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Brief introductions to the Bible - 25 June 2010
If you were looking for brief introductions to chapter-sized chunks of the Bible, perhaps for use before readings at church, you could do a lot worse than look here.
HT: CH
Chief Inspector of Schools doesn’t understand education law - 24 June 2010
Tory MP Graham Stuart, the new Chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, has launched a searing attack on the recent Ofsted report on home education.
He described the report itself as “an unpleasant hangover of the last government,” and Ofsted’s chief inspector Christine Gilbert’s attempts to defend it as “deeply concerning.”
This is likely to be welcomed not only by home-educating families, but also but the countless others who have in recent years become increasingly irritated by the state’s increasing intrusion into family life.
Astonishingly, the Ofsted report revealed that the Chief Inspector of Schools doesn’t understand education law. The report wrongly claimed that local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that children receive a suitable education, whereas in fact this responsibility in fact rests with parents. Mr Stuart said, “It is astonishing that the Chief Inspector of Schools should stray onto home education and get it so wrong.”
The Arminian doctrine of election - 24 June 2010
Question 4 of the most recent questions for the Guided Reading Course made a reference to Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Since these hefty tomes might not be in everyone’s theological library, here’s the relevant quote:
[The Arminians] attribute a certain causality to faith, so that God is moved by its foresight to choose this rather than that one … Moreover, they make a twofold decree of election: the first general, of saving believers; the second special, of saving individuals by name whom God foresaw would believe. (Turretin, Institutes, IV.xi.7; 1:356-357)
Leave it all behind - 23 June 2010
“Upon acknowledging the redemptive power of Christ crucified, the Christian is asked to ‘take up his cross’ by first renouncing something which he discovers never truly existed in the first place: spiritual independence.” (Gerry Wisz)
We are not better theologians than God - 22 June 2010
We’ve reached the final session of the Guided Reading Course for this academic year. This week’s reading is John Barach, “Covenant and Election,” in The Federal Vision, ed. S. Wilkins and D. Garner (Monroe: Athanasius Press, 2004).
Here’s a clip to give you a flavour:
We are not better theologians than God. We must learn from Scripture … how to address God’s people … and call our congregations ‘God’s chosen people’ and assure them, as Peter and Paul and all the rest do, that Jesus died for them, that they are God’s temple, the temple of the Holy Spirit.” (John Barach, “Covenant and Election,” p. 34)
1. What echoes of Calvin’s approach to the doctrine of election do you find in Barach’s introduction to the subject (pp. 15-17; cf. also pp. 25, 37)?
2. What does Barach believe about the doctrine of predestination? On what bases does he argue his case? (pp. 17-19)
3. Why, according to Barach, do “perhaps twenty out of seven hundred” people receive the Lord’s Supper in some Reformed churches (p. 19)? What erroneous logic leads to this practice?
4. What, according to Barach, is the Arminian position on election (pp. 19-20)? Would you be inclined to nuance this claim in any way (cf. Turretin, Institutes, IV.xi.7; 1:356-357)?
5. What is the “[other] view more popular in our circles” (p. 20)? What pastoral problems does this view tend to produce (pp. 20-21)?
6. What point does Barach seek to make from Hebrews 10 and John 15? Why is this important to his argument (p. 22-23)?
7. What historic pedigree does Barach claim for his view (p. 23; cf. pp. 39-41)? What does this tell us about “Reformed theology”?
8. In what ways is the language of God’s “chosen ones” and “elect ones” used in Scripture (pp. 24-25)? What texts does Barach mention in this context?
9. How would Barach respond to the claim that NT talks about an entirely different kind of election from the OT (p. 27)? Are you persuaded? What other texts might helpfully be cited in this context?
10. What “three things” must be held “together as we think about the relationship between covenant and election” (p. 31; cf. pp. 31-32)? How do the texts discussed in the preceding pages (pp. 27-31) support these conclusions?
11. What happens if we ignore or marginalise the significance of God’s covenant in our reading and application of Scripture (pp. 32-33)?
12. How does Barach flesh out the relationship between salvation-history and God’s decree (p. 36)?
13. Are you uncomfortable with any of the terminology Barach discusses on p. 37?
14. “If apostasy is a real danger, can we ever have assurance?” (p. 39; cf. 35-36)?
Revealing structure - 22 June 2010
Here’s a possible outline of Psalm 128:
A (v. 1) Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways!
B (v. 2a) You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands;
C (v. 2b) you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
C’ (v. 3a) Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;
B’ (v. 3b) your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
A’ (v. 4) Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
D (v. 5a) The LORD bless you from Zion!
