“The person who desires to grow spiritually and intellectually will be constantly at his books.” Oswald Sanders
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Christmas One: Isaiah jives with Matthew
Could you ask for a better set of readings for the end of the year? Isaiah 63:7-14 and Matthew 2:13-23? At first blush, they appear to have nothing in common. After all Matthew references Hosea, Jeremiah, and “the (unnamed) prophets.”
Once you spend a little time with Isaiah and Matthew, however, you realize they jive like peanut butter and jelly.
Isaiah 63
o When God remembers (zakar"), He gets involved – think Exodus 6:5 where God “remembers” His covenant w/
o This is almost certainly what Isaiah has in mind when he recalls/tells of the kindnesses of the Lord.
o Isaiah probably remembers Exodus 33:14 where God passes by Moses proclaiming, “The Lord, The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love (chesed,,) and faithfulness…
o Certainly is recalling the entire exodus experience and God’s repeated expressions of kindnesses (chesed,,).
o In Isaiah 6:9 they were “this people.” = law
o In Hosea 1:9 they were (Lo Ami) “not my people.” = law
o Think: Exodus 3:7-8a – God sees
o Think: Exodus 33:14 – God tells Moses My Presence (literally My Face) will go with you
o Think: 2 Corinthians 4:6 – Glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus.
o Think: Exodus 6:6 – God makes the promise to do exactly this.
o Think Isaiah 40:11 – God carries His lambs close to his heart.
o Think Exodus 15:23 – the bitter, undrinkable water of Marah – it’s the same word used for “rebellion” here. Their rebellion was bitter to God!
o Think Genesis 6:6 – God’s heart was full of pain (atsab') over the corruption of mankind.
o God’s not an unmoved mover; He’s the most moved mover.
o Think Isaiah 54:8 – only a moment, His unfailing and steadfast love (chesed,,), however, lasts forever.
· “Then”
o God carries
o God brings His Son out of
o He is God’s obedient Israel/Son
o He does right what OT Israel did wrong
o Think Galatians 3:26-29 – If baptized, sons of God, seed/offspring of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.
o Baptized believers in Christ are incorporated into
o Think Ephesians 4:30 – don’t grieve the Holy Spirit.
o Instead, remember God’s unfailing love.
o Think “Do this in remembrance of me.” - The Sacrament of the Altar!
o And what, by the way, was Jesus doing on the night He instituted the Sacrament? Remembering/reliving the exodus event in the Passover.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Created Cosmos - No Monkey Business
In all likelihood you've all heard/read about evolutionists supporting the theory of evolution by comparing it to monkeys typing sonnets on a typewriter: random, purposeless, unguided chance (along with natural selection and mutations) + large quantities of time = evolution.
Well, given enough time, could monkeys compose sonnets?
It seems the British National Council of Arts actually tried it.
Here's what they did:
A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys for one month. After one month of use (including as a bathroom), the monkeys produced 50 typed pages – but not a single word.
Gerry Schroeder (author of The Science of God) then asked,
‘What’s the chance of getting a Shakespearean sonnet?’…
"[Now] the number of particles in the universe – not grains of sand, I’m talking about protons, electrons, and neutrons – is 10 to the 80th. Ten to the 80th is 1 with 80 zeros after it. Then to the 690th is 1 with 690 zeros after it. There are not enough particles in the universe to write down the trials; you’d be off by a factor of 10 to the 690th.
“If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips –forget the monkeys- each one weighing a millionth of a gram and had each computer chip able to spin out 488 trials at, say, a million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second [producing] random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials. It would be off again by a factor or 10 to the 600th. You will never get a sonnet by chance. The universe would have to be 10 to the 600th times larger. Yet the world just thinks monkeys can do it every time.”
