Archive for category: Reformed Apologetics

   The following letter appears without comment in the current edition of Dave Hunt’s newsletter. It is a sad example of how the Hodges/Wilkin heresy on salvation, promoted by Hunt, not only leads to a rejection of God’s divine freedom, but likewise creates gross confusion on the matter of assurance. Instead of finding one’s assurance in the promises of a sovereign

   I have mentioned that last year we attempted to arrange a debate in Utah with George Bryson on Calvinism. He refused to allow for cross-examination in the debate. I think this video explains why. I have honestly never heard anyone spin in tighter circles in the face of basic contextual questioning than in this instance.    The DVD of this debate

   I am not sure why I check Dave Hunt’s newsletter every month. Maybe there is a ray of hope that he will begin to engage with concrete objections presented to him over the years. But once again, we find his February Newsletter Q&A section consistently disappointing.    Someone wrote in with a Calvinist persuasion and asks Hunt some honest questions about

   I’ve seen a lot of chatter about Open Theism over the past week. Here is a clip from the cross-examination portion of my debate with John Sanders at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando a few years ago. The DVD is available here (#551).

   A faithful reader of this blog has borrowed some of the quotes from my first blog article on Heinrich Bullinger. Unfortunately, he also borrowed four points where I summarized a section of his sermon and confused them with Bullinger’s words. As honored as I am to be confused with Bullinger, I concede that there is a bit of an age

   I had a tremendous time this weekend. Far beyond my expectations. My mind is still reeling from all the information I took in regarding the oldest manucripts of the Qur’an. Great information. I’m tremendously excited. You will definitely be hearing the fruit of this weekend in future debates. I am thankful to those who support this work that I had

Mr. Bonomo,    Thank you for your letter. I confess it would be a bit easier for me to respond in detail if your original post, and the comments to which you make reference, were still available, but I will do the best I can in the absence of this material.    I have noted your comments upon reading materials written by

I made sure I looked both ways before posting. It appeared clear, so cover me: I’m going in.    Kevin Johnson responded to my article on Bullinger. He seemed to understand the implications of Bullinger’s views regarding Rome to some of his own views on the matter, although it seems he missed the larger point of the article. The main objections

capitulate /k«ÈpItjUleIt/  v.v. verb cease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; surrender. Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (2004). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.    When you are challenged on a theological and biblical claim you have made in public, it is expected that you can respond to said challenge with serious and sober argumentation,

   The first comment on Mr. Johnson’s post is by a fellow by the name of Mike Spreng: Don’t you just love how he fires those shots without leaving a chance for anyone to comment on his site (not that anyone wants to interact with such a man)? What can be said about guys like this that only go as far

   Kevin Johnson has responded to my comments about his “mind of the church” hermeneutic comment last evening. Let’s remind ourselves what he said and the context in which he said it (for that little element got lost in his response): My belief is that context ought to be centered more in the concerns of the mind of the Church rather

   Those who have followed this blog over its two-plus years now know how often the topic of “The Gospel in Capernaum” has come up. I have reviewed a number of attempts to get around this tour de force of clear salvation teaching on the part of the Lord of glory, and all have crumbled to dust when the simple reality

   Tom Nettles’ classic work, subtitled A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life, from Founder’s Press, is currently being offered by SGCB for less than $20 until mid-February. If you don’t have this in your library, you’ll want to pick it up. Great resource, important citations.

   Let me set a few things straight regarding Mr. Stafford’s recent comments on his website:    1) mail@aomin.org is not a valid e-mail address. Period. It has never been used by me, it is not my personal e-mail, or anything else. In fact, it has not been in use since, as far as we can tell, the late 90s, and then

   Here is a quick comment from Greg Bahnsen I heard today that is very relevant to discussions taking place these days. You can download the three mp3 set here. Hopefully the advertisement will cover for the 2 minute citation!    I am off to New Jersey. Lord willing, the blogosphere will return to some semblance of balance and normalcy by the

   A few days ago I noted, very briefly (all of a single paragraph at the end of a longer blog entry), the continued campaign of Watchtower apologist Greg Stafford in reference to Reformed theology, and in particular, the sovereign decree of God and Yahweh’s exhaustive knowledge of future events. I doubt our Open Theist friends are overly appreciative of the

