Many folks in our church have finished their reading through the New Testament this year for the fourth time this week. Next year, we embark on another journey through the Bible, this time twice through the NT and once through the OT. The reading schedules are available in PDF for the OT and NT. I adapted these reading schedules from bibleplan.org.

Feel free to join us in reading through the Scripture!

Are they figments of people’s sinful and creative imagination? Or are is there something more sinister behind them?

There are several Biblical texts that indicate that false gods are often (if not always) fronts for demons. Leviticus 17:7 mentions idolatrous sacrifices to the goat-demons. Deuteronomy 32:17 speaks of the practice of “sacrificing to demons…to gods…new gods.” The term “gods” is thus equated with “demons.” Psalm 106:36-37 says the Israelites served idols and sacrificed their children to demons. This is probably a reference to sacrificing children to Molech through the fire (Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5, 2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 32:35). Paul reflects the OT teaching when he refers, in 1 Corinthians 10:20-21, to pagan sacrifices idol/demons. 1 Timothy 4:1 has “doctrines of demons” which seems to make the demons a bit more active in their false systems than just a plain-old idol. Finally, Revelation 9:20 teaches that some people did not repent of their demon-worship.

Whether we can say in every case that a false god is a creation of a demon, or whether it is fully a product of a human’s sinful imagination, or whether the demon took advantage of the human’s departure from the living God to become a “god” to that person, is hard to say. Suffice it to say that it is ultimately dangerous to dabble with false gods because of the demonic influence over them.

It is a much debated text, but I’m convinced that it is an oblique reference to the Holy Spirit and particularly His presence in the church during this age of grace. This is evident because:

1. Only the divine power of the Spirit of God can truly restrain the full operation of evil (Isaiah 59:19). We cannot. We are not allowed to rebuke the Devil. Instead our disposition should be, “The Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). /li>
2. The grammar in the text indicates that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit (neuter “what” now restrains and masculine “he” who restrains) because other texts in the Bible that clearly refer to the Holy Spirit exhibit this same characteristic (John 15:26, 16:13-14). The Spirit’s role in restraint of sin is also seen in Gen 6:3.
3. The rapture will remove the Holy Spirit, the restrainer, and the Antichrist will be free to do what he wishes.

1. The sin is not a specific one that is the same for every person. It could be sin A or sin B, but it is God's determination whether it is punishable by death. Notice that it says "a sin," not "the sin."
2. The death spoken about is physical death, not spiritual death. The person in question is a "brother" and because he is a Christian, he cannot lose his salvation. So the passage has to be talking about the physical end of one's life.
3. There are examples of various sins in the Bible that led God to discipline his children with the ultimate physical punishment. In the NT, Acts 5 records the death of Ananias and Sapphira because they lied. 1 Corinthians 11 records the folks who had "fallen asleep" (a euphemism for death) because of abuse of the Lord's Table. These are two totally different sins, but God in his infinite wisdom chose to punish them with death.
4. Why such strong punishment? God is concerned about the purity of His church. He doesn't want people running around sinning and always getting away with it. Sometimes he lets people go on sinning for a long time. Other believers are to confront those folks about their sin. When it gets to a certain point, however, God calls these folks out of this life and into the next so that His reputation will not be tarnished any further.
5. What is the character of such a sin? It is a high-handed, premeditated, rebellious sin. This is why John says don't pray for that kind of sin--if you can discern that this is a sin that God will punish with death, no prayer is going to change God's mind. It's tough for us to know for sure, however, in our limited human knowledge. The right response on the part of the sinner is to repent and confess that sin and not do it again. If the sin is evidently not a sin leading to death, then we ought to pray for that person so that they will get straightened out.
6. This is not the unpardonable sin of Matthew 12. That sin has to do with a repeated rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of His Spirit. It is only committed by those who are unbelievers. In fact, it is the very essence of hardened unbelief. The type of sin mentioned in 1 John is committed by a Christian brother or sister.
7. It is also not a "mortal" sin as opposed to a venial sin. These terms come from Roman Catholicism. The mortal sin is supposedly one that causes the soul to suffer eternal damnation unless it is confessed to a priest. The venial sin can be atoned for through good works. There are not two such categories of sin listed in the Bible.

First, let us be sure we understand the term "Law." The Law (capital L) refers to the Mosaic Law given at Mount Sinai to Moses. It started with the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 and has many other elements to it. Some say there are 613 specific commandments. In any case, the whole Mosaic Law is what we are referring to. Second, we must understand that no one has or could fulfill that Law, apart from Jesus Christ. All people find even the 10 commandments impossible to follow, particularly when considering Christ's high standard given in the Sermon on the Mount.