Found in: "There Is A God" by Antony Flew
And what Flew and Schroeder fail to mention is that this is only one side of the coin. Composing the sonnet it one thing (one statistically impossible thing!). The other necessary component is the ability to recognize it. In other words, an entire language needs to be extant and the knowledge to understand it - add that to the monkey business and you'll feel like scratching your head!
The short of it is: life did not / can not evolve by chance (especially if you consider that the DNA in each cell contains three and a half billion nucleotide bases, is about two meters in length and has more information than three complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Life needs something/someone to order it and something/someone to create the ability to recognize the order.
Kind of only leaves one option doesn't it? And it ain't the monkeys.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Advent 4 - And the young maiden will be with child...???
Anybody else excited about the texts (Isaiah 7:1-17 and Matthew 1:18-25) for this Sunday (Advent 4)?
I mean what's not to like? The Syro-Ephraimite Wars, Pekah and Rezin vs. Ahaz and Tiglath-Pileser III (really his name alone makes it worth it) and throw in a little prophecy action from Isaiah and you have a made for TV movie.
And of course everybody's favorite sign from Isaiah 7:14 "The Lord will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will be called Immanuel..."
But what really excites me is the opportunity to explain signs and prophecies.
By now everyone has heard that the Hebrew word for virgin "almah" can mean "young maiden." I love it when "enlightened" "scholars" present this to people in question form: "Hey, did you know that "almah" is usually translated "young maiden?" and then don't bother to explain any more. They just leave people wondering if Mary was really a virgin and if the virgin birth is really essential to Biblical theology and Christian faith. It's great to help people think through their faith with inductive questions, but let's not forget the devil is familiar with this method too: "Did God really say?" Asking questions is one thing. Sometimes people need answers.
Anyway, "almah" can be translated "young maiden." Big deal. The fact of the matter is the sign of which Isaiah spoke in 7:14 was, in all likelihood, given in the next chapter. Just read 8:3-10. Isaiah talks about "Immanuel." Of course, Isaiah named the boy, which he conceived w/ a prophetess, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (which we initially considered naming our first born :) )
So, the sign was given to Ahaz/Judah only 9 months after it was promised (not 700 years later when Jesus was born). The woman who bore the child was most likely a virgin until she conceived.
The sign, which was the child, pointed to the promise, which was God's promise to save His people. So, Immanuel (which means "God with us") was the sign given to verify God's promise which was to deliver His people quickly (and BTW, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means "quick to the plunder, swift to the spoils" (which would have fit our first child perfectly) ). Of course, Ahaz didn't do Judah any favors by seeking out Assyria's help instead of the Lord's - try like the whole land be ransacked, save Jerusalem, and that was only because the Lord miraculously intervened and killed 185,000 Assyrians over night with the wave of His hand.
OK, so what about Jesus? Well, here's what I love about signs and prophecies: Isaiah's prophecy was initially fulfilled in Ahaz's time and 700 years later, Jesus fully fulfilled it (some theological bigwigs call this "telescoping." Think a telescope being collapsed and expanded - there's more to prophecy than the little condensed telescope; you have to stretch it out). So, Jesus was Immanuel, the sign that "God (is) with us." And what did the sign verify? In other words, the sign pointed to something just like Isaiah's Immanuel pointed to God's promise to deliver His people quickly. Well, read Matthew 1:18-25. The angel tells Joseph the child will be named Jesus because He will save people from their sins. Jesus means "the Lord is salvation." The sign (Immanuel) verified the promise (Jesus) to save people from their sins.
And what about poor Mary? Was she a virgin? Just read the Greek. "Parthenos" unequivocally means "virgin." Mary was a virgin. As to why that's important, well, that's for another time.
Anybody else excited yet?
**Disclaimer: this was all off the top of my head, so please forgive and correct any mistakes.
I mean what's not to like? The Syro-Ephraimite Wars, Pekah and Rezin vs. Ahaz and Tiglath-Pileser III (really his name alone makes it worth it) and throw in a little prophecy action from Isaiah and you have a made for TV movie.
