The Aquila Report Archives - Page 25 of 942

The Chief Ends of Man?

By Greg Salazar — 5 months ago

The emphasis on personal enjoyment of and communion with Christ goes all the way back to the founding of Puritanism itself. William Perkins, the “father of Puritanism” and author of the first Puritan preaching manual, The Art of Prophesying (prophecy being the old Puritan word for preaching), used the analogy of the preachers as bakers, carefully slicing bread and feeding those in need of spiritual nourishment. What was the end of this feeding? It was not merely transactional, but deeply personal — to discover Christ himself.

One of the most well-known quotes about the Puritans comes from controversial journalist and critic H.L. Menken, who in 1925 claimed that the Puritans had “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”1 Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the Puritans’ understanding of joy, with essays and even whole books dedicated to the topic.2 In the most recent and robust treatment on the subject, Nathaniel Warne rightly points out that the Puritans’ fear was not that someone might be happy, but rather that someone might live and “not experience the true and rich happiness that they were created to experience by God.”3 Indeed, the Puritans may have been more concerned about the happiness of humanity than any other group in the history of the world. They understood that true happiness is not a flippant circumstantial feeling, but a deep and abiding joy in God that draws its source from the fountain of joy: God himself.
While it is easy to pick on secular historians for missing the link between Puritanism and joy, my experience — as someone hailing from the confessional Reformed wing of the Protestant house — suggests something more surprising: whole churches and traditions with Presbyterian and Reformed heritages can sometimes miss the reality that joy in God is a central tenant celebrated in their own confessional standards. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (hereafter WSC) begins with a central question that uses superlative language: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
By exploring the historical context behind the crafting of the Westminster Standards and specifically the WSC, this article will argue that the Puritans considered the pursuit of God’s glory and our joy in him to be central to the Christian life. It will also show how this joy-saturated theological tradition was inherited by and continued to spread through later figures, especially Jonathan Edwards. Finally, it will end by drawing out two practical lessons we can learn from the Puritans’ focus on joy in God.
Minutes of a Remarkable Assembly
On July 1, 1643, Parliament convened the first of 1,330 meetings that would take place over the next decade (1643–1652) at Westminster Abbey. This group, known as the Westminster Assembly, was a gathering of “Learned and Godlie divines . . . for the Settling of the Government and the Litturgie of the Church of England.” The publication of the Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly — containing, among other things, a multivolume transcription of the official minutes of the Assembly — has recently provided us the clearest window revealing what went into the crafting of the Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter catechisms.
For example, we know that the Assembly delegated the drafting of the WSC to a committee of at least eight members — which included Chairman Herbert Palmer, who had compiled his own catechism — and that the first debate on the Shorter Catechism took place on October 21, 1647, the same day as the last debate on the Larger Catechism.4 We also know that, following the completion of a draft of the WSC on November 8, 1647, they debated whether they would “follow the standard format of expounding the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed, or that those texts would be appended to the shorter catechism” and that the Assembly opted for the second option.5 We even know that the WSC was finally approved on November 16, 1647, and that, for final approval, Parliament instructed them on November 26, 1647, “to append Scripture proofs to both catechisms.”6
Still, despite shedding light on countless facets of the Assembly previously unknown, there are gaps in our understanding of precisely why they made some decisions. There are whole days in the record where the scribe of the minutes simply records, “Debate of the lesser catechism,” or “Proceeded in the debate of the catechism,” or even shorter “Deb. Catchisme [sic].”7 In many cases, then, we must infer — from the historical context and the emphases within the broader theological tradition of the Puritan movement — what motivated them in their various decisions on individual catechetical questions. As we explore the divines’ historical context and broader theological tradition, we get clarity on the importance of joy in God in the WSC and Puritan theology.
Orthodoxy’s Beating Heart
The calling of the Westminster Assembly to redefine and refine orthodoxy in England followed a tumultuous decade of reform under King Charles I and Archbishop William Laud. The king and archbishop persecuted members of the Puritan movement and sought to move the Church of England in a distinctly more Catholic direction. Against this backdrop, the Puritans gathered in 1643 to clarify what they believed were central theological truths of Christian doctrine and life.
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Is “Allah” Just Another Word for God?

By Alan Shlemon — 5 months ago

“Allah” and “Yahweh” refer to fundamentally different conceptions of God. Allah is one God who exists as one person. Yahweh, however, is one God who exists as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Allah is a transcendent being and is impossible to know in a personal way. Yahweh, by contrast, is not only transcendent but also immanent. This means he enters his creation and develops a personal relationship with his created beings (Jesus is the ultimate example of his immanence).