So this brings us to the question of how Jesus fulfilled the Law. He said He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17-18). There are two ways that He did so. First, he perfectly kept all the commands and did fall short in any one of them. From the very beginning, at His birth, until the end of His life, he did no sin (1 Peter 2:22), he knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), in Him was no sin (1 John 3:5), and He was totally without sin (Heb. 4:15). This is sometimes called Christ's "active obedience."

The second way in which Christ fulfilled the Law was by taking upon Himself all of the penalty of breaking the Law. The Law also has penalties in it for any infraction of the Law. Now despite the fact that the Lord Jesus did not have any infractions, He still took upon Himself the penalty of being cursed by hanging on a tree (Gal. 3:13). This is sometimes called Christ's "passive obedience."

In other words, the Lord fulfilled the Law as to its positive demands (actively doing all of them), and He also fulfilled the Law as to its penalties (passively taking them).

There a third way in which Christ fulfills the Law today, and that indirectly is through believers. Romans 8:4 says that "the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." This does not mean that believers keep the Law directly, for Christians are not under the law per se (Rom. 6:14), and Rom. 10:4 says "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes." Putting these facts together, we understand that while believers are not keeping the Law directly, and they are not trying to do so in order to attain a righteous standing before God, they are, by their very nature as Spirit-indwelt Christians, fulfilling the righteous standard of the Law in their behavior (albeit imperfect) and also because of their perfect standing in Christ. He fulfilled the Law so that we, who could not and cannot perfectly do so, might be seen by God as in Christ and so fulfilling the righteous requirement of the Law.

Yes, it most definitely does. In conducting evangelism around Ann Arbor, my wife and I have heard numerous times the Mormons say "We are saved by Jesus Christ after all that we can do." This is a clever statement, but it belies the fact that the Mormons believe in a doctrine of salvation by works. They must do good works ("all that we can do"). Then, the atonement of Christ is added to that ("after").

In great contrast, we believe and teach that salvation comes to one through true faith alone, without works. In other words, "We are saved by Jesus Christ apart from all that we can do." We believe this because the Bible teaches it. Consider Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Also, Titus 3:5, which says, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Furthermore, Galatians 2:16 teaches, "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ."

Invariably, a conversation with a Mormon will turn to the verses in James 2:14-26 that speak of the relationship of works and faith. A Mormon will use these verses to attempt to justify that works must be done in order to be saved. But those verses simply teach that true faith issues forth in works, not as a basis of salvation, but as an evidence and fruit of salvation. The theological reason for this is that Jesus Christ was the perfect once-for-all sacrifice for sin; no more "work" can be done to earn merit before God. Our works issue from a saved life because we are thankful for what Christ has worked for us.

I have posted my review of Coming to Grips with Genesis on our church website. You can read the PDF here. There will also be a snippet of that review on amazon.com. The full review is to appear in the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, volume 14, 2009. Information on the journal is available here.

At Fellowship Bible Church, we have been systematically reading through the New Testament. We are on our third time through, just now in the middle of Romans. It has been a great help to many of our people, and I wanted to take the opportunity here to encourage you to work through some systematic Bible reading plan.

Our approach is simple: read three chapters each day. This will get you through the 260 chapters of the New Testament in three months—and even give you a day or two off! We have a printed schedule for each month that allows us to check off each day as we complete the reading, but this is just a practical help. All you need to do is remember: 3 chapters, 3 months, repeat. This kind of reading allows you to go over the NT text repeatedly, four times in a year. Another practical benefit of reading several chapters in a row, day after day, is that you are able to better grasp the context than if you just read a chapter here or there.

We are also reading together portions of the Bible in our Sunday evening service. Our purpose is to be obedient to Paul’s injunction to give attention to the public reading of Scripture (1 Timothy 4:13). Various men volunteer to do the reading, usually two or three chapters in each evening service. In the last year or so, we’ve been able to read this way through Ruth, Nehemiah, the first thirty of the Psalms, Acts, and Romans.

If you want Christian growth, read, re-read, and re-re-read the Bible!

I plan to work on a lengthy paper critiquing the doctrine of middle knowledge. A question that arose in my studies relates to the relationship of open theism to middle knowledge. One reason that this question arose is when people ask me what middle knowledge means, they often assume it is related to open theism. It also interested me that two authors (David Basinger and William Hasker) wrote in both Clark Pinnock et al., The Openness of God as well as Hasker, Basinger, and Eef Dekker (eds.), Middle Knowledge: Theory and Applications. Why would they write in both books if there was not some kind of relationship between the doctrines?

My conclusion: Open Theism has nothing to do with Middle Knowledge (hereafter referred to as OT and MK), except that OT proponents must discuss MK because it is a competing theory as to how God knows things and yet maintains human libertarian freedom. The relationship between the two doctrines is actually an adversarial one, for two reasons.