And of course everybody's favorite sign from Isaiah 7:14 "The Lord will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will be called Immanuel..."
But what really excites me is the opportunity to explain signs and prophecies.
By now everyone has heard that the Hebrew word for virgin "almah" can mean "young maiden." I love it when "enlightened" "scholars" present this to people in question form: "Hey, did you know that "almah" is usually translated "young maiden?" and then don't bother to explain any more. They just leave people wondering if Mary was really a virgin and if the virgin birth is really essential to Biblical theology and Christian faith. It's great to help people think through their faith with inductive questions, but let's not forget the devil is familiar with this method too: "Did God really say?" Asking questions is one thing. Sometimes people need answers.
Anyway, "almah" can be translated "young maiden." Big deal. The fact of the matter is the sign of which Isaiah spoke in 7:14 was, in all likelihood, given in the next chapter. Just read 8:3-10. Isaiah talks about "Immanuel." Of course, Isaiah named the boy, which he conceived w/ a prophetess, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (which we initially considered naming our first born :) )
So, the sign was given to Ahaz/Judah only 9 months after it was promised (not 700 years later when Jesus was born). The woman who bore the child was most likely a virgin until she conceived.
The sign, which was the child, pointed to the promise, which was God's promise to save His people. So, Immanuel (which means "God with us") was the sign given to verify God's promise which was to deliver His people quickly (and BTW, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means "quick to the plunder, swift to the spoils" (which would have fit our first child perfectly) ). Of course, Ahaz didn't do Judah any favors by seeking out Assyria's help instead of the Lord's - try like the whole land be ransacked, save Jerusalem, and that was only because the Lord miraculously intervened and killed 185,000 Assyrians over night with the wave of His hand.
OK, so what about Jesus? Well, here's what I love about signs and prophecies: Isaiah's prophecy was initially fulfilled in Ahaz's time and 700 years later, Jesus fully fulfilled it (some theological bigwigs call this "telescoping." Think a telescope being collapsed and expanded - there's more to prophecy than the little condensed telescope; you have to stretch it out). So, Jesus was Immanuel, the sign that "God (is) with us." And what did the sign verify? In other words, the sign pointed to something just like Isaiah's Immanuel pointed to God's promise to deliver His people quickly. Well, read Matthew 1:18-25. The angel tells Joseph the child will be named Jesus because He will save people from their sins. Jesus means "the Lord is salvation." The sign (Immanuel) verified the promise (Jesus) to save people from their sins.
And what about poor Mary? Was she a virgin? Just read the Greek. "Parthenos" unequivocally means "virgin." Mary was a virgin. As to why that's important, well, that's for another time.
Anybody else excited yet?
**Disclaimer: this was all off the top of my head, so please forgive and correct any mistakes.
My New Ancient Book
I just got this (Archaeological Study Bible) in the mail yesterday and have already used it for sermon prep. It’s chock-full of articles on the history/archeology/culture etc. of Biblical times.
For example, this Sunday’s OT reading is from Isaiah 7. So I turned to Isaiah 7 and there’s an entire page on the Syro-Ephraimite War with references to Pekah, Rezin, and Tiglath-Pileser III.
I love it!
It also has 500 full color photographs with descriptions interspersed through out.
And at the beginning of each book it has helpful cultural facts and highlights along with incredibly helpful time lines. For example, the intro to Isaiah gives the time range of Isaiah’s ministry along with the split of the kingdom, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, Amos, Hosea, and
And it comes with a CD that has all 500 photographs, charts, tables, articles, diagrams, etc.
It has already made a welcome addition to my Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, my two IVP Bible Background Commentaries, and my A History of Israel by John Bright.
I know, it’s the NIV translation, but I have the ESV also on my desk (and the Greek and Hebrew), so the NIV doesn’t bother me.
