An email upon my completing 7 complete readings of the Bible

>How does it feel to have read the bible 7 times complete?

Well, I've thought about it. One thing that nags at me is I don't *feel* like I have it all in me at a deep, essential level. Like I keep thinking if I had had it read to me as a child, then I'd read it as a child, and I'd memorized passages as a child, then it seems like it would *really* be in me in a more substantial way. But I'm not sure it works that way even for people who start with it as children.

Even if it still seems 'surface' in you I still have experience with it that after even my first complete reading it would 'come up' from inside me when I was pondering doctrinal questions or arguing doctrinal points, or just being challenged regarding doctrinal points, or discerning 'on-the-mark' and 'off-the-mark' regarding doctrine. The material of the Old and New Testaments would come to mind in a sort of whole way.

So I can't say it's only surface in me.

It's living language, so...

Also, to use the Homeric epics example, when you get the higher visual language in you you are seeing things you couldn't see before, *even if you don't have the epic poems in you in some technically memorized way.* And you take it for granted, mostly too. You are put into new territory and you don't realize that you are in new territory.

Maybe I can say this: I do suspect that it only took three complete readings to get basic 'in focus' understanding of what I was reading (maybe four or five, but that may have to do with time eras because I read the Bible three times complete in sort of the same time era of my life, then the fourth and fifth much later). Like the history books. Maybe the prophets came along last. But doing it that way is best. It is organic. Inside out development of understanding of it.

So, 'seven times' might have been fanciful just as a number. I can see benefit now in doing another with a system like Paul [of England] has been mentioning. Basically just always drenching yourself in it. Yet mechanical is what is to be avoided, and mechanical reading happens when you don't increase level of being. To increase understanding you have to increase *capacity* for understanding. - C.

ps- Learning doctrine from the on-the-mark school [Reformed, Calvinist] contributes greatly to understanding the 'whole' of Scripture, yet you have to have the whole text of Scripture in you to have the raw material corresponding to what you are reading in doctrine. And understanding is, of course, seeing the parts in relation to the whole.

Union with Christ the latest Trojan Horse

Excellent, concise comment:

"I think Gaffin goes off the ranch when he makes union [with Christ] an existential category and not exclusively an intellectual and legal one." - Sean Gerety

It's not just one theologian named Gaffin, but this is a current popular attack on justification by faith alone.

For context listen to Lane Tipton being interviewed in several of the reformedforum.org podcasts such as this one: http://reformedforum.org/ctc200/

Bottom line: however the false teachers are identifying themselves their attack as always is against justification by faith alone. The Kingdom of Satan wants you in bondage to it. It wants you working (to any degree) for your salvation. And the angles of attack it takes on the central doctrine of justification by faith alone are subtle and myriad. In this latest case they are saying, "Union with Christ! Union with Christ! It's all about union with Christ! You disagree with that? How, brother? It's all about Christ! You deny it's all about Christ?" So once they get union with Christ ensconced in a position that is prior to and foundational to the legal status of justification by faith alone they already have downgraded justification and imputation of the active obedience of Christ and everything else important to a person's status before God.

Of course the useful idiots that spread the new attack don't know the issues and don't sense even the importance of it all. They can't discern that doctrine effects internal states. That doctrine, when discerned and accepted and believed effects one internally. And that doctrine is armor of God. The false teachers themselves, though, are purely Satanic. They are pulling and distorting biblical doctrine down to the level of man's fallen nature and the demands of man's fallen nature. They may be only half-conscious of what they are doing, but that is enough. Have no sympathy for them. Have no sympathy for the Devil.

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Was Carl Trueman 'initiated' by the same Roman Catholic priest as James White?

I was suspicious when this liberal 'Reformed' internet podcast dedicated its most recent show to the King James Bible:

http://reformedforum.org/ctc204/

I mean, I wasn't really overtly suspicious, but more surprised with a hint of perplexed wariness.

So not 30 minutes into the show, an interview with a 'scholar', Carl Trueman, Trueman very deftly states as fact that King James was a homosexual, and (wait for it), compares King James to Adolf Hitler. (He states King James and Adolf Hitler had similar leadership styles.) He makes both statements as if it's the most natural thing in the world to do. The interviewer swallows both statements as if Trueman had stated James was a good writer and knowledgeable of biblical doctrine.

Anyway, Trueman is a Ph.D., and who in the seminary realm ever questions a Ph.D.? If one of those guys says the Bible gives warrant to blood-drinking the little dogs like Camden Bucey of seminary world (the interviewer in this case) will accept it and mock any 'lay' people who would comically disagree (in their cute 'layperson' ignorance).