There’s confusion about the word “Allah.” Recently, a commentator claimed that “Allah” is just the Arabic word for God, and that it doesn’t specifically refer to a different god. Her reasoning? “Arabic-speaking Christians pray to ‘Allah.’” Is that true? Yes and no. Some nuance is needed. Here are four points to understand.
First, “Allah” is a word for God when speaking in Arabic. As someone who has worked with Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East for over a decade, I often hear my brothers and sisters in Christ refer to God as “Allah.” They are not referring to the Islamic notion of God, though. Rather, it’s just the Arabic word for God.
As an Assyrian-speaking Christian, I use the word “Allaha” when I say “God” in my language. You probably recognize how similar that word is to “Allah.” Both Assyrian and Arabic are Semitic languages and therefore have some similar words. When I say “Allaha,” I’m not referring to the Islamic notion of God, nor does my family infer anything Islamic when they hear me use the term (unless we’re talking about Muslims and their conception of God).
The fact that Arabic-speaking Christians say “Allah,” then, is not proof that the word “Allah” is always interchangeable with “God.” It’s normal for Christians to use “Allah” to refer to God when they are speaking in Arabic.
Second, “Allah” is not a general word for God when speaking in English. When it comes to speaking in English, the situation is different. When an American (or other English speaker) hears “Allah,” they reasonably conclude it implies the Islamic notion of God. Why? Because no one except a Muslim says “Allah” when speaking in English.
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Grumbling – Minister’s Letter August 2024

By Paul Levy — 5 months ago

There must be some psychological explanation but yawning is contagious. It is the same with grumbling and discontentment. It happens in a marriage, in families and certainly in congregations. Sadly a little grumbling goes a long way. Seeing grumbling for what it is helps us. My grumbling is not just against others or circumstances but against the Lord. It is not a little thing.

Dear all at IPC,
When I told Claire I was going to write a Minister’s letter on grumbling, she said, “Well you’re the man to do it”. I’ve tried to reflect recently on why I’m so prone to grumbling. The Collins dictionary defines grumbling as, ”to murmur or mutter in discontent; complain sullenly”.
I’m not the first to struggle with this sin, it has been a constant for the people of God.
The first instance of grumbling in the Bible is in Exodus 15:24, where the newly redeemed people of God fresh from joyfully singing His praise – “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
Just three days later they grumble against Moses in the wilderness saying, “what will we drink?”. What began in Chapter 15 as a trickle of grumbling becomes a torrent in the next chapter. In chapter 16 verses 2,7,8,9,12 all make reference to their grumbling and it moves from grumbling about Moses to grumbling, “against the Lord”. In Numbers 14-17 we see the same pattern – Grumbling against Moses and Aaron and grumbling about their situation but when God addresses them He states that their grumbling is actually against him.
When the people of the Lord lost sight of who God was, what he had done and how he had provided, they very quickly began to grumble and this became an often reverted to action. One writer has said that, “The root of grumbling is a blindness to God’s grace”.
Grumbling reappears in the gospels, the Pharisees and the Scribes, (those socially upright and religious leaders), murmur at Jesus receiving and eating with tax collectors and sinners, (Luke 5:30, 15:2, 19:7). The Jewish people grumble at His teaching, “I am the bread of heaven’ , (John 6:41), and how he has been sent from His Father heaven. It’s a mirror image of the people of Israel moaning in the wilderness. The disciples follow suit grumbling to themselves that his teaching is too hard, (John 6:43), and from that point on many of the disciples turned away from him. In the gospels this grumbling reveals a heart of unbelief.
When we come to Epistles of the New Testament, there are commands to be obeyed, imperatives to be heeded – “Do all things without grumbling”, (Philippians 2:14), “Do not grumble against one another so that you may not be judged”, (James 5:9), “..show hospitality without grumbling”, (1 Peter 4:9), “…nor grumble, as some of them did when they were destroyed by the destroyer”, (1 Corinthians 10:10). The New Testament writers see the obvious danger in church life of grumbling and have no problems in commanding us not to do it.
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Answering 2 Objections to Sola Scriptura

By Gavin Ortlund — 5 months ago

Despite the numerous different meanings of the word tradition, critics of sola Scriptura sometimes employ any positive instance of this term as though it were speaking of tradition in the sense defined at the council of Trent. But it is specifically that conception of tradition that sola Scriptura opposes— namely, that Scripture and tradition are to be received with equal reverence as they together constitute the deposit of the Word of God, and that the magisterium of the church can offer infallible interpretations of both.

