Category: Wisdom

"One becomes a theologian not by understanding, reading, and speculating, but by living, dying, and being damned."

Luther, Commentary on the Psalms

Category: Theology

Baptism for the dead?

What does Paul mean in I Cor. 15:29

Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?

This is the best two page article I've seen on the matter.  Very helpful, worth your time:  

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-76-baptism-for-the-dead/

Category: End-times~ Amill and Postmill had a fight at the Pub.. Part II

Continued..

Pabst Blue Ribbon (Amillennial) beer said to Black Butte Porter (Postmillennial):

"But Hoekma said that Post-mill theology.."

"Ah.." Porter said, "have you ever read any postmill theologians?  Or do you get your understanding of postmill from amill guys?"

Pabst:  Uh... well no.  but I'm going to. 
Porter:  Good.

Porter:
Amill folks, I believe, will never have a satisfactory answer to texts like this:
Is. 65:20 ..."For the youth will die at the age of one hundred and the one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be thought accursed."  This is in a passage describing the new heavens and the new earth!  Death is still happening in an age when Isaiah describes it as after the creation of the new heavens and earth.  Notice those words, "new earth."  There is not going to be merely a perfect heaven but destroyed earth in the end, but new heavens and new earth joined in perfect new creation.  Death will obviously be completely abolished and destroyed in the end, at the final second coming.

You are familiar with the important categories of creation, fall, redemption, but that's not complete without the Bible's end goal-- new creation.  Creation to new creation.. That is as clear as it gets when you compare the garden imagery with Gen 1-3 and Rev 21,22.  A part of what that means is just as people lived very long in the early parts of history so people will reverse back to that by living longer in an advanced age of blessing on earth--ref above verse Is. 65:20.

Notice in Ezekiel 47:1-12 that the period of prosperity for the gospel is gradual..  Ezek. is a classic high symbolism Jewish theologian but don't get lost with it.  The water from the Temple is the blessing, the life bringing "irrigation" to the desert of the world.  First, the water reaches the ankles v.3.  Then, the knees v.4.  In v. 8 this water actually flows into the "sea," (a classic and broadly held metaphor for the gentiles) making them, "fresh."  There's even a verse on fishing v. 10--not a frequently used ref. for heaven, typically defined.  But this is a ref. to Jesus' making miracles with his large catches of fish in the gospels--John 21:6.  The inauguration of the kingdom came with this great Fisher of men.  Now, if you're skeptical--shame on you..  :)
Pabst:  But surely Ezekiel was talking about some blessing to come in the near Israelite future at that time..
Porter:  But it was said of Jesus when speaking to his disciples that, "beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures."  The OT texts find ultimate fulfillment in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus.
Porter:  Look at v. 12 in Ezek. 47 which is a crystal clear referent for Rev. 22:2.  New life, new creation for the world, that came gradually through the Holy Spirit's work in and through the Temple--the Church.

Category: Literature

Did Virgil read Isaiah?

Or is it pagan prophecy?

Pieces from Virgil's famous poem, Eclogues IV are below.

Constantine, Augustine and Dante all believed that this was Virgil's messianic prophecy, written in 37 B.C.




Pollio

..."Justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden race arise,


 
Apollo reigns. And in thy consulate,
This glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin,

Of our old wickedness, once done away,
Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.
He shall receive the life of gods, and see
Heroes with gods commingling, and himself
Be seen of them, and with his father's worth
Reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy,
First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth
Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray
With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed,
And laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves,
Untended, will the she-goats then bring home
Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield
Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear.
Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee
Caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die,
Die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far
And wide Assyrian spices spring.

But soon
As thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame,
And of thy father's deeds, and inly learn
What virtue is, the plain by slow degrees
With waving corn-crops shall to golden grow,
From the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape,
And stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless
Yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong
Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships,
Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth.
Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be,
Her hero-freight a second Argo bear;
New wars too shall arise, and once again
Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man,
No more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark
Ply traffic on the sea, but every land
Shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more
Shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook;
The sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, 

O baby-boy! ten months of weariness
For thee she bore: O baby-boy, begin!
For him, on whom his parents have not smiled,
Gods deem not worthy of their board or bed."

