Nothing, says Westminster California.
David VanDrunen has written a piece on God’s gift of the civil government, entitled Ministers of God for Our Good: God’s Gift of Civil Government. The piece originally appeared in Evangelium, Vol. 13, Issue 5, and is now available on the Westminster Seminary California’s site.
Continue reading “If the Foundations Be Destroyed, What Can the Righteous Do?”
Ever get tired of boring, unfaithful, irrelevant sermons at church? Look no further than to the preaching ministry of John Weaver.
Check out this small sampling:
Enjoy!
I thought I would offer some points about Sunday school for it’s adherents to think about.
It Is Optional
What is required on the Sabbath is worship. Worship includes gathering, invoking the Lord, confession, pardon, prayer, singing, a sermon, the sacrament, and the benediction. These are all captured in the worship service, so beyond a worship service or two, the church cannot demand your attendance to other “church” functions.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Sunday School”
Sarah Capewell held her baby in her arms and watched it die.
Only because it was a few days too early. Were the baby a bit older it would have been a human life and as such treatable in the ICU.
Were the baby born in Florida, like Amillia Taylor who was born younger than Jayden, it would be living today.
How many doctors, nurses, and staff have the blood of that baby on their hands? Despite the wicked laws that call this evil good, some of these people had the ability to help and chose not to. The politicians who legislate these laws are accomplices to murder, and should be executed under a righteous system of justice.
Furthermore, the church bears a major responsibility here. She is the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Judgment begins with her. She is to call on nations to uphold God’s law, and when she fails due to Pietism, Quietism, or radical tw0-kingdomism, she is a murderer too. May God have mercy on us.
Here in the States our Pastors are quiet about this. They make no noise about this, other than putting occasional plugs in for para-church ministries like Crisis Pregnancy Centers. They are quiet because to shepherd means to guide the flock, not the culture.
Reformed Christians have no excuse, for their history is riddled with pastors who continuously called on the State to reform itself in light of Gods word, if they weren’t reforming it themselves.
These are from his famous essay (which Reformed peopled hate), ”The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” It is absolutely a required reading for anyone who 1) is Reformed, and 2) is willing to reconsider Reformed theology.
Paul was equipped with…a rather “robust” conscience.
There is no indication that he had any difficulty in fulfilling the Law.
His encounter with Jesus Christ—at Damascus, according to Acts 9:1-9—has not changed this fact. It was not to him a restoration of a plagued conscience; when he says that he now forgets what is behind him (Phil. 3:13), he does not think about the shortcomings in his obedience to the law, but about his glorious achievements as a righteous Jew, achievements which he nevertheless now has learned to consider as “refuse” in the light of his faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
For Paul had not arrived at his view of the Law by resting and pondering its effect upon his conscience; it was his grappling with the question about the place of the Gentile in the Church and in the plan of God, with the problem Jews/Gentiles or Jewish Christians/Gentile Christians, which had driven him to that interpretation of the Law which was to become his in a unique way.
Roman. 9—11 is not an appendix to chs. 1—8, but the climax of the letter.
Once the Messiah had come, and once the faith in him—not “faith” as a general religious attitude—was available as the decisive ground for salvation, the Law had done its duty as a custodian for the Jews, or as a waiting room with strong locks (vv. 22f.).
Similarly, when I Timothy states on Paul’s account that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am number one” (1:15), this is not an expression of contrition in the present tense, but refers to how Paul in his ignorance had been a blaspheming and violent persecutor, before God in his mercy and grace had revealed to him his true Messiah and made Paul and Apostle and a prototype of sinners’ salvation (1:12-16).
We note how that statement is only the subsidiary conditional clause in an argument e majore ad minus: If now god was so good and powerful that he could justify weak and sinful and rebellious men, how much easier must it not be for him to give in due time the ultimate salvation to those whom he already has justified.
But does he ever intimate that he is aware of any sins of his own which would trouble his conscience? It is actually easier to find statements to the contrary. The tone in Acts 23:1, “Brethren, I have lived before God in all good conscience up to this day” (cf. 24:16), prevails throughout his letters.
The argument is one of acquittal of the ego, not one of utter contrition. Such a line of thought would be impossible if Paul’s intention were to describe man’s predicament. In Rom. 1: 1-3 the human impasse has been argued, and here every possible excuse has been carefully ruled out. In Rom. 7 the issue is rather to show how in some sense “I gladly agree with the law of God as far as my inner man is concerned” (v. 22); or, as in v. 25, “I serve the Law of God.”
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