Pete's Blog

Feel free to correct my spelling (or grammar) if I have any errors in my posts. I just corrected my misspelling of "complementarian" in the previous posts that used it (I used to think that it had two 'i's in it).

Labels: Miscellaneous

With engagements being put on my mind anew, and Jon Bloom, the Executive Director of Desiring God (Piper's ministry), producing an absolutely wonderful blog entry related to Joseph and Mary's engagement (i.e., betrothal), I have to point out an awesome illustration of grace, demonstrated by an awesome woman.

Matthew 1:18, 19 reads, "When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly." Hearing that Joseph decided to divorce her, you have to come to the conclusion that either Mary didn't defend herself when Joseph found out she was pregnant, or Joseph didn't believe her when she did defend herself.

I'm inclined to think the latter – that she would definitely explain that she'd seen Gabriel and that the pregnancy was of God (Lk. 1:26-38). She'd heard from God, and not telling it would be like Ezekiel not sharing his prophecy with the world. So I think that Joseph didn't believe her (as Jon Bloom imagines in his hypothetical narrative). Mary had somehow exceeded the trust that she'd earned from Joseph. Her story was indeed incredible.

I wonder what sort of miracles I would be too naturalistic to believe. Would I believe it if my best friend had been supernaturally given a haircut by God? Would I believe it if my pastor told me that he was about to get on a plane for Saudi Arabia when God transported him there, as He did to Philip away from the Ethiopian eunuch? Do I trust those whom I should trust unconditionally? Is unconditional trust necessary? Was Joseph wrong for not trusting Mary?

If Joseph had been right, and Mary had cheated on him, then he would have been justified in leaving her (Mt. 19:9 – the true application of this verse). And I don't want to vilify him by overstressing this, but he could have given her a second chance. If she'd cheated on him, it would have been either during their engagement, or shortly before. It would have completely changed his perception of her. But he could have gone ahead with the marriage anyway.

The point is, though, Mary was faithful! And it would have no doubt hurt her that the man she loved, and was going to take as her husband, didn't believe her on as critical an issue as fidelity. While never having been in a reciprocating BGR, I don't have full experience of the truth of the statement, "Trust is the foundation that holds a marriage up" (although, you might be more spiritual than me and say that's blasphemy of the highest order since God is the foundation that holds a marriage up), I still believe it.

Mary was such an amazing woman, that even though her groom-to-be thought that she was a fornicator, she still married him. I'm not Catholic, so I don't think that she somehow bore James, the brother of Jesus, without having sex, nor do I think that she ascended into heaven (as Enoch, Elijah and Jesus did), nor do I think that she was sinless, but I still think that she's amazing. She forgave Joseph's lack of faith in her and gave him a second chance. On top of that, she raised the Lord, but I'm trying not to overshadow small moments of massive, Holy Spirit given forgiveness.

I hope and pray that I have that much grace with my friends, and someday in my marriage.

Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . .

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

Labels: Miscellaneous

I've already posted this entry in early May, but the formatting was choppy. In posting the entry yesterday on the True Woman Conference, though, I had an idea for how I could post the list in a more appealing, more organized way. The original post follows, although, I did make a few changes.

Last year when I got back from Tanzania I wrote a list of the characteristics that I think every Christian man should exemplify. I was motivated to do this having worked with some tremendous men who displayed amazing character and vision and love for Jesus Christ. Furthermore, a girl I was working with commented that she respected the biblical man I described. I figured I would share these characteristics.

Another thing to note is that these come from the mind of a single guy. I've never dated a girl so I'm not basing these assertions on any BGR experience. You may compare them to the list of 13 characteristics (the first six and the final seven) of manhood that Albert Mohler wrote up, which he relates heavily to married life.

They're not grouped according to importance. Some of them are abstract (e.g., 35) but most of them are practical (e.g., 2). But they're not grouped this way either. I aimed to group them topically.

Sorry the list is so long. That notwithstanding, please give me feedback.

The Lord's men are those who:

Update: I've added a clarification on number 22.

Labels: Abbreviations, Characters, Manhood, Resources

"It's not about going back to the nineteenth century; it's about going back to the Scriptures." Albert Mohler said something like that on his radio program on November 25^th, in reference to complementarian Christian women asserting that they want to start a counter-cultural movement where it is acknowledged that there is a difference in the roles that men and women are to enter into. He said that when he read the True Woman Manifesto (I'll get to it in this post), he got the impression that if a Christian woman in the 19^th century were reading it, she would wonder why the document was written. It would be like a duh moment. The goal of the complementarian movement is not to make people old fashioned. The goal is to be biblical.

On the program, he was talking with Mary Kassian, professor at Southern Seminary, Canadian, author and speaker (and the first person to get a post with the "Character" label on my blog). On it, they were talking about the True Woman conference that happened back in mid-October, where about 6300 women went to listen and interact about biblical lessons on gender, and more specifically, femininity. They talked a fair chunk about the document I mentioned above. Mrs. Kassian wants to see 100 000 women sign the document internationally. That's my hope for many of the girls who read this blog, that maybe you would sign it.

