Infant Baptism: How My Mind Has Changed (by Dennis E. Johnson)

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Declarative Sentences Should Sound Like One

This guy nailed what I've noticed among many of today's younger preachers (even confessionally Reformed ones), i.e. this kinda-college-girl manner of speaking which, pardon me for this, sounds so gay.

Van Til and Schaeffer Compared

I'm reproducing the text of this valuable piece here, just in case the site from where it's sourced suddenly goes down (I won't be reproducing the reference notes, though).

Two Christian Warriors: Cornelius Van Til and Francis A. Schaeffer Compared (William Edgar, Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 57, No. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 57-80)

Cornelius Van Til died in 1987, three years after Francis A. Schaeffer. It is still too early to assess the legacies of these two very different figures in twentieth-century apologetics. Van Til spent most of his professional life teaching at Westminster Seminary. Schaeffer was a pastor, then an evangelist in a community setting. Van Til wrote extensively, tackling subjects related mostly to philosophy and theology. Schaeffer was a speaker first, and a writer only secondarily (although his readership was actually wider than Van Til's, owing no doubt to his immense popularity in evangelical circles). Though they both had a Reformed background, Van Til affirmed his commitment to the system taught in the Reformed creeds throughout his polemics. Schaeffer did so only tangentially. What can be learned by comparing these two so different people?

Calvin on Church Discipline

1. Necessity and nature of church discipline

The discipline of the church, the discussion of which we have deferred to this place, must be treated briefly...Discipline depends for the most part upon the power of the keys and upon spiritual jurisdiction...

But because some persons, in their hatred of discipline, recoil from its very name, let them understand this: if no society, indeed, no house which has even a small family, can be kept in proper condition without discipline, it is much more necessary in the church, whose condition should be as ordered as possible.

The 5 Points of Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism

In Dr. Michael Horton's lecture entitled, "Christianity and Liberalism Today," delivered at Westminster Seminary California's 2011 annual conference (Christianity and Liberalism Revisited), he made mention of the 5 points of "Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism."

The 5 points of MTD are as follows, along with my very brief commentary on each:

Point 1: God created the world.

With logical positivism dead, and with none but the stubbornest of thinkers holding on to it as a valid epistemology, it comes as no shock that the intelligent conclusion of any philosophical process is that the existence of deity at the end of all causal chains is the only rational option.

However, this output of natural revelation only gives us the "what?" and not the "who?" For the determination of the latter, we need the inerrant, inspired, and authoritative Word of God, the Bible.

To those under the vise-grip of MTD, knowing that God created the world comes as no consolation, for every human being, being made in the image of God, knows this:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Romans 1:18-23)

Point 2: God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and most world religions.

Again, this is a product of natural revelation, with the Law being ingrained in the heart of every man. The trouble is that most, if not all, MTD-ers don't realize that God requires perfect obedience to His Law. One's estimation of what counts for goodness, niceness, and fairness will never measure up to God's standard. We need perfect obedience to be counted as righteous in God's sight.


Point 3: The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

Considering Point 2, the MTD man's conception of happiness is essentially existential, not coming to grips with the true nature of his problem, i.e., the wrath of God that weighs heavily upon him. As long as the endorphins are kept pumping, everything is fine with the world—the world revolving around me, of course!


Point 4: God doesn't need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a personal problem.

Knowing that God created the universe (Point 1), it obviously is the case that He alone knows and has the ability to keep the MTD man happy and feeling good about himself (Point 3) when bumps or potholes along the road of life make the joyride less than enjoyable.


Point 5: Good people go to heaven when they die.

See Point 2.


More on MTD by Dr. Horton below:

You Are Not the Gospel!

A well-meaning family friend of ours, whom we've known since I was little and who still attends the Pentecostal church where we used to attend, remarked one day when we had a chance to talk that God wants His children to be materially prosperous so that the unbelievers would get attracted to their lives and begin to desire God as well.

I didn't get to correct her (I think she's as old as my mother or so), but her sentiments are indeed indicative of the predominant view among so-called "evangelicals" (and increasingly among those in the Reformed camp!) that our lives can act in the capacity of the Gospel.

Dr. Michael Horton corrects this false notion below:

Phil Anselmo Dishing Out Some Good Common Grace

I unabashedly confess that I am an inveterate metalhead (I do love jazz and classical, too, y'know. LOL), and Pantera ranks high up there among my esteemed metal bands.

In this 7-part video series, Phil Anselmo, frontman of Pantera, talks to a group of college students (taking up Music, I believe), and spews out some fine words. No, it's not the Gospel, but it is good common grace. Check it out:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Calvin on Fasting

"Let us, therefore, make some observations on fasting, since very many, not understanding what utility there can be in it, judge it not to be very necessary, while others reject it altogether as superfluous. Where its use is not well known it is easy to fall into superstition.

A holy and lawful fast has three ends in view. We use it either to mortify and subdue the flesh, that it may not wanton, or to prepare the better for prayer and holy meditation; or to give evidence of humbling ourselves before God, when we would confess our guilt before him."

— John Calvin, Institutes, 4:12:14,15.

Groan, Do Not Grumble

How many excursions into sin could have been avoided if in our suffering we groaned but did not grumble? When discontent over our lot in life gets the best of us, any form of relief (be it of the destructive kind) suddenly takes on the appearance of the best of graces, and grumbling makes way to giving in.

"Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains—they are all the daughters of sin, and he who is not sensible of them as the births and products of sin, does but add to his sin and provoke the Lord to add to his sufferings (Isaiah 26:9-11). No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither frets nor faints under it. Grace does not destroy nature, but rather perfects it. Grace is of a noble offspring; it neither turns men into stocks nor to stoics. The more grace, the more sensible [one is] of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father.

Though Calvin, under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter nor murmur, yet he was heard often to say 'How long, Lord, how long?'

A pious commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by, pitying his pain, he replied, 'Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.' God allows his people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to lie stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that man's furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter who is in the furnace but feels it not." (Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 26, italics original).

Let us feel the weight of our sin and of being alive in a fallen world. Savor it to the core, mindful of the truth that all this is from the hand of God, exclaiming along with the Psalmist, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation" (Ps. 68:19).

Free to Get Sloshed? Some Principles Are in Order

I've come across an argument trying to justify getting drunk in front of other members of the church that goes along these lines, "Christian liberty permits me to indulge my love for alcohol even in front of people. I don't need to know the state of their consciences. It's their fault if their faith is too weak to recognize my freedom."

Well, the ff. by Sinclair Ferguson, taken from his book, "In Christ Alone," addresses this most grievous argument (found this from one of Ligonier Ministries' FB notes):

The Call of the Conduit

Notwithstanding the sad state of the pastoral ministry, both here in the Philippines and abroad, the call to preach and teach the oracles of God has never lost its gravity and importance. God, in His gracious condescension, has seen it fit to course His faith-building blessings through jars of clay, and the determination of whether one is among those chosen to be conduits of His speech must be taken very seriously.

On a subjective, personal level, determination can be commenced by asking oneself, "Do I love to study the Word of God?" "Do I endeavor to obey the Word of God?" "Do I have a desire to teach the Word of God to others?" This is in keeping with what the priest Ezra was described as being and doing, "For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel" (Ezra 7:10).

On a more objective note, the estimation of the elders of the church play the most important role in this determination. The exercise of one's gifts in the church context gives the elders the data that they would need in ascertaining (with prayerful consideration) whether the love of God's Word, the life of God's Word, and the teaching of God's Word are apparent in the individual. This process of submitting to the authority of the Church simply recognizes the Christ-representative function of the eldership and the Lord's able use of ordinary means.

Dr. Dennis Johnson has more: "Discerning One’s Call to the Ministry" and "Confirming One’s Call to the Ministry"

It Is Preached

The power of the Gospel, its condemning/killing and justifying/vivifying potency, is NOT conveyed through your life, your symbols of success, your soup kitchens, your church band—no, not even through your cliché-emblazoned t-shirts! The Gospel is an announcement; it is news, the best news that can ever be declared from human lips. Therefore, it is PREACHED.

More from Dr. Michael Horton:

The Gospel: Message and Method

Pastor Nicholas T. Batzig makes the following remark in a sermon of his entitled, "Hard Pressed on Every Side": "Why are Gospel-preaching churches so small? Gospel-preaching churches are so small because the natural man hates the Gospel and will try to keep even his enemies from hearing the Gospel." The context of the statement is Acts 14, where we see the Gospel-antagonistic Jews shedding off their bigotry towards the Gentiles if only to prevent them from hearing and responding to the Gospel of the crucified Jesus. Such is the ignominy of the Gospel that other hatreds becomes loves if only to make it more hateful!

If such is the case, it may be asked to what message have these hordes of people who warm the seats of these ultra-mega-churches responded to, and by what means? Of course, mere numerical statistics don't mean error prima facie, but a mere cursory observation of the methods and doctrines (or lack thereof) of these churches would lend immense viability to Nick's statement.

For one thing, most of these churches subscribe to a paradigm of conversion that is best described as moralistic, therapeutic, deism. Preach on a subject that will foster discontent in the audience, though not about God's Law and sin—that's sure to cut the attendance by half the next Sunday! Let it be about relationships, how to carry on great marriages; or about the career, how to always be on top at the office. So you've been a failure as a husband or father; you've not been promoted in 3 years. Well, you need a Savior! Needless to say, the Gospel is not about eliminating the pet peeves from your life, but about what God has done, in Christ, to save you from Himself—with Christ living a perfectly righteous life (to satisfy God's demand of perfect obedience to the Law), dying on the cross (to satisfy God's demand of payment for your non-obedience to the Law), and rising up from the dead in order to secure for Himself a people imputed with His righteousness and declared justified by grace, through faith.

Secondly, they operate on a paradigm of conversion that is epochal. Given perhaps that the person and work of Christ was adequately preached from the pulpit (the Gospel), the working assumption is that this one time of having heard the message is enough to effect conversion, so then we have the proverbial "altar call" and "sinner's prayer." While the Lord is free to effect His saving work in such a case, it is more the exception than the rule. John Calvin states, "We are converted little by little to God, and by stages." Instead of the revival type of evangelism, it appears that the biblical mold is progressive indoctrination through Sunday preaching and Bible studies. The Holy Spirit uses the biblical truths of the Gospel as expounded in these venues, assimilated through the mind (noticia), to break its way through to the sin-hardened heart, making it realize (assensus) its need for a Savior (fiducia). This approach takes the radical depravity of the human heart and God's promise to bless His ordained means seriously. Dr. Darryl Hart gives a treatment of this in two blog posts: "The Unconverted Calvin: Part One and Two."

The Gospel's message and method are not the rave these days. No matter. Not a single one for whom Christ died shall be lost, even if his church is micro. ;-)