Victoria Osteen

When I first heard about the latest Osteen incident, I was not going to post about it, but after seeing Steve McCoy's picture (to the left), I could not help myself. For those who haven't heard about Mrs. Osteen's plane mishap, you can read about it here. You would think she would be more careful.

Merry CHRISTmas

I just wanted to encourage some meditation on what it is we are celebrating. Just think about it. The all-sufficient God, was completely happy in the fellowship of the Trinity. It pleased him to create. But he had a purpose in creating. Before the foundation of the world, he had a purpose. He chose his people (Eph 1:4). He knew all, and decreed all that would ever take place, including the murder of his own Son (Acts 2:23, 4:27-28). He chose to send his Son into the world to redeem for himself a people, to the praise of His glorious grace. Jesus came to this world as a baby in a manger. He came to live a perfect life, to completely obey the law, all 613 commandments. God requires perfection, and none of us are there. Jesus lived perfectly so that all who trust in him, will be reckoned as righteous. The perfect righteousness of Jesus is reckoned to our account by faith in Him. He suffered, died, and rose from the grave. His life and death show us God's love for mankind, His holy character, and His hatred for sin. Christ came and died so that God would be just, and the justifier of the ungodly. The love of God, and the wrath of God meet in the cross. He didn't have to or need to do any of it. All we deserve is wrath, but look what we get instead - everything in Jesus! May we continually reflect on our good God, and what he has done for us through Jesus Christ.

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11:36

Santa Claus

Last night I read an article from World Magazine called "Slappy Holiday." It was quite humorous. It tells of the true St. Nicholas. He is "said to have saved a poor family's daughters from slavery by tossing into their window enough gold for a rich dowry, a present that landed in some shoes or, in some accounts, stockings that were hung up to dry. Thus arose the custom of hanging up stockings for St. Nicholas to fill. And somehow he transmogrified into Santa Claus, who has become for many people the secular Christmas alternative to Jesus Christ."

What was even more interesting to me was that he was one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which came out of the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and affirms that Jesus is God and man. Arius was a heretic who denied the deity of Christ and good ole St. Nick got tired of his heresy, and walked his jolly self over and slapped Arius. Who would have thought that the "original Santa Claus" was committed to the glory of Christ. He would be disgusted if he saw the attention that Santa receives over against that which Christ receives.

Road Trip

Today I got back from a short stay with my boy Dustin. We searched for Providence Theological Institute in Belton (to no avail), hooped in Lampasas, ate at Freebirds (where I had the privilege of meeting Dustin's pastor, Phillip Way and hear him rap), and watched UT kill Texas State at the Superdrum in Austin. And of course there was lots of good discussion about theology, church, and culture. I always enjoy visiting with D, even though he is an open theist ;).

Engagement!

Last night, after much planning, prayer, and anxiety, I proposed to my girlfriend Alicia. She said yes! Since most of my readers are male (I think) I will not include how I proposed, since all that matters to you is that I did it. I was creative though, and she did not have a clue. She is a jewel. She will make the Proverbs 31 woman seem lukewarm. She graduates with a BSN (nursing) in May. We will get married in the summer, Lord-willing, and then move to KY for Southern Seminary. As the proverbial wisdom goes, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD." Amen.

Graduation

Saturday, I graduated from Angelo State University. Acts 17:26 says, "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place." I am very thankful that the sovereign Lord was pleased to place me in San Angelo, TX for a few years. He greatly used many people there to sanctify, teach, and mold me into a deeper level of Christ-likeness. Although it is a state university, the Christian body on that campus is much more spiritually and doctrinally mature than any private school I have been to. I was also blessed by many gifts. I received plenty of money and the following books:
The Missional Church by Darrell Guder
The Open Secret by Newbigin
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Newbigin
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
Planting Churches in a Postmodern Age by Ed Stetzer
Word Biblical Commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians by F.F. Bruce
I am excited about digging into these. As you can tell, I am focusing on missional ecclesiology in the spring before I head off to Southern Seminary.

Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

Today I watched two panel interviews from Desiring God's 2004 National Conference. You can find several messages to listen to and watch. I really enjoyed the speaker interviews. It was humorous at times, and tense at others. Mahaney is hilarious, and Piper is very serious. I was encouraged. You can check it out here.

Continuationists/Cessationists

Tim Challies has posted 2 interviews divided into 4 posts with Dr. Sam Waldron and Dr. Wayne Grudem. It is a great interview. It is about the continuation of the miraculous gifts. Cessationists argue that they have ceased with the apostolic age, and continuationists believe that all the gifts are still available to the church. I am a continuationist. I used to call myself charismatic, but too often this causes people to think of Benny Hinn and the whole crew at TBN. I simply meant that I believe that all the gifts are still available. For clarity, I will use the term "continuationist" from now on.
I appreciate Waldron's desire to be Word-centered, but I am unconvinced by the cessationist argument. Waldron speaks highly of folks like Piper and Grudem, who are both continationists. He calls them "careful continuationists." We should be careful with every thing we endeavor. I agree with Grudem and Piper on the gifts, precisely because they are so careful with biblical texts. It is indeed rare to be a "charismatic calvinist." Others that would fall into this category are Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Sam Storms, and CJ Mahaney, and apparently the Puritans according to Grudem and Jim Packer in the interview.
On a side note, I highly recommend Grudem's Systematic Theology.