First, OT proponents cannot accept that God knows everything in advance—and that is a basic proposition in the MK system. Basinger writes, "However, proponents of the open view do not believe that God possesses middle knowledge—that God always knows beforehand what would happen, given each option open to us. In fact, we do not even believe that God always knows beforehand exactly how things will turn out in the future—that God possesses simple foreknowledge. " (The Openness of God, p. 163). He continues on the same page, "But since we believe that God can know only what can be known and that what humans will freely do in the future cannot be known beforehand, we believe that God can never know with certainty what will happen in any context involving freedom of choice." Obviously, OT cannot accept MK because of this belief. MK implies that God takes no risks, but OT proponents such as Sanders believes God does take risks because He does not know the future exhaustively.

Second, OT proponents believe there are logical and philosophical problems with the idea of MK. Sanders writes, "Open theists find middle knowledge unattractive due to the philosophical problems and questions surrounding its practical usefulness. " (John Sanders, The God Who Risks, p. 220). Among these are the too-strong view of providence and its handling of the problem of evil (see Hasker, Openness, pp. 145-47). We could add other objections to MK: the grounding objection, the question of the truth of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, the very question of whether such knowledge actually exists, and if God could possess it if it did exist.

Bibliography:

Sam Storms provides an outline of the premillennial view here, though he is refuting it at each point because he is an amillennialist. But I thought a point-by-point response would be helpful for someone reading out there in web-land, so here goes. The listed items are his evaluation of what a premillennialist must believe. My comments follow each one.

Correct. Isaiah 65:20 indicates that death will occur. Storms is not correct, though, in suggesting that a PM must necessarily believe in death for believers during that time. They may or may not die, depending on whether the Lord is pleased to heal their diseases or if they are born toward the latter part of the millennium. Death certainly does occur after the second coming when Christ judges the lost upon His return.

Correct. Revelation 20:8 indicates that deception will happen, so the curse is still present.

Right. Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 seem to form a sequence, and 20:11 occurs after the devil was thrown into the lake of fire, which 20:7 says occurred after the 1000 years were finished. The straightforward reading of the text leads to Storms' conclusion.

No problem here. See Isaiah 11:9-10. I don’t understand why Storms writes, "Are Premillennialists asking us to believe that upon their attaining to an age when they are capable of understanding and responding to the revelation of God and the personal, physical presence of Christ Jesus himself, that none of them will be given the opportunity to respond in faith to the claims of the gospel?" That is, I don't understand his statement unless he is setting up a straw-man version of the PM argument. No PM that I know of ever said there would be no chance for unbelievers in the millennium. So, no, PMs are NOT asking you to believe that ridiculous statement. One key point about the millennium is precisely that many people WILL be saved! By the way, many came to Christ when he was on the earth the first time too.

You guessed it. This is right on. Revelation 20:5 says "The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended" (ESV). Again, a straightforward reading of the text seems to say just what Storms objects to.

Ditto above.

Since Revelation 20 speaks about and is structured around the one thousand year period and mentions it six times, it seems quite a stretch to say there is NO one thousand year period. Sure, one might debate when Christ’s coming is relative to that period of time, but to say that period does not exist is a too much of a stretch to take.

Dear Pastor Dever,

Your statement on the sin of including millennial views seems to have an underlying assumption: that one holds views of eschatology in complete isolation from his other views. But no one is this way in practice. One's millennial view comes with other baggage necessarily attached.

Some of us believe that raising the millennial view to the level of the statement of faith is necessary precisely because it is closely intertwined with other doctrines that are essential--that certain baggage has to be avoided. For example, the amill view implies that we have to read the OT kingdom texts and Revelation 19-22 in a certain way. To a modified-traditional dispensationalist like myself, such a reading of the text is so forced and unnatural that it calls into question the perspicuity of Scripture. This in turn is connected to the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. If God did not mean a 1000 year period of history with the devil bound, after which the devil was loosed, why didn't he state that more clearly?

Another example comes to mind. The post-millennial view suggests the improvement of society until the Lord returns. But this has proven (in some cases) to lead to false social gospel movements that undercut the real gospel of salvation. Furthermore, Scripture and experience tend to show that things are generally getting worse, not better. There is nothing wrong with codifying a certain distance between our church and the implications of the post-millennial approach.

Our church is premillennial and not apologetic about it. That does not mean, however, that we count premillennialism as an essential to be saved. Me genoito. But it is important as a distinctive or identity of our group of believers. Since we are not the "only game in town," if someone wants a church that is non-millennial or some other flavor, they are free to join that church.

Dear Pastor Dever,

Again regarding your statement on millennial views...It seems that with the judgment you judge, you could well be judged. Capitol Hill Baptist's statement of faith includes a couple of things that don't seem essential for church membership. For instance, it looks like one has to believe in regeneration preceding repentance and faith. But there are lots of fine believers that don't go that route--some are even Calvinistic! Your members also have to affirm a belief in the Christian Sabbath. Many fine Christians wouldn't say they believe in a Christian Sabbath, and would also believe that they should not be judged on the basis of one day or another (Romans 14:6, Colossians 2:16).