Note: This week the blog is sponsored by Zondervan Reflective. This post is written by Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) who is president of Truth Unites and theologian-in-residence at Immanuel Nashville in Tennessee. He’s a highly sought-after speaker and apologist, and his new book What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church releases on August 20, 2024.
In my engagements with Christians from traditions outside of Protestantism, whatever issue is being addressed, the discussion almost always kicks back to questions of authority. By what standard do we evaluate our differences? What is the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and where does the ultimate authority of interpretation for both Scripture and tradition lie? It is hard to find any area of dispute that doesn’t terminate in these more basic, methodological questions.
For this reason, we must press into the question of ecclesial authority. Here I will consider two of the most typical objections to sola Scriptura, the Protestant position on where ultimate authority over the church is located.
Objection 1: What about the Canon?
The church’s role in canonization is often set against sola Scriptura. Such critiques, however, generally fail to touch the Protestant position. Protestants stand in broad agreement with other traditions that the church has been entrusted with the responsibility of discerning the canon. For example, Protestants find themselves in a broad agreement on this point with the Roman Catholic position, as articulated at Vatican I: “these books the church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority . . . but because, being written under the inspiration of the holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and were as such committed to the church.”1
The necessity of the church’s witness unto the Word of God is a classical Protestant doctrine. (The seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed theologians were particularly adept at explicating this doctrine). For Protestants, the church’s charge extends not only to recognizing the canon but also to protecting the Scriptures during times of persecution and to translating, teaching, and proclaiming them. Thus, Protestants have spoken of the church as not only a necessary witness to the Word of God, but also the custodian and herald of the Word of God.2
The necessity of the church, however, does not entail her infallibility. Protestants have often compared the church’s role in the process of canonization to that of John the Baptist in pointing to Christ: It is a ministerial role of witness or testimony. That the church is entrusted with such a task in no way grants her infallible authority parallel to Scripture any more than John the Baptist possessed parallel authority to Christ. Rather, the one testifying is subordinate to that which receives the testimony. As Johannes Wollebius put it, “As it is foolish to tell us that the candle receives its light from the candlestick that supports it, so it is ridiculous to ascribe the Scripture’s authority to the church.”3
Infallibility is not necessary for canonization since the church’s responsibility is not constituting Scripture but simply recognizing it. Such recognition is not itself the action of an infallible agent. As J. I. Packer more recently stated, “The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. . . . Newton did not create gravity but recognized it.”4 Another metaphor for this action of the church used by the Anglican theologian William Whitaker is that of a goldsmith discerning true gold from other metals: “The goldsmith with his scales and touchstone can distinguish gold from copper and other metals; wherein he does not make gold . . . but only indicates what is gold. . . . In like manner the Church acknowledges the Scriptures and declares them to be divine.”5
Ultimately, the trustworthiness of the canon is rooted in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as well as the progressive nature of revelation itself. Thus, the Italian Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli pointed out that in the work of discerning the Word of God, the church does not start from scratch, but measures each book against the previous revelation she has already received from God. As Richard Muller expounds Vermigli’s view, the church “adjudges the canon only as she is taught so to do by the Spirit of Christ, her Teacher, and by the comparison of Scripture with Scripture— even as a counterfeit letter is proved by comparison with a genuine letter.”6 Muller points out that in explaining the church’s role in this way, Vermigli and other early Protestants like William Tyndale were not innovating—they were simply repeating a view that had strong attestation in medieval scholastic debate, most recently by the fifteenth-century theologian Wessel Gansfort.7 The idea of a hierarchy of authorities, with the Scripture at the top over other subordinate (but necessary) authorities, was by no means a novel approach in the sixteenth century.
To state the point plainly, setting sola Scriptura at odds with the process of canonization confuses the recognition of infallibility with the possession of infallibility. The simple fact is that it is not necessary to be infallible to discern that which is infallible. When Moses heard God at the burning bush, he didn’t need a second voice whispering in his ear that this was indeed God. This is what Protestants intend when they speak of Scripture as self-authenticating. This simply means that the ultimate ground on which we receive the Scripture is inherent in it, rather than external to it. For there is no higher authority the Word of God could rest upon than the Spirit speaking through it. If you think you do have to possess infallibility to discern infallibility, you have a continual regress, because now you need infallibility to receive and interpret the infallible teachings of your church.
There is one way we can know with certainty that the church does not need infallibility to discern the canon: the facts of history. It just didn’t happen that way. With respect to the New Testament canon, scholars debate the exact date of its finalization, but it is generally seen to have become fully settled in the fourth century. The process of canonization leading to that point was bottom up, not top down. It was a gradual, cumulative, widespread, and organic process by which the church discerned the Word of God through the enabling direction of the Holy Spirit. It was not the result of an infallible statement from the Pope of Rome or an ecumenical council.
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Does Music Have Meaning?

