William

Rembrandt's "Apostle Paul"

Some time ago I did a study of Galatians and wrote my own notes on it. The notes are not in detail, but they are notes nonetheless!



I will be sharing those notes with you over several weeks on Mondays.



A.Galatians—Background



The author of the epistle of Galatians is the apostle Paul (1:1). No serious scholar questions the Pauline authorship of Galatians.



This epistle was directed at the “churches of Galatia.” (1:2). However, the epistle to the Galatians could have been written to one of two groups in the province of Galatia. There are two theories as to which Galatian group the letter was aimed at.



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At the age of 13, in 1976, I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ at a Christian Students Association camp in Winkelspruit, South of Durban, South Africa. For the next 5 years I was very busy at school with athletics, rugby and karate (which I stopped in favour of rugby around 1979). I also studied… at times!

By the time my final year in school came around, my matric year, I was set to become a school teacher. However, I experienced a real renewal in God during this year, and really felt the call of God on my life and decided not to pursue a career as a teacher after all.

At that time, South Africa was still fighting the Angolan border war, when Namibia was still known as South West Africa. At that time, military service was still compulsory, and to be completed either immediately after matriculation, or after finishing university studies. I chose to go to the army first, and my army intake was in July 1981. (In the picture to the right I am standing 2nd from the right.) I finished my army service in June 1983, and then started working.

In 1985, I entered Bible College. The Bible College is an Arminian, dispensational college, and I came from a similar church. The next 5 years were very good years as I studied, and really excelled, especially at Greek, in which my average for my Greek courses was 96%. In my 3rd year I also started leading worship at college, then at cell, youth, and eventually at church as the leader of the church’s youth worship band. It was in this year that my wife and I started dating.

In my final year (1988) the college instituted a student-pastor program in which some students would be chosen to complete their final year as student-pastors, working with an established pastor as the student’s mentor. I was chosen for this program, and eventually decided to do this for 2 years.

This was a period of hard work as we visited up to 40 people a week in the congregations where we worked, as well as attending meetings, and more. Nevertheless, this gave us invaluable experience as we visited congregants, whom we prayed with and counselled.

In January 1989 I received my BA Bible/Theology degree. At this time, I still had to complete my final year as student-pastor. While I was a student-pastor, I was also involved in the youth, leading worship there and being part of the all-around youth ministry.

However, the end of 1989 came, when both my wife and I finished our study programs. Our wedding date was set for 7 April 1990, and at this point I had 3 possible calls from churches. However, I did not feel right about any of them, and as 1990 was coming closer at breakneck speed, I had to make a decision as to what was going to happen in that year. I eventually decided that I needed to find a job, as I couldn’t let my wife’s small teacher’s salary keep us going, as that would have been an impossibility.

Due to the fact that I was qualified as a pastor (and only as a pastor), I ended up taking a job as a security guard at a government facility that handled secret/top-secret I.T. projects. While I was there I started looking out for a better job. I.T. started interesting me, and I eventually started as a junior programmer in the company’s data security department, and was trained as a C programmer, writing code to search for and remove computer viruses. I enjoyed being a software programmer so much that within a year I was the department’s top programmer. That was only the beginning. I have now been in programming for 20 years.

As the years went on after leaving Bible College, I continued to lead cell group at our church with regular attendance of between 20-40 at each cell meeting. By 1995 the internet started growing and I started debating these “Calvinists” through email discussion groups. This continued until at the end of 1997 beginning 1998, I was challenged by a Calvinist to read The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner. I took several months to read this book with my trusty NASB by my side. By the time I finished reading that book, I was convinced that the Calvinist doctrines were true to the Scriptures.

However, by the end of that year we were preparing to go to America, as I found a job there. We lived in Columbus, Ohio for 2 years, 1999-2000. I was not the typical Calvinist that believed in Covenant Theology, and I didn’t believe in Dispensational Theology either. I differed with both of them, and I felt like I was the only one that believed the way I did. Then, while we were in America, I discovered a movement known as New Covenant Theology (NCT). It was amazing! Here was a movement that believed almost exactly like I did! I had found my theological home!

Well, to cut a long, boring story short, we returned to South Africa at the end of 2000, and I continued in I.T. on our return.

