, everybody. Is that playlist worldly?
Not too classical. Education, probably not either. That playlist disobeys two commands: “abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh.” And actually many others in the New Testament.
Internal Procession of Unrighteousness
Paul writes in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest.” The works of the flesh are evidence. Like faith is evidence, the works of the flesh are evidence. One of those works is “lasciviousness,” which means “sensuality.” The soundtrack of a genuine Christian is not sensuality.
The viewpoint of “abstain from fleshly lusts” corresponds to the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God’s righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20). The examples or illustrations of Jesus (Matt 5:21-48) then deal with the internal procession of unrighteousness. It’s not just murder, but hate. It’s not just physical acts, but the lack of abstinence from fleshly lusts. This clashes with the nature of God, the true identify of the believer, the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Fleshly lusts do not retard corruption. They speed it up.
More to Come
Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory
Supply Chains and Tripping Hazards
Something I never heard before 2020 were the two words, “supply chain.” I looked into those two words and didn’t find them used together before the last half of the twentieth century. Google books gives just one page of examples for the whole century and none in the nineteenth century. Examples explode in the last twenty years.
Now that people use “supply chain,” historians provide supply chain advantage as the primary reason for victory in World War Two. It was easier for the United States to get its supplies in Europe than for Germany to get theirs. The Americans, over two thousand miles from home, had more and better supplies than the Germans, only hundreds of miles away.
The success of the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War were short supply chains, essentially tunnels, jungle trails, and near limitless volunteers. Among an assortment of lesser causes, this led to their victory over a superior foe.
To achieve success in life requires eliminating as many possible factors that impede that success. Next week Monday, I’m supposed to have a hip replacement. The booklet to prepare for it explains certain fundamentals like removing threats of tripping from the walking surface of your floors. As you read that, it seems a bit of a “duh” moment. And yet, people leave tripping hazards all over their lives.
Supply Chain Dysfunction
Life became more difficult for many people beginning in 2020 because of “supply chain” dysfunction. The price of homes increased because it’s harder to get the supplies. It’s also more difficult to find the people to build the homes.
God in scripture points out factors comparable to a broken supply chain and a tripping hazard. Peter expresses one in 1 Peter 2:11:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
Paul begs and commands those traversing their life’s path on earth, “Abstain from fleshly lusts.” He didn’t say, “Stop sinning.” Saying “stop sinning” is like saying, “Win the war.” You want to win the war, but more basic than that is “build and sustain a supply chain.” Remove tripping hazards.
Professing Christianity today acts like an industrial complex for fleshly lusts. It isn’t abstaining. It riddles the floor with tripping hazards. If the goal is winning the war, not abstaining is a losing strategy. It creates a disadvantage so large that it guarantees failure. Fleshly lusts destroy the supply chain.
Winning the War
People might say they want to win the war. They might publish multitudes of magnificent war victory posters. Until they want to abstain from fleshly lusts and then abstain, they won’t. In fact, professing Christianity today campaigns for feeding fleshly lusts. It thinks its worst enemy is the command. Professing Christianity reacts most harsh to the threat of abstaining from fleshly lusts than the fleshly lusts.
A popular phrase, reaching cliche status, I will still use because of its appropriateness. Professing Christians shoot themselves in the foot when they do not abstain from fleshly lusts. They might not like the idea, but they are in a war, a war they should desire to win. Instead, they provide the way for their own defeat. They have multiple bullet holes in both feet. I think we should say that they want to lose. Losing must in fact be their goal. They are going to get tired of losing, they’ll lose so much.
“Dearly beloved” or “strangers and pilgrims” in this world find their interests in the world to come, not this one. They instead plan their lives around a future kingdom and a heavenly city. They invest for eternity.
Still, 1 Peter 2:11 expresses a command to believers, an unpopular mode of communication. True Christians still participate in fleshly lusts, so Peter commands them to abstain from them. Commands are not options. He also provides the consequence of not abstaining. Psychological problems, soul problems, are the worst ones people have. They obliterate people and families like Sherman’s march tore through the South at the end of the Civil War.
Fleshly Lusts and True Christianity
Fleshly lusts cannot characterize true Christianity. If fleshly lusts do, it isn’t Christianity. It’s something else, not Christianity. Someone who laps up fleshly lusts is not a Christian.