I mostly wrote this post because I liked what Mohler said so much. Evangelical feminism is brand new, less than a hundred years old. It's coming out of the culture of radical feminism, not the Bible. If egalitarianism were biblical it would have emerged in Church history at some point earlier. It didn't. Biblical gender is not about going back to the cave man days, but it's about being biblical.

Below is the audio that's from the conference. I hope you listen to it. I've only listened to the panel discussion and Mrs. Kassian's first talk so far, but I'm going to read the rest soon. I highly recommend her talk.

Thursday, October 9

Friday, October 10

Saturday, October 11

Labels: Characters, Miscellaneous, Resources

As Canada had a record low voter turnout last month for the election, I was not surprised when I read that the sentence the Collins English Dictionary will be using to illustrate the use of the word "meh" will be "the Canadian election was so meh." Canwest News wrote,

A disgruntled Canadian voter expressing boredom in an Internet forum about the recent federal election will have that feeling immortalized in the Collins English Dictionary.

The U.K.-based publisher of the popular reference book announced this week that the word "meh" - meaning "mediocre" or "boring," as in "the Canadian election was so meh," Collins editors explained - has been chosen over hundreds of other submissions to become the general public's entry in the dictionary's 30th anniversary edition, to be printed next year.

But the lexicographer who used the election reference to convey the meaning of English's new "expression of indifference" insists he intended "no slight to Canada."

I find it amusing that the sentence says "so meh." It's like saying, "You're twice as average as the average person," or, conversely, "You're special – just like everybody else."

Labels: Politics

The Ottawa Citizen:

In a recent ruling against PickupPal.ca, an Ottawa-based website that helps people put together carpools, the board stated "the term carpool vehicles was introduced in the late 1970s to allow working people to share rides to and from work."

Using carpools for other purposes is illegal, according to the decision.

Another implication to this ruling is that you can't carpool to church on Sunday, for example, or as the article uses as an example, teammates can't carpool to hockey practice. The problem is that the courts have taken a definition and decided that it's a complete, maximum definition. It's exclusive. Their ruling says that there can be no other activities that can be described as carpooling. Realistically, that definition should be a minimum. Carpooling can be working people sharing rides to and from work.

For those of you with a C4C weekly meeting, you had better not have shared a ride home from school. Ridiculous.

Labels: Politics

I was reading back entries of Justin Taylor's blog recently. He wrote in early 2005,

A law in California says that "Children under 14 are banned from using tanning salons, unless they have a doctor's note, and those 14 to 18 need parental permission to receive a tan." (HT: The Corner).

In 1997 the California Supreme Court ruled that the requirement of parental consent before a minor's abortion was unconstitutional.

So to recap this sick scenario: if you are a girl between ages 14-18 in California, you need your parent's permission to receive a tan, but if you don't need it in order to kill your unborn child.

It was neat reading this because, if you didn't know better, you'd think that he'd have written it just a little bit before the 2008 election. In California, one of the items on the ballot was Proposition 4. That link leads to a summary of how the bill would amend the California constitution. The first point is the most significant one: "Changes California Constitution to prohibit abortion for unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor's parent or legal guardian."

Prop 4 was rejected by the Californian people a week ago.

Labels: Blogs, Politics

• the gang lords and drug dealers in the Jane and Finch area (Toronto gang hotspot) to find Christ.
• abortion doctors to be converted. Similarly, pray that a Canadian will be raised up who will fight for the unborn as William Wilberforce fought for enslaved Africans.
• University physics professors to know the true age of the earth, biology professors to know where humans came from, philosophy professors to know that absolutes exist and religion professors to know that the Bible is from God, so that they stop leading generation after generation of students astray.
• the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada and the other liberal protestant denominations to have a revolution within themselves where they find themselves more conservative (i.e., believing the Bible).
• a theological thinker of the weight (not literally) and stature of Augustine to be given to Canada. I mention this one recalling that Mark Dever, when he visited the tank where Ambrose baptized Augustine, prayed for God to let him take part in calling great men to the ministry of the Word.
• the tens of thousands of immigrants moving to Canada every week to come to faith; there could be such an amazing foretaste of heaven, of every nation, tongue and tribe, within these borders.
• your pastor's sermons to be published in the local newspaper every week, as Charles Spurgeon's were, reaching so many people in your community with the Gospel.

Labels: Abbreviations, Prayer, Resources

Mormonism is almost a form of universalism. Depending on which Mormon you talk to either only those former Mormons who went into apostasy will go to hell, or those who knowingly and willingly reject the Mormons' gospel will. The reasoning behind this is they think that hell was created for the spirits who rebelled against Elohim (i.e., specifically God the Father in Mormonism; Yahweh is Jesus within that system) before the foundation of the world, and that earth is for everyone else by Elohim. The enticement for becoming a Mormon is getting into a better level of heaven; there are three different spiritual levels of heaven, and then there's also hell. If you want more information on the system, I would recommend listening to James White on Issue Etc. talk about Mormons' view of heaven.