We returned to the church we were part of before we left for the U.S., as my wife’s dad was one of the pastors there. It is an Arminian, dispensational church. From the time we returned, I started looking for a church that believed like I did, but it was not easy. Eventually I gave up the search, and decided to leave the search alone until my father-in-law retired, just to keep the family peace. At the end of 2009, my father-in-law retired and it was then that I started the search again. By September 2010, we had found a church that satisfied our search “parameters” most closely, and that is where we have been worshipping since then.

In the meantime, for the last 5 or more years, I have been tiring of I.T. Maybe even longer! I have come to a time in my life that I have found that I do not not think as quickly as I used to. In the past, I was able to come up with new ideas to write software in short periods of time. Now, those thought processes are slowing down. My heart is no longer in I.T. It is merely a means to an end.

I have come full circle. My heart is in teaching the people of God, and preaching God’s Word to them. I feel like God has taken me on a tour, and I am back where it had all started. I want to teach God’s people His Scriptures. I find that too few people know the Bible and the wonderful doctrines contained in it. This has become a consuming fire in me!

I know God has His purposes in the way He takes our lives, yet, would I have this intense desire without God putting it there?

So, it is my request from my two readers out there to pray for me in this regard. Pray that the doors will open at the right time, and that His will be done!

I know that this post is a little personal, but I just wanted to get this out there.

God is great, and He is good, and may He be glorified forever in the lives of His people!

… and the church has thus far failed the unborn!

Abortion is a growing industry in South Africa.
 
Since the inception of the new abortion laws in 1997, South Africa has legally murdered almost 1,000,000 babies. A law, by the way, that was not given to the people to decide upon, as the ANC ignored what the people had to say!
 
South African Christians must be the most laid-back Christians in the world. Even in America, where affluence is the in thing, Christians stand up against the government more than they do in South Africa.
 
Sunday, 30 January 2011, was Sanctity of Life Sunday or Life Chain Sunday, and I am sad to say that I have not heard a sermon from the pulpit in more than 10 years. Our churches seem to be more interested in feeling good than doing good. Some ministries held Life Chains on 29 January, and others on 1 February.
 
It is time that churches start speaking against the injustices of the land. How can the church remain silent while babies are being murdered. This is only type of injustice being committed in this land under the sanction of the government. The church is silent because it has no backbone! It is more interested in having the right kind of music, or the right kind of preaching that is not offensive or the proper presence in government than standing up against injustices! The church is weak while it claims to have such a big impact on the nation; however, if that were the case, why do we see more and more perversion in the nation, on our television channels, magazines and newspapers? If that were the case, why are the number of babies aborted growing every year? The church is weak because it no longer stands up for the truth and for justice! It is soft-peddling the gospel instead of raising the banner of truth. It can no longer rise up against injustice, because it no longer has a sound Biblical theological base upon which to stand!

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This is simply a link to my other blog, on the issue of Local Government Elections in 2011 (LGE2011), here in South Africa.

As a South African Christian, please make sure that you vote, and that your vote counts, not for expediency’s sake or for monetary value, but that it would count for the Kingdom of God. Remember, if you vote for evil, you will get evil.

Without further ado, you will find the blog post here!

Some of the passages we will look at:
Mt 3:11; Mk 1:8; Lk 3:16; Jn 1:33; Ac 1:5; 11:16 (see especially v17); 1 Cor 12:13

To many I would be seen as a Reformed-Charismatic. However, I would rather be known as a Reformed-Non-Cessationist. The word "charismatic" includes too much baggage, in my opinion, and the world of charismania has been infested by heretics of all sorts, and the heart-breaking truth of it all, is that many (most?) charismatics do not even know about this infestation. I have written about this infestation here, and here.

Baptism and infilling of the Holy Spirit

The Baptism and/or the infilling of the Holy Spirit is a very controversial subject in the church at large today. Those who do not believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a "second blessing" for the believing Christian (the have-nots), but that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the same, or happens at the same time, as the conversion experience, feels that those who believe in such a second experience (the haves), see themselves as superior Christians to the have-nots. I have to admit that this claim of the have-nots is based on some truth. Many, if not most, of the haves have said before that the churches of the have-nots are dead churches. On the other hand, the haves have claimed concerning the have-nots that they only have head knowledge with no personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, and that the have-nots are not making a difference in this world. This claim also has some truth to it concerning the have-nots. However, both of these claims are based on perceptions, and are not necessarily the truth about all those of the opposing camps. In my experience, based on these claims, when it comes to the genuinely saved in the two groups, I have to admit that the claim of the have-nots is easier to verify than the claim of the haves. On the side of the have-nots, there are great men of God with great ministries, such as John MacArthur, J. I. Packer, James R. White, and many more. These men have proven the opposite of what the haves have claimed. Then again, among the haves, there have been men who supposedly had great relationships with the Lord, who have brought great shame on the haves, such as Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker (who has repented from his sins and his theological errors), and other Word-of-Faith men who have misappropriated funds, and taught great heresy, etc. So, the point is, the claim by the haves concerning the have-nots is simply an over-stretched generalisation without looking at the facts, and the claim by the have-nots concerning the haves has proven to be false, since it has been shown that the haves are in no way superior to the have-nots.