Biblical Christianity, true Christianity, is more than just a series of things someone doesn’t get to do that he might want to do. It is wanting to do what Christ wants Him to do and liking it. Loving it.
The soul that will operate in a godly manner will unhitch itself from fleshly lusts. A soul that continues in its pursuit of worldly pleasure is not “converted” or “restored” (Psalms 19:7, 23:3). God does not possess that soul. It remains in the realm of the wicked one. This is not a person who has lost his life (psuche, his soul) for Christ’s sake. He still loves the world and the love of the Father is not in Him.
More to Come
Democrats Most Astonishing Hate of Democracy
The Symbol of the Reichstag in Germany
A pivotal moment in Hitler’s rise in Germany came from the Nazi burning of the Reichstag. They started the fire, put it out, and then blamed it on the Communists. Democrats in the United States steal this act in a campaign to destroy democracy. The Nazis convinced a large portion of the German population that the Communists burned down their Parliament building. Even their courts wouldn’t disagree.
The Democrats, which have the related word “democracy” imbedded in their name, similarly point the finger at Trump as an authoritarian or totalitarian. His policies looked and still look exponentially more democratic than the finger pointers. He would like the government out of most of the business of Americans. Evidence abounds for this, but let me first take a small step back.
Democracy
The United States isn’t a democracy. James Madison in Numbers 10 and 14 of the Federalist Papers makes this point quite well. But let’s set that aside for now.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that a Constitutional Republic is a form of democracy. A website called “Principles of Democracy” writes:
Freedom of speech and expression, especially about political and other public issues, is the lifeblood of any democracy. Democratic governments do not control the content of most written and verbal speech. Thus democracies are usually filled with many voices expressing different or even contrary ideas and opinions.
Citizens and their elected representatives recognize that democracy depends upon the widest possible access to uncensored ideas, data, and opinions. For a free people to govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves — openly, publicly, and repeatedly; in speech and in writing.
Freedom of Speech and Democracy
Wikipedia for “Freedom of Speech” reads:
Freedom of speech is understood to be fundamental in a democracy.
Democrats censor their opposition more than anyone and with unending examples. They are similar to the presence of Islam in any country. While Moslems are in a small minority, they cry for human rights, but the moment they take charge with less than a majority, they eliminate unfavorable voices.
Oligarchy followed democracy in Greece. Democrats control a vast majority of the public square in America. I include in that schools, media, and even government. They gladly censor opposing viewpoints. The Democrat controlled institutions don’t allow the truth of the Bible. Unless Christians privately fund their own museum, you won’t see a creation account in public. Democrats label many biblical truths, “hate speech.”
Censorship
Democrats use both hard and soft censorship. By hard censorship, I mean official and legal disallowance of a place and opportunity to speak. It may be the loss of a job, because the Democrats don’t hear a statement of support for same sex activity. That turns the non-speaker, who would like to say something against the activity but doesn’t, into enemy status.
By soft censorship, I mean an avalanche of public repudiation and ridicule until speakers do not receive opportunities to speak. It’s also moderating who speaks. The establishment offers a phony, a fraud, as the representative of the alternative point of view, who goes along with the official or permitted position. Very little to nothing comes in a way of supporting the alternative position.
A historic label for soft censorship is the “kangaroo court.” The J6 Committee is a good example of this, but they abound in every state in either blue states, districts, or regions. They also exist in red areas with blue strongholds. The committee cherry picks their own rubber stamps to represent opposition. Opposition is actually major support with a fake label of opposition. I would hope everyone knows this, but I’m afraid it fools just enough of the disengaged.
Other Examples
The J6 Committee parallels with the internet. You read about the “algorhythms.” The oligarchs of the tech industry force opposition or non-supportive speech into an uninhabited hinterland. They are whole national forests of trees that fall and no one hears, so they don’t make a noise. Only approved speech moves into a hearing zone. Yes, people published something, but no one is reading, because no one is seeing.
The Hunter Biden laptop is a good example too. I say these are just examples of what is now normal. Any supportive tweet or internet entry of the laptop goes unseen, censored as disinformation. The censorship itself is the disinformation, much like the Russian collusion operation. I think this is the least of it though. It’s a censorship industry.
