The leap from microevolution to macroevolution is unobserved: it is simply an extrapolation.

See this article.

Dr. John D. Currid, Professor of OT at RTS Charlotte, has written a very good exposition of the book of Ruth.

Currid’s pastoral interests and concerns shine throughout this book. Though he is obviously a scholar, this book is not written to sift through critical issues. Dr. Currid writes for the church. His concern is that people see what God has to tell us in His Word. Thus we find a well written book that seeks to direct us to the meaning of the text and the application of it.

The book is written with amazing simplicity. The reader of this review should not be misled, however, because the simplicity does not discount the profundity that this volume contains. Dr. Currid writes profoundly and simply. This bodes well for the reader, because the text is easily accessible and the depths are made available to the common man.

It’s not often that a person is able to pick up a commentary of this quality. Combing through the historical and religious context, and staying true to the message of God’s Word, Dr. Currid has served us well by giving us a deep yet easily read commentary on the book of Ruth.

This review copy was provided by Cross Focused Reviews with no demand of a positive review.

What is it about online interaction that brings out the negative side of us?

It’s not that I mind strong debate. I enjoy that, so long as it is irenic.

It’s not that I expect everyone to agree with me. I know that won’t happen. (Shhhhh…don’t tell anyone, but I sometimes don’t agree with myself.)

It’s simply that there seems to be a tendency to comment when we disagree with something, and it seems we are more prone to comment about our disagreements than about our agreement.

I’ve tried to make it a point lately to add a little positive to some of my online interaction. I want people to know that I appreciate the things I agree with. I don’t want people to always think that I’m only a naysayer.

I think Christ would want that of us all.

Can we learn some things from J. Frank Norris? Yes. His ministry can serve as a cautionary tale in these ways:

1. Recognize the Difference Between Strong Preaching and Sensationalistic Preaching

[Norris] said, “The question of sensational preaching was a serious one with me. I knew that with a great many people it was taboo, especially among the so-called conservatives.” But he knew that he wasn’t making headway with what he called “the present, dull, dead, dry method.” And many years later, “Norris recalled that he switched to this extraordinary style of preaching because he had noticed that those preachers who engaged in it were the ones most successful in winning converts.”

Norris was an entertaining preacher no one would label as “soft.” He spoke forcefully against all kinds of sin and immorality (unfortunately, racial prejudice was not included). He wasn’t afraid to name names. Local ones even. One sermon was titled “Should a Prominent Fort Worth Banker Buy the High-Priced Silk Hose for Another Man’s Wife?”

It’s important to keep in mind, however, the difference between strong preaching and sensationalistic preaching. Strong preaching is grounded in the text of Scripture and reiterates forcefully what the text says plainly. Sensationalistic preaching is motivated by what will draw attention. It may use the text as a launching pad, but the bulk of the message is the pastor’s forceful delivery of his own personal opinions.

One way to tickle ears is never to preach against sin. Another way is to preach hard against everyone and everything else.

Read the rest here.

It seems that we are descending into irrationality.

Professing Christians, the very people who should be guarding rationality as something to treasure, are often the guilty ones in this area.

Here are a few examples for you:

1. These days we are told that there is such a thing as non-factual truth. Somehow this is supposed to mean that Scripture is not inerrant, and should not be taken literally. The real question is, “What is truth, if not factual?” To embrace non-factual truth is to embrace a contradiction.

2. We often here the refrain, “Truth is not abstract, objective, propositional truth statements.” What is the problem with that statement? Well, the person making that statement is making an abstract, objective, propositional truth statement while denying the very existence of said truth statements.

When I pointed out the fallacious nature of the comment, the statement was made that I was accusing the commenter of being hypocritical. The reality is not that I was calling the commenter hypocritical; but that the commenter violated the law of non-contradiction. When that was pointed out, the response was to ignore the logical fallacy and to commit another logical fallacy. (I’m neither linking to the comments, nor naming the person, because this is not about personalities; it is about truth, logic, and reason.) That logical fallacy was the ad hominem fallacy.

In one online conversation I’ve recently been asked to refrain from calling a fallacy a fallacy. Yet, clear speech and clear reasoning make for good communications. Somehow it is seen as un-irenic to mention to a person that he has committed a logical fallacy and thus has no standing for a particular statement that he has made.

