|
|
Monday, October 29, 2018
More Witches than Presbyterians....by James Emery White
Friday, October 26, 2018
Southern Baptists Serve with Compassion through Disaster Relief
Just about every church in the area had some type of damage including The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville having moderate to severe damage.
Just as it's been doing for over 50 years, Southern Baptists have been there when disasters hit. In the aftermath of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, volunteers wearing their signature bright yellow T-shirts and caps have been there on the ground showing the compassion of Christ.
There are more than 70,000 trained volunteers and 1,550 mobile units for feeding, chainsawing, mudouts, child care, showers and more. SBDR has become the nation's third-largest mobilizer of trained disaster relief volunteers, only followed by the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army.
The North American Mission Board has helped coordinate the work of the SBDR through state conventions. 42 state conventions have their own disaster relief ministries including Alabama.
In previous storms, President Donald Trump visited an SBDR site at Temple Baptist Church in New Bern, North Carolina and just this week Vice-President Pence visited Hiland Park Baptist Church in Panama City and the surrounding neighborhood that was hit hard.
The North American Mission Board reports that more than 500,000 meals have been served to Hurricane Micael survivors, aided nearly a thousand residents in clearing their yards and homes of downed trees and helped more than 200 homeowners meet their temporary roofing needs.
If you would like to give where you know 100% of every dollar given goes directly to aid, then click here. It's the Alabama Disaster Relief site.
Monday, October 22, 2018
How Suffering Reveals Your True Self by Paul David Tripp
Trust Issues
Here’s what happens in times of suffering. When the thing you have been trusting (whether you knew it or not) is laid to waste, you don’t suffer just the loss of that thing; you also suffer the loss of the identity and security that it provided. This may not make sense to you if right now you are going through something that you wouldn’t have planned for yourself, but the weakness that is now a part of my regular life has been a huge instrument of God’s grace (see 2 Cor. 12:9.) It has done two things for me. First, it has exposed an idol of self I did not know was there. Pride in my physical heath and my ability to produce made me take credit for what I couldn’t have produced on my own. God created and controls my physical body, and God has given me the gifts that I employ every day. Physical health and productivity should produce deeper gratitude and worship, not self-reliance and pride in productivity. I am thankful for what my weakness has exposed and for being freed by grace from having to prove any longer that I am what I think I am.
But there’s a second thing that has been wonderful to understand. Perhaps we curse physical weakness because we are uncomfortable with placing our trust in God. Let me explain. Weakness simply demonstrates what has been true all along: we are completely dependent on God for life and breath and everything else. Weakness was not the end for me, but a new beginning, because weakness provides the context in which true strength is found. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that he’ll boast in his weakness. It sounds weird and crazy when you first read it, but it’s not. He has come to know that God’s “power is made perfect” in his weakness. You see, weakness is not what you and I should be afraid of. We should fear our delusion of strength. Strong people tend not to reach out for help, because they think they don’t need it. When you have been proven weak, you tap into the endless resources of divine power that are yours in Christ. In my weakness I have known strength that I never knew before.
When We Feel Entitled
One thing that shaped the way I suffered physically was unrealistic expectations. Suffering shouldn’t surprise us, but it almost always does, and it surely surprised me. I did go into my sickness with my theology in the right place. I did believe that I lived in a groaning world crying out for redemption, but it was battling with something else inside me. There was this expectation that I would always be as I had been, that is, that I would always be strong and healthy. There was little room in my life, family, and ministry plans for weakness within or trouble without. In fact, there was no room for any disruption at all. So much of the way I thought about myself and planned was based on the unrealistic expectation that I would continue to escape the regular disruption of one’s life and plans that happens in a world that doesn’t operate as God designed it to operate.
Suffering draws out the true thoughts, attitudes, assumptions, and desires of your heart.
I wasn’t singled out; God hadn’t forgotten me or turned his back. I wasn’t being punished for my choices, and I wasn’t receiving the expected consequences for poor decisions. My story is about the regular things that happen to us all because we live in a world that has been dramatically damaged by sin. In this world sickness and disease live, and our bodies break down or don’t function properly. In this world pain, sometimes chronic and sometimes acute, assaults us and makes life nearly unlivable. We live in a broken world where people die, food decays, wars rage, governments are corrupt, people take what isn’t theirs and inflict violence on one another, spouses act hatefully toward each another, children are abused instead of protected, people slowly die of starvation or die suddenly from disease, sexual and gender confusion lives, drugs addict and destroy, gossip destroys reputations, lust and greed control hearts, bitterness grows like a cancer, and the list could go on and on.