The industry removes the bad news about the favored issue or person. Right now, it has the ability to project a pro-Hamas experience, despite a relatively powerful coalition for Israel. Pro-Palestinian protestors crowd the White House and knock down a protective fence with little coverage from the media. The industry does not parallel or hearken to anything insurrectionist.
Massive Scale Elimination of Democratic Values
As I write on this subject, the most massive scale about which I speak is in education, where for years, the Bible, God, righteousness, and creation and the like are kept out of the massive state school complex even in red states. No one can take a male headship position in anything close to a public square. Can you imagine a professor at a major university who takes open biblical views? It doesn’t happen except in private. You must pay to hear the truth told.
I would agree that the Bill of Rights and especially the first amendment is the essence of democratic values. When do you read anything from the left defending free speech anymore? Democrats don’t write about their love for the first amendment. The closest is a totalitarian support of smut for small children in public schools and genderless bathrooms. These are not about the protection of speech or opportunity to have a voice.
Pent-Up Voices
The J6 crowd came to a rally and then walked to the capital out of a long pent-up frustration of censorship. Yes, better means of expression exist. The high percentage of silencing from the left came to a logger head. That group that day did wrong things. This is not what-aboutism. I see that day as the equivalent of throwing snow balls at the Old State House in Boston in 1770. The censorship industry, I’m afraid, because of its reaction, has not seen the worst.
We could hope that people care enough to do something about the actual attack on democracy from the Democrat Party. So far, I see it as a peaceful embrace of those who would allow free speech. It seems most represented by an ability to oppose masks and vaccinations. Still, do positions exist for scientists with an opposing view? Are there safe places of employment in hospitals and in medical schools with an alternate view? I’m saying this is just representative, because the worst relates to far more important issues of truth.
Democrats have a burning Reichstag type hatred of democracy. The Nazis opposed burning the Reichstag. But they burned it. The Democrats don’t mind burning everything down to get their way. They don’t care if you vote or not. They don’t even want you able to say what they don’t want to hear.
Wallace’s Remarkable Erroneous Paper On The Doctrine Of Preservation
Daniel Wallace
Certain names represent the biggest evangelical challengers to the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. They have written journal articles or books against preservation of scripture.
The Bible version issue starts with scriptural teaching on preservation. When you believe what God said, you come to perfect preservation. Then you have to deal with what that looks like in the real world. The teaching of the Bible presupposes the outcome.
One of the biggest names is Daniel Wallace, longtime professor of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary. Any evangelical who takes Greek knows who Dan Wallace is. Second or third year Greek students use his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. It is a very helpful book to own and use.
Manuscript Evidence
In recent years Wallace turned his attention to The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. A major stated mission of CSNTM is the following:
To provide digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts so that such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, and accessed by scholars doing textual research.
Wallace considers their task to continue the restoration of a lost text of the New Testament.
Denial of Preservation
When anyone asks Wallace about the preservation of scripture, he sends them back to a journal article he wrote in the 1990s, entitled, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism.” Rather than interact on the subject, Wallace points to that article. He doesn’t need to talk about it. Wallace wrote the article and that ends the conversation. He wrote it, that settles it.
With Wallace’s demand, I acquiesced and read his article with an open mind and great interest. I didn’t assume he was wrong. I welcomed the possibility he was right. What he wrote, however, was very disappointing. It was filled with errors. Wallace and I had a brief back and forth on an evangelical blog in the comment section, since deleted. He claimed that I cherry picked the points I made about his article. I ask you to consider if that’s true with the below links to my analysis of his article.
First Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part one
Second Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part two
Third Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part three
Fourth Post. Criticizing Professor Wallace part four
For a man of such renowned, his article denying the preservation of scripture is very, very poor. It’s still right there all over the internet though, remarkable multiple errors and all.
The Most Indispensable Quality for Manhood
Designed Manhood and Manhood Under Attack
A strange incongruity exists. On the one hand, the world blurs the distinctions between men and women. On the other, women want to be men and men want to be women and do so by embracing the natural distinctions between men and women. The world in which we live produces this incoherence.
“God created man in his own image, . . . male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). When God created the woman, he created her with a different role than the man. He made the woman to complement the man. Men and women are different.
Scripture throughout distinguishes men from women in their traits, their roles, their functions, and their appearances. To do His moral will, God intends for men to be men and women to be women in the way His Word prescribes.