To ascend to the best level of heaven, you need to be baptized by a Mormon who's been baptized (they believe in a similar form of apostolic succession as Catholics, that the Holy Spirit is only passed on by the laying on of hands by someone who already has the Holy Spirit). For some non-Mormons who are dead, modern day Mormons will go through the rite of baptism for the dead which they take from 1 Corinthians 15:29, "Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?" So, for example, if a Mormon man were to take an interest in the late Marilyn Monroe he could get baptized for her (which, realistically, has probably already been done, Mormons keep such quality and extensive genealogical records to track such things), hoping that she respond to the preaching of the gospel in the next life (which they justify based on 1 Peter 3:18, 19: "Christ ... in the flesh ... went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison"), and he'll meet her in his level of heaven.

All that is introduction to a controversy I read about in an article that's arisen between Mormons and Holocaust survivors and their descendents. When new names of victims of the Holocaust are discovered, the Mormons are getting baptized for them. The Jews are worried that this practice will play into the hands of future Holocaust deniers. They're worried that people will look back on history, reading through the Mormons' genealogies, see all these victims' names and think that they were Mormons not Jews.

The Mormons are responding by agreeing to take all the Holocaust victims' names out of their records. I guess it shouldn't surprise me since I think that Mormons even have a non-proselytizing policy for Jews, considering them to have their own covenant.

The reason I wanted to post on this is because I find it funny. This is what happens when your communion tells you that anyone who doesn't believe what you believe needs to be evangelized, and then makes exceptions. It makes perfect sense to me that the Mormons would be getting baptized for these deceased Jews – they didn't believe in Jesus or Joseph Smith, of course they need to be baptized. The idea that Jews' own covenant covers them is just confusing, unless you consider that what's realistically happening is the Latter Day Church is compromising since it's so politically incorrect to evangelize Jews.

Lastly, I think this serves as an example of why exclusivism (i.e., that only those who accept the Gospel will be saved, with the exception of babies and mentally disabled people in some cases) in evangelicalism is the only consistent position to take. There is no biblical warrant for thinking that you can be saved outside of Christ, even if the Gospel is not available where a person perishes. It may seem harsh, but first, it's just, and second, it's such a motivation to go and send. "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" (Rm. 10:14, 15).

Labels: Miscellaneous, Politics

Peter Kreeft, Catholic convert, formerly a reformed Protestant, is an apologist. He has a strong voice within the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, Protestants might also be aware of him, since he was the scholar interviewed for the first objection that Lee Strobel deals with in his book The Case for Faith.

I was reading Dr. Kreeft's testimony of his conversion to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism today, when I came across the argument that follows:

I was impressed by the argument that "the Church wrote the Bible:" Christianity was preached by the Church before the New Testament was written—that is simply a historical fact. It is also a fact that the apostles wrote the New Testament and the Church canonized it, deciding which books were divinely inspired. I knew, from logic and common sense, that a cause can never be less than its effect. You can't give what you don't have. If the Church has no divine inspiration and no infallibility, no divine authority, then neither can the New Testament.

What Kreeft, and Catholics in general, are arguing is that it is logical to conclude that the Church must be infallible. This comes in contrast to Protestants arguing that the Bible is the only infallible authority given to man (the doctrine of Sola Scriptura which was fought for intensely in the Reformation). For easier examination of the argument, and to see where Protestants take issue with it, let me restate Kreeft's argument in a syllogism,

1. The apostles (who were part of the Church) wrote the NT and the Church canonized the infallible Bible;
   
2. A cause (i.e., the Church) is never less than the effect (i.e., the Bible);
   
3. Therefore, the Church is infallible.
   

It is with the first premise that the protestant would take issue. The apostles did scribe the Bible and express it in their own words, but the thoughts were God's. He wrote the Bible. First Peter 1:21 reads, "no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." God wrote infallible books using fallible men. But it was the Spirit who overcame their fallibility, "as they were carried along," so that the books are infallible. So the syllogism reasons that since God is the cause of the Bible, and the Bible is infallible, we infer that God is infallible. We already knew that.

I suspect that Kreeft would admit that the argument more rests on the canon than on the Church writing the Bible. He knows that God wrote the Bible. Catholics like to argue that since Protestants have no infallible authority from which to state the canon (which, up to this point, I agree with), we have no Bible at all. They insist that to have a Bible, the canon must be infallible. Protestants take issue with this, saying that we have a fallible canon of infallible books. God in no revelatory way decisively stated which books were to be in the canon. So, we must discern which books of the early Church belong there. Since man is fallible, that canon is fallible. So, applying Kreeft's argument, in observing that the Church caused the canon, which is fallible, we infer that the Church is at least fallible (which is not news).

The point is to say that you need to presuppose that the canon is infallible for the argument to work. The only reason the Catholic Church knows the canon is infallible is because on the Church's infallible authority it was stated so in 1546. It's a circular argument. Protestant ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) is not hindered by this argument because it does not use the Protestant doctrine of the Bible.

