Respect your elders, or get eaten by a bear. - 2 Kings 2:23-24 (HT: Boar’s Head Tavern)

This is a great new song by Derek Webb.  Just in case you might not be aware, he is quite sarcastic.  When listening to the lyrics, please don’t think that he really wants what he sings.  He is mocking the ridiculous, uneducated, empty state of modern evangelicalism.

Watch the video here: “A New Law” - Derek Webb

Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers have set.

Proverbs 22:28

Watch this 3 minute video of prose/poetry.

“The Most Inarticulate Generation” 

(HT: The Constructive Curmudgeon)

I had to link to this as a Valentine’s Day gift to my good friend and biblical theologian at Mere Christians.

The brilliant minds over at Boars Head Tavern have summarized a position that I am, somewhat jokingly, mildly sympathetic to.

Read the (very) short post here, which I’ll title “Cultural Orthodoxy.”

9 Marks of a Healthy Church – Mark Dever

Mark Dever has addressed this book to both laymen and those working in full-time, vocational Christian ministry. In the introduction he explains that his title means just what it says. By pointing this out, Dever defends himself from the charge that his book does not faithfully and completely define what a/the chuch is. Instead of giving a defense of a full, complete ecclesiology (this would be done by expounding upon the “marks” of a true church, a la Luther and others) Dever is merely explaining that healthy churches, according to his interpretation of the Bible (and mine), exhibit the 9 marks he describes in the chapters of his book.

I suspect that most readers of this blog would agree almost entirely with the contents of the first several chapters of Dever’s book. Each of the 9 marks receives a full chapter’s worth of attention, and the topics include: a biblical theology, expositional preaching, a biblical understanding of the Gospel, a biblical understanding of conversation and salvation (including repentance), a biblical understanding of evangelism, biblical church membership, biblical church discipline, a biblical promotion of Christian discipleship and maturity, and biblical church government. While Dever is not able in this brief survey to fully develop these ideas (would to God that someone would!), it would be unfair to be overly critical on this point, for this was not his intention in authoring this volume.

I found the chapters on church membership and church discipline to be particularly helpful, especially since I’ve never previously been a part of a church that took either of these biblical concepts seriously. I was especially encouraged that those from either a “traditional” Baptist way of “doing” church or those from a more “seeker” approach to “doing” church would be confronted with an alternative that is, in my opinion, a better model for church that is more faithful to God, to the Scriptures, and to the mission of God as He intends to accomplish it through the Church. I hope that others will be as encouraged as I was by reading and gleaning from Dever the biblical insight he brings and the pastoral wisdom he delivers in this book. Even though some of these concepts might not be new or radical to readers, they will certainly be refreshed by seeing that others out there are promoting a healthier (pardon the pun) view of a biblical, local Christian church.

9Marks is really a great ministry.  I highly encourage everyone to benefit from the work of this ministry.  If you want, find out more by looking around their website: http://www.9marks.org

On Christian Liberty (On the Freedom of a Christian) - Martin Luther

Before I get started, I want to let readers know a few things:  I believe in the 5 solas of the Reformation, and, said more specifically, in justification by grace alone through faith alone.  I really enjoyed reading Luther’s famous treatise, especially his descriptions of how faith perfectly fulfills the duties of humanity towards God.  Also, Luther’s description of union with Christ is simply magnificent – all Christians should read this.  This noted, there are a couple of things I want to point out as problematic in our reading of Luther.  My critique is not of Luther’s thought, per se (although there are certainly points with which I disagree with him), but rather about many modern readings of him.

First, what Luther meant by faith alone is not, in my opinion, what most evangelicals today mean by sola fide.  Luther, it seems to me, would not recognize anyone’s faith apart from Christian baptism.  He seems to have clearly articulated some type of baptismal regeneration of infants in other works he penned, and certainly in some of his sermons (see especially sermons on Romans 6).  Thus, while I don’t agree with Luther (I, myself, am content to affirm that someone can be regenerate prior to baptism), I do think it is wrong, or at least academically problematic for us to cite Luther as our hero, reading our own understanding of sola fide into his writings instead of allowing the corpus of his thought to inform us as to how he understood sola fide.  There is nothing wrong with seeing Luther as a hero of the Christian faith, but it just isn’t historically accurate to import our own understandings of soteriology into our reading of his writings.  Again, this doesn’t change my own opinion about what sola fide means (which does not include baptismal regeneration, at least in my interpretation of the biblical texts), but it does mean that what I (we) mean my sola fide is something different than what Luther, Calvin, and many other Reformers meant.

Secondly, Luther clearly and indubitably believed in apostasy.  This, for him, was at least partially because he believed in baptismal regeneration, whereby one’s faith was exercised and union with Christ first is established.  He believed that many of those who experience union with Christ are not part of the elect (only those who persevere are truly elect).  Thus, according to Luther, it is possible, via baptism, to have true faith that justifies one before God, be saved, regenerated, and born-again, yet not be elect and truly lose salvation that was truly possessed.  This is quite different from most evangelical reformed theology which contends that those who fall away were never truly saved/regenerate/born-again to begin with.  Luther would strongly disagree with such an understanding of apostasy.  However, many evangelicals today contend that apostasy renders the gospel ineffective by placing too strong an emphasis on the believer’s efforts in perseverance.  I’ve heard it said by some that this means entails a works-based salvation, and that persons who hold to this view aren’t saved.  Luther held to such a view, as did Wesley and many other heroes of the Christian faith.

So, what am I getting at?  Before I try to answer that, let me say what I’m not getting at.  I am not saying that I think Luther was right about apostasy or baptism – that’s not the point.  What I am saying is that we should not read our understanding of things into his writings.  And, we should not claim him as our hero if we then in another sentence condemn him as a heretic.  So, take your pick.  The first option is to see Luther as a hero because you agree with him.  I don’t know too many evangelicals who go this route.  Another option is to condemn him as a theologian who plays no part in the Christian tradition, or at least in our (or your) tradition (some Landmarkists might take such a view).  But, I propose that we see Luther as the hero that he was – not by reading our understandings back into his writings through redaction, nor by agreeing with him on every point.  Neither of these “conditions” need be met in order for us to appreciate Luther, and even to regard him as a hero of the Christian faith.  Instead, we proceed rightly (with good historiography) by acknowledging the reality of what Luther meant by sola fide, and thus seeing him as one of many theologians who paved the way for modern evangelical theology.

For those out there who fear that my pre-Modern incorporation of a high view of the Great Tradition of the Christian Church has gone too far, I hope to assuage your concerns by agreeing with another writer.  Check out Reformed Catholicism’s view on Truth.  While I may have some sympathies with post modernism’s claim that interpretation is everything, and that truth is subjective (at least our ability to perceive what truth is), I strongly believe that truth does exist independently of ourselves - a correspondence theory of truth.  Thus, it is the Truth that stands over and, at times, against us, never vice-versa.

Read more from the article “Reformation Rule of Faith” 

[HT: Reformed Catholicism]

Thinking About God - Greg Ganssle

In this book, Ganssle introduces readers to some of the various discussions and debates within philosophical theology.  While he approaches things from a theistic point of view, he is very fair to bring up and interact with objections to his positions on matters such as the existence of God, arguments for God from creation, and even the problem of evil.  While this book is not a major contribution to academia, it is not meant to be.  There is nothing new, or even fresh, in this book.  Instead, Ganssle has written a book for those completely unfamiliar with any philosophy at all.  He holds the hands of readers through things that might be otherwise difficult to work through in anthologies.  For those just beginning to think about God, this is a great book to begin with.  It is the kind of book that I hope to give to my children in high school for their own theological benefit.