E (v. 5b) May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
F (v. 6c) all the days of your life!
E’ (v. 6) May you see your children’s children!
D’ (v. 6b) Peace be upon Israel!
Notice the shift from 3rd person (vv. 1-4) to 2nd person (vv. 5-6).
Notice also a couple of the correspondences in the chiasms:
- The fruit of the labour of your hands are the children around your table (B).
- The blessing of the LORD is your fruitful wife (C).
- We see the prosperity of Jerusalem as the LORD preserves our children’s children (E).
- The final blessing is peace for God’s people (F).
With thanks to Steve Hayhow. Click here to listen to the sermon.
That’s what the world thinks of this sermon - 21 June 2010
If you want to be biblical in your understanding of family life in 21st-century Britain, you’ll have to be prepared to be counter-cultural. Here are a few highlights of Steve Hayhow doing exactly that in last Sunday’s sermon on Psalm 128.
- “God gave you a wife for a reason, and not just to clear up after you.”
- “If you’ve just got married, or if you’re getting married, you need to buy a table.”
- “You’re a bigoted male chauvinist pig. Right? And worst of all, you’re a Christian, male chauvinist, Bible-believing, fundamentalist, reformationally-minded pig. So there. That’s what the world thinks of this sermon.”
- “This Psalm is addressed to the men … if [your wife] is not flourishing then it’s your problem, and you need to address it – gracefully – not because there’s something wrong with her, but because there’s something profoundly wrong with you, that everyone else can see.”
Sacraments are means of grace - 21 June 2010
Sacraments are sometimes described as “means of grace.” That’s a biblical way of thinking, provided of course that we understand biblically what “grace” is. We need to avoid the mistake of thinking of grace in Roman Catholic terms, as some sort of “stuff” that is “dispensed” to us, a “kind of substance that could be poured into the soul.” In biblical terms, “grace is the saving action of the triune God centered in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, which brings us into new relationship which God apart from any merit of our own” (Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lords Supper, p. 33). If grace is understood in these terms, sacraments are indeed means of grace.
Of course, we derive no benefit from God’s grace without faith, and so as Calvin says the sacraments “avail and profit nothing unless received by faith” (Institutes, IV.xiv.17). Yet faith is itself a gift of God, which is strengthened through (among other things) the sacraments themselves. As Calvin puts it, “sacraments … sustain, nourish, confirm, and increase our faith” (Institutes, IV.xiv.7). Even the faith that God requires is itself his gift to us.
Two kinds of election - 21 June 2010
The word “election” is customarily used by Reformed evangelicals to refer to God’s eternal and irrevocable decree of salvation. God has “elected,” or chosen, certain people for salvation, and these people will certainly be saved. This is, of course, a perfectly biblical way of speaking.
However, “election” does not always have this meaning. The Bible forces us to recognise that there is more than one kind of election, and indeed a failure to recognise this will open the door to the unravelling of Reformed soteriology. Calvin highlights this distinction in his discussion of the preservation of the saints in his Institutes, III.xxiv.9.
Calvin first points out that in John 6:70 Jesus says that he has “chosen” all twelve of the disciples, including Judas, whom he immediately describes as “a devil”. Here the term “election” refers to Judas’s “apostolic office.” In this sense, election is revocable.
By contrast, Jesus is clearly speaking of a different kind of election in John 13:18, where he uses the term to distinguish Judas from the other eleven disciples. In this case, Calvin says, Jesus “banishes [Judas] from the number of the elect: ‘I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen’” (Calvin, Institutes, III.xxiv.9).
The distinction between these two kinds of election is critically important in Calvin’s mind: “If anyone confuses the word ‘election’ in the two passages, he will miserably entangle himself; if he notes their difference, nothing is plainer” (Calvin, Institutes, III.xxiv.9). It’s easy to see why: only by maintaining this difference can the Reformed doctrine of the preservation of the saints be upheld.
Chesterton would be delighted - 14 June 2010
Cracking stuff from Steve Hayhow on Psalm 127 last Sunday morning, complete with an array of one-liners that would have made G. K. Chesterton proud. Here’s a sample:
« Previous Entries Next Entries »The Psalms get you singing about all sorts of things you wouldn’t normally sing about.
Whenever we find something in the Bible that doesn’t fit with our worldview, it’s our worldview that needs to change.
Life is God’s project that I play a part in, not my project that God is helping out with.
Sleep is an act of faith … You sleep by faith alone, because when you go to sleep you have to trust that God is looking after things.
Sleep is not something that just gets in the way of more activity.
We need to repent of thinking that we are the key to our success.
The people who shape children shape the future … and the last people to understand that have been Christians.