I've written Bucey asking him if any of their famous false teacher professors that have taught for decades over there at Westminster Theological Seminary loved (I originally had the 'f' word) all of them in the ass. He deleted the comment the question appeared in. (I've removed the name of the professor I originally had referenced because I have no evidence he was doing that to students over there. I'm not going to do what Carl Trueman - and Roman Catholics throughout history - did to King James.)

Folks, if you think the Romanist Counter-Reformation ever ended you don't know Satan and his wicked little children.

James White hates it when this happens

"Reverend Winzer is most correct here as to the Assembly's being fully aware of the Vaticanus manuscript. I am preparing a book right now, answering James White's book The King James Only Controversy. White makes the silly claim that, had Erasmus known of the Vaticanus manuscript, he would have used its readings."

From here: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/only-perfect-translation-70942/index2.html#post912669

Will White come out from the protection of his cyber pulpit and engage this individual? Of course the answer is no. White fears direct engagement on this subject with serious people more than anything. He'll say he doesn't have time. He has to go ride his bike or something.

But, you know, the critical text priestly caste needs its recreation. They're engaged in something the Roman Catholic Church dedicated a whole Counter-Reformation effort to...

Amateurs beget amateurs

"Interestingly, Kutscher also believed the Byzantine Text of the Greek to be the better and more reliable text of both the Greek Septuagint, and the New Testament. Kutscher was also a Greek scholar, a LXX scholar, who heavily referenced the New Testament for data on the Aramaic dialect of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. Kutscher came to believe that the work of the Egyptian scribes of the Alexandrian text was similar to that of the Qumran scribes - the work of amateurs, not at all committed to copying the actual words set before them. Kutscher said that, just as the Leningrad Codex, which is 1000 years younger than the Great Isaiah Scroll, nonetheless has a text 600 years older than that of the Isaiah Scroll, so also the Byzantine Text of the New Testament, which is primarily of the Middle Ages, has nonetheless an older text that the papyri of the third and fourth centuries."

From here:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/only-perfect-translation-70942/index2.html#post912523

Interesting.

One then thinks of the modern day priesthood of scholars and their critical text.

Amateurs beget amateurs.

This is incredibly interesting (global flood and plate tectonics)

This video is incredibly interesting:

http://youtu.be/y7HCa6XlYO0

I have always stated that if you think the global flood is too bizarre to think about then think about the shifting of the continents and an ice age. They are equally bizarre. Little did I know I was drawing in all elements of the actual flood, and this guy (a Dr., a real scientist) shows it. Don't be skeptical, watch. You'll see most of the info in the first half or so of the video above. If you want to see the whole presentation then this is part two:

http://youtu.be/OKOhPUx9XF4

The initial point about how technology developed in WWII to find submarines opened up a new world under the oceans starts the video out. Very interesting. Many illustrations.

I might be naive because I just saw this, and I might get slammed with some counter-argument after I look into it more, but just see for yourself, if you haven't come across this type of material before.

Maybe it's just me...

Upon reading a dispute between Roman Catholics and a former Roman Catholic now Protestant, my thought is (and not to seem to be above the fray) that it really doesn't matter what church you are attending, if any. What matters is do you have a connection to Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit? Do you have a connection to the Kingdom of God? Do you have the living language of the word of God engrafted in you? Are you able to discern and accept on-the-mark, un-watered-down biblical doctrine? Do you have the whole armor of God? Are you fitted for the spiritual battlefield? Can you boldly claim to be a legal subject of the Kingdom of God now and when in that evil day you will have to stand, and can you boldly announce to any that would hold you in spiritual bondage that you stand upon the Pactum Salutis, the Covenant of Redemption, and that your King is Jesus Christ and that you are indeed His legal subject in His Kingdom?

Have you been regenerated by the word and the Spirit? Do you put yourself in the environment where that happens when it happens, the pure and whole word of God?

If all the above is yes you're going to be light wherever you stand; and you'll know by the reaction to that light whether you're in a communion that has connection to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom or not. If you maintain that presence of light you will either be accepted, or tossed out, or you will exist in friction with the environment in which case you can stay and engage in reformation until you are kicked out or the darkness retreats, but you really won't have any choice on your part in the sense that until the return of the King the darkness has power to call the shots. At least within its own domains.

Pony Ride Inn

It's almost overwhelming how shallow Christian academics are:

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2011/11/20/whi-1076-the-gospel-of-pragmatism/

It always comes down to regeneration and their lack of it. Yet the demand to teach and lecture and blow 'wisdom' like diarrhea out of their mouths never abates.