What do you think?  Did Virgil read Isaiah?  Did he borrow from the Hebrews to envision a Roman golden age?  Or did he actually end up writing a prophecy about the Boy to be born?  I will comment on your comments if you're interested.

Consider these passages from the prophets:  Is. 65: 24,25  Is. 2:2-6 Micah 4:1-3 and any other prophecies you remember of Jesus' birth like being born in a lowly place like Bethlehem etc.

Category: Lovemaking

Fornication, adultery, and all porneia are a slander against God, because we're made in His image.  The problem with people who fall to un-covenanted sex is not that they emphasize sex too much but too little.  They think too little of the glory of sex because they depersonalize it and reduce it to mere impulses of selfish lust.  But glorious sex is intensely personal and the personhood of the gift is what makes it so great to those seeking righteousness.  We exult in this great gift of God.  But to those craving lust it is that personal nature of sex that comes back to bite them.

Category: Family

After taking communion a couple Sunday's ago Julia says happily and quite audibly- "Jesus loves me."  The children of believers belong to Jesus, belong to baptism, and therefore belong to the meal of the baptized-the bread broken for you..

I love the CREC and covenant renewal worship..

Category: International Culture

Hoorahh for girls!

It is staggering and wicked how many cultures out there hate girls..

In India they abort them like mad and likewise China..  They can't produce in the culture like men and they are expensive on the family.  Fathers have to give dowries when they get married and likewise pay for the wedding.

Countries are so stupid.  What's the cumulative problem with all this murdering of girls?  You have a bunch of males with no woman to abuse ooops, I mean marry.  I forget the ratio of men to women but it's widening dramatically.

China, I think, is worse. 

And if you're a girl in a Muslim country.. I am really sorry, seriously I am.

In our reformed circles in the U-S-of A we have a different problem..

The topic actually comes up in our presbytery meetings, of all topics!

What's our problem?  Too many males?  Nope.  Too many girls?  Nope.  Too many under-acheiving and lazy guys?  Yep.

I do think God has given a lot of Christian fathers little ladies by design.  And these little ladies are growing up smart, godly and ... yep, downright gorgeous.

But the guys rate of maturation is behind.  Hopefully the guys will start comin' 'round but in the meantime,

Hooraahh for my girls!

Dude, unplug sometimes..

Amillennialism and Postmillennialism had a fight at the Pub Part I

Premill just sat there drinking a coke and wishing he could argue..

Our two fighters:  Black Butte Porter the Postmillennialist vs. Pabst Blue Ribbon the Amillennialist.

Porter:  “I don’t think all Amill folk are preterist but being preterist= (the pos. that says most of the prophetic “end-times” material is fulfilled in and around 70 AD with destruction of apostate Jerusalem) is really important.”

Pabst:  “Yes, I’m a preterist.”

Porter:  So, on that, amills and postmills can agree, that’s step 1.

Step 2 is where amill has error.  Step 2 is believing the gospel will be victorious on earth in the future.

Pabst:  (Lets out an obnoxious grunt, rolls his eyes and says,) “Oh, everyone knows that the world is not getting better..Of course the gospel is going to be victorious in the end, when Christ returns.”

Porter:  Here is one of the best short definitions of Amillennialism I’ve ever seen:
“We are in the millennium now, but the blessings of the millennium are not outward but rather the inward blessings of the church and in the heart.”
This, from my ordination examination test actually.
This is why the amill pos. is criticized for being semi-gnostic.. That the blessings of the New Covenant age are inward and in the heart, not outward-flowing and recreating the world.  The place to hammer out the eschatalogical positions is not Rev 20 (millennium proper) but the greater telos “end/goal” eschatology of the Bible.  What is the end goal of the Bible, its eschatology?  It is new creation, first in the changed hearts of its subjects but then outwardly towards all creation–Rom 8 and all over Isaiah’s latter chapters and other prophets.
Pabst:  Spits out his blue ribbon beer and has a black-eye.