I'm eventually going to write a post on cause and effect, but when I saw this argument, I couldn't resist commenting on it.

Labels: Long, Miscellaneous

The Telegraph wrote,

A top 10 list of irritating expressions has been compiled by researchers at Oxford University...

1. At the end of the day
   
2. Fairly unique
   
3. I personally
   
4. At this moment in time
   
5. With all due respect
   
6. Absolutely
   
7. It's a nightmare
   
8. Shouldn't of
   
9. 24/7
   
10. It's not rocket science
    

They also said that "literally" and "ironically" are also found to be highly irritating when used out of context. Interesting.

Labels: Miscellaneous

I was shocked when I read that Apple (yes, the very iPod and computer company) has given $100 000 to defeat Proposition 8 on the California ballot in November.

Basically, Proposition 8 restricts the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. The proposition does not take a stance on granting privileges to homosexual partners in recognized civil unions. The philosophy behind it is that the unique institution of a man and woman joining covenantally, to provide for one another, and produce, nurture and rear children, is essential to society. So that institution must not be corrupted by confusion. If a homosexual couple wants equal privileges to married couples (such as hospital visitation or tax breaks), Proposition 8 won't inhibit that from happening through the democratic process.

Anyway, it was surprising that the company chose to put its weight behind such a controversial issue. I guess that I shouldn't be too surprised. Al Mohler wrote this morning, "Younger Americans, by and large, see homosexuality as part of the recognizable landscape and within the normal range of human behaviors." Maybe Apple is trying to appeal to the next generation by joining them in their struggle to win rights for homosexuals. That has to be what Apple's doing. The $100 000 they're giving is not much compared to the 24 billion dollars of revenue they generated in their 2007 fiscal year, so they're doing this purely for the sake of making a statement.

To weigh in, I was always satisfied with PCs. I've never been disappointed with them. And on top of that, Macs are so expensive. So, I was never planning on buying a Mac. But this is more reason. Buying a Mac is partly (i.e., 0.0004%) going to fund the homosexual movement.

As an addition to this, the first article I referred to said that Levi's jeans gave $25 000 to the campaign to defeat Prop. 8.

Labels: Politics

There were two posts on Justin Taylor's blog today talking about the importance of not voting for a pro-choice candidate. One, the second, had a YouTube video on it, that I'd seen before. Recently my brother had a son. He was the first newborn I'd ever been around. He was remarkably small and fragile. I'd been around babies who were a few months old before, but never one three days old. As I watched the video, there was an aborted baby (starting at 3:11) who I could completely see my nephew in (although, watching the video a second time to find the time index, I noticed that they weren't overly comparable, but I could still imagine my nephew being that size). I dislike the hyperbole (at 0:59), "and no one seems to care," because it's so unhelpful at sympathizing with truth. But that notwithstanding, I think the video is helpful, otherwise.


Tristen Lance Eddy (5 days old, b. Sept. 24, 2008)

Labels: Blogs, Friends, Miscellaneous, Politics, Resources

Take the test.

Labels: Miscellaneous

This will not be a common practice on this blog, so as to not steal Meredith's blogging style.

--

While scripting in my head a possible blog post, I used the word "intimate" (using the less commonly known definition of it: To make known subtly and indirectly). I wondered whether people would think that I was showing off since it's a word that's not in common use, which could easily be replaced by "imply" or another synonym that's more widely familiar. A friend once used a big word and he was criticized for it.

--

I want to admit that I don't know anything about the pill. I said in an earlier post that I might share my thoughts about the birth-control pill. I don't have any. There, I've shared my thoughts. I think that I was trying to so more knowledgeable than I am. I apologize.

--

Probably the biggest contention between Catholics and Protestants is the use of Scripture. Catholics would say that there are two infallible rules of faith, tradition and the written Scriptures. One of the tenets that Martin Luther fought for in the reformation was Sola Scriptura. It "teaches that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church" (taken from James White). Anyway, since the Catholics (claim) to rely on tradition, they introduce doctrines like the eternal virginity of Mary, purgatory or the infallibility of the Bishop in Rome (eventually dubbed the Pope), to name a few.

The one in particular I want to talk about is the dogmatic statement of Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:10-16; Hw. 9:4) as a type of Mary. (Read here about types.) Usually what a protestant would do upon hearing the rationale for thinking there's a biblical defense of the type (i. that both the Ark and Mary bore the Word of God; ii. in Ex. 40:34-38 and Lk. 1:15 God overshadows Mary and the Tabernacle, in which is the Ark), he criticizes how poor the biblical defense is. I think that this is dangerous. If (and I recognize that this is a very big "if") the Ark of the Covenant were a type of Mary, inspired by the Spirit, then the use of these biblical passages in this way is legitimate. What needs to be done first is show that the Roman Catholic Church has no innate authority, that it only has authority in the Word. Then show that the Scriptures don't suggest that the Ark is a type of Mary, so we don't need to look for verses to support it.

The reason I point this out is that if we fail to state that the Roman Church doesn't have the authority to dogmatize unbiblical types, jumping into pointing to the poor exegesis of Rome, then we suggest that's how Matthew's writings should be dealt with.