Christians are probably the worst served of any people for leaders and educators. We do have time-vetted books written by on-the-mark teachers of the past. God sees to it we have that.

I'm not going to go through all the ways the discussion above is asinine, but one thing shallow individuals do is assume that because they are as they are, in this case hyper intellectual (such as that is, it doesn't mean they are intelligent, but driven more by their intellect than their emotion or more physical aspects of their being), they stupidly assume everybody is or must be hyper intellectual in their approach.

It's better to be balanced in one's development, but the fact is at the level they are at and are dealing with other people they need to recognize not everybody is going to be like them. Pretty basic realization, but obviously beyond the intellectual grasp of our foursome there.

What is biblical doctrine?

Biblical doctrine is armor of God. It's not subject matter for academic 'conversation.'

Karl Barth's theology is ass-less leather pants. Good luck with that on the battlefield, Westminster Theological Seminary and all theologically liberal useful idiots of the Devil.

Father in heaven, my patience is at its limit

These creeps are false teachers:

http://reformedforum.org/ctc200/

They hail from that prestigious Reformed seminary that gave us Peter Enns and so many other wicked village idiots. These giggling seminarians and theologians are considered the 'elite' intellectuals of Reformed theology.

Did you know that if you believe - know, in some cases - that regeneration precedes faith that you are 'Lutheran'?

Did you know that if you believe - know - regeneration precedes justification you 'logically' are saying justification precedes regeneration and hence you are semi-Pelagian?

Yeah, bet you didn't know that. This is all spelled out in the audio link with the carefulness of a Kindergarten teacher explaining the rules of nap time to her students.

Again, I can't wait for the return of my King. I want to personally escort all you false teachers into the deepest pits of hell and have the joy of leaving you there for ETERNITY. And that includes all the useful idiots like the useful idiots in the thread at the PuritanBoard who are universally praising the false teachers in the audio link.

Justification and sanctification - the lecturing confusion of the credentialed unregenerate

Oh, is union with Christ prior and foundational to justification?

No, regeneration by the word and the Spirit is prior, and the righteousness of Christ is the ground of justification.

Oh, my, do I give my sheep laws to follow, or do I just make sure they know Jesus accepts them?

No, 'pastor', you give them the actual word of God, undiluted, boldly, and complete. That is the environment and the territory where regeneration happens when it happens.

Listen up, Reformed academics (the stealth and/or unconscious liberals and the so-called confessional, hold-the-line types) --- progressive sanctification is god-reliant effort. (That's a J. I. Packer phrase, and it's a good one.) Here's what you don't know and nobody teaching you knows: it's not about works at that point. I.e. at that point where regeneration and justification by faith alone has occured. Listen closely: apple trees produce apples. Before glorification the apple tree might commit adultery or some other sin, but it won't stay in the sin. It will not like the sin. God (the Father) will discipline the apple tree, but never cut it off. Meanwhile, pretty much, regarding good works, the apple tree will produce apples. Without having to think about it or constantly consciously will it. It has to do with having a new heart.

What requires God-reliant effort is *increasing* our union with Christ. You may be a sacraments type and so be it. I won't bother you. But some of you feel more of a motivation and inspiration to practically increase that union with Christ. The Spirit guides. I'm not going to direct you to any schools. If you want it you'll find it.

Final point you really have to listen closely to: in all the current debate regarding justification and sanctification and union with Christ there is the usual attempt to downgrade the doctrine of justification by faith alone. 'Union with Christ' as a doctrine is a mushy doctrine, more in the realm of biblical theology than systematic theology, hence it is being used by the usual liberal types and the out and out false teachers to make a breach and to downgrade the main doctrine they always attempt to downgrade, the aforementioned justification by faith alone. And of course 'biblical theology' has been commandeered by the false teachers of our day to cloak their false doctrine in. Notice they never want to produce a systematic theology and thus put their cards on the table because they know that will expose them, so they stay within the realm of biblical theology to ground/cloak their false doctrine and pretend or assert that the false theology is actually in harmony with the historic confessions and so forth. Why do I have to explain this to you?

(They are also interested in satisfying the demand of their fallen natures to belittle any notion of God proclaiming them innocent. In their precious self-image they already are innocent, and who is God to proclaim them something they already are? Hence the imputation of the active obedience of Christ is, of course, the usual target of their resentment and hate as well.)