To oppose the plan of God, Satan and the world system attack and confuse biblical manhood and womanhood. Men become more feminine and women become more masculine. From this arises sex and gender confusion. It damages both sexes, but especially the man.
The Loss of Manhood
Mostly today the man loses his identity, role, and function in society. This occurs either through the feminization of everything or the subversion of God created and ordained male qualities.
The culture now eradicates male qualities by calling them toxic. When a man acts like a man, he’s toxic, termed “toxic masculinity.” He receives approval when he terminates male qualities to act more like a woman. If he goes further to attempt a sex change, more the better.
Even though I don’t believe in toxic masculinity, I believe a fake masculinity exists that replaces the true. Like every other doctrine, a false one supplants a true one. Fake masculinity welcomes all the tokens of popular masculinity like beards, tattoos, booze, foul language, and risky hobbies. These are easier to inculcate then the fundamental traits of masculinity.
What Makes a Man, a Man?
What is it that makes a man, a man? The Bible evinces the most indispensable quality for manhood as “strength.” In 1 Corinthians 16:13, the Apostle Paul writes, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” “Quit you” in the KJV is “to acquit yourself.” “Quit you like men” translates a single verb which means, “act like a man.” Then when Paul defines what it is to act like one, he commands, “Be strong.”
Later, when Paul writes to Timothy in his second epistle, he explains to him ‘how to be strong.’ In 2 Timothy 2:1, he writes:
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Again we read the command, “Be strong.” Paul starts that sentence with “therefore,” so he bases this command on the content of the previous section. If anything, its theme is unashamedness. Rather than be ashamed, be strong.
Not Ashamed
To help Timothy, he gives him portrayals of strength that would make him not ashamed: the faithful man, the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. These all describe this quality of strength.
What is the shame about which Paul speaks? It relates to telling the truth. Paul himself had declared in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Men should stand on the truth without wavering. They should say it, which includes firmness about manhood itself. Satan and the world system want men to back down on the truth and shirk responsibility to tell it, live it, and lead it.
Some might call this, having a backbone. Men diminish behind the skirts of women. They look to women for permission for what they can say. Many times women gladly accommodate or accept that. This changes everything in society.
Women Rule Over Them
Many times scripture says to the woman, “Keep silence or stay quiet” (1 Cor 14:34, 1 Tim 2:11-12). This says, “Let the man lead.” When things aren’t going well for a nation, Isaiah 3:12 describes:
As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.
This is role, function, and quality reversal. That means men are not ruling according to God’s design. Now men accept this quietly. They know if they say anything, they’re in trouble.
As a first indication of a man deferring his own manhood, he stops standing spiritually. A common scenario in my lifetime, I go to a door to speak about the gospel. A man or at least a male sex answers the door, sees who I am, and turns to say this conversation is for his wife. Men lack spiritual strength or conviction.
When men check with their wives, that might sound happily egalitarian. Maybe they use their wives as an excuse for their weakness. I’m not saying men can’t confer with their wives, very often today men can’t decide because they’re weak. Maybe today a majority of men support the idea of a woman ruling over them. It would just be easier.
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar (Part Four)
Being Intentional
When you intend to do something — some people today call that “being intentional” — you might plan it or schedule it. Does scripture regulate or legislate intentionality? This thing of being intentional even has a definition: “making deliberate choices to reflect what is most important to us.” King David begins Psalm 101 with intentionality:
1 I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.
2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
When you intend to do it, you might schedule it. That’s good. It’s how you ‘redeem the time’ (Eph 5:16). How do you seek something first? You’ve got to move it up in priority on purpose. You will and then do of God’s good pleasure. This is sanctification. It’s how you keep something holy.
If I want to ensure I do something, I put it on a “to-do” list. For the year, I write those actions on a calendar. For an entire church, as a church leader, I have a church calendar. What goes on that calendar? I could put a “Jumper Day” on the calendar with intentionality. Jumpers are those inflatable fun houses, serving as a kind of trampoline. Let’s say instead, I intentionally schedule into the year of the church a spiritual emphasis. Let’s call it a “liturgical calendar.” Every year the church emphasizes scriptural events in the life of Christ and other biblical themes.