Are you thus in sin by having your congregation include those beliefs and excluding believers who do not hold to precisely those same views? Is your whole congregation in sin for accepting such a statement?

MAP

Dear Pastor Dever,

You said in your sermon that

"...you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular Millennial view."

Does this imply that I'm in sin if I am leading a congregation that presently has a particular millennial view in its statement of faith, even if I did not I led the charge to put the statement into its current configuration? What if I inherited that situation from a former era/pastor? Am I in sin if I do not move quickly to remove that part of the statement? What if as a condition of my calling to the ministry I agreed with and pledged to uphold the constitution and doctrinal statement of the church? Am I stuck in sin--whether I go back on my pledge to fix the statement, or I keep the sinful statement?

What about Baptist polity? Isn't it the congregation that ultimately sets the precise parameters and policies as to what kind of church it is? Why does the pastor get the blame in your sermon if the congregation is the authority? Is there no latitude within the boundaries of Christian soul liberty to specify certain non-salvation-essentials as part of the church's setup?

It seems that you are painting a wide swath of people across the world as sinners. This is concerning to me.

MAP

Perhaps it seems a little out of character for me to comment on an issue like Medicare Part D. However, my soul is vexed when I hear misinformation and see elderly folks having difficulties with their medication because of shortcomings in the program and unhelpful pharmacies. My mother-in-law was in this very predicament and it took me some time to sort through it.

Medicare Part D provides a senior the ability to pay a (usually) small copay of $7 for a prescription medication. The insurance company picks up the remainder of the cost. However, this does not always work out so neatly. There are several tiers of medication, such as generics and common non-generics and "rare" medicines. These are not always provided at the $7 copay level. Furthermore, there is what is called the "coverage gap" or, in more picturesque terms, the "donut hole." After the insurance company pays so much, say $2000, then you are responsible for 100% of your medication cost until the coverage gap ends, at which time "catastrophic" coverage kicks in and the insurance helps you again.

The problem is that your elderly friend or relative may not be aware of just what the pharmacy is charging for a particular medication—so that you pay the $7 happily along, but the pharmacy could be eating up your coverage until, before you know it, you are in the coverage gap. This problem is further exacerbated by misinformation and incomplete information offered in pamphlets and advertising.

For instance, a pamphlet on the subject provided by the makers of Prilosec OTC (a heartburn medication) say this: "While generic prescription medications are often less expensive than brand name prescription medications, the full Medicare cost of a generic prescription medication still counts toward the total limit covered by Medicare Part D." Your elderly friend gets the impression that buying generics is a bad idea. Rather, over-the-counter medications are the best—and thus he or she would be induced to select Prilosec OTC instead of, say, the generic Ranitidine (Zantac) even though the latter may work just as well and be covered by Medicare Part D.

Worse yet, if you are in the Detroit area, you may have heard the Walgreen’s radio commercial in which they claim that Medicare Part D eliminates price shopping, since all prescriptions are the same price everywhere. This smacks of a socialized approach to medicine, for one thing. But beyond that, it is simply not true. If Walgreen’s charges $50 for a medication (and you pay $7), while CVS charges $40 for the same medicine (and you pay $7), your would arrive in the coverage gap much sooner with Walgreen’s. This is a real problem for seniors who have complex health issues and who take many medications every day.

The solution that I found most helpful was to switch pharmacies and use generics as much as possible. We use the Kroger Pharmacy, and could just as well use the Walmart Pharmacy, because of their $4 generic programs. What this means is that we pay $4 for a generic for a month (or $10 for a three-month supply). Not only is the copay lower ($4 compared to $7), but Medicare Part D pays NOTHING and so you avoid the donut hole much longer than if your pharmacy is charging up your Part D account!

Here's a concrete example: For 90 tablets of Warfarin (Coumadin) at 3mg per tablet, we presently pay $10 at Kroger (this is a 3-month prescription). Medicare Part D does not have to pay a penny. However, before I figured all this out, we were using a pharmacy that charged $60.39 for the same number of pills--except that they were 1mg per tablet!!! Insurance allowed $41.63 instead of the higher amount; but after the $7 copay, insurance still had to pay $34.63. What a huge waste to the American taxpayer--the amount wasted is over three times the total cost of the prescription! Unfortunately, this scenario must be replaying millions of times over throughout the United States.

Another advantage is that you don’t have to abide by some of the insurance companies silly rules since you are paying out of pocket. For instance, you might have heard, "You cannot fill this prescription because it is too soon after you refilled it before." But if you have changed dosages or just don’t want to run to the store as often, and you are paying cash, you just say, "Look, I’m paying cash for this. Don’t put it toward my Medicare Part D."

An interesting side note to this is that the market has produced a solution far superior to that of Medicare Part D. Kroger and Walmart are doing more to save senior’s on their meds than the federal government!