WE ARE ONLY IN UNION WITH THE KINGDOM OF SATAN PRIOR TO JUSTIFICATION. ***THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT JESUS.*** WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? THE HOLY SPIRIT MAY INDEED BE WORKING IN US PRIOR TO OUR ACTUALLY CONSCIOUSLY HAVING SAVING FAITH, BUT THAT IS NOT UNION WITH CHRIST. UNION WITH CHRIST REQUIRES US BEING OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM WITH NO SHACKLES ON OUR HANDS AND LEGS AND NO POLICE ESCORTING US ANYWHERE. BECAUSE WHEN YOU WERE IN THAT JAIL CELL WAITING FOR YOUR COURT APPEARANCE AND YOUR BEING DECLARED INNOCENT YOU SAID YOU HAVE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST AND HIS WORK IN HIS LIFE AND ON THE CROSS. YES THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, BUT LET'S ALLOW AN ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY TO GUIDE OUR UNDERSTANDING HERE. THE HOLY SPIRIT WORKS REGENERATION IN US, AND THAT IS PRIOR TO OUR HAVING SAVING FAITH AND HENCE JUSTIFICATION. UNION WITH CHRIST FOLLOWS JUSTIFICATION. WHY DOES A STREET CALVINIST UNDERSTAND THIS, ACCEPT THIS, PROCLAIM THIS, WHILE ALL YOU SEMINARY MORONS ONLY TRY TO DOWNGRADE IT OR FOLLOW THOSE WHO WOULD DOWNGRADE IT? WHY AM I ABLE TO ARTICULATE IT IN A SHORT BLOG POST WHEN YOU WASTE WHOLE ARTICLES AND BOOKS TAP DANCING AROUND EVERY ASPECT OF IT? WHY ARE YOU TAKEN SERIOUSLY BY ANYBODY?

Something to note on the spiritual battlefield

A regenerated child of God who truly absorbs the Old and New Testaments complete and is led by the Spirit to the practical level of the faith will draw the hatred of nominal Christians, that is a given, but notice something along those lines.

If a Christian reads devotional literature, and even ones that get close to practical level works such as The Imitation of Christ the nominal Christians won't see that as something to attack. That is because they know what is and what isn't 'dangerous' in terms of being practical level works. The spirit of Satan within them guides them to know intuitively and instinctively what is 'OK' and what is a *crime* against the Kingdom of Satan.

When a work explicates the practical level of Jesus' own teachings in the New Testament then the antennae of the nominal Christians go up. Just as the Devil and his children *confront* you once you are regenerated by the word and the Spirit (because you are now noticeable in the Kingdom of Satan, i.e. you are no longer a tame slave in the Kingdom of Satan (Puritan turn of phrase there) going with the easy current of the Kingdom of Satan.

So the Devil's children will say: "It's not the Bible!" (As if they value the word of God to begin with.) Neither is a Bible commentary. Neither is a systematic theology. Neither is a Bible dictionary. Etc. The questions is: is something on-the-mark or is it off-the-mark, judged by the tribunal, or standard, of the word of God itself? *That* question is considered *boring* to the nominal Christian. They don't value the word of God as the very word of God, they don't even read it. Their demand is to police souls within the Kingdom of Satan.

Well, that is why this is something that occurs on the spiritual battlefield. Once regenerated you are put on that battlefield. Expect war, and fight like a king.

Nominal Christians can't hide their hatred of the actual word of God

Wow, in recent days the mockers of the word of God at the PuritanBoard have come out of their closets (or climbed up out of their dark holes). The mocking of the KJV, the hatred directed at it, is nothing less than the mocking and hatred of the word of God and of God Himself. Nominal Christians give themselves away (think: Roman Catholics) when it gets down to the actual word of God.

I'm not going to rehearse the disgusting activity over there, but one note: one of the main God-haters over there named 'Tim V.' has posted that the late Theodore Letis didn't believe the Bible was inerrant. No, Letis disliked the term inerrant and preferred the term infallible. Though 'Tim V.' wants his hearers to think Letis didn't believe the Bible was even infallible. This is what goes on in common Reformed environments *when they ban all regenerate voices from their midst.* They are disgusting souls. Rancid souls. Dead souls.

Again, just like Roman Catholics, when it comes down to the actual word of God the Satanic spirit of nominal Christians becomes manifest without shame.

The book of nature within special revelation

The Bible is very powerful when you, as you read it, imagine all the power and beauty of general revelation there, especially the book of nature, all around and above and shot through the people, places, things, and events. The landscape, the sky, the stars, the rain, and wind, the sun, the vistas, the mountains, the rivers, the hills, the forests, the storms, the ocean, the waves, the dirt, the crops, the trees, the fields, the meadows, and the villages and towns and cities built in the midst of it all. Armies arrayed in battle, the travel routes, ancient even for their days. All of it.

