There is a twofold error in commending Aquinas: the immediate one being that he is an idolater, and the secondary one being it involves an implicit following of Rome’s lead, commending works by her members, and keeping a measure of company with her. Dominicans have been employed by Credo as teachers, and scarcely an issue passes without that magazine including articles or interviews with members of that communion, or commending works by them. Such following Rome’s lead is wrong because Rome has not repented those errors of doctrine and practice that sparked the Reformation, and has in some cases stiffened her neck and made herself yet worse.

What if I told you, dear reader, that prominent members of the Protestant theological academy are enamored by someone whose writings commend the practice of idolatry? Scripture is clear that someone who promotes idolatry is a false teacher (Rev. 2:14, 20; comp. Num. 25:1-2; 31:16), and that such false teachers are wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15), who come disguised as angels of light (2 Cor. 11:14-15), and whose company ruins the good doctrine of those who associate with them (1 Cor. 15:33; comp. Prov. 13:20). It is clear as well that such people are known by their deeds (Matt. 7:16-20) and that their words betray the state of their hearts (12:33-37); that they have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5); and that they are not to be entertained for even a moment when their false teaching becomes known (Deut. 13:6-8). As such you would, I hope, recognize that such a teacher’s admirers were wrong to approve him, and in so doing had lost their sense and spoken unworthily of their positions and of their task of guarding and propagating sound doctrine (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 4:16; Tit. 1:9; 2 Jn. 8-9).
Alas, my hypothetical situation is actually the case at present. Here are two quotes from a currently-popular teacher promoting the worship of images of Christ:
The same reverence should be shown to Christ’s image as to Christ Himself.
The Apostles, led by the inward instinct of the Holy Ghost, handed down to the churches certain instructions which they did not put in writing . . . among these traditions is the worship of Christ’s image.
And two promoting the worship of the cross:
In each way it is worshiped with the same adoration as Christ, viz. the adoration of “latria.” And for this reason also we speak to the cross and pray to it, as to the Crucified Himself.
By reason of the contact of Christ’s limbs we worship not only the cross, but all that belongs to Christ. Wherefore Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv, 11): “The precious wood, as having been sanctified by the contact of His holy body and blood, should be meetly worshiped; as also His nails, His lance, and His sacred dwelling-places, such as the manger, the cave and so forth.
That is idolatry, the giving of the worship due only to God to a material object (Ex. 20:3-5; Lev. 26:1). God says to “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:14), and “not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater” (5:11). So evil is idolatry that he commanded the ancient Israelites to execute anyone who so much as suggested it (Deut. 13:1-11). (The application of that principle for us in the present is avoidance, as shown in the verses quoted above: violence is not part of the new covenant in Christ [Jn. 18:36], and our warfare is spiritual, not carnal [2 Cor. 10:3-4].) Viewed from another angle, the proper role of God’s shepherds includes warning his sheep to avoid such people (Acts 20:28-31; Col. 1:28), as the Apostles did in their epistles cited above.
Yet that is not what some of our professors – many of whom are ordained as pastors as well – have been doing. They have forgotten the very concept of false teachers, and the commands that they are to be avoided (2 Jn. 10) and warned against, as well as that the sheep are easily led astray by such false teachers, whose cunning and ability to deceive are terrible (Matt. 24:11, 25). They have gone along with an intellectual fad and commended others do likewise, and have held forth a certain ancient false teacher as someone who should be ‘retrieved’ for today and read gladly.
The name of that teacher is Thomas Aquinas, and well might we ask such men what Paul asked the Galatians (3:1): “who has bewitched you?” An idolater is ipso facto not a representative of God, but has come forth to deceive. We may ask further: why have you allowed yourselves to be led astray, and for what cause do your ears itch (2 Tim. 4:3) so? Have you forgotten God’s pronouncement that “blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers” (Ps. 1:1)? Are idolaters no longer in the foremost ranks of the wicked, that you take one so eagerly as your master and guide, and even name a system of thought (“Thomism”) after him?
Ah, but someone will say that in many matters he adhered to the truth and explained it well. Even if this were so – and it is a point which is not here conceded – have you forgotten that sound doctrine that is abetted by falsehood or that issues as errant practice is useless? For “even the demons believe” (Jas.2:19), and yet they have no qualms using their sound knowledge to deceive the unwary all that much better. I hope, however, that you have not so much forgotten yourself, dear reader, and that you have kept discernment and good sense about you in these matters (Prov. 14:8; Matt. 24:4; 1 Thess. 5:21; 1 Jn. 4:1).
And to answer that question with which I began my rhetorical digression above, the present fascination with Aquinas is largely driven by a certain faction in the Roman communion. To be sure, such figures as R.C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, and John Gerstner – whose Protestant bona fides and general helpfulness speak for themselves – were quite approving of the study of Aquinas, but they have either passed, or else their works were of a previous generation. Gerstner’s article trying to claim Aquinas as a proto-Protestant came out in 1994, part of a larger issue about him, while Geisler’s Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal appeared in 1991.
Today’s movement to popularize Aquinas is largely a creature of Romanists, such men as Matthew Levering, Thomas Joseph White, and Reinhard Hütter.
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God’s timing is not ours. For another thing, God promises to answer our prayers by at least giving us “Spiritual good things” in response. And if God answers our prayers, then we no longer have any reason to give up praying on account of unanswered prayer, because there is basically no such reality for Christians. God works every time Christians pray!

