William

“It would be foolish for us to expect that this work will meet with general approval. The trend of modern theology-if theology it can be called-is ever toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent effects of Darwinianism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighed in the balances of the Sanctuary. Even those who are clear intellectually, upon other truths, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few, very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity of man. Those who speak of man’s “free will,” and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children. And if there are few who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God.” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, p6, Twenty-First Printing, 2004)

Studying theology is important on many levels. First, we study theology to get to know God better. Studying the Bible forms in us the truth about God. The Scriptures give us clear objective truth about God. We also study theology to be able to stand against false doctrine and heresies.

But, be that as it may, watch the next video to see in just over 2 minutes why studying theology is important.

DugDownDeep_Carnahan.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

HT: Todd Braye

When asking people what Christmas is all about, you can be sure that there would be a variety of answers. Some would say that it is about family and healing broken relationships, and that can be seen in many Christmas movies. Others would say that it is the season for giving. Of course, both answers are only partially right. These types of answers lack the most important element of Christmas, though. An essential element without which Christmas would have no meaning, in fact, wouldn’t even exist!

You see, Christmas is not essentially about doing nice things and saying nice things per se. Christmas is about Jesus Christ. Without the incarnation of Christ, Him coming in the flesh of a human being, Christmas would be meaningless.

In fact, Christmas is not only about the birth of Christ either. It is way bigger than just the appearance of God on earth. The first Christmas had a purpose in mind. A purpose decreed in eternity past.

“(18)  knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,  (19)  but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.  (20)  For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.” (1 Peter 1:18-20)

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I wrote the initial posts in this series back in 2005. This post will be about Joyce Meyer specifically, since she has infiltrated the evangelical church to an alarming extent. She has even made inroads among members of Reformed churches. Although, I have to say, the only Reformed church I personally know of where this heretic has made inroads into is among some of the members (not officially) of a Reformed-Charismatic church. From this I assume others among Reformed churches could also have been hoodwinked by her.

To make this post simple, I would recommend to you the reader to read the first seven posts in this series to see what the Word-of-Faith crowd believe, and why they should be labelled as heretics. Once you have read those parts, I want you to understand that Joyce Meyer is part of that crowd, and should along with them, be labelled as a heretic.

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I downloaded and watched a series of videos on the question, Which Bible Translation Should I Use? I found this Biblical Studies Symposium presented by Liberty University very helpful. Three scholars presented their case of why their translation philosophy was best. Dr. Wayne Grudem represented the “essentially literal” philosophy of translation of the English Standard Version (ESV). Dr. Doug Moo contended for the dynamic equivalence philosophy of the 2011 New International Version (NIV2011) on the other side, and Dr. Ray Clendenen represented the optimal equivalence philosophy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) somewhere in the middle between the ESV and NIV2011.

Dave Croteau invited these three men to contend for their philosophies of translation and their respective translations.

I felt that each representative did a good job in airing their views. There are 5 videos to watch, and they vary from about 36 minutes to around 48 minutes in length. They are:

1. Video 1: Dr. Ray Clendenen and the Holman Christian Standard Bible
2. Video 2: Dr. Wayne Grudem and the English Standard Version
3. Video 3: Dr. Doug Moo and the New International Version
4. Video 4: Responses and Q&A
5. Video 5: Dr. Wayne Grudem’s Morning Session: “The Trustworthiness of Scripture”

Something quite unrelated to the philosophy of translation is the fact that in the Q&A session, a few students found it very difficult to put together a coherent statement and/or question to ask.

Some time ago I wrote a blog post called Which Bible translation should I use? I compared the ESV/NIV2011/NASB/HCSB. It could be helpful. I also wrote a blog post on why The Message is not a trustworthy Bible to use.

“When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went up to university in, let us   say, Tudor times, and thereafter were held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs, are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of psychological complications which, while they may interest the psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to society. The stock argument in favor of postponing the school- leaving age and prolonging the period of education generally is  that there is now so much more to learn than there was in the Middle Ages. This is partly true, but not wholly. The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects – but does that always mean that they actually know more?

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of  and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?

Have you ever followed a discussion in the newspapers or elsewhere and noticed how frequently writers fail to define the terms they use? Or how often, if one man does define his terms, another will assume in his reply that he was using the terms in precisely the opposite sense to that in which he has already defined them? Have you ever been faintly troubled by the amount of slipshod syntax going about? And, if so, are you troubled because it is inelegant or because it may lead to dangerous misunderstanding?