This is why people are moved by photographs or visits to the Holy Land. To see such background. It's also what is involved when we are moved by nature anywhere, in person, or from history, or art. It's all evocative of the biblical narrative. The history of redemption. A fishing village in Italy is as biblical as a lush forest, almost antediluvian in its impressions, of the early New World of America. Imagine the stars above the mountains surrounding Geneva, in Calvin's day, before city lights. Early American painting showing farmlands of now New England, Connecticut or the now boroughs of New York City, depicted a very lush land, with a heavy, low sky, again antediluvian in the impressions. But we describe it as 'antediluvian' because it is all general revelation, it is all biblical in that sense.

General revelation informs special revelation. We see it too in the impressions we get from great literature. The rhythms of life and of nature in an English village or the similar scenes depicted in the great Russian novels of the 19th century. Homer was 'biblical' to the English who made those epic poems central to their culture. The landscape of Don Quixote is biblical in its general impressions of dusty journey.

What I am getting at is our reading of the Bible benefits from some strong work of bringing up to view the natural world that it is taking place in. The book of nature within special revelation.

Legalism and the body of sin

"Unbelief and a legal spirit, are the very soul or life of the body of sin." - John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel

A beautifully produced book, by the way. I mean the edition itself by Soli Deo Gloria Publications.

I'll rephrase the quote: Unbelief and a spirit of legalism, are the very soul or life of the atheist as-well-as the common unbeliever.

There is no more earnest and pious and belligerent a moralist than an atheist. Often they are even purse-lipped.

But anyone who is in rebellion to God - to whatever degree of being awake to that fact that they are - and who is worshiping some common idol, will always be a moralist. Think of an environmentalist. "Dude, did you just throw those french fries to seagulls? That's like totally toxic to the environment. You know we know you did something wrong. You know we saw you. What have you done for the environment, if ever? Why should you be suffered to live?" Sorry I couldn't think of a better example, but you get the point. Legalists.

A quote from a forum showing a common robotic strangeness

I don't consider anything to be "wrong" with the KJV. However, I think the militant-strain KJVOnly folks have worked hard to push folks away to the NASB, ESV and NIV. And that is a shame, as the KJV is so majestic and historical.

Really? How does that work? Something is great. Is the standard. Has historical awesomeness. Has literary inspiration and overall majesty. But...you know what? That person over there said something, so I just think I've been put off by it. I just have to now go with a downgraded translation that uses horribly mutilated and corrupted manuscripts. Yeah, too bad that person said that thing over there.

You see the same thing with evangelism in general. Those people *might* have believed except we just didn't approach them just right. We didn't walk on egg shells enough. We weren't obsequious enough to their tender resentments and fallen nature in general. Oh, dang. If only we had not *upset* them they'd be sitting in Reformed churches right now memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism with a big smile on their face! Instead, they're now hardened atheists.

What's missing here, folks? How about regeneration? How about the word and the Spirit which effects regeneration when regeneration is effected? Maybe? Possibly?

The unregenerate who self-identify as Christian fear man. They simply fear man. When you don't fear God you fear man. When you fear man you are afraid of upsetting man. You are obsequious to man.

Give people the truth *boldly.* Let the chips fall where they may.

How to die successfully

http://7holybooks.blogspot.com/2006/04/how-to-die-successfully.html

Section 6. is particularly good.

Peter Enns gently confronted, exposed, he punts

I confronted Peter Enns on his blog using a fake name asking what I think is the central question he has to answer:

Frederick Santal says:
November 12, 2011 at 12:51 am

>That’s the whole point of this debate— evolution is a new factor we have to address.

You’re not being thorough in all this until you tell us why you believe in macro evolution. Acting like it is settled science is disingenuous, or naive.


peteenns says:
November 12, 2011 at 9:45 am

Frederick, I accept macro evolution because it has been demonstrated to be sufficiently true to an overwhelming majority of practicing scientists who work in the relevant fields. I certain allow for–in fact, assume to be the case–that scientific models continue to change, be refined, etc. I dont think, however, that the “unsettled” (as you put it) nature of science will open the back door to a literalist reading of Genesis, if that is what you are implying.


Frederick Santal says:
November 12, 2011 at 3:27 pm

There’s a difference between macro evolution and micro evolution. There is a constant bait and switch between the two when such statements are being made such as “[macro evolution] has been demonstrated to be sufficiently true to an overwhelming majority of practicing scientists.”

When pro-macro-evolution scientists conflate micro with macro evolution they are engaging in wild ad hoc speculation that has nothing to do with the scientific enterprise as we know it. They’ve left the empirical realm, and indeed often start speaking of space aliens (see Richard Dawkins) to explain their theory.

