The answer to the question, found in The Heidelberg Catechism, has been particularly resonant with me (for unknown reasons) this morning.

Q:  What is your only comfort in life and in death?

¹ 1 Cor. 6:19-20
² Rom. 14:7-9
³ 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14
⁴ 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2
⁵ John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11
⁶ John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5
⁷ Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18
⁸ Rom. 8:28
⁹ Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14
¹⁰ Rom. 8:1-17

CNN had a fantastic article by Albert Mohler addressing the question as to why there is a focus on homosexuality.  I appreciated CNN’s presentation of Mohler’s article.  Make sure you read the whole thing as Mohler addresses some of the questions you may have, or have been asked, about when the topic of the Bible and homosexuality comes up (things like slavery, polygamy, eating shellfish, etc.).

Here’s Mohler’s concise and clear answer as to why Christians speak about homosexuality:

Why are Christians so concerned with homosexuality? In the first place, that question is answered by the simple fact that it is the most pressing moral question of our times. Christians must be concerned about adultery, pornography, injustice, dishonesty and everything the Bible names as sin. But when my phone rings with a call from a reporter these days, the question I am asked is never adultery or pornography. It is about homosexuality.

Read the rest.

Over the past two months our diocese in formation has been having prayerful, considered conversation regarding the topic of the ordination of women (we’ve been considering both office and function – an important, and often contracted, distinction).  This past weekend I ran across an excellent article in the spring edition of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood addressing the topic both biblically and historically.  The author of the above titled article explored nature of “masculine” ministry through the lens of the life and ministry of J.C. Ryle (the great 19th century Anglican bishop from Liverpool).

A nice article offering “7 Lessons We Should Learn from the German Liberal Theologians and Higher Critics” – if we don’t learn from such people, we may find ourselves blundering into their errors.

Dead Germans.

They are the subject of a lecture I give every spring in my church history classes: a brief overview of German theologians from the 19th and early-20th centuries.

It’s kind of a depressing lecture to deliver — the sad tale of skepticism intersecting with scholarship; a dismal depiction of the disaster unleashed by unrestrained doubt and disbelief.

Despite standing in the shadow of the Reformation, many German Protestant theologians abandoned the historic truth claims of biblical Christianity due to the mounting popularity of Enlightenment rationalism. In so doing, they shipwrecked their own souls while simultaneously devastating the faith of millions of others.

Higher critics, such as Johann Eichhorn and David Strauss, denied the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch, they claimed; nor did Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John write the four gospels. To make matters worse, they suggested that the Jesus of the Bible is not the same as the real Jesus of history. In their “quest to find the historical Jesus,” the critics created a “Jesus” of their own imaginations — essentially reducing him to a nice guy who couldn’t do any miracles, never claimed to be God, and was largely misunderstood by first-century Judaism.

Liberal theologians, from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Albrecht Ritschl, similarly disavowed the truth claims of the Bible. They looked instead for a new foundation on which to base their contrived version of Christianity. Some found it in the personal experience of romanticism; others in the moral ethics of the social gospel. But by denying core Christian doctrines (like the substitutionary death of Christ and His bodily resurrection), liberalism denied the very essence of the gospel message (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-4). As Richard Niebuhr explained — summing up the bankruptcy of liberal theology — liberalism asserted that a “God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross” (The Kingdom of God in America, 193).

As you might imagine, the material in this lecture unfolds like a catastrophic train wreck … as we watch theologian after theologian jump the rails by abandoning the most-basic fundamentals of biblical Christianity.

But, in the midst of the chaos and carnage, are there lessons that we can learn from the German liberal theologians and higher critics, even if it is almost entirely from theirnegative example? I think so.

Here are seven such lessons, arranged in no particular order.

Read it all.

We landed safely in Tel Aviv this afternoon. Thank you for your prayers.

We had a free evening to acclimate so several of us walked down to Joppa. Saw the house of Simon the tanner (Acts 9-10).

We’re right on the Mediterranean Sea (pics on FB). A very nice place to land and recover.

Tomorrow we’re off to Caesarea and will be staying at a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee.

I leave today with 50 folks from SAMP on a 13 day teaching tour of Israel.  I’d welcome your prayers – for safe travel, no illness or injury, no terrorist attacks, no bombing of Iran, etc.

As I can I’ll update the blog, though, Facebook might be easier.

Here’s our itinerary.

Ran across this fascinating article by Russell Moore.  Your thoughts on the matter?

The New Testament warns us, of course, about spiritual impostors. Sometimes these “wolves” are there to introduce subtly false doctrine. But, just as often, it seems, these spiritual carnivores hold to true doctrine, at least on the surface. But they use this doctrine and service for predatory ends. The sons of Eli, for instance, use their priestly calling to co-opt the fat of the offering and to lay with the women at the altar (1 Sam. 2).Virtually every New Testament letter warns us about the same phenomenon (e.g., 2 Pet. 2; Jude).

But why, when there is so much opportunity for debauchery out there in the world around us, do such people choose the church?

Read the rest.

I think one of the most misapplied understandings of Matthew 18 involves the issue of public critique.  Specifically, some argue that prior to any public critique of a published work that the critic ought to first make personal contact with the person whose work is being critiqued.

Nonsense.

Public works and statements are open to public critique.

Developing this thought, Rick Nelson over at reformation 21 offers four reasons why those who argue that public critique violates Matthew 18 unless there has first been private dialog are completely wrong.

He writes:

1.  Matthew 18 establishes a procedure for dealing with personal sins, not public debate. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault,” said our Lord (Mt. 18:15). This establishes personal sin as the context in which Matthew 18 governs our actions. In contrast, disagreement with a public figure in his published writings falls into a completely different category.

Read the rest.

Ran across this great video clip (h/t: Mez McConnell):

A nice posting from Ligonier:

In speaking, we indicate emphasis and pauses simply by the way we pronounce the words. Punctuation and other ways of marking a text are used to attempt to accomplish with the written word what it cannot do, that is, imitate the spoken word. Thus someone might say the three simple words “I love him” in three different ways. He might say, “I love him,” putting the emphasis on “I,” which is indicated here by putting “I” in italics. The meaning communicated is that “I” as opposed to others, love him. Or he might say, “I love him” putting the emphasis on the verb (again, indicated here with italics). Thus the meaning is I love him as opposed to “hate” or “like” or “put up with.” Or he might say, “I love him;” communicating the idea of loving that particular person as opposed to others. The pauses and emphasis indicated by punctuation therefore help clarify the meaning of what is written, in place of the emphasis provided by voice and facial expression in conversation.

The importance of proper punctuation is well-illustrated in Lynne Truss’s recent bestseller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. This is particularly pointed out in the publisher’s note (p. xv) to the effect that the book is written in English English as opposed to American English, and so follows the rules of English rather than American punctuation. All of this is to say that the punctuation of the text of the Bible in English serves an important interpretive function that might be easily overlooked by the causal reader.

Ephesians 4:12 provides a useful example.

Read the rest.