I hope this will be helpful to someone out there. We learned the hard way—four months in the donut hole with some very expensive medications.

There is a stately building on the University of Michigan campus called Angell Hall. On the front is the following inscription:

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The text is taken from the Northwest Ordinance as written by the Continental Congress in the summer of 1787, shortly before the ratification of the Constitution later that year and the next. The full title of the Congress's document was "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, 1787".

You can see a picture of the building below. One of the men in our church helped me by putting together this picture along with a few minor alterations.

Need I ask the obvious question--at least it is obvious for those of us who live in Ann Arbor and are frequently on the campus--where did the religion and morality go, anyway?

I probably knew this before, but lately in the news I was reminded that the federal government is supporting Planned Parenthood with my tax money. I read in the "What in the World!" flyer from Bob Jones University, Volume 45, Number 3, the following: "Planned Parenthood took in just over $1 billion during the fiscal year ending in June 2007. They received $356 million in health center income, $337 million in government grants and contracts..." They were quoting a story from the June 23, 2008 Wall Street Journal.

Jonathan Falwell reported essentially the same facts in his weekly "Falwell Confidential" email on April 4, 2008. He added that Planned Parenthood performed nearly 290,000 abortions in 2006-7.

This is an outrage. Not only has a "right to choose" been foisted upon us, but so has a "right to have my choice paid for by someone else."

What is even more frustrating is that our current president, President George Bush, pledged not to allow federal funding for abortions. In the second Bush-Kerry debate on October 8, 2004, in St. Louis, Missouri, the questioner (ABC's Charles Gibson) asked "What would you say to a voter asking for reassurance that tax dollars would not go to support abortion?" Bush answered, "We're not going to spend taxpayers' money on abortion..."

Certainly it is impossible with the type of government we have to please all of the people all of the time with the types of spending decisions that are made. Some things like national defense are mandated in the constitution, even though pacifists might strongly object to certain uses of the military. But abortion is a unique issue worthy of examining on its own. All Christians should do their part to oppose abortion and the means that allow it to happen, because human rights begin at conception. Those rights include the right to life. God never promises liberty and happiness, but He is clear that the unborn are to be protected (Exodus 20:13, 21:22-25).

"The incandescent light bulb, one of the most venerable inventions of its era but deemed too inefficient for our own, will be phased off the U.S. market beginning in 2012 under the new energy law just approved by Congress." So starts the story posted December 19, 2007 in U.S. News & World Report. The sale of such bulbs will be banned in favor of other types of bulbs.

So--we can choose to kill a baby before it's born, but we cannot choose the kind of light bulb we want to buy? What is wrong with us?

The Rapid Hebrew Reading class at DBTS requires the student to learn a large number of words (2,153). To help, I've put together a MiniFlash flashcard database for my Palm PDA. To download it, click here and save the file on your computer.

To use this database, you need the MiniFlash software for your Palm or the PocketScholar software for your PocketPC. It is available at PDAScholar.com. Once you install the software, you then install the .PDB file downloaded above on your handheld. The software will find the database and make it available to you to generate quiz decks and so on.

You may also wish to visit Dr. Robert McCabe's language tools website to download other vocabulary databases that correspond to smaller subsections of this huge database.

A lot of hours have gone into this project since 2003 when it began with a more modest-sized list of words (800 or so). Dr. McCabe did the painstaking task of constructing the initial database in FileMaker Pro. I took the database and programmatically translated the HebraicaII Hebrew font into the MiniFlash Hebrew font, did some other rearranging to make the data suitable for flashcards, added some automatic error checking and part-of-speech determination, and finally did the conversion of the new database into MiniFlash format. We've recently re-ordered the database so as to correspond to the reading assignments for the course.

Previously, I mentioned four essential components of the Dispensational system of thought. If these are removed from the system, it ceases to be what it is.

One argument that has been used against Dispensationalism is that several of these points are not the exclusive property of Dispensationalism; therefore, it is invalid to use them as essential components, or as Ryrie said, the “sine qua non” of Dispensationalism.

From where I sit, this argument seems quite weak. For one thing, just because some truth is shared between two systems of thought does not mean that that truth cannot be essential to one of the systems. So, for instance, covenant premillennialism recognizes a distinction between Israel and the church. Or, covenant theology generally recognizes that the glory of God is a very important concept. But as I said, the fact that these truths are shared does not eliminate the essential nature of them for Dispensationalism.

For another thing, the sharing of various truths between two systems does not mean that the systems are indistinct. This is because each truth of the system is or should be interpreted in light of the other elements of that system. If we believe that truth coheres together and there is a certain consistency in our system of thought (as there should be if the system of thought at all reflects the Bible, which is totally consistent in itself because of its divine origin), then each part is affected by each other part. For example, Dispensationalism and Covenant theology both give an important place to the idea of covenants. However, Dispensationalism’s emphasis on the four essentials I mentioned earlier make its approach to the covenants far different than in Covenant theology.