Matthew 2:15 says, "This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my son,'" quoting Hosea 11:1. When you read the Hosea passage in context, the "son" being spoken of was clearly Israel. So, Matthew, under the inspiration of the Spirit, pointed out that Israel was a type of Christ. If it had been that God didn't inspire Matthew, then we should say that he's either a fool or a liar for misusing the OT like that. But God is essentially saying through Matthew, "I called Israel out of Egypt to make to make it look like history parallels my Son's life."

Rome could do that too if they actually had the authority to interpret the Church's history, but they don't.

--

One of the reasons I hadn't posted in a while is because I'm still debating what the purpose my blog is. As I said, I have no intention in indulging in the feast of having your attention over my personal life, so this won't be a blog where I post diary entries. But, I still want my blog to be unique, offering you something that you can't get elsewhere, otherwise it would be wasting your time. So, while I've had a few ideas for posts, I didn't think I could offer something that hadn't been done before. I'm still thinking through this.

--

Yes!

--

Over Reading Week '05, I was studying 1 Corinthians. I came to the eighth chapter, verse 6. Part of it reads, "for us there is one God, the Father." That whole year I struggled with whether I agreed that the Bible supported the doctrine of Christ's divinity. When I came to this verse, it almost tipped me over the edge to heresy. Until last week I'd been uncomfortable with what I thought the implications of that verse were. If only the Father is God, how can Christ be God?

The other day, though, I heard James White explain that if you use the same logic on another part of the same verse, "for us there is ...
one Lord, Jesus Christ," then it implies that the Father is somehow God without being Lord, which is absurd. The verse actually implies the divinity of Christ!

--

I also heard James White talk about how a Muslim recently argued that Jesus couldn't be God since He ran from His creatures when He was born. I think it's hilarious.

Labels: Bible, Blogs, Characters, Friends, Humour, Long, Resources

Piper has announced that he's starting another expository, verse-by-verse sermon series. This one is going to be on the Gospel of John. I'm really excited by this. From listening to him explain the tough texts there, such as what water means in 3:5 ("Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God'") or what it means for John the Baptist to not be Elijah (1:21; cf. Mt. 11:12-14), to being exposed to his thoughts on the textual issue of 7:53-8:11 (for more information read Dan Wallace say it is not inspired Scripture and read [in the fourth to eighth paragraphs] Mac say that it is inspired Scripture [I'm with Wallace, as his argument, in my assessment, is far more compelling than what Mac provides]), or to be fed the Gospel and hear of the Saviour's life from a Johannine perspective (Paul was very much so a thinker, whereas the Apostle John was a feeler). I await this series with much anticipation.

--

I introduced a character here. I have great respect for Dan Wallace. He's a professor at DTS. The most amazing story that I've read (also read the sequels of the interview: parts 2, 3 and 4) about him was that he taught himself Greek from a textbook he'd written himself. In short, he suffered a form of amnesia, and forgot Greek, all the while, he was teaching a class on Greek. So he kept himself one lecture ahead of the students, teaching himself, essentially from scratch, from his own textbook. Neat. He's a great textual critic (the study/art of analyzing the manuscripts of the Scriptures that we have, trying to figure out what really is inspired), and he debated (the link is just a recap of the debate, not the audio) Bart Ehrman on the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts, being the uncontended victor of the match. Lastly, and this is almost completely irrelevant, Wallace believes that the Gospel of John was written before 70AD based on the structure mentioned in John 5:2 ("Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool ... which has five roofed colonnades" [emphasis added], it'll be interesting to see whether Piper comments on this), although it seems that he's in the minority on this view. The argument is over the implications of the tense of the word "is" in the passage.

--

I haven't thought about the issue of the dating of John's Gospel for a while now. I had no intention of writing much on it, but now that I'm reading back on it, I've aroused my interest. As a perambulatory note, before entering this discussion, my leaning was to agree with Wallace. I respect him a lot. On the other side though, is D.A. Carson, for example. From a basic reading of the passage, I would immediately agree with Wallace. But the fact that there is disagreement over the passage makes me think that the English might betray some nuances of the Greek.

Another note, for full disclosure, I've only read one article dissenting from Wallace's view. The basic premise is that the author of that article has other reasons, mainly theological, to suppose that the Gospel was written after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD. From there, he interprets John 5:2. (This is fair, not necessarily correct, but certainly fair. Evangelicals use Romans 5:1 to interpret Jm. 2:24 and 1P. 3:21, for example.) So, to interpret John 5:2, the author produces two other verses where he thinks that the Greek verb (eimi) is used similarly (in a parallel fashion), where it is used in one tense to refer to a different time. (E.g., if the author is right, he would mean that when John wrote, "the structure that is there...," the Evangelist actually meant, "when I put myself back in Jesus' days, the structure that is there...".) The two parallels are John 10:8, "All who came before me are [eimi] thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them" (emphasis added), and John 19:40, "So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is [eimi] the burial custom of the Jews" (emphasis added, again). I don't really agree with the dissenting author, as I don't find these alleged parallels compelling, but I can somewhat see what he is talking about in the former (i.e., Jn. 10:8), the current thieves were (past tense) not listened to, but I still think that it's a stretch. All that said, I haven't read Wallace's article yet.

