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Archives for October 2008

by on 10.30.08

a little good news about Gleevec

Gleevec is the drug that gives my wife a normal life. She has CML, chronic mylogenous leukemia. Gleevec puts this disease in remission and keeps it there with little to no side-effects.

Today, a story about another disease, neurofibromatosis, which affects one in 3500 births. Research is being conducted to see if this disease, which makes the patient disposed to very difficult to treat cancerous tumours, can benefit from Gleevec. This story contains this hopeful little paragraph:

While the research was being conducted in animal models, a critically ill three-year-old patient presented at Riley Hospital for Children with a plexiform neurofibroma that was compressing her airway. With Gleevec administered under a compassionate use protocol, the patient’s tumor was reduced by about 80 percent, Dr. Clapp said. The patient was subsequently removed from treatment and is being followed, he said.

Again, a word of thanks to our Lord who gifted men, even unbelieving men, with minds capable of searching out these hidden things of our earthly lives. May God grant them insight to see the hidden things of their spiritual lives and find redemption in his Son!

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Filed Under: General Interest, Health, Medicine, Science
by on 10.28.08

the Christian and drinking

Randy Jaeggli, The Christian and Drinking: A Biblical perspective on moderation and abstinence (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2008).

I want to recommend a little book by my friend, Randy Jaeggli. Entitled The Christian and Drinking: A Biblical perspective on moderation and abstinence, it appears that Randy is going to be spending his summers writing short books on various topics. I reviewed a short book by him here. Love, Liberty, and Christian Conscience was last summer’s project. I am pleased that this year’s installment carries Randy’s autograph inside the front cover. My son picked it up at the Seminary retreat for me. Randy asked him if I would be reviewing his latest. We aren’t sure if this was simply an effort to boost sales, or not!

Well, regardless of Randy’s motivation in getting my son to buy the book, I hope this review does boost sales. I can heartily recommend Randy’s treatment of the subject.

The book is broken into these chapters:

  1. Old Testament Teaching on Alcoholic Beverages
  2. New Testament Teaching on Alcoholic Beverages
  3. Historical Views of Alcohol Consumption
  4. Medical Views of Alcohol Consumption
  5. Christlikeness and Drinking

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Review
by on 10.26.08

all not well in liberal land

The LA Times reports that Robert Schuller has fired his son, Robert Shuller, sort of. The son “remains” senior pastor, but it is unclear whether he will be allowed in the pulpit. Obviously there is more to this story than is being reported. Interesting to see the power of positive thinking at work!

HT: Lighthouse Trails

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Filed Under: Personalities
by on 10.26.08

10.26.08 gbcvic sermon summaries

Portrait of a Good Religious Man (Rm 2.17-20)

Our passage finds us in the midst of Paul’s argument against those who are religious men. Pagan man is under God’s wrath for rejecting natural revelation; moral man is subject to God’s judgement for ignoring conscience; now we will find religious man under condemnation for disobedience to God’s word.

The argument begins with a description of the religious man as a religious man. He thinks possessing the blessings of his religion are sufficient for his justification without requiring an obligation to total holiness on his part. Today we are attempting to paint a portrait of what that man looks like.

By-ends and Hopeful [Pilgrim’s Progress]

Our next section of the Pilgrim’s Progress concerns Christian’s departure from Vanity Fair, his new companion Hopeful, won by the testimony of Christian and Faithful, and their encounter with a crowd of characters whose only interest in religion is how they may profit from it. Christian’s answer is a powerful argument against the purveyors of ‘health and wealth’ Christianity.

A Church Organized around Preaching [various texts]

why we call ourselves ‘the Bible-preaching centre’