Thus, the essential components of Dispensationalism stand as essential and distinguishing characteristics of the system even though they or aspects of them are shared with Covenant theology.

In this post, I want to convey what is not entailed by the interpretive system called Dispensationalism. When I use the verb entail, I mean that there are certain things that do not follow from Dispensationalism as a logical consequence. These things are not necessary accompaniments or results of holding to Dispensationalism.

The main point I am making is this: if you hold Dispensationalism, you need not hold these other beliefs. Some Dispensationalists may have held these beliefs in the past, or may hold them today, but that does not impugn the basic integrity of the system. In other words, we cannot impute guilt to the system based on some of its adherents also holding to these positions which are not inherent parts of the system. So--Dispensationalism does not entail...

1. Different ways of salvation. Perhaps the most serious and simultaneously tiresome of all arguments leveled against Dispensationalism is that it teaches two ways of salvation: salvation by works in the Old Testament and salvation by faith in the New Testament. This argument has long ago been debunked, but I have had it brought up to me in very recent arguments against Dispensationalism. I will probably say more about this point later, but suffice it to say that Dispensationalism teaches ONE way of salvation in all times of history—sourced in God's grace, through conscious faith, on the basis of the substitutionary atonement accomplished in the cross-work of Jesus Christ.

2. A particular view of Spirit Indwelling. Some Dispensationalists have taught that the Spirit's indwelling in a believer could be lost or removed in times of divine chastisement, or that not all regenerated people were necessarily indwelt in the OT. However, there are other Dispensationalists who teach that the Spirit indwells all believers permanently in every age. Some Dispensationalists make a distinction between the OT and NT ministries of indwelling as to their extent or the particular benefits involved, but neither basic view is entailed by the system. The Dispensational approach does note distinctions in God's working in various ages, so it may be "spring-loaded" to find differences in more places than are actually there.

3. Exactly 7 Dispensations. Many Dispensationalists hold to 7 Dispensations. This author does as well. However, whether there are 8, 6, 5, 4, etc. is not inherent in the system itself. Of course, if you get down to 2 (OT and NT) then you likely are not a Dispensationalist.

4. Wooden literalism. Another worn-out argument against Dispensationalists is that they can only interpret the Bible according to a very stiff kind of literalism. I don't have any personal experience with Dispensationalists who are this way. Many seem to be able to find a lot of meaning in parables and other figures of speech (many times, they find more meaning than is actually there!). The fact is that many Dispensationalists work diligently to properly understand the various figures of speech and poetic parts of the Bible. Dispensationalists do not ignore the various forms and genres of the Scripture. Wooden literalism is not entailed by the system.

5. Easy believism. Dispensationalism does not entail a watered down view of the transformative power of God's grace. Nor does it require one to accept that faith is not necessarily followed by works, or that justification is not inevitably followed by sanctification. Just because some Dispensationalists view the doctrine of salvation this way does not mean that others do.

6. A particular view of Calvinism. You do not have to be a three-point Calvinist (or less) to hold to Dispensationalism. There are plenty of four- and five-point Calvinists who are also Dispensational (believe it or not!).

7. A particular view of the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon on the mount is relegated by some D's (my new shorthand for Dispensationalists) to only the kingdom dispensation in the future. This beloved passage of Scripture does arouse some emotions, to be sure, and its interpretation is not trivial, coming as it does at the end of the Law dispensation, when the Lord genuinely offered the Kingdom to Israel, and at the beginning of the age of Grace. However, many traditional D's find a great deal of application of the passage to the modern era.

8. A hypothetical atonement. Since I mentioned the offer of the Kingdom, I might as well also say that Dispensationalism does not require you to believe that such an offer makes the cross of Christ only an afterthought, or that it hypothetically could have been avoided. Nope--it was necessary for Christ to suffer, and then be glorified, in accordance with the OT prophets. No D I know of suggests that the Cross could have been avoided.

9. A mutilated Bible. Dispensationalism recognizes a great deal of continuity between the Dispensations, so one is not required to "snip sections out of the Bible and throw them away!"

10. That salvation is unimportant. Since Covenant theology emphasizes that the program of history is centered around the salvation of man, it is easy to overlook that D's recognize a VERY IMPORTANT place for the salvation of man within God's eternal program. D's just want to remind us that the glory of God is the ultimate goal of all things--that all revolves around God, not ultimately around man.

11. That there are no covenants in the Bible. This is perhaps stating the case somewhat extremely, but Dispensationalists do believe the covenants--like the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants. The idea of covenant is important in the Scriptures. Again, D's believe that there are other issues that rise to a higher level of importance.

