Odd-ball information. That’s what keeps some of us running.
And here’s a key question. Which Bible did Jesus use? Now before you rush in and say the Old Testament, think about this. The predominant “Bible” in Jesus’s day was the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Most, if not all, quotations from the Hebrew Bible that are found in the New Testament come from the Septuagint.
But the problem does not stop there. The little book of Jude (vv. 14-15), right at the end of the New Testament has a quotation from the now-called apocryphal book, I Enoch. Does this NT quotation establish Enoch as being Scripture, and therefore should it be included in the canon of Scripture? If not, why not?
When is Education Not Education?
This is a complaint. A complaint about teachers. In particular, teachers of musical instruments, especially piano, but more than that.
Here’s the nature of my complaint. But before I give you the basis of the complaint, answer this question:
Which group of teachers has the highest failure rate?
If you answered public school teachers, you’d be close, but not close enough.
If you answered Seminary professors you might also be close, but again, not close enough.
Maybe you thought of college professors in general. And while you might have some basis for this, you would not even be close.
Here’s my answer. Music teachers!
These are the teachers who offer to teach your child an instrument – piano, violin, flute, cello, clarinet, guitar, harp – you name it.
But look at how many students take music lessons then quit as soon as they are teenagers.
Now they would probably quit Math and English classes if they could, too. But music is one subject that mom and dad say is optional.
But the fact that it’s optional is not why the kids quit.
They quit because they can’t play the instrument.
Never Let The Facts Get In The Way of A Good Theory
I had another epiphany. You know, one of those “aha” moments when someone switches on a light.
The light on this occasion was Dr. Greg Bahnsen, and I was listening to the CD set Defending the Christian World View Against All Opposition. It’s a great set. No. It’s a brilliant set.
But what got me thinking was his comment about facts. Facts convince no one. You cannot start with the facts and end up with biblical truth. To attempt to reason that way is to reverse the process.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 9:10).
If you only read ONE history book in your lifetime, read this one.
You cannot understand how far we’ve come away from Christian culture until you realize what had to change to get non-Christian culture. And this little book helps explain the necessary steps to abolish freedom and Christian culture.
Since the time of Magna Carta individuals have been in disagreement with their rulers over the issues of power and control, especially control over money. It took centuries for property rights in money to be abolished, eventually in the 19th century. See Debt and the Bankers for an overview.
The modern nation-state, with its claim to total jurisdiction is a return to the concepts of the Roman Empire. Thus currency debasement, high taxes, and a belief that that the empire-nation can be unified by political means are evident. But it was not always like this. There was an interlude between the Empire and us.
There was, for a while, an alternative in the middle between the Empire and the nation-state. It brought low taxes, local government, and an individual liberty rare in the history of mankind. This period shaped the modern world, both good and bad. Magna Charta, for example is a product of the period, representing the local government’s attempt to control the power of the monarch. But it also indicates the issues that transformed local government into the nation-state. See How Magna Charta Was Used To Destroy Property Rights
Joseph Strayer, Professor of History at Princeton University, and a part time CIA employee, has described the three steps necessary for the modern nation-state. These were:
1. Control of money — taxation and eventually a monopoly on the creation of currency;
2. Control of the courts — that way, the people could not use the courts to have legislation declared “illegal”;
3. And finally the population needed to accept that the nation-state was a higher priority than either church or family.
These were pretty much in place by the seventeenth century, and once the parliaments and the congresses of this world controlled the monarchy and the Church, the anti-God, democratic nation-state was the outcome with its relentless march toward totalitarian control. It’s an important study on why we’re in the mess we’re in.
Read it! Then get to work to change something.
Who is the wise man?
As a young boy in a small Baptist church in rural Australia, I was taught to sing:
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rains came tumbling down.
Continue reading
In the first part of this Tribute to R.J. Rushdoony I recalled the personal side of my relationship with him and some of the fond memories I have as a result of a 21-year association.
In this portion of the Tribute, I’m going to highlight what I think is Rush’s very significant contribution to Christian thought.