Porter:  As I’ve studied the Bible the burden of Scripture does not move towards the advancing church’s blessings in the world to be “in the heart,” “up there” with Gary Larson’s far side heaven cartoons..no, but, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  In the end, in Revelation 21:2 heaven comes down to earth in final consummation.  The two will become one.

Pabst:  “uh-uh..”
To risk being reductionistic for the sake of clarity, amill pos. sees the church as always beaten down and never really victorious…Christ never really subdues all His enemies beneath His feet….until one great climactic moment in the end similar actually to premill but without the rapture.

Pabst:  I guess I have been kind-of a depressed Christian.

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Porter:  Amillennialism is depressing, and it’s defeatist.  The Bible is not defeatist.  This misses the entire melody of Scripture which is that “the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.”  He will reign until all His enemies are subdued.”

Pabst:  But the NT is alarmist and “pessimistic!”

Porter:  Some folk say that you can’t get to this optimism when reading NT.  But they miss the fact that the NT, not the age to come, is “pessimistic” because God was bringing that old age, the old covenant order to an end with judgment upon the arch-enemies of God—as it turns out, the unbelieving Jews themselves!
The world was feeling like it was going to end when you lived in 55 AD and were reading the Apostle Paul’s letters.  But the power of the raised Messiah is more than sufficient to topple all the citadels of unbelief both now and in the future.  The problem comes when we read into the NT’s doom-is-coming language into the present.  The Church, now in that symbolic thousand years, and living in the kingdom will be victorious, albeit in a death and resurrection pattern, like her King–Notice the terrible predicted anguish of Christ in Ps 22 but then notice the telos, the fruit of that cross in vv.27-29.  That theme, “the government will rest upon His shoulders-” (Is.9:6) as I’ve now discovered, drips from the Bible.  My previous presuppositions that the Bible was essentially pessimistic with victory and that the Church could not be predominant blinded me from what texts actually say.

Pabst:  I need another beer..

Porter:  Notice Is. 9:7 “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace…”  That doesn’t mean the church brings in the kingdom without suffering and that there are long periods of terrible persecution.. It is that our graph of world history is much longer than the short ones predicted by both premills and amills.  A long graph has severe depressions, yes, but you have to see how the gospel has enveloped the globe already very significantly since the first century.

Pabst at this point, started slinging wild punches from non-sensical theological expostulations from Rev 20…

Porter:  You really need to read David Chilton’s, Days of Vengeance.  And your argument from Rev 20 has nothing to do with the burden of argument I’m bringing from the eschatology of the Bible as a whole.

The apostle said not to box as though beating the air…

Bruno on the sabbath

Been reading a really interesting and unique book..  The Good Wine by Bruno Barnhart.  Subtitle is, "Reading John from the Center."  It's pretty deep.  I thought he had some excellent comments on all the sabbath wars that were going on between Jesus and the Pharisees:

"The divine word embodied in the law had been virtually paralyzed, (much like the paralytic himself) and this was exemplified by the legalisitic interpretation of the sabbath in terms of complete inactivity.  Jesus brings the word of the sabbath back to its original meaning in the sense of re-creation, return to the font of life.  (..."The Father is working..")  Once again, the movement from exodus to creation is a movement from human religious structures, imperfect, impotent and sometimes perverse and inimical to life, to a faith which relates the person immediately to God's creative power."

The Pharisees mistakenly held to a sabbath of impotent, lifeless, and inactive death..  Jesus brought re-creation and life-giving rest.

Andreas--first steps on video

Some good movies you should see and one you can spare..

Get Low
and
Like Dandelion Dust

Two excellent Christian movies.. Christian films are getting better and better.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader was lame. Very disappointed, but then, should I be?