12. Zionism. This is a hot-button issue. D's do not uniformly give tacit approval to everything Israel does. Neither do D's uniformly say that Israel should have complete possession of the land today, particularly in the face of their rejection of God and Christ. Not all D's believe that we need to continue to give money to Israel to maintain blessings under the Abrahamic covenant. In other words, a "Zionistic" type of Dispensationalism exists, but it is not entailed in the system.

13. Sensus plenior, equivocal use of language, or prophetic double reference. There are a good number of D's who are committed to a literal hermeneutic that is associated with a univocal use of language, namely that a word means only one thing in a given context. There are many others who believe that double-meaning or some kind of fuller sense is found by the NT authors in their understanding of OT Scripture.

Well, that was a long list. To the point of my series, if you believe Dispensationalism is dead, it may be because you see it as a narrower system than it really is. I have a thought that Reformed theology may not be the greatest threat to Dispensationalism, for the very reason that there are some D's who are thoroughly reformed in their soteriology.

Our first order of business is to understand what Dispensationalism is. A good starting point in matters of definition is Charles C. Ryrie’s book Dispensationalism. My discussion will largely reflect his text but will expand on it somewhat. There are four issues which are essential to the Dispensational view of the Scriptures. They are:

1. Consistent Literal Interpretation. In Dispensationalism, the Bible is interpreted according to the plain meaning of its text. Dispensationalism does not allegorize or spiritualize Old Testament prophecies that are, as yet, unfulfilled. It is not strictly literal in the sense that it allows for poetry, metaphors, similes, parables, hyperbole, other figures of speech, types and anti-types, and the like. A better term might be normal or plain. It is the basic historical/grammatical/theological approach to interpretation. The key point is that this hermeneutic is practiced consistently, insofar as humanly possible.

2. Progressive Revelation. This tenet points out that God gave revelation at various points throughout history. He did not give it all at once. Therefore, because man is unable to know God’s mind apart from revelation (1 Corinthians 2:9-16), there are some things later in the Bible that earlier saints simply did not and could not know. For instance, they did not know the Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth. Their gospel proclamation did not include the facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of this Man. They did not know of the new institution called the Church. They also knew some things less clearly than we can now—the second coming of Christ, for instance, or the deity of Christ. Ryrie does not raise this point to a sine qua non but as a concept it seems so important to the system that it cannot be omitted.

3. Distinction between Israel and the Church. Dispensationalism makes clear that the Church does not replace Israel. Promises made to Israel that have not yet been fulfilled will still be fulfilled, in the manner portrayed in the Bible. We could treat this as a secondary point, since it is derived from the first point (literal hermeneutic). But it is such a point of distinction between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology that it is helpful to raise it to the level of a primary point to make sure there is no confusion. Ryrie writes that this issue is the most basic test to determine if one is a Dispensationalist (p. 39). It helps to define the meaning of the literal hermeneutic tenet mentioned earlier.

4. Purpose of God in History is His Own Glory. This is to say that everything else is subservient to that larger purpose. Some theologians object that this point of Dispensational thought is simply a reaction against the Covenant notion of the redemption of mankind being the ultimate purpose of history. But despite such an objection, the dispensational view here is not simply a denial cloaked in terms of an affirmation. Texts such as Ephesians 1:6, 12, and 14 make it clear that even salvation is intended to the end of bringing praise to the glory of God’s grace (see also 2 Corinthians 4:15). Indeed, all Dispensationalists recognize that the redemption of man is a very important purpose of God, but it is only a part of the whole picture.

Ever since I talked to a pastor in Florida a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the future of Dispensationalism. My title above was inspired by this pastor showing concern that the resurgence in popularity of Reformed theology may basically kill dispensational thought. In fact, he reported that Charles Ryrie, speaking at a Bible conference recently, said that the greatest threat to Dispensationalism is Reformed theology. Caution: This is not to say that if Dispensationalism dies it takes Christianity down with it—I’m not trying to raise Dispensationalism to the level of a fundamental of the faith! More on that later.

I have serious doubts about the death of Dispensationalism. I think that the concerns of its demise are greatly exaggerated, and hope to allay those concerns in future blog entries by defining and commenting on it. That said, I am concerned that the Dispensationalism be better understood. In many circles, it is greatly misunderstood. Many have not even heard of it, despite it being taught for several generations within fundamental and evangelical circles in the United States through schools like Dallas Theological Seminary and Grace Theological Seminary, not to mention many others. Antagonists who hold to a Covenant approach to the Bible often have such a skewed view of what Dispensationalism is and what it is not that they cannot possibly make an objective analysis of it. Even Dispensationalists misunderstand the genius of the system and think that many other doctrines necessarily rise or fall with it. I will justify these comments in later posts.