Do you ever find that young people, when they have left school, not only forget most of what they have learnt (that is only to be expected), but forget also, or betray that they have never really known, how to tackle a new subject for themselves? Are you often bothered by coming across grown-up men and women who seem unable to distinguish between a book that is sound, scholarly, and properly documented, and one that is, to any trained eye, very conspicuously none of these things? Or who cannot handle a library catalogue? Or who, when faced with  a book of reference, betray a curious inability to extract from it the passages relevant to the particular question which interests them?” (Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning)

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This is what many a charismatic has thought before, and I was there myself many years ago. Charismatics seem to think that everything will become perfect when they can just "flow" in the gifts of the Spirit. I am a charismatic myself (I prefer to call myself a continuationist or non-cessationist), so I know what I am talking about. At some point a charismatic will think that the gifts are the answer to everything. Most of them never move on from this point because they have been duped into believing this by their church leadership.



The fact is that no-one knows how the New Testament church really "flowed" in the gifts of the Spirit. Look at tongues, for example. Almost every charismatic/pentecostal church I have been to sees tongues as God speaking to us in some mystical way. However, 1 Cor 14:2 says clearly that "one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God." The thing is that charismatics have an idea of what that "flowing" in the gifts should be like even when no-one knows what it looked like in New Testament times. This is one of the reasons why I have held onto a healthy scepticism concerning the gifts.



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9Marks ministries has released their latest eJournal, and the subject matter of this month’s journal is, Revitalize: Why We Must Reclaim Dying Churches—and How. There is a story on a church that went through revitalization, articles on “Why revitalize?” and articles on “How to revitalize.” There are several really good articles on this subject. So, if you, as a pastor is thinking of revitalizing your church, you need to pay attention!

In his article, Be a Tortoise, not a Hare, Jeramie Rinne gives the personalities of 4 types of revitalizers:

1. The Purist: “The Purist has strong theological convictions. He has been blessed with a clear biblical vision for church life and practice. He runs straight and true without deviating from the course. Unfortunately, he moves too fast for the congregation.”
2. The Pragmatist: “The opposite extreme from the Purist, the Pragmatist will do ‘whatever works’ to get people into the church and keep them there. Nothing is out of bounds so long as it grows the church and doesn’t involve blatant immorality or obvious heresy.” Of course, questions remain such as, “Are people truly being converted by the gospel, repenting of sins and trusting in Christ?”
3. The Copycat: “The Copycat shaves time by taking a short-cut: he merely replicates another church’s philosophy, programs, and structure in his own congregation. Why reinvent the wheel? Why not just buy the book, attend the conference, order the kit, and download the sermons from another successful church?”
4. The Narcissist: “This final hare is perhaps the most dangerous. The Narcissist views church ministry through the lens of his own personal narrative. He sees congregational renewal and reform as the stage for acting out a self-centered script. Maybe he dreams of being the guy who helps the stodgy traditional church become cutting edge. Or perhaps he fancies himself an activist who confronts the complacent suburban church about engaging the poor.”
5. The Uniquetist (my own): The Uniquetist (pronounced as unique-a-tist) is the person who wants to always be different. This person wants to be unique and will almost do anything not to be like anybody else. As a result, this person ends up forcing his church into that mould too. The result of this is that you have a church that no longer looks like a church, but a club in the world.
6. The Listening-To-Godist (my own): The Listening-To-Godist’s view is that God is speaking endlessly and we must listen all the time, just in case we miss out on something. This pastor, or group of pastors, will, perhaps several times a year, go away for 2 or 3 days just to hear from God for the future. While this is admirable (wanting to know what God wants us to do), it also creates the idea that God may just change His mind from what He said 3 months ago. Is God so double-minded that he is going to change His mind every couple of months? Or, perhaps this person simply is not sure that he has heard God correctly the first time (or the second, third, fourth, . . . time).

I suggest you visit the eJournal for several articles that may just answer some of your questions.

This is a playlist of all three the introductory videos to the 3 Solid Grounds dealing with today’s topic.

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The church is in need of reformation today as much as it did back in the middle ages! Back then, the Roman Catholic institution (RCi) taught gross heresies that damned millions to hell. Not much has changed in this regard. The sad thing of it all is that in the protestant church today, and within evangelicalism, the same reformation is needed.

In the evangelical church today we find preachers of large churches not knowing what Christianity is, declaring that Mormons are Christians! (Read this open letter to Joel Osteen). Other heretics are accepted into the fold without any qualms. Churches are doing the ridiculous to overtly be like the world.

I have written concerning The Reformation before, and for a short introduction on The Reformation, read The Reformation – Unleashing salvation. (Also read this). The Reformation is part of a very important period of the history of the church (read my article Church History: Saving Us from Ourselves to learn why it is a generally good idea to read church history). Although the start of The Reformation is attributed to Martin Luther, and rightly so, when, on 31 October 1517, he nailed his 95 theses against indulgences and corruption within the Roman Catholic institution onto the Castle Church’s door in Wittenburg, there were rumblings of reformation before that. What Luther did was to give the snowball of reformation a decisive push over the edge of a snowy mountain! Of course, this snowball grew fairly rapidly, and had a great impact not just in Germany where it all started, but also in France (to a slightly lesser degree), Switzerland, Netherlands, Scotland, England, the Scandinavian countries and further afield.

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