I report on this, only because I think that it's really interesting.

Labels: Bible, Characters, Resources

In the news today, they reported that the FOTON-M3 Spacecraft returned with its test specimen Water Bears, tardigrades, survived under extreme conditions – high radiation and a vacuum. Radiation that would irreparably damage human DNA, had no noticeable results. In fact, the article reports that the radiation probably did impact the DNA of the creatures, but that they were able to repair the damage.

I think that this is so cool. God created a creature that could survive in the harshest of environments. Whether in extreme cold or extreme heat, or exposed to the sun's rays in amounts a thousand times harsher than experienced on earth, they survive. God is creative.

--

Also in the news, there was an article stating that researchers at UT found that women experienced more difficulties and challenges working under a woman than under a man. If you're interested in the details, read the article. One of the theories for why this was happening was, "women working under other women tend to have more conflict because they are expecting female bosses to be more supportive and co-operative but instead find some women 'manage more like men, which can be more conflictive or combative.'" Women want their female bosses to be different from men, but they aren't behaving as women, but as men.

With a biblical worldview, this theory seems viable. I wonder whether it will have any impact on business policy. Or maybe women will change their expectations of their female superiors.

Labels: Miscellaneous

Continuing right along, in the previous post I stated that I was going to say why a candidate being pro-life should be a big incentive for Christians to vote for a candidate. Piper calls himself a one issue voter on the matter of abortion. He can't imagine voting for someone who would authorize a doctor to kill a person. I agree with him on that. Russell Moore compares it to electing a president who wouldn't let blacks have the same rights as the rest of the American voters. He would never vote for that guy. I agree with that reasoning. Racism and infanticide are each evil attacks on the image of God in man. By that reasoning, I would never vote for the Democratic Party of America (as long as the pro-choice platform is one of their core convictions). Similarly, if I were American, I would be hard pressed to vote for McCain, knowing that he isn't as radically pro-life as I am. I would probably vote for an independent I could agree with.

Let me illustrate why I could never vote for the Democratic Party. Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) said that he was Republican for a while because of the pro-life issue, but then moved to being a Democrat when he saw that the Republicans weren't doing anything about the issue, and thought that they were only using the abortion issue to exploit the evangelical vote. (The claim that the Republicans have done nothing about abortion isn't entirely true. While Bill Clinton was president he made partial birth abortion, abortion that is performed on a baby that's in the process of being delivered, a baby that is minutes away from gaining personhood, legal, and President Bush undid that.) Even if Miller was right, voting Democrat would make abortion far more common and would make the tax payer pay for abortions (like we already do in Canada). Consider Barack Obama's stance on abortion: It's so extreme that he was one of the few to vote against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (most Democrats voted for the Act, as well as Republicans) which was to grant personhood to babies born in an abortion attempt. The Republicans might not undo any of the abortion legislation (which I don't agree with), but the Democrats will certainly try to make it worse. This is why I think it's important not to vote for a pro-choice candidate.

Now let me explain why I wouldn't vote for the Republicans if they have a pro-choice candidate, even if he's the lesser of two evils (as many American Republicans, speaking to evangelicals, would have said of Mayor Giuliani compared with Senator Clinton). If the Republicans were to win under a pro-choice candidate, it would send the message that the Republican base does not actually care about the issue of abortion as much as it cares about national security and about the economy. That would possibly divorce the Republican Party from the pro-life stance, which would be very difficult to go back on later. Instead, I would like the Republicans to lose if they have a pro-choice candidate, sending them the message that they need the support of pro-lifers to win elections.

Now, while I find it very easy to say that no pro-lifer should vote for the Democrats, I find it more difficult to say that no one should vote for McCain. There are justices on the Supreme Court who are ready to retire. If Obama wins this election, they'll probably retire and he will be able to appoint liberal justices to the bench who will claim to find amazing things in the constitution, for example, they might claim to find that the constitution protects children from spanking. They might claim to find that the constitution allows polygamy. You might say that's ludicrous, but the same thing happened for abortion! And then, letting Obama get into office would pretty much guarantee that he would legitimize, once again, partial birth abortion. It might be worth it to vote for McCain to prevent those things. And you might be able to argue that the stem cell issue isn't a big enough step to change the direction of the party. It might be true. I don't think this issue is a matter of right and wrong, instead, I think it's an issue of beneficial and unwise.

Labels: Politics, Resources

I've been thinking about how Jer said that having a so-called pro-life Republican ticket doesn't make him a Republican supporter. Having said that he would deal with that later, I will talk about it in two days. Before talking about where to draw the line when a party advocates murder, I desire to quickly (or not so quickly) address more completely where I have observed Senator McCain standing on the issue. While he has consistently voted pro-life whenever abortion legislature has come before the senate, there are aspects of his stance that remain questionable.