By Scott Aniol — 5 months ago

All people—regardless of gender, ethnicity, culture, or time—are part of the “culture of humanity.” We all share similar physiological, biological, and emotional characteristics such that when music expresses emotion on that level, its meaning is universal. Christians must not fall into the trap of ignoring or even denying universal meaning in music because there are many different kinds of emotion, and not all of them are appropriate for expressing biblical truth or worshiping God.

Meaning in music is a tricky thing.
Most people think it’s tricky because music is so abstract and lacks specificity such that describing its meaning with words is nearly impossible. On the contrary, meaning in music is tricky for exactly the opposite reason.
As Felix Mendelssohn once noted, “What music expresses its not too indefinite to put into words; on the contrary, it is too definite.” In other words, we often have difficulty describing what music means with words because words lack the specificity that music has. Let me explain further.
Most people acknowledge that music, at its most basic level, expresses emotional content. However, articulating what that emotional content is can often be a challenge. Yet as Mendelssohn correctly observed, this is due to the fact that words often lack the nuance to accurately identify a particular emotion.
We often use single words to describe very different kinds of emotions. Let’s use “joy” as an example. We use that one word to describe what a sports fan feels when his team wins the game, what a father experiences while playing with his children, and what a cancer patient feels when he learns that his cancer is gone. Yet these “feelings” are each quite different from each other internally, and they express themselves externally in often very different ways as well.
A sport’s fan’s “joy” usually expresses itself with exuberance, wild gestures, and yelling. A father’s “joy” is warm and peaceful. The cancer patient’s “joy” often results in tears. Each of these may rightly be called “joy,” but that word doesn’t quite capture the nuance of difference between them. Music doesn’t have that problem.
Unlike words, music is able to express nuanced emotional content. We think music is abstract because we can’t put it into words, but that’s not the fault of the music; it’s the words that are lacking.
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Preaching the Whole Counsel of God

By Donald MacLean — 5 months ago

To preach God’s counsel in these ways requires boldness. Paul was humble, but he was also bold: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” (Acts 20:20; see also Acts 20:26–27). The temptation can be to shrink back to maintain popularity, but that was not Paul’s way. Rather he unfolded God’s counsel with confidence and boldness: “declaring . . . teaching, . . . testifying, . . . proclaiming, [and] . . . admonish[ing]” (Acts 20:20–31).

What does it mean to “preach the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27)? That question surely occupies the hearts of all gospel preachers. Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to consider the context of Paul’s statement to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. When we do this, we see three things clearly involved in preaching the whole counsel of God: the life of the preacher, the content of preaching, and the method of preaching. Additionally, we see that preaching God’s Word faithfully brings consequences—that is, it is effective.
The Preacher’s Life
Acts 20:17–38 contains Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders. As he bids them farewell, Paul reflects on his life among the Ephesians, and he makes clear that his call as a preacher was intertwined with his life. The context for preaching the whole counsel of God is a life that is consistent with the message preached.
Paul makes this explicit when he directs the elders, “Pay careful attention to yourselves” (Acts 20:28). Only someone living a godly life can go on to faithfully declare the whole counsel of God. This is the constant message of the New Testament (1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9).
Paul specifically highlights several important features of his life:

Consistency. “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia” (Acts 20:18). He essentially says to them: “You know I have lived a consistent and transparent life. My life is an open book.”
Humility. “Serving the Lord with all humility” (Acts 20:19).The calling to preach God’s Word is a calling to humble service, which marked Paul’s life.
Endurance. “Trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews” (Acts 20:19). Paul had to endure. Hard times came upon him, and he was tested. But he endured.
Compassion. “I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears” (Acts 20:31). Here we have the heart of a pastor. His words are not harsh. He does not stand indifferent to the sufferings and well-being of his people. He weeps over them.
Self-denial. “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel” (Acts 20:33). In other words, “I am not in ministry to enrich myself. I am not one of those who peddle God’s words for gain” (see 2 Cor. 2:17).
Prayer. “And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all” (Acts 20:36). Paul praying for his flock was as natural to him as breathing.

So, Paul tells the Ephesian elders that preaching the whole counsel of God is bound up with the life that the pastor lives.
What Is the Whole Counsel of God?
Entirely in harmony with his life, Paul had a message to proclaim. He has been entrusted with a revelation from God, which for us today is found in all its completeness in the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Paul was to declare all the counsel of God. He could not ignore the truths that press on the sins of society and of the church. He had to proclaim the truths of God’s sovereignty in salvation that humble man. He needed to drive home the application of God’s Word to all areas of life, and it is the same for any who would preach today.
Paul preached God’s whole counsel in a specific way: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” (Acts 20:20).
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How to Protect Ourselves from Satan’s Fiery Darts

By Gary Yagel — 5 months ago

We will not come to God, if we believe his motive is to deprive us, wound us, or restrict our pleasure. Have you ever known someone who lost a parent through death or divorce and is bitter with God? We must be convinced that God wants what is best for us, or we won’t pursue him whole-heartedly. But God says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing (Ps 34:8-10).