   To my knowledge, no one has contacted me to ask if Phil Johnson and I are at odds over the current discussion of Stop and Think. Despite how easy it is to contact me (how many folks do you know who sit at a toll-free number an average of two hours a week, and are almost always available on line?),

   Wow! A quick blog run has brought me an embarrassingly rich number of things that really, really need to be addressed, each of which can be made into an edifying blog article. But I don’t have time to do them all!    First, I note Paul Owen has shown he thinks himself much wiser than his far better known namesake (John

   Among the charges the Reformers leveled against Rome was that it was corrupt and heretical. The Reformers also leveled charges against the Anabaptists stating that they were schismatics and unjustified in leaving the church. This same charge was, simultaneously, being leveled against the Reformers by Roman defenders, labeling the Reformers as being schismatic for departing from the catholic faith. Setting

   I was listening to a debate while riding this morning (nothing new there). What was unusual was 1) it was cold (for Phoenicians, 43 and windy is cold, and for anyone, really, on a bicycle, that’s cold), and 2) the Christian in the debate illustrated for me yet once again how theology matters. Your theology determines your apologetic, by nature.

   What keeps God’s love from becoming mere maudlin sentimentality? What is the bulwark, the firm foundation, that keeps the love of God from falling into the abyss of universalism, and prohibits us from the idolatry of seeing God as the great grandfather in the sky, filled with woe and sadness at His inability to make us all happy? I suggest

   The Calvinist Gadfly posted this. It’s…uh…wow. Be prepared.

   Gene Cook did the first part of an interview with Dan Corner on his program yesterday. Here’s a link. I listened to it while riding today. It was a tremendous example of the massive contrast between viewing the gospel as a divine act, focused upon God, done to His glory, and being man-centered in your outlook. Dan Corner may be

   Right before I left for St. Charles a friend of mine sent me a URL to the Envoy Magazine web-board where medical doctor Art Sippo, one of the more famous folks on this blog (do a search if you really must), had begun a series on Calvinism. Now, remember, Art Sippo is the same non-exegete about whom I wrote in

   When I was in seminary I had the wonderful opportunity of writing a paper on the theology of Jonathan Edwards on the sovereignty of God. It was one of the most exciting studies I did at that time. The “Edwards” field is huge, with many modern writers and speakers addressing the topic. But if you’d like to get an engaging,

   Ergun Caner obviously got a few e-mails about the less-than overly humorous book cover noted below (remember, when the truth content takes a dive, so does the humor, or, for my UK brethren, humour). He has posted a short article on his blog about it. Once again, almost as if Dr. Caner lives to help us illustrate the incoherence and

   Ironic, I think, that within a few hours of our providing a reasoned refutation of he and his brother’s error-filled attacks upon straw-man versions of Calvinism, I am directed to this image posted, with almost no commentary whatsoever, on Ergun Caner’s blog. If the image size is a bit small (I’m limited to 400 pixels across in my current blog

   As we promised, we are making available an mp3 of the presentation made by myself and Tom Ascol at our national conference in Orlando. In that presentation we both gave a presentation summarizing what we wished to say in our opening statements in the debate-that-never-was. Then, we played clips from the sermons of Ergun and Emir Caner against their flawed

   Now, keep in mind, this fellow, himself a veteran of about every religious movement in Christendom at some point in his young life (“the wind-blown theologian”), was not at our conference. He was replying to the live blogging of the conference by some of our faithful folks. And his motivations are significantly less than above-board: he is just looking for

   For some reason, Paul Owen is addicted to my blog. It’s sorta sad, really. I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to his oxymoronically monickered blog, but for some reason he loves reading mine. I have lost track of how many times something has appeared under his name shortly after the topic came up here on this blog.    In

   A number of years ago I made a presentation on the impact of the Donatist Controversy and the Pelagian Controversy on the theology of Augustine. I have repeated the essence of that material a number of times in various venues. To encapsulate it, even the most brilliant of Christian theologians and leaders are impacted by the contexts in which they