You Will Have Trouble
The Bible doesn’t pull any punches. At every turn, it informs and warns us about the nature of the world, which is the address where we all live. Whether it’s a dramatic narrative of life, or a doctrine that informs, or a wisdom principle about how to live well, Scripture works to prepare us, not so we would live in fear, but so we will be ready for the things we will all face. God gives us everything we need so that we will live with realistic expectations and so that moments of difficulty will not be full of shock, fear, and panic, but experienced with faith, calm, and confident choices.
Although I had right theology in place, somehow, at street level, my expectations were unrealistic, and unrealistic expectations always make suffering harder. My point is that I am a living example of the truth that you and I never suffer just the thing that we’re suffering, but we also suffer the way that we’re suffering it. Each of us brings to our suffering things that shape the way that we suffer. We all suffer, but we don’t suffer the same way, because our suffering is shaped by what we carry into the difficulties that come our way.
Suffering
Paul David Tripp
Best-selling author Paul David Tripp weaves together his personal story, years of counseling experience, and biblical insights to help us in the midst of suffering, identifying 6 traps to avoid and 6 comforts to embrace.
What Will Shape Your Suffering?
Here’s what is so important to understand: your suffering is more powerfully shaped by what’s in your heart than by what’s in your body or in the world around you. Now, don’t misunderstand what I am saying. My suffering was real, the dysfunction in my body was real, the damage to my kidneys is real, the pain I went through was horribly real, and the weakness that is now my normal life is real. But the way that I experienced all those harsh realities was shaped by the thoughts, desires, dreams, expectations, cravings, fears, and assumptions of my heart. The same is true for you. Your responses to the situations in your life, whether physical, relational, or circumstantial, are always more determined by what is inside you (your heart) than by the things you are facing. This is why people have dramatically different responses to the same situations of difficulty. This is why the writer of Proverbs says:
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (Prov. 4:23)
Like a stream, your attitudes, choices, reactions, decisions, and responses to whatever you are facing flow out of your heart. The heart is the center of your personhood. The heart is your causal core, as dry soil soaks in the liquid of a stream. Suffering draws out the true thoughts, attitudes, assumptions, and desires of your heart.
It really is true that we never come empty-handed to any experience. And we surely always drag something into the suffering that enters our door. What about you? What are you carrying around that has the power to cause you to trouble your own trouble? What has the power to allow you to forget that no matter what painful thing you’re enduring, as God’s child it’s impossible for you to endure it all by yourself? The One who created this world and rules it with wisdom, righteousness, and love is in you, with you, and for you, and nothing has the power to separate you from his love.
This article is adapted from Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense by Paul David Tripp.
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
My Tribute to Aunt Mae
For those who have only known us for our mainly "adult" lives or at least the last 20-25 years most likely does not understand how Roxanne and I and our family are so affected by the passing of an aunt. But you must understand Max and Mae Yother were more than an "uncle and aunt" as Keith Cofield said speaking at Max's funeral three years ago.
They were never privileged to have birth children in their 48 years of marriage, but as I went into their house last night and saw again this entire room dedicated to doll houses, a crib, tons of small toys....I thought, "Wow, what a room for a couple who didn't have children."
No, they had so many children through their nieces and nephews and families. They gave Roxanne and me our first house to live in after moving from Sardis Baptist Church in 1981. They GREATLY shared in the raising of both our boys spendings hours-and-hours at their clean up shop in Boaz waxing, washing and even buffing cars. When we would drive home to Boaz, most of the time our first stop would be at "The Shop."
So when Mae was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer September 6, she clearly let it be known who would be taking care of her and we are so honored to be apart of that care family. Since she left her hospital room exactly one week ago this morning still feeling no pain from the cancer, we did not know we would have to make two life-death decisions within less than seven days. And now funeral plans.....it has happened so fast.