The name R.J. Rushdoony is tied up with two concepts: theonomy and Christian Reconstruction. But for Rushdoony, these two concepts are tied together in a unique manner.
For those of us raised outside of Reformed circles, his call to return to God’s law was somewhat radical. Yet for those raised on Reformed catechisms, Rushdoony’s view was not that unusual in some respects. Both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Larger Catechism expound the Ten Commandments using what Rushdoony called “case law”. That is, the Ten Commandments were given substance through the many laws given in the Pentateuch (or Torah).
Many of Rushdoony’s followers, then and now, came from outside the Reformed tradition. What is curious, however, is the hostility Rushdoony received from the Reformed community, and I can understand why.
The period: Sometime after August 19, 1561, A.D.
The Topic: What is Truth
The Battle: Epistemology. How can I know?
The Tools: Mind, Will, Conscience, and the Word of God.
The Debaters: Mary, Queen of Scotland, and John Knox
There had been a long build-up to the meeting of these two key historical figures. Queen Mary, whose reign as Queen of France only lasted a year (1559-1560), returned from France to take over the throne of Scotland. She had, with the encouragement of her cousins, the Guises, the intention to secure for the realm what was, in her opinion, the true faith. John Knox, on the other hand, had been busy encouraging the Protestant faith throughout Scotland. He had an open door from Edward VI, whose death at age 16 ended Knox’s free reign on Protestantism. With the throne vacant, and being next in line for the position, Mary’s return August 19, 1561, was bound to lead to a meeting between two stubborn protagonists. They locked horns on the subject of epistemology: How do you know what is true, and how do you know it is true.
In a series of point and counterpoint argument, Queen Mary is presenting her case and John Knox is responding. Her Highness had suggested that she was willing to defend her view of the Church of Rome for she thought it to be the true church of God. Knox responded to the challenge.
Will Politics Reshape the Future?
Since the 1970s conservative Christians have had a political agenda: Get Christians into political power. Why?
Somewhere along the way the Christian church has lost confidence in itself. There is no longer the belief that proclamation of the Gospel can change the culture. But politics apparently can succeed where the Gospel has failed.[1]
Why this mistaken belief in the political order? There are many aspects to an answer to this question. But at the center of it all is a radical change not only in the message of the Gospel but in the way that the message is proclaimed.
Since the Protestant Reformation there has been a significant shift in the way people view of the Church. Part of this radical change is understandable. The Catholic Church had become part of the problem, trying to control the political realm as the mechanism to evangelize the world.
ARE YOU A NOMINALIST OR A REALIST?
Since the Protestant Reformation there has been a growth of Nominalism in Christian communities. What is this?
In its historical context it arose in philosophy from the time of Plato. The discussion arises when you try to determine if things in the mind, such as beauty and strength, have an objective existence. You can find plenty of information online for a more detailed discussion. My purpose here is to get you thinking about the church and its eventual politicization.
The Positivist philosophers, Hume, Mill, and Spencer, for example, and later Immanual Kant, could not put the jigsaw puzzle of mind and matter together. For Kant, the noumenal realm (the mind) had no correlation to the phenomenal (external) world. There is no contact between the mental constructs of the mind with external things. And our postmodern world is primarily nominalist as a result — especially large portions of Protestant Christianity.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN SPIRITUAL POWER?
In part 3 of this series, I explored the idea of the church as the body of Christ. Not in a nominalist sense, but somehow in a real sense. I noted some indicators of this in contemporary Christian thought as it pertains to politics.
It seems the only valid reason to seek change in the nation through political means is because the political realm has the power to change things. Now this concept of power is a compelling one and often mistakenly applied.
In the Bible power and authority are connected. To have authority was to have power. Jesus said, “All authority is given to Me” (Matt. 28:18). Was he speaking as the Triune God in general, or more specifically as the second Person of the Trinity? There is a fine difference, because Jesus and the Father are One, in essence if not in their functions. But Jesus appears to indicate all authority belongs to Him as Second Person of the Trinity.
Recent Comments