Our afternoon service gives us an opportunity to return to our occasional series “Our Church”, which is a discussion of our philosophy of ministry. This message deals with the central focus of our ministry, the focus on preaching and teaching God’s Word. The message is mostly simply a reading of passages teaching the Importance of God’s Word, the Imperative of Preaching God’s Word, and the Impact of God’s life-changing Word. It is essential that church ministry be dominated by the Word of God. Everything we do flows from this overriding purpose.

~~~

Another great day to serve the Lord. One couple returned for a second visit! May the Lord grant an increase.

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Filed Under: Sermon Summaries
by on 10.24.08

a few posts worth reading

In my scanning of various blogs, I come across a few articles I’d like to pass along. No one has enough time, but perhaps some of these are worth your time.

From Lighthouse Trails

Why We Say Beth Moore is a Contemplative Advocate
  • Advocate: one that defends or maintains a cause (Webster’s Dictionary) In our recent article, “Rick Warren Points Network Followers to the Contemplative ‘Sabbath'”, we state that Beth Moore is a “contemplative advocate.” Some people have a hard time with this statement. Why do we say she is advocating contemplative spirituality?
Should Christians Expose Error?
  • “Exposing Error: Is It Worthwhile?” By Dr. Harry Ironside (1876-1951) Objection is often raised even by some sound in the faith-regarding the exposure of error as being entirely negative and of no real edification. Of late, the hue and cry has been against any and all negative teaching. But the …
  • a key quote:

Exposing error is most unpopular work. But from every true standpoint it is worthwhile work. To our Savior, it means that He receives from us, His blood-bought ones, the loyalty that is His due. To ourselves, if we consider “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt,” it ensures future reward, a thousand-fold. And to souls “caught in the snare of the fowler”-how many of them God only knows-it may mean light and life, abundant and everlasting.

“Servant Leadership” … A Christian Idea … Not Exactly
  • LTRP Note: Today, there is much talk about teaching people to become good leaders. In reality, what is happening is people are being taught to be good followers. The term (and the concept) Servant Leadership, used by many of the most prolific Christian authors and teachers today, did not originate …
The Mid-America Conference on Preaching

A review/summation by Scott Aniol:

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Dave Doran’s First General Session
Part 3 – Horn and Conley’s General Sessions
Part 4 – Dawson on Culture
Part 5 – Snoeberger on Culture
Part 6 – Doran’s Second General Session
Part 7 – McCune on Mars Hill
Part 8 – Snoeberger on Carson

From Brian Collins:

AP Definition of Fundamentalism
Neuhaus on the new New Evangelicals
ICC Commentaries for Free Download

Just a few things that interest me, in case you don’t follow the same blogs I do.

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Filed Under: Culture, Fundamentalism, General Interest, New Evangelicalism, Theology
by on 10.22.08

more on culture

See Scott Aniol’s review of a presentation [pdf only] by Sam Dawson for more on culture and the Christian perspective towards it. This is excellent. We need to get a better grasp of what culture is and how Christians should relate to it.

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Filed Under: Culture
by on 10.20.08

be honest in your comments

I received a comment this morning from someone calling himself Pete Simms. He has posted here before, always pretty negatively.

In a comment he made today, he made many assumptions about me, my experience in fundamentalism, my background, my motivations, etc. His comment had nothing to do with the substance of the article he was commenting on. I deleted it, but only after sending an explanatory note to the e-mail address he provided.

Immediately upon sending, I got a bounce back from yahoo:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

petesimm101 {at} yahoo(.)com

Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 554 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (petesimm101 {at} yahoo(.)com) [0] – mta222.mail.re3.yahoo.com (state 18).

This causes me to doubt that Pete Simms is this commentators real name. The address he provided is certainly not a real address.

Please note that I will post negative or critical comments that deal with the substance of what I have said in an article. I ask for real names and real e-mail addresses for those commenting.

That means, “Pete”, that if you wish to comment here, you must be honest about your e-mail address and provide a way for me to contact you directly to verify your identity (as best as one can!) You must be dealing with the substance of what I write, however, and not simply be making personal attacks.

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Filed Under: Oxgoad Policies
by on 10.19.08

10.19.08 gbcvic sermon summaries

If You Bear the Name ‘Jew’ (Rm 2.17)

As we work our way through Romans, we find the apostle Paul systematically proving the guilt and condemnation of all men. In Romans 1, the pagan man is under God’s wrath, in the first half of Romans 2, we find the moral man subject to judgement. Now as we begin the second half of Romans 2, Paul’s attention turns to the religious man, the Jew, who depends on his ritual and heritage for his standing with God. Though Paul’s message applies directly to the 1st century Jew, it ultimately applies to any man who depends on his religion for right standing before God.

Vanity Fair

This week we cover the experience of Christian and Faithful as they go through Vanity Fair. No one can escape the Fair, since the Way to the Celestial City leads through it. It represents the world, with all things respectable and profane, but things which distract Christians from the Way. The pilgrims do not fit in with the fair and offend the residents of the city so are held in a cage. Ultimately Faithful gives his life for his testimony, but some are won to the Way as a result.

Men Under Authority (Ac 6.1-6)

Our afternoon message concerned our philosophy of church governance: our congregation is pastor-led and congregationally governed. This message covers some of the biblical rationale for our philosophy and illustrations and applications to show how that works.

~~~

None of our visitors from the last few weeks came back, but we had a great day worshipping the Lord nonetheless.

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Filed Under: Sermon Summaries
by on 10.15.08

God’s work in Mongolia

I have mentioned my friend Scott Dean before. I’d like to encourage you to read some news about the Lord’s work in his ministry recently.

It all began with a prayer request last week, then three posts on God’s answer to those prayers:

Praise the Lord for this good news!

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Filed Under: Missions, Pastoral Theology
by on 10.15.08

history and philosophy of science

A pair of interesting articles showed up recently in the Scientist magazine web-site (free registration required). The two articles speak to the need for education in the history and philosophy of science. The arguments presented (and the biases revealed) make for interesting reading.

The first article is What makes science “science”? By James Williams, subtitled ‘Trainee teachers don’t have a clue, and most scientists probably don’t either. That’s bad news.’

The second article is Why the philosophy of science matters By Richard Gallagher, ‘The central tenets of science enhance communication and our influence on society’.

Here are some concerns Williams highlights in his article:

As a science educator, I train science graduates to become science teachers. Over the past two years I’ve surveyed their understanding of key terminology and my findings reveal a serious problem. Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience?

What kind of ignorance is Williams talking about?

The results show a lack of understanding of what scientific theories and laws are. And the nature of a ‘fact’ in science was not commonly understood … Some of the graduates implicitly or explicitly equated theories with hypotheses

Gallagher makes this observation concerning Williams’ findings:

Williams’ findings demand a thorough assessment of what’s being taught to science students. If, as seems likely, university science departments are churning out technically sophisticated but intellectually stunted drones that don’t understand the underpinnings of science, then urgent reforms to the curriculum are required because such people aren’t really scientists at all.

Those students who go on to grad school will presumably be exposed to aspects of the philosophy of science, if only through engaging in research. But this is not so for the group that Williams is working with, trainee teachers.

He goes on to say this:

Williams’ calls for a core course in the history and philosophy of science to be taught to all science undergraduates strikes a chord. I’d add that a further course on the philosophy of biology should be required of students in the life and medical sciences.

And calls scientists to “get back to our guiding philosophy”.

Why are they so concerned? Well consider these lines from each man:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: General Interest, Science
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