New Blogs

I just got a phone call from Jonathan Makovicka, a friend of mine. He was calling to make me aware of his new blog. It is called "DELIVERED, DISPENSATIONAL, DEVOTED." I don't know if he will keep this name, but it sure made me laugh. Seems like we would both make some good southern baptist preachers though, with our 3 R's and 3 D's. The only thing missing is an altar call..j/k. I say he should keep it. He plans on attending DTS. I don't agree with is dispensational hermeneutic, but I do know he loves the Lord and will have some good things to say.
Eron Plevan, who plans on attending The Master's Seminary, has also joined the blogosphere. Both will be worth frequenting.

25 Warning Signs

Purgatorio has posted some more pictures. These are even better than the last ones. He has posted 25 signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism. I laughed real hard, but you have to be familiar with and fond of reformed theology to understand them though. Enjoy!

More Emergence

Scot McKnight has posted seven habits of successful emerging discussions. They are helpful for those interested in learning about and discussing the emerging movement.

Wikipedia also has some good info and links about it here.

Interestingly, Wikipedia includes Mark Driscoll as a pioneer in the emerging church movement. Speaking of Driscoll, today I listened to an excellent sermon by him called "The Genesis of False Gospels." He preached it at a conference called Reformission 2004, where John Piper was the keynote speaker. Be sure and listen to Piper's sermons as well. You can find it here under the audio section. If you have about an hour and twenty minutes of spare time, listen to it. He goes through pretty much all of Genesis and defines 11 false gospels. He speaks of the problem of sin, and our feeble attempts to fix it, the wrong type of community, feminism, morality, spirituality (where he seems to be knocking the emergent folks, especially when he talks about people walking around in "faggoty labyrinths)." He closes with the Seed (Jesus) being the only solution to the sin problem. I was encouraged.

Horns get smashed!

Today was #1 Duke v.s. #2 Texas. Duke is loaded so I was a little scared this might happen.
Duke won 97 - 66.

Redick hit them up for his career high 41 points. It was dirty.

Tim Ellsworth posted a blog on Nov. 11 about Redick wanting to be remembered as a man of God. I was pleasantly surprised. At least he will be giving God the glory for the spanking he have the Longhorns today.

New Covenant Theology

I am a calvinistic baptist. I am not a calvinistic baptist because I was raised that way. I have come to this conclusion based on the testimony of Scripture. I love the reformation principle "sola scriptura" aka scripture alone. This means the the Word has to be the authority on all things. As much as the reformers have done for us, I don't think they were all consistent with their own principle of "sola scriptura." In the words of John Reisinger:

"Let us not make the same mistakes that the Reformers made. They thoroughly reformed the gospel message of justification by faith but failed to reform some other doctrines. They threw out justification by the works of the law, but held on to sanctification by the law. They rejected the Church's authority over your soul, but hung on to the Church's authority over your conscience. They discarded priestcraft and substituted clericalism. They rejected the authority of Church tradition (which taught Papal infallibility) but replaced it with man-made creeds that soon became as authoritative as Scripture. In reality they replaced a two-legged Pope with a paper Pope. They cried sola Scriptura while waving a creed in one hand and a sword in the other.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love every last one of the reformers. On Halloween this year, me and my roommates had a reformation day party to celebrate the work God did through the reformers. I just think they should have reformed a little more. So as a baptist, I obviously don't agree with infant baptism, which most reformed folks do. When I discovered the doctrines of grace, I questioned everything that I had ever been taught. I found that the reformed camp knew the Word very well and had a very high view of it. So I studied baptism to make sure I wasn't wrong there also. It seemed to me that the biggest defense for infant baptism was tied up in their covenant theology rather than the New Testament. Covenant theology is a great system of theology as a system, but I don't find it to be consistent with many texts of scripture. I found the same with dispensationalism. Enter: New Covenant Theology. Last week I read New Covenant Theology by Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel. This book cannot be neglected by honest students of Scripture. It is not a "full fledged alternative theological system" as Douglas Moo notes in the foreword, but it seems way more consistent with the whole of Scripture, especially when you are baptistic in your theology. Some modern theologians who "lean" more this way are Douglas Moo, DA Carson, Tom Schriener, and John Piper, all of which are baptistic calvinists. It is inconsistent to me to be a baptist and an adherent to covenant theology but there are many who hold to this position. A book that was very formidable for me before this one was Abraham's Four Seeds by John Reisinger. It is a biblical examination of the presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism. I recommend this one first, then read the book by Wells and Zaspel.