Does anybody else have this book or some such similar thing they’d be willing to share info on?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
A Prayer Collection
If you’re like most people, you collect something (whether it be toys, books, photographs, or even memories). The Church also collects something: prayers. In fact, for the last 1500 years (and probably earlier), the church has collected prayers.
I’m not sure about other traditions, but the Lutheran tradition prays “the collect of the day” every Sunday. With elegance and brevity the Collect collects the thoughts of the entire congregation into one prayer even as it summarizes the Scripture readings for the day.
The five parts of the collect are: 1) invocation 2) basis for petition 3) petition 4) purpose or benefit desired 5) the doxology.
Here’s the collect for Christmas Dawn:
Most merciful God,
You gave Your eternal Word to become incarnate of the pure Virgin.
Grant Your people grace to put away fleshly lusts,
that they may be ready for Your visitation;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives an reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
I find it meaningful to pray the collected prayers of fellow believers and it helps me accomplish what Walter Wangerin Jr. asks in his book Whole Prayer, “Does God as God receive as much attention and detail as your grant yourself in your prayer?” It’s too easy to let my personal prayers and our corporate prayers slip into mere requests for me/us and away from praise and glory to God.
I’m not sure about other traditions, but the Lutheran tradition prays “the collect of the day” every Sunday. With elegance and brevity the Collect collects the thoughts of the entire congregation into one prayer even as it summarizes the Scripture readings for the day.
The five parts of the collect are: 1) invocation 2) basis for petition 3) petition 4) purpose or benefit desired 5) the doxology.
Here’s the collect for Christmas Dawn:
Most merciful God,
You gave Your eternal Word to become incarnate of the pure Virgin.
Grant Your people grace to put away fleshly lusts,
that they may be ready for Your visitation;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives an reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
I find it meaningful to pray the collected prayers of fellow believers and it helps me accomplish what Walter Wangerin Jr. asks in his book Whole Prayer, “Does God as God receive as much attention and detail as your grant yourself in your prayer?” It’s too easy to let my personal prayers and our corporate prayers slip into mere requests for me/us and away from praise and glory to God.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Avowed Atheist Apostatizes – Why?
I just finished reading Anthony Flew’s latest book: There Is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. It truly is a must read for any serious Christian apologist. (Never heard of Flew? The subtitle ought to give you a hint. If you’re still not sure, Google him.)
What changed his mind? Three areas of scientific inquiry were especially important.
1. How did the laws of nature come to be?
2. How did life as a phenomenon originate from non-life?
3. How did the universe, by which we mean all that is physical, come into
existence?
So, Christian apologists, do you have answers? (and “God did it” is too easy; that short circuits the process.)
If you don’t, then you really should read this book. Our culture is becoming increasingly attuned to these issues. Are you?
Along the way you can expect Flew to interact with Einstein, Hawking, Dawkins, and Plantinga, Paul Davies, and N.T. Wright, along with numerous others.
One of my personal favorite sections is where Flew discusses the classic “monkey theorem.” Really quite fascinating.
Flew hasn’t yet confessed Christ, but by the looks of this, he’s close: “no other religion enjoys anything like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. If you’re wanting omnipotence to set up a religion, it seems to me that this is the one to beat!”
What changed his mind? Three areas of scientific inquiry were especially important.
1. How did the laws of nature come to be?
2. How did life as a phenomenon originate from non-life?
3. How did the universe, by which we mean all that is physical, come into
existence?
So, Christian apologists, do you have answers? (and “God did it” is too easy; that short circuits the process.)
If you don’t, then you really should read this book. Our culture is becoming increasingly attuned to these issues. Are you?
Along the way you can expect Flew to interact with Einstein, Hawking, Dawkins, and Plantinga, Paul Davies, and N.T. Wright, along with numerous others.
One of my personal favorite sections is where Flew discusses the classic “monkey theorem.” Really quite fascinating.