First, he has consistently voted to federally fund stem cell research, which is not immediately bad. Stem cells are most abundantly available in dead foetuses. So researchers go to fertility clinics who practice in vitro fertilization (IVF, for short, where multiple eggs are fertilized and the embryo [i.e., fetus, i.e., baby] that is most likely to make it is implanted in the female carrier's womb and rest are scrapped) and buy the discarded embryos. The researchers extract the stem cells, thus terminating the embryo (i.e., killing the baby). I have a big problem with IVF, and McCain probably does, too. His reasoning for desiring to fund stem cell research, though, is out of the mindset that the embryos are already discarded anyway, so they may as well get used for the good of humanity. Some would say that position is encouraging IVF to continue. I tend not to focus on that part of stem cell research too much, right now, because there is a darker side to it. Stem cell researchers often don't have enough embryos to harvest the cells from, so they fertilize eggs with the intention of extracting their cells. So while McCain is probably opposed to that practice, his legislation is funding these baby killers. That is what makes supporting the funding of stem cell research bad.

The second concern I have with McCain's pro-life stance is much less significant, but needs to be drawn attention to for careful consideration, nevertheless. To put this point in perspective, I need to briefly refer to history. Abortion in the US was legalized in 1973. A referendum was not taken on the issue. The president didn't submit the legislation on it before the senate. No elected official was responsible for this legislation. Abortion was won by a one vote majority in the Supreme Court over the Roe vs. Wade case. Since then, social conservatives have been trying to get enough conservatives on the bench of the Supreme Court to overturn that unconstitutional ruling (judges exist to interpret the constitution and law, and the non-personhood of a baby was certainly not implied in there by the Founding Fathers).

In 2005, President Bush put forward three conservative nominees for the bench (two spots opened up and one of his nominees withdrew her application) and McCain was opposed to each of them. He claims that he did it because he didn't consider them qualified. I don't remember why. McCain had strong disagreements with the candidates' conservatism, so, he may have genuinely been worried that they would legislate conservatism from the bench. This would be a fair criticism if he were worried that these nominees would be deciding cases purely on their own values and not as an interpretation of the constitution. It raises the question of McCain's pro-life stance because there simply needs to be a conservative majority on the bench, with an appeal of Roe vs. Wade before them, for abortion rights to be overturned. (This is a bit overstated, but isn't much of an exaggeration. There would only be a few more details to sort out, I suspect.) But if McCain won't put the nominees forward for this to happen, what good is he for the pro-life cause?

Labels: Abbreviations, Friends, Politics

Labels: Bible, Politics, Resources

I was reading the Friendly Atheist today, when one of his posts was on abortion. He posted an image from an entry at a humour site. The poster's justification of abortion is that it prevents pregnancy out of marriage. I find it so difficult to believe that people can take this issue so callously, not recognizing that it's horrible that, if life begins at conception (which it does!), that a baby dies in every abortion.

The poster also draws attention to Canada; always a reliable country where you can go to get your babies killed.

Here's the poster:
Sorry it's not too high quality. Click on it to see the original. I don't know how to use Blogger well enough to get it at the quality that the source has it at.

Labels: Blogs, Politics

(This post is a response to a post on Lydia's blog about women serving in the church. The response is too long, in my mind, to justifiably be placed as a comment on her blog. Though the entry seems like a long one for my blog, follow the headings if you only want to read the essentials.)

Suppose that you have an isolated group of Christians, one well trained woman and some men who are unready for ministry. What is she to do knowing that God has ordained a separate role for women within the church than the men?

Maybe all that needs to be said is to listen to this talk given by Randy Stinson. The whole of the talk is him explaining what a husband and father's leadership in the family looks like. It should be very similar for an elder in a church. The talk is helpful for this discussion because in listening to what the man should be doing (i.e., leading), you get an idea of where a woman can justifiably step in (i.e., leading does not equate with doing everything so she can help when the leaders ask for that help, as long as it's within the bounds of Scripture [e.g., the leaders can't ask for her help to rob the bank when the church treasury is in the red]).

(The following paragraph is an encouragement to prepare for the long haul that does not contribute to the main thought of answering the question.)

Before saying anything, I think that it would take a lot of time to build a healthy church out of this. Church planting is tough. A woman, by herself, raising up unskilled men to plant a church: tougher. Furthermore, she might not even be getting them to plant a church. She might be going against their old paradigms, such as, possibly, Someone else will do it. When MacArthur went to shepherd Grace Community they had female elders there. It took quite some time to bring a biblical vision of church administration and leadership to his church. Dever, who also went to shepherd a church in need of a private reformation (when I use "reformation" in the context of a single local church, I mean one, where if you walked in, it might seem like they're playing church, they don't have a biblical structure for church leadership, the church doesn't deal with public sin, the preaching is unsystematic and possibly only loosely based on a text of Scripture, where they need to change a lot of the ways that they do ministry, thus, it needs a reformation), now pleads with pastors shepherding churches in need of reformation not to do it quickly, nor with a totalitarian style to it. So, if she's dealing with some men with baggage, it might take a long time. Fortunately, a church has that amount of time, five to ten years. A campus ministry, where your leaders are around for at most four years (i.e., a degree for five years minus the frosh year), is not a likely place for this reformation to be able to happen.