Men don’t always admit it, but deep inside, we all want to be heroes. We want to come through when it matters for our loved ones. In our own way we would love to be like Joshua or David or William Wallace leading the charge with a sword in our hand in the spiritual battle. Yet, instead of identifying with such great warriors on the front line, most of us feel like we are just the factory worker back home in the war effort, putting in our 8 plus hours a day, sharing home responsibilities with our wives, checking our social media, maybe grabbing an hour on Disney+ and starting the whole routine over again the next day. But thinking that your role in spiritual battle is insignificant is a lie from the Enemy. Christ has called you and me to follow him in his cause of defeating evil and establishing his righteous kingdom over every square inch of human hearts and lives. There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arenas you have been called to. If you leave your place in line, it will remain empty. You must be the hero in your own story. There is no extra or stunt man to fill in for you. Winning your spiritual battles matters. You will celebrate for eternity the ones you win tomorrow and the next day and the day after that because each victory has honored Christ. This episode examines how we protect ourselves from Satan’s fiery arrows by lifting up our shield of faith.
One thoughtful author writes,
Behind the world and the flesh is an even more powerful enemy, one we rarely speak of and are even more less ready to resist. Yet, this is where we live now—on the front lines of a fierce spiritual war that is to blame for most of the casualties you see around you and most of the assault against you. It is time we prepared ourselves for it (John Eldredge, Wild at Heart).
There IS a dragon to be slain. Our loved ones do need us to be heroic and to fight for them, for ourselves, and for the honor of our King, Jesus Christ who has defeated Satan’s kingdom and claims this world as his own. Let’s learn from Ephesians 6:16 another truth about how to fight this battle: In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. The Roman battle shield looked more like a door than a trash can lid. It was four feet tall and two and a half feet wide allowing the soldier to crouch completely behind it. It was covered with thick leather and metal, that could deflect incoming arrows.
Paul likens this protective shield to the Christian’s faith. Biblical faith is relentless confidence in the goodness of God’s character—that all of his dealings with us and those we love spring from the character of goodness and love—wanting what is best for us. This unwavering confidence in the goodness and love of God is what Satan relentlessly seeks to destroy. We see that in his attack on Eve and on Job.

Consider Eve. When we read God’s history of mankind—the Bible, we’ve barely gotten through creation in the first two chapters when we encounter Satan planting the one idea into Eve’s heart that is responsible for more human destruction than any other idea—the lie that God’s goodness can’t be trusted. When this wrong idea captured Eve’s heart, she rebelled, Adam rebelled with her, and humans have been rebelling against God and his law ever since. Satan’s chief strategy to inspire rebellion in Eve’s heart was to make her doubt God’s goodness. Let’s take a moment to study again this tactic of Satan used on Eve.

The Serpent said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:2-5).

Notice that Satan actually begins the temptation by planting a complete fabrication into Eve’s mind, i.e. the possibility that this unfair God might have put all the delicious fruit trees in the garden just to make them miserable by not permitting them to eat ANY of them. His words, again, Did God really say you can’t eat from any tree. Even though God never said that, as Eve pointed out, Satan still planted the idea that God was the kind of being who could have done something so completely unfair.
Satan further undermined Eve’s confidence in God’s goodness by taking her focus off all the wonderful fruit God had given them to enjoy throughout the entire garden and directing her focus on one apparently unfair restriction. EVERY SINGLE other tree in the garden, with its lush fruit for Adam and Eve to enjoy proved God’s GOODNESS—his desire to bless them with GOOD gifts. Later, Jesus would remind us of this wonderful benevolent nature of God: Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him (Matt 7:9-11).
Satan’s attack on God’s goodness continues, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” Satan insinuates that: 1) God’s motive is selfishness—he is keeping something good from her and Adam, all to himself, i.e. the knowledge of good and evil, and 2) God’s moral law is fundamentally a restriction on our happiness. Both undermine her confidence in the goodness of God. The truth of course is that his law is given to us out of his goodness—to guide us into blessing. King David said, I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life (Ps 119:93).
Satan’s tactics to destroy the faith of Job are different—he has the power to inflict enormous physical, emotional, and spiritual pain on Job. But his strategy is the same—to try to get him to curse God instead of trusting him. Job learns some humility, but Satan fails. In the midst of unfathomable pain, Job, says, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him (13:15). And God’s goodness, hidden for a season of affliction, bursts forth, again in the closing chapter of Job with the words, And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job….And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before (42:10) Inscribed on the shield of faith we need to raise against Satan’s attack on God’s goodness are the words, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”