Flew hasn’t yet confessed Christ, but by the looks of this, he’s close: “no other religion enjoys anything like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. If you’re wanting omnipotence to set up a religion, it seems to me that this is the one to beat!”
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Advent 3 – Matthew 11:2-15
The Gospel reading for the third Sunday in Advent is Matthew 11:2-15. Verses 2-10 are understandable, 11-15, however, are consternating me.
11:11
After talking about John’s role as preparing messenger Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Who is “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven”?
One commentary I read said this, “he (Jesus) had no poor thought about John, but rather great thoughts about the kingdom. Do we understand that this is the climatic line? That blank page between the N.T. and the O.T. is a mountain ridge that divides time. It is a great act of God, a new creation. People who live on one side, even though they are as noble as John, even though they foretell the new age as did John, are not as ‘great’ in favor and understanding as the lowliest who, trusting Christ, have entered the new land.”
Is this right? Or is Jesus referring to something completely different?
11:12
Then Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”
What is Jesus talking about? Is this a veiled reference to John’s imprisonment and suffering for the sake of the kingdom? Or is it something completely different?
11:11
After talking about John’s role as preparing messenger Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Who is “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven”?
One commentary I read said this, “he (Jesus) had no poor thought about John, but rather great thoughts about the kingdom. Do we understand that this is the climatic line? That blank page between the N.T. and the O.T. is a mountain ridge that divides time. It is a great act of God, a new creation. People who live on one side, even though they are as noble as John, even though they foretell the new age as did John, are not as ‘great’ in favor and understanding as the lowliest who, trusting Christ, have entered the new land.”
Is this right? Or is Jesus referring to something completely different?
11:12
Then Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”
What is Jesus talking about? Is this a veiled reference to John’s imprisonment and suffering for the sake of the kingdom? Or is it something completely different?
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Doctrine of Scripture - the Reformed Perspective
Here's something that has perplexed me:
One of the confessions of the Reformed Church is The Westminster Confession of Faith. The first article is "Of Holy Scripture." Among other things it lists the 66 books of the canon in an effort clearly to define the canon against Roman Catholicism's inclusion of the Apocrypha. From my reading, this essentially does away with F.F. Bruce's "canon within a canon" (homolegomena and antilegomena). In other words, historically the Church distinguished between books that were accepted by all and books that were "spoken against" (like James, 2 Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, etc.) They established their doctrines on the books that were accepted by all and not the books that were spoken against. They used the ones spoken against for support. The Reformed confession seems to equate them all.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Second, the confession also essentially says that God ONLY speaks through Scripture. At least that's how it looks to me. It lists all the ways God used to speak before He spoke in Scripture and then says, "those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased."
So, does God speak outside the Bible and, if so, what does it say about The Westminster Confession?
One of the confessions of the Reformed Church is The Westminster Confession of Faith. The first article is "Of Holy Scripture." Among other things it lists the 66 books of the canon in an effort clearly to define the canon against Roman Catholicism's inclusion of the Apocrypha. From my reading, this essentially does away with F.F. Bruce's "canon within a canon" (homolegomena and antilegomena). In other words, historically the Church distinguished between books that were accepted by all and books that were "spoken against" (like James, 2 Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, etc.) They established their doctrines on the books that were accepted by all and not the books that were spoken against. They used the ones spoken against for support. The Reformed confession seems to equate them all.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Second, the confession also essentially says that God ONLY speaks through Scripture. At least that's how it looks to me. It lists all the ways God used to speak before He spoke in Scripture and then says, "those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased."
So, does God speak outside the Bible and, if so, what does it say about The Westminster Confession?
Another Crumby Blog?
Like most people, I've read blogs and occasionally contributed, but they never seem to be talking about what I'm thinking about. So, here's my theological crumby blog. (By the way, theology is my passion, so I tend to think about it a lot.)
And really, the crumbs on the floor are more interesting than the food on the table.
And really, the crumbs on the floor are more interesting than the food on the table.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