So while we are not technically blood kin, I am so blessed to call you family - Sumer Newman Smith, Joanna JeffandJoanna Patterson, George Walker and families. We share in this grief and great loss. Pound cakes will never be the same...holiday celebrations will always have an empty seat and cake platter...those red vehicles won't be pulling up in our driveways...Aroney will always be void of a precious couple and a house will never be the same.
I'm so blessed to part of this family....feeling deep pain but only because of having experienced great joys and blessings. So I will gladly endure the pain because our precious Lord has assured us of a day coming when all the pain will be gone and there will be no more separation. Eternally with our Lord as a family with all the family of God. "What a day that will be.." Until then..."weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."
Monday, October 15, 2018
The Sins Forbidden by the Ninth Commandment in a Social Media World by Tim Challies
In an article I shared a couple of days ago, we began to take a look at the ninth commandment (“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”) and its relevance in a world in which so much of our communication takes place through social media. Specifically, we considered some of the duties required by the commandment. Today we want to look at the flip side and consider the sins it forbids. As with the first article, I will share in bullet points each phrase of the explanation provided in the Westminster Larger Catechism, then, beneath each one, suggest questions that may foster meditation and application.
The sins forbidden in the ninth commandment are:
- all prejudicing the truth, and the good name of our neighbors, as well as our own, especially in public judicature;
- Do you routinely seek out and read information that causes you to look at other people with suspicion? Do you spread information (online or offline) about brothers or sisters in Christ that might cause others to look at them suspiciously? Do you spread the kind of information that prejudices people against others?
- giving false evidence, suborning false witnesses, wittingly appearing and pleading for an evil cause, outfacing and overbearing the truth;
- Do you ensure that every bit of information you share about another person is the whole truth? Do you do your best to verify that information you learn about another person is nothing less than the whole truth? Do you assume damaging information you learn about another person is true or do you demand evidence?
- passing unjust sentence, calling evil good, and good evil;
- Are you too quick to pass judgment on others, perhaps declaring them heretical with too little evidence or according to a loose definition of the term? Do you call evil good by consuming sites or feeds committed to sharing information that is untrue or unnecessary?
- rewarding the wicked according to the work of the righteous, and the righteous according to the work of the wicked;
- Do you reward wicked people with your time, attention, clicks, subscriptions, follows, shares, retweets, and ad impressions? Do you treat godly people wickedly by assuming all you have read about them is true?
- forgery, concealing the truth, undue silence in a just cause, and holding our peace when iniquity calleth for either a reproof from ourselves, or complaint to others;
- Are you unwilling to stand for the truth or defend a brother or sister in Christ when you have evidence that would vindicate them or promote their reputation? Do you conceal truth about them in order to allow their reputation to be more consistently impugned?
- speaking the truth unseasonably, or maliciously to a wrong end, or perverting it to a wrong meaning, or in doubtful and equivocal expressions, to the prejudice of truth or justice;
- Do you share truth about others in a way that is actually meant to do them harm? Do you weaponize truth, perhaps sharing information that, though true, primarily seeks to damage another person’s reputation? Do you hold facts over another person with the threat of exposure?
- speaking untruth, lying, slandering, backbiting, detracting, talebearing, whispering, scoffing, reviling, rash, harsh, and partial censuring;
- Do you visit sites that tell full-out lies or that convey half-truths? Do you spend time in the online company of people who slander others, who backbite them, who detract from their reputations, who scoff at them, or who revile them? Do you do any of these things yourself? Are you harsh with others and with your interpretation of the facts about them? Or do you choose to believe the best about them in the absence of undeniable evidence to the contrary?
- misconstructing intentions, words, and actions;
- Do you interpret intentions and convey them as fact? Do you assume you know the inner motives of other people? Do the sites you read and feeds you follow only convey facts or do they also assume knowledge of intentions and motivations?
- flattering, vainglorious boasting;
- Do you flatter others or brag about yourself through social media? Do you see social media success as so meaningful you are tempted to sin to achieve it?
- thinking or speaking too highly or too meanly of ourselves or others;
- Do you use social media to speak too highly of yourself or too highly of others? Do you use it to speak too poorly of yourself or too poorly of others? Do you visit sites or read feeds that commit such transgressions?