It is noteworthy that Paul begins this admonition to raise our shield of faith with “In all circumstances” (ESV). Because Satan’s desire is to create doubt in our hearts about God’s love for us, the fiery darts of doubt Satan sends our way often result from painful experiences and situations. Tony Evens, in his book, Victory in Spiritual Warfare, notes that Paul tells us to take up our armor in the evil day:
The evil day is the day that all hell breaks loose in your life—when you are under attack. It’s when the finances are so low that you don’t know how you are going to make it through the end of the week. It’s when you’ve lost your job.
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4 Arguments from Scripture in Favor of Biblical Theology

By Jon Nielson — 5 months ago

As we look at how the ending of the Bible story contains pictures that we can gather along the way, we begin to again see an important foundation for biblical theology: the Bible story ends in a way that relates to all of what has come before. There are echoes of Genesis in Revelation, as well as pictures and events that remind us of every part of the story of God’s saving work in the lives of his people in the world.

A Foundation for Biblical Theology
The core conviction of those who practice the discipline of biblical theology is that the Bible is a unified work—a book inspired by one divine author (God) and given to human beings to help them understand his broad saving plan, which ultimately was accomplished through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. We will see shortly how Jesus himself pointed us toward this way of understanding Scripture. Our goal in biblical theology is to trace God’s story of redemption as it is revealed to us progressively in the revelation of Scripture.
Let’s discuss some foundational arguments for biblical theology. In other words, why do we believe that this is a valid way to study the Bible? This is an important question to answer because not everyone agrees that this is a valid approach! So I will seek to explain just a few of the key foundations that establish biblical theology as the right way to engage with Scripture.
1. Jesus’s Example
One answer to the above question is that Jesus read and interpreted the Old Testament in this way. When we practice biblical theology, we are following the lead of Jesus in the way that he looked at and applied Scripture.
In Luke 24 we find the account of Jesus walking and talking with two men on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection from the dead. These disciples were struggling to understand the events that had just taken place. Jesus, the man they had followed as the Messiah, had been killed. They were sad and discouraged because it seemed that he had failed.
Jesus confronted these men based on Scripture. He told them that it was “necessary” for the Christ to suffer and die (Luke 24:26); Scripture had told them that would happen! Then he did something amazing: Jesus opened the Old Testament Scriptures for these men—right there on the road—and explained to them the “things concerning himself ” (Luke 24:27). Luke tells us that he began with Moses (the books of Genesis to Deuteronomy) and then moved into the prophetic writings in order to show them how the Old Testament—all of it—ultimately pointed to him.
This is a crucial passage for helping us understand how Jesus interpreted Scripture. He saw himself as the main character—the one to whom the entire Old Testament pointed. Thus, biblical theology is legitimate. It is right to see the Bible as telling one great story that has its climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We can draw a few conclusions:
The Bible—all of it—is about Jesus. That is not an overstatement. We can really say, according to what we see from Jesus in Luke 24, that the Bible is ultimately all about him. The Old Testament points forward to him, shows the need for him, and explains what he was going to do for God’s people. The New Testament makes Jesus’s work clear and plain. The Bible is about Jesus.
We cannot rightly understand the Old Testament without understanding the work of Jesus. In other words, it is bad scholarship to read the Old Testament without looking forward to the work of Jesus—the Messiah—that the Old Testament anticipates! This is what Jesus would have said. He called the men on the road to Emmaus “slow of heart” because they did not understand all that the Old Testament Scriptures had been teaching about him and his work. If we miss Jesus in the Old Testament, we simply have not studied it correctly!
We should never study the Bible without talking about Jesus. Finally, we can conclude with this important point: to study any part of the Bible without referencing Jesus—the central character of the Bible—does not do the Bible justice. We have studied it incorrectly. We need to frame our discussion of each passage of Scripture in terms of its place in the great story—a story that has its climax in the life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus’s “sermon” on the road to Emmaus lays an important foundation regarding biblical theology. How wonderful it would be to have that entire sermon recorded for us! Jesus took time to explain to the two men, from Moses and the Prophets, all the things about him in the Old Testament Scriptures. In other words, Jesus himself used “biblical theology” to see the connection between the Old Testament Scriptures and his work through his death and resurrection.
2. The Apostles’ Preaching
Another foundation for biblical theology is the example of Jesus’s apostles. We will look at just one example of the teaching of the apostles about Jesus in relation to the Old Testament: Acts 2:14–41 (Peter’s sermon to the crowd at Pentecost). In this passage, we see how Peter explained the work of Jesus from Psalm 16—a psalm written by King David.
Just as Jesus did biblical theology on the road to Emmaus, his apostles did biblical theology as well.
In Acts 2, Peter delivered a sermon to the crowd at Pentecost, just after the Holy Spirit had descended with power on the disciples, enabling them to share the gospel with people in many different languages.
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After a Crackdown on Sexuality, Two Dozen CRC Churches Head for the Exits