(Back to answering the issue.)

I was about to use the word "unqualified" where I wrote "unready" in the first sentence of the question paragraph, but I chose to use "unready" because I don't think that in every case it takes too much to be qualified. For example D.A. Carson said in a talk on elders that the churchmen in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia couldn't have been believers very long before Paul and Barnabas "had appointed elders for them in every church" (Ac. 14:23). This suggests to me that they were simply relatively spiritually mature (i.e., they were spiritually mature in comparison to some of their brothers within the church).

With this in mind, I think that the woman should select two or three of the men who she sees are the (relatively) stronger believers. Then she should (gently) encourage that they be appointed the elders of that church. (This is where I think that the Stinson talk would prove helpful.) These men obviously want the church to exist (otherwise they wouldn't be in the picture). After she suggests that they should be part of it they'll leave, desiring to remain in complacency, or they'll stay, and, with fear and trembling, accept the task of building the church. These men can resource the woman and ask her help in setting church direction, as long as the responsibility and outcome rests on the shoulders of the men. The individual men can ask her help when doing Bible study preparation, or even in their quiet times in finding out what the Bible means.

Hopefully with much prayer and patience, the Lord would bless this entreprise.

(That's it for my suggestions. All of the following is my attempt to explain why I'm thinking in this way, from the Bible.)

The reason this is difficult is because we need to apply 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in a God-honouring, people-building way. The first observation that I would make is that the passage in question is referring to the local church and corporate worship within the body (read Grudem for the argument behind this claim). More specifically, I think that it's saying that elders (or pastors; same thing [cf. 1P. 5:1, 2]) may not be women (read Piper for his argument behind this claim). Otherwise, it's not very specific. I think that Paul deliberately left lots of room to work within. The woman, then, would be balancing giving as much help as possible to build the church, while neither giving the church the appearance of being led by a woman, nor of giving the members the feeling of reliance on female leadership that would become systemic and difficult to heal later on. For example, I think that the woman could legitimately do a lot, but she needs to be concerned about what the future outcome of her current actions will be: With what I am doing right now, will the church in the future be more feminine (and thus, less healthy) than if I take a step back now, slowing down the progress of the church, but investing in the long term health of the church? That might be the case.

For this reason, if there were other churches around in the area, or even in the next city over, I think that the wisest choice for the woman (for the sake of clarity, from, say, church A) would be to discern from among them a healthy church (say, church B) that would be able to help church A. She could then ask the elders of church B to offer the men of church A some guidance and help in building up their body (i.e., church A). This would show the importance of relying on male leadership, but would also give her church real and valuable help.

As a note, Mohler, for example, would say that 1 Timothy 2:12 prohibits women from speaking at C4C functions. Since Paul was specifically referring to the local church, I don't entirely agree. Paul was not specific, so, in trusting that the Scriptures are sufficient in their restrictions, we must believe that God is not opposed to women speaking at C4C meetings. (If you disagree with this, then, essentially, you're saying that 1 Timothy has wider applications than just within the church. Are there to be deacons in every C4C group? Are there to be weddings? Lists of widows? All in all, I don't think Paul is referring to outside of the local church, and I don't think that C4C is a church.) So it comes down to a question of beneficial and unwise, as opposed to right and wrong. So, while I think that it's beneficial to have as many male speakers as possible at C4C, I don't think that it's wrong to fill in the gaps with female speakers. (That was my attempt as Weekly Meeting Coordinator at Carleton.)

--

I introduced three characters in this post. Randy Stinson is the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Dean of the School of Leadership and Church Growth at Southern. Sometimes he reminds me of Driscoll, making fun of guys who don't fit the Wild At Heart paradigm for men (i.e., guys who might cry, or wear pink – though Stinson is more apologetic in this case than Driscoll typically is, or who drink decaf coffee). Other than that, I find him helpful. He must be brilliant to serve under Mohler at Southern, though.

D.A. Carson is a professor at TEDS (i.e., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, but I call it by the rhyme of "peds" for short, while most of its students, I think, call it Trinity for short). He was born in Quebec, shepherded a Baptist church in B.C. and now lives in Chicago. (Well, not quite, Deerfield, Illinois.) The biography of him that I linked to above was written by Andreas Köstenberger and is thoroughly enjoyable. It's short, descriptive and enlightening. Piper once said that he recommends choosing one author and devoting yourself to reading everything he's written. (Piper's chosen Jonathan Edwards.) I might choose Carson. Carson is so well renowned that he became the subject of a satire blog on the subject of him. (Of which, I particularly enjoyed, this entry involving Paige Patterson.) I could go on about Dr. Carson, but I'll stop here.

Labels: Abbreviations, Bible, Blogs, Characters, Friends, Humour, Long, Manhood, Ministry, Resources