I’m sure you’re aware that the scientific community today is a rather controlled and well-policed environment; certainly as it’s presented to the public through its academic spokesmen/women and the media.

The fact is, though, that *macro* evolution has been rather successfully challenged by its lack of evidence in the fossil record and more recently by micro biology. Micro evolution, and the laboratory work we associate with it is really nothing new, except for its being done at ever smaller scale. That is not macro evolution though.

Again, you will be well-served in this enterprise if you make it clear just why you accept *macro* evolution to be reality. And anyway, creation of the heavens and the Earth was a supernatural event. You can take Adam out of the supernatural creation category, but you still have a problem with the very heavens and the Earth.


peteenns says:
November 12, 2011 at 5:03 pm

Frederick, are you a practicing scientist of any sort?


Frederick Santal says:
November 13, 2011 at 12:46 am

If questions can be fallacious, that is a fallacious question. The claims of historical science are hardly coded for only a closed society to understand or evaluate. Don’t tell me you accept macro evolution as fact because you unquestionably accept what some scientists claim for that theory (and as if there are no scientists who challenge the theory).

You see, he punted. The last comment by 'Frederick' was not let through.

Enns is like an amateur investor putting all his money on a stock after that stock has already had its big, historic run in the market and is pretty much set on being a flat to down stock from here on out.

One portion of hell debating another portion of hell

I've been looking at the many videos on that ehrmanproject.com site, and I had a realization. I realized how I can get drawn into a whole context, a whole world, that itself is a total downgrade of the faith and of the Bible itself.

One reason all the Bart Ehrmans exist is because of the downgrade modern scholarship has made on the Bible itself.

As someone who accepts the Received Text, Hebrew and Greek, in sound translation (AV1611), and sees it as the Standard, and sees that a Standard *must* exist or you have Babel (and a Standard must exist for the devil to have something to deviate from), none of these attacks, and none of the problems these more believing scholars (more believing than Ehrman, wow) have in dealing with the Ehrmans of their world, effect me. I'm on a different plane of existence, as all true believing Christians are who accept the word of God as something that is above them. I have faith. I recognize and accept the Received Text as my Standard. I humble myself to the word of God, and don't see it as something that needs me or any priesthood of scholars to determine what it is.

The appearance of Daniel Wallace in those videos woke me up.

Many of the videos on that site don't show what I'm getting at. The ones discussing textual criticism do. But the word of God is the foundation of the faith. If you downgrade there, you remain man-centered. You remain undeveloped in any real, essential way a Christian is truly developed.

Watching all those guys debate is like watching secular or atheist Englishmen debating the Muslims in their midst. It's like watching one portion of hell debating another portion of hell.

Speaking in tongues

It's difficult listening to Christians who are truly straining for the deeper understanding of the faith yet have no language to get them there:

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2011/11/08/conversation-with-tullian-tchividjian-redux/

The first interview in the above link is what I'm referring to.

Some might say, well, the Bible is all the language we need. Well, in a foundational way yes, but we also naturally develop a doctrinal language, or a theological language, as we get real understanding of the Bible. That language though usually rests at the philosophical and theoretical levels and rarely, if ever, arrives at the practical level.

I'm convinced that what the Bible talks about as speaking in tongues demands a more esoteric reading than theologians are willing or capable of giving it. Saying that speaking in tongues means speaking in a foreign language you have never studied (for an American, the French language, or the German language, for instance) or speaking gibberish in a trance-like state just falls short of any meaningful reading of what that phenomenon is referring to.

They were speaking in a language which enabled them all to understand one another. That means they had left the outer circle of confusion of tongues (Babel) and entered a more inner circle where there is a language which enables each person who knows the language to communicate more practically, or, more precisely, without all the misconnection and everything else that happens when people aren't on the same page, or level.

A worldly analogy would be the language of music. Musicians can speak to each other, and understand each other, in a way non-musicians can't take part in.

So, for instance, in the interview at the link above they are struggling to define what school Christians know as the difference between self-will and real will. If anybody is reading this you will probably assume you yourself know what self-will is, though perhaps the term real will will be seen as new and hence weird in some way, or probably silly like somebody's made-up language. But to people who know the language those terms derive from they very well know what they mean, and it enables them to understand *at a practical/doing level* what the two theologians in the interview linked above are struggling to define.

And notice the two theologians will never get near to a practical/doing level of what they are struggling to define. They will be content to have hashed it out intellectually and then go back to the sleepy patterns and events of their daily lives.