By Yonat Shimron — 5 months ago

After waiting to see if the 2023 synod might accommodate churches with different views, Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids led the way to the exit. In its resolution it wrote: “Our policy of full inclusion is settled, as is our determination to allow space for a variety of views and to embrace the resulting tension.”

(RNS)—At least two dozen churches in the Christian Reformed Church of North America are in the process of severing their ties with the denomination over their disagreements with its increasingly rigid stance on sexuality.
Four Michigan churches have already sent resolutions of disaffiliation to a regional geographic body called the Classis Grand Rapids East, stating that they intend to leave. Leaders of an additional five Michigan churches, also in the regional body, said they were drafting their letters, which should be received by the classis’s next business meeting.
Outside of Michigan, 15 more churches are also planning to exit the denomination, which comprises some 1,000 churches in the U.S. and Canada.
The exodus is part of a larger sorting of Christian congregations across Protestant denominations over the past 30 years as a growing number of churches have opened their doors to full membership of LGBTQ members.
In June, at its 2024 churchwide meeting, known as a synod, the Christian Reformed Church instructed LGBTQ-affirming congregations to repent, retract any divergent statements and comply with the denomination’s prescribed beliefs on sexuality. Church leaders who spoken or advocated for LGBTQ affirmation, including pastors, elders and deacons, were placed on a limited suspension.
The crisis dates back to 2022, when the denomination accepted a report on human sexuality that recommended codifying its opposition to LGBTQ sex by elevating it to the status of confession, or a declaration of faith. At the synod later that year, the delegates voted to do just that.
After waiting to see if the 2023 synod might accommodate churches with different views, Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids led the way to the exit. In its resolution it wrote: “Our policy of full inclusion is settled, as is our determination to allow space for a variety of views and to embrace the resulting tension.”
The church had already reallocated its financial giving or “ministry shares” away from the denominational entities as a first step, said the Rev. Jen Holmes Curran, the co-pastor. Instead, it donated to nonprofits that work with LGBTQ people experiencing religion-related trauma.
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Beware the Backward Drift

By Nicholas T. Batzig — 5 months ago

Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Monday, September 30, 2024
The ultimate hardening of some who at one time professed faith in Christ ought to leave us unsettled in heart. The severity of apostasy is that there is no return. This ought to be felt by those who continue to profess faith in Christ. There will always be Judases among the people of God in almost any congregation. This means that we should examine our own hearts and lives to see if we have turned our gaze to the world and away from Christ to such an extent that we have hardened our hearts against the truth. The subject of apostasy has massive implications for our spiritual lives.