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As many of you already know, I was on The Late Debate on 8 December 2010 as a panellist, on the topic of a Biblical Worldview, especially in relation to all the students that were to attend university for the first time in 2011.

This time the topic will be abortion. The title of the programme will be “The Cry of the Unborn Child.” The recording for this episode will be on 10 February 2011 at 12:00.

It falls directly within the scope of Biblical Christian Network, the ministry that I work with. In fact, just last Saturday, 29 January 2011, we had a Lifechain (a peaceful prolife/anti-abortion protest) on the corner of Rondebult and North Rand Rd in Boksburg, South Africa. I will have the pictures and video online soon.

I have been involved in these Lifechains for 5 years now, and have missed only one in that time. The one I missed was in November 2010, due to the fact that I was at the recording of the previous The Late Debate programme that I was a panellist on.

I have blogged many times before on the topic of abortion, and this is indeed a topic that needs to be put out in the open. Even though The Late Debate is a Christian discussion programme on the issues of the day, please pray that I will be able to speak clearly and convincingly on the topic, and that those Christians that are still ambivalent on this issue will be convinced to stand for life.

“What should matter in matters of faith is knowledge, not merely sincere belief; good reasons for faith, not mere hunches; truth, not feelings. We can rightly say that Christianity is a knowledge tradition, meaning it is more than ritual or emotions. Christianity claims certain things can be known…

“A person who holds a true belief based purely on a feeling or a hunch or a lucky guess can’t be said to know it—feelings, hunches and guesses are the wrong kind of reasons to ground knowledge.”

From Garrett J. De Weese and J.P. Moreland, Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A beginner’s guide to life’s big questions, IVP Academic, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2005, p54, 63

I thought I’d let you read a paragraph from one of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s sermons, which he preached on 4 May 1856. It is entitled, Divine Sovereignty.

“THE householder says, ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?’ and even so does the God of heaven and earth ask this question of you this morning. ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?’ There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a foot-ball, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love. They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon his throne whom we trust. It is God upon his throne of whom we have been singing this morning; and it is God upon his throne of whom we shall speak in this discourse. I shall dwell only, however, upon one portion of God’s Sovereignty, and that is God’s Sovereignty in the distribution of his gifts. In this respect I believe he has a right to do as he wills with his own, and that he exercises that right.”

To find out more about Spurgeon, visit Phil Johnson’s The Spurgeon Archive.

I was listening to a White Horse Inn podcast in my car on the way to work this morning. The producer of the show went to a Christian book expo to do a survey amongst those who supposedly sell Christian books because they want to expand our knowledge of the Bible.

Based on their answers, it is very clear that evanjellycals are very confused about the gospel they are supposed to believe! In fact, some of the answers are quite shocking! To think that these people are selling books to Christians, about a Bible that they ostensibly do not know themselves!

In the survey, people had to specify whether they agreed with statements made by the interviewer. Here are two statements and their results:

There is no one who does good, no not even one. There is no one who seeks God.
47% Agree
49%  Disagree
4%  Unsure
* This is a basic summary of Ps. 14: 2-3, and Ps. 53:2-3, which Paul restates in Rom 3:10-12.

Jesus was fully divine and only appeared in human form.
44% Agree
52%  Disagree
4%  Unsure
* This is an example of an early church heresy known as docetism.  Jesus was both fully divine and fully human: 
Rom 1:3-4, 2John 7.

Listen to the specific broadcast below, or download the MP3 here:

To find out more about this episode of The White Horse Inn, visit A Survey of Biblical Literacy, where you will find related articles and recommended books!

Francis Schaeffer (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984) has long been one of the most popular Christian philosophers and theologians, even after his death in 1994. He has written several books and lectured all over the world.

Wheaton College has made available a large collection of lectures by the late Francis Schaeffer. A short list of categories can be found at Apologetics315.