The Chronicles of Narnia

It is 2:50 in the morning. We decided to go check out Narnia tonight, or this morning I guess. We hit up the 12:01 a.m. show. Most will probably watch this show anyway, so you don't need my recommendation, but for what its worth, I recommend it. I need to read some C.S. Lewis. More than anything I appreciate the fact that it caused me to think about the story of redemption. I need daily reminders. How sweet it is to be saved from sin and death by the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Inside-Out Living

Today I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller called Inside-Out Living. It was real good. It was from Luke 18:9-14 where Jesus gives us the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector. He spoke of the universal need for approval, religion versus irreligion, and external and internal righteousness. He spoke of the difference between doing good deeds to gain approval from God over against doing good deeds because we have already been approved by God through Jesus Christ. I downloaded the sermon and caricature from Monergism. Check it out.

Emergent Critique and Defense

For those who are interested, today I read a couple of papers about the emergent church. Maybe you are familiar with this movement or conversation or whatever it is called. I would define it, but I don't know a good definition. D.A Carson has written a book about it. I haven't read it, but have read some responses and reviews. I read one today called The Emergent Church - Another Perspective by David Mills. It was a response to Carson. It was good. It seemed like Carson should have just stuck to NT exegesis, which by the way he is a master exegete.
I also read on called An Ecclesiological Assessment of the Emerging Church Movement by John Hammett who is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I recommend reading these if you are interested in what is going on with the emergent church. Both of them touch on the positives and negatives of the conversation/movement.
As I have read some of the guys in the conversation, I have been impressed with Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller. Speaking of Tim Keller's church, Mills quotes Carson saying it is an example of a church that "displays all the strengths of the emerging church movement while avoiding most of its weaknesses." I don't even thing these guys would associate themselves with the emergent church, but rather maybe emerging or missional. I like these guys. They both have a very high view of Scripture.
Purgatorio has posted some humorous pics that may be helpful in determining whether or not you are emergent.

Knocked Out

I once refereed an 8th grade girls B team basketball game. I love basketball, but decided then and there that that would be the last time I call a game. I caught myself watching the game instead of officiating. I also didn't appreciate the fans and coaches yelling at me. I mean, it was 8th grade girls B team for crying out loud! Anyway, today I saw this video and decided to post a link. One more reason I will stay away from officiating basketball.

Congrats to the 'Horns

This weekend, Texas smashed Colorado 70 to 3. Now they move on to the national championship against USC on Jan. 4. This should be a good game, with lots of points. Texas is still holding down the #2 spot in NCAA hoops as well. That's what I'm talkin' bout.

In the World

Recently I read through 1 Corinthians and noticed this verse, and this morning at church we read through the whole chapter and I was reminded of it.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one.
(1Co 5:9-11)

The phrase that stuck out to me was where Paul makes a point to say "not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world......since then you would need to go out of the world." The passage is speaking of church discipline and the purity of the church. But, implicit in this statement is the fact that, as believers, we need to be associated with non-believers. We need to follow the example of Christ and be a friend of sinners.

Too often we get stuck in our Christian bubbles. I am by no means saying fellowship is not essential and even vital to this life of walking with Jesus. I am saying that we also need to be cultivating relationships and friendships with non-Christians. We need to live out the gospel with them. Evangelism should be more than spending 5 minutes with someone, throwing your gospel spill on their lap, and then leaving to never see them again. That can definitely be part of it though. I think many believers, including myself, need to be intentional about building relationships with non-believers in order to proclaim, and live out the gospel of grace. We should always be looking for opportunities to witness. We must always keep in mind that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, not nice friendships. I think we need both today though: friendships and gospel proclamation. People today are skeptical to say the least. Authentic Christian living is a great testimony of the power of Jesus.

Son of a ...

I am reading through First Samuel right now. This morning in my time in the Word I noticed something interesting. If you remember the context, David and Jonathan have become friends. David had slipped out, Jonathan knew about it, and Saul got angry. Remember that Jonathan was Saul's own son. This is what he said to his son in chapter 20, verse 30:

"You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother's nakedness? "

It had never occured to me that that phrase that is so popular today (son of a ..) could have ultimately evolved from a little tweaking of a biblical text. Anyway, I hope you weren't wanting anything deep or spiritual.

Pope John Paul II

Well, I just sat down to eat some frito pie and watch “Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II" on ABC. I didn't last long. Within about the first three minutes, he had already prayed to the 'Holy Mother' twice, once asking for forgiveness of sins. I don't want to be too critical because it is only by divine grace that I am not doing the same. I praise God for using clay pots like Huss and Luther and the rest of them. It makes me jealous for the glory of Christ. Instead of enduring, I finished my meal, although nauseated, and am about to go watch the Mavs play the Spurs instead.

Contemporary Reformers

Monergism.com is by far the most helpful theological resource available on the web, in my opinion. It is filled with God-centered articles and sermons. Monergism has established, or is in the process of establishing the Hall of Contemporary Reformers. Right now it consists of White, Piper, Sproul, Keller, Ferguson, MacArthur, Mohler, Mahaney, Horton, Carson, and Dever. That is a serious line up of Theocentric theologians! You would do well to get familiar with any or all of these men. I was going to mention my three favorite, but I just can't do it. They are all too good. They range from baptists to presbyterian, from cessationists to charismatic, and from professors to pastors, but the main thing they have in common is that they are all biblical (reformed) in their view of salvation. Enjoy!