Using the Calendar
The Psalms are a guide for writing hymns. The prayers of the Bible are a guide for what to pray. In the Old Testament, God weaves into the year a means by which Israel will remember what God did. This included the weekly Sabbath and then festivals. This is a model, not for continuing to follow a Hebrew calendar, but for what to do with a calendar.
Israel began to observe also an event the occurred after the completion of the Old Testament, the Feast of Dedication. It celebrated an event in the intertestamental period. Israel then added that Feast to the Hebrew calendar. Jesus too observed the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22ff). Like the other Feasts, the Feast of Dedication helped Israel remember what God did in saving Israel during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Macccabees.
The New Testament church schedules services on Sunday. Scripture doesn’t say how many, but many churches meet three times on Sunday: Sunday School, Sunday morning, and then Sunday evening. They might hold a midweek time too. Through example, scripture regulates a Sunday gathering for the elements of New Testament worship. It does not regulate how many meetings.
Keeping Holy
A believer can keep his speech holy. He can keep his deeds holy. A true Christian can keep his thoughts holy. He can also keep his motives holy.
Paul says the believer can yield his members, his body parts, as instruments of righteousness unto God or yield them as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (Romans 6:13). Yielding his body parts as instruments of righteousness unto God is how he presents his body holy unto God (Romans 12:1). Someone can “worship God in the spirit” (Philippians 3:3) or not do that.
Sanctification in the Truth
Sanctification in the truth starts with thinking and understanding what God says in His Word. More than a hearer, he must also be a doer. This requires volition, a readiness of will. It also means a delight in what God said, a holy affection.
Sanctification in the New Testament follows the example of Jesus. In John 17:19, Jesus prayed to God the Father:
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Jesus provided the perfect example to follow, and the Apostle John writes in his first epistle (2:6):
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Walking as Jesus walked is not arbitrary. It is looking to the scriptural example of Jesus. Also as John Owen wrote:
To see the Glory of Christ is the grand blessing which our Lord solicits and demands for his disciples in his last solemn intercession, John 17: 24.
The Glory of Christ
In 2 Corinthians 4:6, regarding sanctification, the Apostle Paul writes:
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
A church centers on the Person of Jesus Christ and Christ changes the church by its seeing of Him. To conform to the image of the Son a church must see the image of the Son.
I’m contending for purposeful, intentional seeing, thinking, and understanding the glory of Christ. The New Testament emphasizes certain events in Christ’s life. To be sanctified by the example of Jesus, to walk as He walked, and to see His glory, you must focus on Him. Jesus appeared on earth in real history in real time. He was here. In His time here, He accumulated important events in His life. The gospels, Acts, the epistles, and Revelation talk all about them. Put those on the calendar.
Keep Your Year Holy
Validity and Value
Don’t emphasize the events of Christ’s life according to their traditional dates on the calendar. Do emphasize them on their traditional dates. I like my emphasis on the calendar better than your no emphasis.
Putting the events of Christ’s life and other important biblical themes on your calendar is a way to keep your year holy. I’m saying there is a value to it. It is a means by which to accomplish many requirements for the believer from the New Testament. It’s not the putting it on a calendar that accomplishes the seeing, thinking, and understanding of the truth. It is the actual doing of seeing, thinking, and understanding.
Words mean things. The keeping in keeping something holy means something. This year I handed out a Bible reading calendar. Scripture doesn’t regulate the calendar I handed out. The calendar is how someone might keep things holy. Someone can have a calendar and remain unholy. I’m saying a calendar is valid and of value.
Remember and Emphasize
I didn’t hand out a fun-time-a-day calendar to our church. Our calendar did have one verse for each week for scripture memory. Scripture doesn’t regulate that. Does scripture regulate scripture memory? I’m guessing people won’t be arguing over a Bible reading calendar and a scripture memory calendar. Neither are in the Bible.
Believers should assume that they can keep something holy. They are told to keep things holy. Yes, in the Old Testament God instructs Israel to keep the Sabbath holy (Exodus 20:8). By what I read some people write, you might think that I’m writing this series for the purpose of keeping the word “Christmas” holy or keeping a date for Christ’s birth holy. I’ve not written anything like that.
I believe it’s been clear what I’m advocating. Some argue against it with what seems to be red herrings and straw men. I say, let’s be purposeful about remembering or emphasizing the events of Christ’s life during the year. A church can schedule more than that, but I support the use of a liturgical calendar to keep the church year holy.
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