Archive for category: Theology Matters

A few months ago someone sent me a link to a pastor criticizing, in a blog, the ministry of Cornelius Van Til. One of the criticisms leveled against Van Til was that he was the inventor of the doctrine of the self-authenticating nature of scripture. An amazing assertion that is absolutely false. Even if you do not agree with Van

A reader named Charles wrote in with the following comments: My question is, isn’t following Christ following his morality. I have read plenty of your arguments but why don’t we ever discuss morality. Who cares about theology if the morality is flawed. God isn’t going to test us on our understanding of the 2nd Council of Carthage or Martin Luther.

I have had a growing awareness over the past number of years of the beauty and harmony of Christian truth as it is revealed in divine Scripture. God’s truth is not expressed to us in modern, Western, text-book fashion, with an index in the back so you can skip past the stuff you don’t care about, read a few paragraphs,

The more I have pondered William Lane Craig’s presentation of and promotion of Molinism the more deeply grieved I have become at its grossly unbiblical nature. The presentation of God as a cosmic super-computer, running the numbers, examining the “possible worlds” presented to Him by His “middle knowledge” of what free creatures would do in any given circumstance, is so

Here is the second portion of the Bible Conference from Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, La Mirada, October 23, 2009, specifically on William Lane Craig’s presentation of Middle Knowledge from his book, The Only Wise God. A Reformed and, I pray, biblical response.

Here is the first portion of last night’s Bible Conference in La Mirada at the Trinity Reformed Baptist Church. The second portion is already uploaded and can be seen on my YouTube page. I will have it post here Sunday morning.

Dr. James White will be speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in La Mirada, California on Friday night 10/23/09 at 6:30pm. The church is located at 14407 Rosecrans Ave. in La Mirada, 30 minutes south of Downtown Los Angeles, 20 minutes north of Disneyland, and 2 minutes west of Biola University. The topic of Dr. White’s lecture will be “Playing

Mark Herzer, the speaker in the audio I mentioned earlier, gave me permission to post his paper titled The Church: A Covenant Community. If you listened to the audio, you will want to download this document; much more is included. Click here for the PDF.

One last item for today… I just returned from a meeting in which Dr. Tom Holland, from Wales Evangelical School of Theology spoke on the New Perspective on Paul. Holland is the author of Contours of Pauline Theology: A Radical New Survey of the Influences on Paul’s Biblical Writing (Christian Focus). If you would like to listen click here.

In 1995 GPTS held a conference on the topic The Doctrine of the Church. One of the presentations was titled “Covenant Community” by Mark Herzer. This was the best presentations I’ve heard on this issue. Pastor Herzer’s purpose was: “…to deal with two major points in this paper. One is the necessity of membership in the visible church. The second

   Dan Wallace has published a fairly lengthy response to NT Wright’s central assertions regarding the righteousness of God. The article is titled Δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ and N. T. Wright. The first URL Dan provided contained unicode, like this: http://bible.org/article/δικαιοσύνη-θεοῦ-and-n-t-wright. While that is really pretty and all, I don’t think the majority of folks would find that to work, and e-mail programs

Had a brief “conversation” on Twitter today. Trying to discuss topics like this with 140 character limits is often frustrating, but, sometimes, challenging in a good way. Started with the following question: Hey Doc, listening to stuff on WLCraig. can you explain the dif between some Calvt’s “best of all poss worlds” vs molinism? I replied: Molinism: God is constrained

I was recently on the “Iron Sharpens Iron” (ISI) radio program. Here’s a link to the ISI page about the call (link) and here is direct link to the mp3 (link). The following is an outline of some of the topics discussed. This is not a transcript, but more or less notes for the discussion. I. In General – Regarding

   I received a copy of The Restitution of Jesus Christ by “Servetus the Evangelical” recently. Not too unexpectedly, it is a spiral bound book, like almost every other “I’ve gone apostate and now I deny the Trinity and I’m going to explain why now in this awesome book with insights no one has ever produced but me” type book I’ve

Mr. Greg Koukl has lots of good things to say on many topics, but I was a bit disappointed by his recent post/video on the topic of Repentance, which he titles: “Repentance Has Nothing to Do with Sin.” (link to post with embedded video)

   And therefore it must needs be, that a sight of God’s loveliness must begin here. A true love to God must begin with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this, and no otherwise than as (according to our way of conceiving of God) it

   There are so many worthless things that take up our days. Put some of them aside for just under an hour and listen, or watch. Don’t do so listening for imperfections, do so listening for words of life. You cannot help but be touched deeply by the words of a dying sister in the Lord. If you wish to listen

   I decided to tackle one of Dan Barker’s favorite topics straight on in the Sunday morning sermon at PRBC. What about those difficult texts where God commands the literal extermination of an entire tribe, or city, or even nation?

   Though I have never been much of a “fan” of the music of the Hemphills, I am aware of the name and their influence in “Christian music.” Joel Hemphill was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame last year; the Hemphills as a family have recorded 27 albums and received eight Dove Awards. To say they are well

On June 1 of this year Mr. Brant Bosserman (Trinitarian) and Mr. Sean Finnegan (Unitarian) debated the topic of the Trinity. I had a chance to listen to the debate and I enjoyed it very much. I trust you will as well. Click here to listen. I’ve heard Brant on two other occasions and appreciated very much what he had

   Here are two blog articles I looked at today. I think a comparison of their methodology, spirit, and guiding principles, is educational. One is from a convinced and inveterate synergist, the other a convinced monergist.

   Theology matters. The substance of what God in His infinite wisdom has revealed to His creatures is the marrow of the joy of the believer’s heart—and mind. Theology matters because theology is possible because of God’s initiative in revelation. What God reveals is, by definition, important, central, vital, life-changing, heart-enrapturing, for all in whom the Spirit dwells. And thanks be

Read John Piper’s latest book The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Crossway, 2007) by clicking here.