- denying the gifts and graces of God;
- Do you fail to identify or do you outright deny evidences of God’s grace as displayed in the lives of other people, and especially of people you dislike or disagree with? Do you deny that these people are displaying evidences of the Spirit’s presence through their spiritual gifting? Do you thank God for every evidence of his gifts and graces, even in the lives of people of whom you are suspicious?
- aggravating smaller faults;
- Do you focus on the small faults and peccadillos of other people? Do you allow even their minor transgressions to become gossip?
- hiding, excusing, or extenuating of sins, when called to a free confession;
- In your own life, do you fail to confess the full measure of your own sinfulness? Do you excuse sins in yourself you would not excuse in another? Do you read writers who are far freer in expressing the faults of others than of themselves? Do you see evidence of the grace of humility in your own words and conduct and in the words and conduct of those who influence you?
- unnecessary discovering of infirmities;
- Do you go online to research the faults of others when there is no good reason for you to do so? Do you read web sites committed primarily to exposing the sins, faults, and heresies of other people?
- raising false rumors, receiving and countenancing evil reports, and stopping our ears against just defense;
- Do you read sites that spread rumors and do you yourself spread them in the absence of clear and undeniable facts? Do you read and receive and spread reports about others that are speculative or unsubstantiated? Do you fail to read and evaluate the defence of a person’s character with the same hopefulness and thoroughness as the attack? Are you willing to tell others you will not hear rumors, but only necessary facts?
- evil suspicion;
- Do you read sites that cause you to grow in suspicion toward others? Do you spread information that causes other people to grow suspicious, particularly about fellow believers?
- envying or grieving at the deserved credit of any, endeavoring or desiring to impair it, rejoicing in their disgrace and infamy;
- Do you find yourself hoping you will learn negative or damning information about another person? Do find pleasure in hearing bad news about another person? Do you rejoice in their downfall? Do you fail to give them credit where credit is due to them, especially for how the Lord has sovereignty seen fit to use them?
- scornful contempt, fond admiration;
- Does what you read cause you to increase in scorn and contempt toward others?
- breach of lawful promises;
- neglecting such things as are of good report, and practicing, or not avoiding ourselves, or not hindering what we can in others, such things as procure an ill name.
- Do you neglect to seek out and rejoice in good reports of others? Do you say or share things that would cause another person’s reputation to be diminished? Do you fail to avoid sites or feeds or accounts that cause another person’s reputation to be diminished? Do you fail to call others to account when they diminish another person’s reputation?
Let me repeat what I wrote before. The ninth commandment is not the only commandment, so we do not obey it at the expense of what is required or forbidden by the other nine and, of course, by the rest of the Bible. Neither is it the only word on our relationships with other people and certainly there are times we must investigate what others have said or done. Still, God calls us to examine this commandment carefully and apply it deliberately. I trust these two articles have helped us do so.
Monday, October 8, 2018
10 Things You Should Know about Scientism by J.P. Moreland
1. Scientism is a philosophical thesis that comes in two forms.
Scientism is a position in philosophy, not science. The claims of scientism are assertions aboutscience, not of science.
Strong scientism is the view that the only knowledge we can have about reality are those that have been properly tested in the hard sciences (especially physics and chemistry). All other claims—e.g. theological, ethical, political, aesthetic—are mere expressions of emotion and private opinions.
Weak scientism allows that there may be modestly justified beliefs outside science, but the settled assertions of the hard sciences are vastly superior to claims outside science.
2. Strong scientism is self-refuting.
A statement/sentence is self-refuting if (1) it refers to a group of things; (2) the statement/sentence itself is included in that group; and (3) the statement/sentence does not satisfy its own requirements of acceptability.
For example, “All English sentences are shorter than three words” refers to the group of all English sentences. However, the sentence itself is a part of that group, and the sentence fails to satisfy its own requirements of acceptability (it contains eight words and, thus, is not shorter than three words).
“The only knowledge we can have about reality are those that have been properly tested in the hard sciences” is not itself a statement about reality that has been properly tested in the hard sciences, so it cannot be a knowledge claim about reality. It is actually a claim of philosophy to the effect that all claims outside the hard sciences, including those of philosophy, cannot be known to be true. Thus, it is an inherently self-refuting claim.