Not long ago, a man came up to me after a sermon I preached on prayer to tell me that he was no longer interested in praying. His wife had died a few years earlier, and, in the months leading up to her death, he had prayed earnestly for the Lord to spare her life. But God had not answered, and his wife died. His question to me on that Sunday morning was, “Why should Christians pray if God doesn’t answer our prayers?”
This question is one that should be very familiar to us all. We have no doubt all had experiences just like the one this bereaved young man had. We may not have lost a spouse, like he did, but we have certainly prayed and had those prayers seemingly go unanswered. This young man’s question is one that all of us have wrestled with, at least to some degree: “Why should we pray if God doesn’t answer prayer?”
I want to suggest that Luke 11—among other places in the Bible—teaches us that God does, in fact, answer prayer. Isn’t that the obvious take away from Jesus’s words in verses 9 and 10? In verse 9, for instance, Jesus says: “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” It is interesting to me that Jesus doesn’t say “might” here but “will.” The one who asks willreceive; the one who seeks will find; and the one who knocks will have the door opened. And then—as if that wasn’t clear enough—Jesus follows with verse 10 to drive the point home even further: “everyone who asks receives,” everyone “who seeks finds,” and to everyone “who knocks it will be opened.”
But how can Jesus actually be saying this? Doesn’t He realize that God doesn’t always answer everyone who asks, seeks, and knocks? What about the person who asks for $1 million? Surely Jesus doesn’t mean to suggest that this person will always “receive” $1 million. As the only perfect theologian ever to walk the face of the earth, Jesus no doubt knows what James would later tell us explicitly, namely, that we can’t “ask wrongly, to spend it on our passions,” and expect that we will always receive what we ask for (James 4:3). Jesus no doubt knows that; and, yet, I find it fascinating that He doesn’t feel the need to say everything He knows here in Luke 11. He has no trouble leaving His statements about prayer unqualified and giving the impression, at least in these verses, that God always answers every prayer we make by giving us exactly what we ask for. Why would Jesus do this?
I think Jesus is responding to our question, “Why should we pray if God doesn’t answer prayer?” He is responding to it by saying, “God does answer prayer.” He answers every prayer we make—because everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. But Jesus is quick to explain that while God answers every prayer we make, He doesn’t necessarily do so on our timetable or by giving us exactly what we ask for. This is what Jesus spends the rest of His time unpacking in Luke 11, as we will see.
The first thing Jesus wants us to understand in what remains of Luke 11 is that God doesn’t always answer prayer on our timetable.
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Mothers, even in the fallen sinful world we live in, with all the curse and its effects, are a blessing. God continues to bless future generations through their mothers. Mothers provide care and support in a way no one else can. God has designed for mothers to have this uniquely special relationship with their offspring. 

One of the strangest moments summarizing the lost state of unbelievers today occurred during recent US government proceedings. During those meetings, a person of great academic education and career success was asked to define what a woman is. The answer was unhelpful and downright a rejection of objective truth. The present value placed upon ambiguity, fluidity, and ever-shifting definitions is a recipe for disaster for individuals, families, communities, and whole nations. Rejection of truth is now often the barometer for trustworthiness and enlightenment. It is as though to appear to be a person who knows something nowadays, a person must demonstrate all of the intellectual permutations of what that person has gone through, what tribes that person represents, and what assumptions that person wants to avoid by giving anything close to a definitive statement. Decisions and definitions seem to be rooted and guided more by personal experiences and preferences than by any appeal to objectively observable principles.
Mothering Throughout Scripture
I begin this discussion today in this way first to say that I am a man, a married man, who has never been a mother. In my experience personally, I have zero seconds spent existing as a mother. Instead of appealing to experience, I will be appealing to the objectively observable principles we see throughout the Old and New Testament about mothers.
The First Reference to Mother
As with many of the spiritual things, we ought to start our discussion in Genesis. In the first few chapters of Genesis, we have both the first occurrence of the word for mother in Hebrew (2:24) and the first Mother named (3:20).
The first occurrence of the word for mother is in an explanation of marriage based upon the first marriage between Adam and Eve:
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
We can observe a few things about mothers in this brief passage. Mothers for a time, are in a relationship with their children in regular daily living. What exactly that relationship looks like is not detailed here, but there is an assertion that it is normative, expectant, and good, that children are raised with fathers and mothers. We also observe that marriage is the event that changes the relationship between children and their parents. Marriage moves a child from the daily regular provision, protection, care, and support of a father and mother, to their own family unit of husband and wife. In sum, we can say that the first instance of mothers in the scripture assumes a relationship to children. It is not ridiculous to come away from even the most introductory statement of God’s Word with a few foundational principles in mind—to be a mother is to have a specific caring relationship with her offspring.
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