What is the reason for this? I am convinced it is because we have forgotten the source of truth. We have forgotten that truth is unchanging. We have forgotten that our true God is unchanging, and so truth is not malleable.

You see, Scripture itself is quite logical. It tells us that no lie is true (1John 2:21). That is an affirmation of the law of non-contradiction.

Oh. You don’t want to bring God into the discussion of logic and knowledge? You mean that you don’t wish to discuss Scripture as truth? Therein lies the problem. To reject God and His Word is to begin the descent into irrationality. There is no knowledge or truth apart from God. Apart from God there is no rationality, nor is there any standard of truth. And apart from God’s Word there is no standard of religious truth.

To deny these things and to deny logical discourse is to speak incoherently and irrationally.

Depression is something that is not spoken of very often in the church. It is frowned upon by many, and misunderstood by most.

There are some of us, however, who have been there and now have a new outlook on depression.

For this reason it was refreshing to read the article linked below.

A lot of people suffer from depression. A lot of saved people. If you are one of them allow me to encourage you not to waste it. Go on in a power that is not your own. Remember that God does not call the great and the mighty. He calls the nobodies and failures and weak and unimpressive – and accomplishes a plan hatched before the world began through them. Through you.

via Wasted Depression | Thistletown Baptist Church.

To say that you get the Holy Spirit later, after salvation because the apostles did is to misunderstand the redemptive history of God. The Spirit came here because this was the time for the Spirit to come. And there had to be a beginning. It is not to say that this is the example of every Christian who then gets the Spirit X number of years after his salvation. Not at all.

Now, this is a mystery. The body of Christ is the collective unity of all saints of which Christ is the head. When you believed in Jesus Christ, you were placed into that unity, that body. You became one with Christ and one with every other believer, right? If you’re in the body of Christ, you’re one with Him. 1 Corinthians 6:17, “He that is that joined to the Lord is one,” what, “one Spirit.” When you became saved, Paul says, “nevertheless I live yet,” not I, but what, “Christ lives in me.” My life is not my own anymore, it’s Christ’s. I am in Him. I’m one with Him. I’m joined to Him.

So when you believed in Jesus Christ at the very moment of your salvation, He placed you into the body in union with Christ and every other believer. Are we one with each other in Christ? Sure. How did we get there? That’s what the baptism of the Spirit is. Now in case you want to look at another passage, look at Romans 6. And keep in mind that there’s no water around. These passages aren’t talking about water baptism at all. This is theology at this point apart from the symbol of it, which is in the water baptism.

via The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Part 1.

See also:

The Church

The Baptism With The Holy Spirit

First of all, I was taken to task for this post, because I supposedly was using men’s words to establish a doctrine of Scripture. That’s silly. I was discussing the lexical meaning of theopneustos.

Second, I was told I should check Thayer, as though Thayer would tell me something different. Well, I immediately thought, “Jason, you dummy! You have Thayer on the shelf. Why did you not check? It would have been easy enough.”

Check is what I did.

Here is Thayer on theopneustos:

(theos and pneo) inspired by God

We know theos is God. What about pneo? Thayer says:

pneo- …to breathe, to blow

Let’s see…if theopneustos comes from theos and pneo it means “God-breathed.”

Most people who know a little about Greek know also that there is a connection between pneo and pneuma (spirit). This also helps us to see the connection between the Spirit of God and the Scriptures which are given by God’s inspiration.

We are then back at the same conclusion as I arrived at in the previous post.

Thanks for pointing me to Thayer. He confirmed that words have meanings, and that the meaning of “given by inspiration of God” is “God-breathed.”

The only logical view of this is to accept that that which is God-breathed is the product of God, and thus is His Word. In fact, Paul told Timothy to preach this “Word.” (2Timothy 4:1-2)

Related articles

• What Does “Given By Inspiration of God” Mean? 2Timothy 3:16 (pastoralmusings.com)
• “Given by Inspiration” – theopneustos, etymology, and hapax legomenon (mindrenewers.com)
• “Given by Inspiration” – theopneustos, Context Revisited (mindrenewers.com)

I’m glad I’m not alone in resisting parallelomania.

Leithart doesn’t seem to like comparing Genesis and Gilgamesh or Enuma Elish.

Note his statement (emphasis mine):

 The fact that both Babylonians and Hebrews look up and see a blue dome above them (which is what I see too!) pales in comparison with the radical difference between a cosmogony of violence and a cosmogony of peace.