3. Weak scientism is a foe and not a friend of science.
Science rests on a number of assumptions, e.g., the laws of logic and math, the correspondence theory of truth, and the objectivity and rationality of the external world. Our faculties are suited for gaining knowledge of the external world, including its deep structure that lies underneath the everyday world of common sense and causes that world to be what it is. These assumptions cannot be formulated or tested within the limitations of science, especially the hard sciences. Yet every one of them has been challenged and rejected by many in the academic community.
One of the tasks of philosophy is to formulate and defend the assumptions of science so science’s claims can be taken as approximately true and rational. A theory, including a scientific theory, can only be as strong as the assumptions on which it rests. By disregarding the rationality of philosophy, weak scientism disallows the clarification and defense of science’s assumptions. Thus, weak scientism is a foe and not a friend of science.
Scientism is at the very foundation of our secular culture, and its nature and weaknesses should be the first priority in this area of church teaching.
4. Scientism leads to secularism and marginalizes Christianity and ethics.
Scientism leads to the secularization of culture because it leads people to believe that no one can know anything about God, right and wrong, and so on. Thus, claims in religion and ethics can be ignored since no one can know whether those claims are reasonable or foolish.
5. Scientism is causing people to abandon Christianity.
According to a Barna research poll, five of the six reasons people leave the church and abandon Christianity involve the suspicion that there is no good reason to believe it in the first place. One of those six was the fact that the church does not keep up with (and help parishioners keep up with) the developments of modern science and know how to relate to them from a biblical worldview.
6. Contrary to scientism, there are things we know with greater certainty in theology or ethics than certain claims in science.
Consider these two claims:
- Electrons exist.
- It is wrong to torture babies for the fun of it.
Which do we know with greater certainty? The second claim is the correct answer. Why? The history of the electron has gone through various changes in what an electron is supposed to be. No one today believes that Thompsonian electrons (J. J. Thompson was the discoverer of electrons) exist because our views have changed so much. It is not unreasonable to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, scientific depictions of the electron will change so much that scientists will no longer believe in electrons as we depict them today.
Regarding the second claim, someone may not know how they know it is true, but nevertheless, we all, in fact, know it is true. If someone denies that, he needs therapy not an argument. Now it is not hard to believe that in fifty to one hundred years, most people will no longer believe the second claim. But it is hard to see what kind of rational considerations could be discovered that would render the second claim an irrational belief. Thus, we have more certainty in the second claim than in the first. And the same is true for certain theological assertions—like that God exists.
7. There are five things science cannot explain but theism can.
Here are at least 5 things science cannot explain but theism can:
- The origin of the universe.
- The origin of the fundamental laws of nature.
- The fine-tuning of the universe.
- The origin of consciousness.
- The existence of moral, rational, and aesthetic objective laws and intrinsically valuable properties.
Scientism and Secularism
J. P. Moreland
This book exposes the inadequacy of scientism by demonstrating its self-defeating nature and 7 important facts it can never explain, arguing that together science and theology have true things to tell us about the world.
8. Scientism gains strength from methodological naturalism.
Methodological naturalism is the view that while doing science, explanations of phenomena must be limited to natural objects and natural laws. No appeal to the act of an agent or to a personal explanation is allowed.
This means, for example, that Intelligent Design theories and different versions of creationism are not science, but theology. Theistic evolution is the only view allowed. But methodological naturalism is false as seen by the number of sciences that explain things by reference to the intentional act of a personal agent and not to a natural object or law: forensic science, archeology, neuroscience, SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), psychology, and others.
9. Knowledge—not faith or mere belief—gives people authority to speak and act in public.
It is on the basis of perceived knowledge that we give dentists, lawyers, history teachers, and so on the authority to speak about matters within their areas of expertise. If a dentist said he had a set of deeply held beliefs about molars and was emotionally committed to those beliefs even though he didn’t actually know that his beliefs were true, he would not be allowed to continue as a dentist. Knowledge also gives people courage and boldness to speak because they know why they believe what they do.
10. The claims of scientism and their refutation must be presented to believers, especially parents and pastors.
We often fail in the church to teach people why to believe what they believe. And we often do not prepare our children to engage ideas in the culture. Scientism is at the very foundation of our secular culture, and its nature and weaknesses should be the first priority in this area of church teaching.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)