I think it's natural for a Christian to strive for the practical level and to connect with a language that is at the practical level. I believe it is a gift of the Holy Spirit (which is what speaking in tongues is connected with in a rather big way, i.e. God, the Holy Spirit). Christians who are not at the practical level and who don't want to be will complain and warn of pride, or two-level Christianity, or whatever, but you really can't stop a child of God who has it in him or her to find the practical level and to connect with its language.

Seminaries, churches, and other synagogues of Satan

I just can't get over the fact that this guy who writes this post-modern glop:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2011/11/talking-to-pastors-about-adam-and-evolution-models-1/

...dated pomo glop at that...taught as a professor at a major Reformed seminary for decades. And he also has a position in a church as an elder and teacher.

And how many times have I heard: "You need to be churched!" Or, put one way or another: "Do you have a seminary degree?!?"

Notice that the devil's children don't have confidence to operate openly in just any environment. They have to work up to an open operation in whatever environment they are infiltrating. Obviously seminaries and churches became open territory for them long ago. And rather easily. Why is that? Because seminaries and churches are traditionally led by the dumbest and the weakest and yet the most vain. When dumb, vain people are challenged for being weak and allowing a downgrade to their environment *they always side with the forces of the downgrade.* They do this because it is a sort of 'running for cover.' They can't *stand* with the forces of the Kingdom of God, so they have to maintain worldly status somehow and that means, for them, setting up camp within the camp of the children of the devil. Then they start justifying their position, a thousand different ways, always playing on the "peace" and "love" moralizing the Bible tells us the Devil and his children engage in.

God always has his remnant though. God's people are always a small minority, with, though, influence always potentially much bigger than their numbers might suggest.

The good news is chaff burns easily...

I suspect Daryl G. Hart wears white shoes

Daryl G. Hart seems to think Americans shouldn't be allowed to read the Bible by themselves because they're not properly educated by the proper accredited institutions. (I was doing a search on theory of evolution on Michael Horton's Modern Reformation magazine, and came across many articles that when seen together are very Romish.)

Here's how an actual Christian sees that subject. We read the Bible; we learn doctrine from sound doctrinal works; and we practice the faith. Out of those three activities comes understanding of the word of God. Of course the Holy Spirit has to be present, ultimately, to guide and to teach and to give illumination and discernment and understanding.

What is Daryl G. Hart missing? The usual. Regeneration by the word and the Spirit. Something he thinks he can control and receive by ritual. No, God is in control of regeneration. So how do you get it, Daryl? By not banning c.t.'s criticisms of you from your blog, for one. No, that isn't how you get it. You get it by humbling yourself to the word of God, really. And that would involve reading it. By yourself. Something you are telling others they shouldn't attempt to do.

Move close to God, and He will move close to you. You move close to God by engaging His revealed word.

Where is discussion of the theory of evolution in Michael Horton's systematic theology?

Michael Horton apparently wanted to engage modern currents in philosophy in his new systematic theology *The Christian Faith*, yet no where in the big book can I find any reference to the theory of evolution.

It's easy to slam these guys, and Horton is on-the-mark regarding biblical doctrine to an unusual degree, yet he does belong to a tradition that also regularly produces Norman Shepherds and Peter Ennss (that would be the plural of Peter Enns), and that is because it is an academic culture before it is a doctrinal school.

Not even mentioning the theory of evolution in his new systematic theology lays Horton open to the fair speculation that he fears more what his academic peers (in the secular realm, which Horton consciously plays to) will think about him than he fears not holding to and proclaiming the truth.

It reminds me of Robert L. Reymond producing a new, big systematic theology and not once mentioning angels in it. (He later wrote a short article on the subject of angels, and methinks he did it as a result of criticism or speculation that he didn't believe in angels).

These guys actually leave other main things out of their systematic theologies. Spiritual warfare being a big one. Yet to not even touch on the theory of evolution, in a systematic theology that *tries* to engage modern currents of thought and belief, is rather strange.

Michael Horton interviews a mushy convert to Roman Catholicism

Listen to this interview:

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2011/10/31/whi-1073-should-we-reform-or-abandon-american-protestantism/

Michael Horton does an OK job. But this is how you answer somebody like Christian Smith:

"Doctrine is armor of God. It is practical. It effects you internally. It makes you God-centered or man-centered. It makes you fear God or fear man. I want real doctrine. I.e. I want real armor. Real armor of God. Your doctrine is cardboard. Evil is real. The Kingdom of Satan is real. Hell is real. I want - I need - the armor of God, pure and whole. And words that deliver doctrine, that you are happy to keep in a mush, define real doctrine. You have to see it, *accept it*, believe it. Again, *it effects your inner state.* When I see, and accept, and believe the truth of justification by faith alone (no mush of faith plus works, committee language, compromise, everybody can be happy with something in the middle) then I have pure doctrine that effects me internally, and I have real armor that can confront any accuser including Satan himself, because I confront him solely with the righteousness of Christ. You don't have that. You are still in darkness and in bondage to the Kingdom of Satan. You're likely to start begging Satan to not harm you. Pleading with Satan that you have done good works. Internally, your state is one of a tame slave in the Devil's Kingdom. You need to engage the word of God outside any context of, in your case, academia. You need to engage it humbly, simply, complete, in a truly dedicated manner. Regeneration is effected, when it is effected, by the word and the Spirit. At that point you won't care what man thinks about you. You won't fear man. You will fear God alone. And you will desire real biblical doctrine. Real armor. The real thing."

This just in: Peter Enns not really the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer

Folks, this is the intellectual level of professors at major Reformed seminaries:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2011/11/taking-to-pastors-about-adam-and-evolution-options/

Not to mention all those pastors he was talking to.

And note that it's not just his subject matter, it's how shallow he is regarding the material itself.

A useful idiot in action.

Peter, why do you think there is evidence for macro evolution. Macro, mind you, not micro.

"'Cuz scientists say it, and stuff."

Do you realize the two worst witnesses for macro evolution (the theory that fish turn into race horses) are the fossil record and micro biology?

"'Cuz scientists say it, and stuff."

OK... Not to mention, origin of life itself aside, the chances of a single cell evolving mechanically are beyond impossible?

"'Cuz scientists say it, and stuff."

I suspect you have an Ivy League education, Peter. You know why? Because Ivy League graduates start sentences with "'Cuz" and end them with "and stuff." Anyway, most sentient scientists nowadays don't even believe in macro evolution anymore. Only the atheists among them like to keep it around in a bait and switch game with micro evolution because it's such good propaganda against Christianity and the Bible. At least it seems to have been. At least with shallow Christians. Nominal Christians. OK, dumb Christians.

"'Cuz, there's pictures in books, and stuff. Showing evolution, and stuff. 'Cuz..."

Enough. I get it. You're really stupid. Now what does that make all those pastors who came to be lectured to by you?

An active systematic theology

Kingdom - For I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.

Warfare - Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Holiness - Until Christ be formed in you.

+ + + + + + +

Ponder practical meaning and manifestation of Kingdom in thought, word, and deed.

Ponder practical engagement of Warfare in thought, word, and deed.

Ponder practical development in Holiness in thought, word, and deed.

Response to an email; subject: abomination

I think it's that once you're able to know the truth you have little patience for what is false, including especially all the little degrees and shades of falsity that the world traffics in. You're able to see and feel abomination as well. Something the world doesn't see or feel. - C.

I did a search on 'what is the meaning of abomination.' I know the definition, but I wanted to see if there were some page out there that went into some deeper level. This link came up immediately. It's interesting because it lists all the things the Bible calls abomination. I don't know about the site overall, just sending this page:

http://richardwaynegarganta.com/abomination.htm

Again, being able to see such things as abomination is a mark of regeneration. Prior you are just not aware, or things are no big deal. Of course it's easy to mix this reaction up with caricatures of certain religious types, emotionally crazy, legalists, people who are repressed, etc. Yet being able to see and feel abomination is real. Really, it's seeing the Kingdom of Satan and all the features and practices and elements of it. - C.

Supernatural

1. "The Bible's got a talking ass! Ha, ha!!"

Divine irony. Balaam the *prophet* needed an ass to signal to him that an angel was blocking his path. The presence of the angel was as supernatural as the speech of the ass. The Bible contains supernatural events. Being surprised that it does is like being surprised atheists are humorless. It's just what atheists are. Miracles are just what supernatural is.

2. "Your Bible says someone got swallowed by a fish and lived three days, ha ha!!" So did Jesus directly. It was an event - a supernatural event - that was to test certain types who demand to see a sign:

38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.

3. "So what kind of snake was that that was talking in the Garden of Eden, ha, ha!!" It was a snake embodied by a supernatural being called an angel named Lucifer, or Satan:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Atheists, you don't believe in the supernatural; we get it. Another way to say it is you don't believe in anything metaphysical, which, put that way, makes you sound really shallow. It's the same thing though. Naturalism, materialism, can't abide anything metaphysical. Which is why you don't discern levels of inspiration in such things as literature and music. Johann Sebastian Bach? To an atheist his music is no better or worse than John Cougar Mellencamp. The Homeric epics? No better than a common comic book. Whatever chemicals are operating in your brain at the moment. See how shallow you are, atheists?