fundamentalism by blunt instrument
This is my sister.
When we began our ministry in Victoria, she had just graduated from University. She took a job here in order to help us in our church. We had a handful of people. She came, not knowing how the Lord would lead, but she came knowing that the chances of finding an eligible Christian man might be slim.
That was 24 years ago.
I have been playing with Logos 4 for about five days now. I was fully prepared to disdain L4 as much as I do L3 and previous versions. Well…
Well blow me down, I actually like Logos 4. They said they rebuilt it from the ground up. They did! And it shows!
One of the books I read this spring is Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman by John R. Muether. My son gave me this book about a year or more ago and I decided it was high time I read it. This is the first biography of Van Til that I have read. A friend who also read it said that it was a good book to fill in some background that other books missed. He recommended reading some of the other books in addition to this one.
While I will put this post in the ‘book reviews’ category, this article isn’t really a book review. I do recommend this book and think it will be worth your while to read if you are interested in Van Til at all.
One of the things that I learned from this book is that Van Til was definitely a separatist. But he wasn’t your fundamentalist type of separatist. He had his own branch of separatism, making himself distinct from both evangelicalism and fundamentalism.
I’d like to take up an argument my friend Kent makes in support of his view of Bible preservation. I do so with some trepidation as I am not wanting to get into a wide-ranging debate on the whole topic, it is just this particular argument that I want to address with a few comments.
It comes up by way of a guest post on Kent’s blog by David Sutton, but the subject is one Kent himself has written about as well. The most recent blog is called, “Perfect Tense Preservation”.
First, I’ll try to state the argument succinctly. Kent (or others) can correct me if I am wrong in my understanding of the argument:
The argument uses the words of the Lord Jesus in responding to Satan as an argument for the perfect preservation of the Scriptures.
The argument is based on the Lord’s use of the perfect tense in the phrase, ‘it is written’. The perfect tense, we are told, refers to past action with ongoing results in the present (to the person speaking).
Since the Lord referred to God’s Word by using the Greek word gegraptai, ‘it is written’ or ‘it hath been written’ (YLT), the argument goes that this proves the words initially written by Moses and quoted by Jesus were continually in existence from the time of Moses to the time of Christ in a perfectly preserved written form. Further, the word assumes, according to the argument, that the words will be preserved into the future since the ongoing effect of the perfect tense is such that when the future becomes the present, the effect is maintained.
In TSKT, I made the point that what Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy was written down by Moses and continued written down some 1400 years later when Jesus referred to those passages. Thus, if Jesus claimed those words were still written down in His day, then we should understand that we still have them written down in our day.
Well, I have some questions about this.
I love astronomy. I just noticed on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that Microsoft has a beta software called “Worldwide Telescope” designed in conjunction with NASA. It provides cool images of the heavens, from any perspective. You can be a stargazer right there on your own computer screen.
Yes, I know Google has something like this too. And I know this is Microsoft, the company most people have serious attitude problems about. Personally, I don’t care. Mostly I like Microsoft. (I hate the Ribbon in the new Office, but…) And space is cool, so try this one out.
Previous articles: On Godliness; On Worldliness Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
In this series, we are coming to an understanding of godliness as a lifestyle demonstrating fear or reverence for God by actions of respect towards men. These ideas are behind our definition:
Godliness is a manner of life dominated by reverence for God displayed in respect for others that is visible to outside observers and is not confused with worldliness.
In our last article, we were working on an understanding of worldly desires (as mentioned in Titus 2.12). Here is how we concluded last time:
Worldly desires are lusts, passions, affections set on worldly things. Let’s recall our definition of ‘worldly’:
Worldly – Something is worldly when it belongs to the affairs of life on this earth, especially as opposed to the life of the spirit or of heaven.
If our hearts are set on the things of this world, to the crowding out of spiritual thinking that is always mindful of heaven and God’s viewpoint of things, we are worldly in our desires. Such a heart-set makes a Christian lifestyle impossible. Our actions flow out of our hearts.
We are going to turn to 2 Jn 2.15-17 and to an examination of the ‘things in the world’ that the passage talks about. As we do, let’s start with a working definition of the ‘worldly lusts’ or ‘worldly desires’ we were talking about last time.
Worldly lusts are desires for worldly things without regard for God or God’s perspective.
If this definition is going to have any value for us, we will need to understand what those worldly things are. This is where 1 John comes in.
One of my correspondents challenged me on this subject after the latest rough and tumble debate at SI. My correspondent said to me
You are not charitable with the CE’s IMHO. You do hold them to a higher standard than our fellow Fundamentalists.
My correspondent cites some situations where fundamentalists shared platforms with dubious characters and one where a fundamentalist made a judgement in a church discipline situation that appears to have been at least unwise, if current available information is accurate. I have advocated a ‘wait and see’ position in the latter case. In the platform fellowship cases, I have not had a lot to say, although I have said some things.
My correspondent concludes:
Taking a wait and see is fine, but not when you are so hard on the CE’s. You are not consistent in this area in my opinion.
Until we take out the beams in our eyes, we will not honor and glorify God!
I promised my correspondent a response here at oxgoad, so this is it.
The fact is that I am hard on Conservative Evangelicals. They aren’t conservative enough for me and they still have most of the errors of New Evangelicalism as part of their philosophy and modus operandi. They are very little different from the original New Evangelicals (although some differences can be discerned).
And the fact is that I tend to take a wait and see approach to the errors (real or alleged) of fundamentalists because on the important questions, fundamentalists get the answers right. I might add that I take a wait and see attitude toward fundamentalists of various sorts, including those I criticize most. Some of my other correspondents are ready to virtually tar and feather some of the more leftish fundamentalists. I am not ready to do that yet. These correspondents might think I am too soft.
Why the difference and what does it reveal?
Today we take a broad survey of the entire 6th chapter of Romans. In this chapter, Paul gives us insight into the inner workings of sanctifying faith, the spiritual activity the soul engages in when winning victory over sin.
Having defined the terms ‘godliness’, ‘worldly’, and ‘worldliness’, we now go on a survey that looks at what the Bible says about the Christian’s relationship to the world.
Today we begin a series for communion on Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 11 about communion. He addresses the subject because of divisions within the Corinthian church in the practice of communion. His correction of this error brings to light a revelation concerning the necessity of divisions in the church and the incredible importance God puts on unity in the local assembly.
The Law not only magnifies the effect of sin, it brings about a magnification of the immense treasure of grace that is available to sinners in and through Jesus Christ.
Having defined the terms ‘godliness’, ‘worldly’, and ‘worldliness’, we now go on a survey that looks at what the Bible says about the Christian’s relationship to the world.
We continue looking at the qualifications for a bishop or pastor. He must be hospitable, apt to teach, not a fighter, gentle and not a lover of money.
Paul is now transitioning from the doctrine of justification to a salvation-by-faith oriented understanding of the doctrine of sanctification. He begins by posing a question which exemplifies a misunderstanding (deliberate or by ignorance) of the doctine of justification: should we sin that grace might abound?
Having defined the terms ‘godliness’, ‘worldly’, and ‘worldliness’, we now go on a survey that looks at what the Bible says about the Christian’s relationship to the world.
We focus on just one qualification for a bishop in this message, the qualification that his household must be in order. The Bible ties the pastor’s management of the church with his management of his household. As such, God puts the children of the pastor in the "fishbowl" and makes their response to their father’s leadership a test of his church management ability.
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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