In John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a sobering picture of the experience of apostasy in the lives of those who once professed faith in Christ but who ultimately abandoned that profession. As Christian makes his way toward the celestial city, he comes to the house of a man named Interpreter. The Interpreter is revealed to be the apostle Paul by the descriptions Bunyan made of him. The Interpreter showed Christian seven different scenes in this house that highlight various aspects of the Christian life, dangers, and realities. The sixth of these is a man in a cage who is in utter despair. When Christian goes to this man and asks him why he is in the cage, and why he is in such despair. The man responded by saying:
“I was once a fair and flourishing Professor [professor of faith in Jesus Christ], both in my own eyes and also in the eyes of others: I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I would get thither.”
Christian then asked the man what had happened to him. The man said, “I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this Iron Cage. I cannot get out; O Now I cannot.”
Christian followed up by asking him how he came to be in this miserable condition; and the man said:
“I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the Light of the Word, and the Goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the Devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to Anger, and he has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent.”1
The imagery in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress has left many professing believers unsettled throughout the centuries; yet, it is functionally the imagery of Hebrews 6:4-6. What are we to make of the language of this passage? Surely these are some of the most fearsome words in all of Scripture. What do we do with the language of those who “were once enlightened,” “have tasted the heavenly gift,” “have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” and “have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come?” How are we to understand the teaching that there are some who it is “impossible to renew to repentance?” Are we to conclude that they were saved and lost their salvation? Are we to understand that somehow they did not do enough to stay in a state of grace? Are we to understand that it is possible for someone to sin so much that they are past the point of repentance? A prima facia reading of the language certainly seems to lend itself to such an interpretation; but a careful consideration of them leads to a vastly different conclusion. Prior to explaining the meaning of the text, we must consider how wrong views of this passage have frequently caused damage to true believers.
Warning Passages in Hebrews
There are essentially five warning passages in the letter to the Hebrews (Heb. 2:1–4; 4:1–13; 6:4–8; 10:26–31; and 12:25–29). Of these five, none have given Christians such interpretive difficulty as Heb. 6:4–8 and 10:26–31. The spectrum of interpretive possibilities published by theologians and commentators over the centuries has not alleviated the hermenuetical challenges that come with these passages. Rather, they have often offered solutions that only serve to extensuate the minds of believers.
Towards the end of his ministry, the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones appealed to Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-29 as “passages that the devil seems to use most frequently in order to distress and to trouble God’s people” by twisting it meaning to hold true believers in servile bondage. He wrote:
“I can definitely say, after some 35 years of pastoral experience, that there are no passages in the whole of Scripture which have more frequently troubled people and caused them soul agony than the passage in Hebrews 6:4-8, and the corresponding passage in Hebrews 10:26-29. Large numbers of Christians are held in bondage by Satan owing to a misunderstanding of these particular statements. I do not say that these are the two most difficult passages in the Bible. I do not regard them as such. But I do assert that they are passages that the devil seems to use most frequently in order to distress and to trouble God’s people.”2
If we read the warning in chapter 6 together with the warning in chapter 10 we must conclude that the warning relates specifically to what is called, “sinning willfully.” Here too, we must tread lightly when settling on a meaning of the clause, “to sin willfully.” It might help us to say what it cannot mean prior to suggesting what the author’s meaning must be.
“Willful sin” cannot mean what the Scriptures call “presumptuous sin” (i.e., that sin that we know we should not do and yet do it anyway). We know the writer cannot be speaking of this because the Psalmist prayed that God would deliver him from “presumptuous sin” (Ps. 19:13)–thereby acknowledging that he had, at times, fallen into presumptuous sin–and that he was susceptible of falling into it again. Surely the sin of David with Bathsheba and Uriah would have been categorized accordingly. We also know that Peter’s denial of Jesus cannot be said to be the sin intended since he was personally restored by Christ. The prince of the Puritan theologians, John Owen, explained,
“A man may so fall into a way of sin as still to retain in his mind such a principle of light and conviction that may be suitable to his recovery. To exclude such from all hopes of repentance is expressly contrary to Ezek. 18:21, Isa. 55:7, yes, and the whole sense of the Scripture.”
So what are we to make of the “willful sin” that is tantamount to “falling away” from Christ and putting oneself in a place in which it is “impossible to renew again to repentance?” The answer to this question must be determined by a consideration of what those who fall away fall away from. In Heb. 6:4-5, they are said to be those who were “once enlightened,” have “tasted the heavenly gift,” been made “partakers of the Holy Spirit,” and “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” Thew writer is noting that something has really and truly been experienced in the lives of those who are in danger of falling away. That something is that they have had the influences of the Spirit of God at work on them in the realm of spiritual gifts and experiences. Thomas Peck, the Southern Presbyterian theologian, noted,
“The illumination and other spiritual endowments enumerated in the fourth and fifth verses are not ‘things that accompany salvation,’ that is, are not so inseparably connected with salvation but that they may belong to persons who never have been and never will be in favor with God. In other words, they are spiritual gifts, not spiritual graces. . .Gifts may be lost, graces never can. It is gifts, not graces, which are predicated of those who may fall away, in the passage under consideration.”
In other words, the phrase cannot mean that a true believer can fall from saving grace. We know this to be true because of such passages as John 6:37; 10:28; Romans 5:1-21; 8:1; 8:28-30; Phil. 1:6; etc. There are so many passages that speak of the definitive safety true believers have in the Person of Jesus Christ. Because of the perfections and finality of His saving work, those who are in union with Him by faith are also safe; since we cannot have an infallible knowledge of who has a true and saving profession of faith–in contrast from those with a false and temporary profession–all we can do is look for the fruit and perseverance they exhibit. This is why the writer of Hebrews can follow what he said in vv. 4-6 with what he says in verses 10-12.
The “we are confident of better things concerning you beloved…things belonging to salvation” is meant to be an encouragement to them that there is evident fruit in their lives. This is important because the writer rebuked them for not going on to maturity in the things of God in 5:13-6:3.
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