Pete's Blog

God is absolutely sovereign over every infinitesimally small unit of volume in creation, and has been from creation to now, and will continue to be forever, into the next age. Every sin, every good work, every thought and every action were not just expected, or set up to happen, but were decreed. That said, humans have moral responsibility (Rm. 3:19; 14:12). Somehow, humans do things, under God's decree, and yet it's us doing it. When you read the Bible, you do not get the impression that humans are puppets, just acting out exactly what God tugs at them to do.

Humans have some sort of freedom. Arminians are not wrong to assert that man has freedom; they are wrong because they are rationalists. They claim that the freedom of man and the sovereign decree of God are mutually incompatible. It is for telling God what He cannot do, they are in error. Humble readers of the Bible recognize that these are not incompatible, whether or not these readers understand how this is possible.

Some of the church fathers over read the Bible. They would allegorize; they would read meaning into the text that was not there.

John Chrysostom is an example of this. Someone summarized one of his sermons on Matthew 2, where Herod slaughters the baby boys, as

• The Dilbert comic above comes from http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-08-05/, just to give them credit.
• God's creation is very neat. Science is interesting. Food is delicious. Business is intriguing. It's curious that God created so many things that can distract from finding genuine fascination in His divine Word.
• Interview trick questions are fun to try to come up with good responses to. For example, what is a good response to, "What are some of your weaknesses?" "How have you dealt with a difficult manager in the past?" or "What salary would you expect to make from a job like this?"?
• Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express was very, very good.
• Books in the Bible are a product of divinely-inspired human authors. The Christian doctrine of inspiration does admit that the personality of the authors enters into the writing. This is to mention the difference between Isaiah and Jeremiah. Read the first couple of chapters of each of those books. Isaiah seems to be saying that Israel and Judah are bad, and that God's wrath will soon come. Jeremiah describes that God's heart is broken, and expounds on why Judah is bad.
• Jeremiah is very applicable to this day at a practical level. Yes, the book is ultimately about Jesus, but at a practical level, the way Jeremiah describes the people of Judah, could easily be described of people today. Indeed, Judah's sin was different in that they were God's chosen people, and God revealed Himself to them in a way differently from how He revealed Himself to the surrounding nations, while Canada's problem is not that Canadians have rejected their people's God. They've rejected their Creator and their Saviour.
• To clarify the above bullet, the Lord in the Old Testament was related to Israel in a way that was different from how He was related to the rest of the peoples of the world, but there was also a way that relationship was the same. It was different in that Israel was His chosen people. The Lord made a special covenant with Israel. This was similar to foreign nations allying themselves with Dagon, Molech or the Baals, though they are false, non-existent gods, while the Lord was the one, true, living God. The Lord, though, is also Creator. In this sense, the nations have this in common with Judah. Canada does not have a God exclusive to it, as Judah did, but Canadians still reject their Creator.
• Jesus never sinned. Consider then, "And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, 'So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak'" (Mt. 26:40, 41). This seems like a patronizing statement. Yet, it was not sinful. Since it wasn't sinful, it probably wasn't patronizing. Most people would probably be offended if a friend said it to them. The take away is probably that people are too quick to be offended. Any other interpretations?

Alan Shlemon recently posted a very helpful article (HT: Challies) on how to respond to homosexuality, as well as mentioning some facts related to the claim that homosexuals are born that way.

Given that people are born sinners, it wouldn't surprising if people were born homosexual, but it's interesting that there is reason to be skeptical about this claim. Nevertheless, the Christian worldview doesn't require responding to people who argue that homosexuality is innate. The Gospel of the victory of Christ over sin prevails over indwelling sin, even sin present from birth.

Kelly McParland just released a wonderful column.

Trouble could arise when the patients has been run over by a bus, in which case the word “bus” could upset the victim. In such situations, emergency medical teams should try to be as soothing as possible: “It appears you’re a little run down, we’re just going to help you take it easy for a while, soon as we scrape you off the road.”

Challies linked to this post on his blog, but it's worth repeating. Check out these great comparisons between McDonald's and Burger King ads and the burgers he bought at the respective local chain locations.

Denny Burk's a pretty smart guy. He was commenting on the mother who protected herself and her baby, using a gun. The whole article is worth reading, and Dr. Burk deserves the credit of readership going directly to his site, so only part of his (short) article is posted below:

Sarah McKinley is 18 years old and the mother of an 18 month old baby boy. Her husband died of cancer on Christmas Day, and a couple days later she buried him. On New Year’s Eve, she was home alone with her baby boy when two men came to her door and began knocking. She recognized one of the men as someone she suspected had been stalking her. After she wouldn’t open the door, the two men started banging on the door, trying to find a way to break in. Sarah grabbed her baby, a bottle, and a shotgun and ran into a bedroom where she called 911. The dispatcher told her to protect her baby and that the men needed to be in her house before she could shoot them. Finally, the men broke through the front door, and the first one lunged at her with a 12 inch hunting knife. Sarah pulled the trigger and shot the man in the chest. He died on her living room floor, and the other man fled.