Let me also comment on two examples that show that Dispensationalism could be more rigorously promoted. The first is the school I’ve attended and taught at, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. It is dispensational in the traditional sense of the term (as opposed to progressive dispensational), and this is commendable. And while Dispensationalism is sprinkled throughout the curriculum and is treated some in the systematic and hermeneutics courses, two key courses, Dispensationalism and the Kingdom of God, are taught in summer school and as a result many students do not take them. As a result, students can graduate and lack more in-depth training that would be helpful to respond to the progressive dispensational view and the covenant view. To be sure, DBTS is not about duplicating theological robots, but that does not mean it must not confidently promote a certain form of doctrine. This is not to lay blame, but just to make an observation—after all, the curriculum at DBTS is packed and it is hard to decide between many necessary courses in the M.Div. program.

A second example is the IFCA International. A recent Voice magazine (May/June 2007) mentioned some issues in Dispensationalism. Another pastor integrally involved in the IFCA in Michigan told me of concerns in the fellowship that, though Dispensationalism is part of their doctrinal basis, many pastors of IFCA churches are not versed in it and it seems to be on the wane. Thus, even a fellowship dedicated to promoting this approach to the Bible is weakening in it.

Please feel free to send me comments on this and other future posts at .

This post is a little out of the ordinary for this blog, but a little frustration with Mozilla’s Thunderbird software induced me to write. Hopefully someone “out there” will see it and get this suggestion to where it should go. I searched around for an easy way to do this but did not find one after some searching.

I use the Thunderbird email client. A potential way to improve the software came to mind this morning as I was filing some emails. Right now, Thunderbird offers a quick way to file an email to the same folder that you used to file your last email. On the popup menu it says “Move to “Folder” again… This is helpful, but it would be even more helpful if Thunderbird would observe and learn how I file emails and offer a quick-pick that is relevant based on that learned information. For instance, I file a lot of emails into folders I’ve named “Firstname.Lastname” based on the sender of the email. Some other emails I file based on topic. But the point is that if Thunderbird observed my behavior, it could easily capture a lot of my behavior for email filing and provide a quicker way to file many emails than scrolling through my long list of folders to find the one I want, then dragging the mail to it. The popup menu could change depending on who the sender is—and based on what it has learned from my past behavior it could say “Move to “Firstname.Lastname”…

UPDATE: I've since discovered Nostalgy, an add-on for Thunderbird, and it does about what I need it to. It's learning function isn't quite like I envisioned above, but it saves me a TON of time. Thanks to Mr. Frisch!

Beyond the mere issue of a software improvement, might I suggest that we always keep ourselves open to suggested improvements? In our churches it would be good to provide an easy way for folks to suggest improvements for us personally, or for the policies and practices of the church. We should not make it hard to find where to suggest improvements, nor should we present an attitude that is resistant to improvements, as if our way is the best way.

I heard an interesting interview yesterday on News Radio 760, WJR in Detroit. Frank Beckmann was interviewing former Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly (mp3, between 08:26 and 9:16). The conversation turned to Dennis Rodman, a controversial player on the 1980's and early 1990's "Bad Boys" championship teams. I certainly cannot Christianize Rodman's antics, but the conversation was interesting in another aspect.

The team already had Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, and Vinnie Johnson. In 1986, the Pistons acquired John Salley and Dennis Rodman. Daly said that after some time had passed, a friend commented to him that those two acquisitions changed the whole makeup of the team. Both players, but particularly Rodman, would rebound, defend, and not worry about shots. Daly related that Rodman did not need to score and would be in it at the end of the game. He was also a very energetic player.

It seems that Daly was impressed with the fact that Rodman did not need to have his ego stroked by scoring lots of points. He added value in other ways. He specialized on the defensive side, and this made the team as a whole much better. I thought of members of a local church at this point. Hopefully they will carry out their specialty (their spiritual gift) and not need to have their ego stroked (get any glory) for it. They will thus make the local assembly more effective in its accomplishing of the Great Commission.

Refer to 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 12-27.

In my December 7 post, I said, “I cannot grasp something that is ‘already’ true and ‘not yet’ true at the same time and in the same sense.” It seems to me that this is just another way of expressing the logical principle we call the “law of non-contradiction.”

My attentive blog reader asked if this statement is contradicted by the Christian doctrine of adoption. After all, Romans 8:15-17 teaches that we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons (see also Gal. 4:5-7). But then Romans 8:23 says that we wait eagerly for adoption as sons. So are we adopted or are we not? Or are we “already adopted but not yet adopted?” I suspect many Christians would by default lean simply to the first “leg” of the already-not yet statement, namely that we are already adopted. I would agree. The resolution of the supposed “already-not yet” conundrum comes when we see that Paul clarifies what he means by adoption in both cases. In Romans 8:15, he speaks of our receiving the Spirit of adoption. In Romans 8:23, he seems to refer back to that adoption as the “first fruits of the Spirit.” In the latter half of v. 23, he speaks of adoption, “that is, the redemption of our body.”

Thus, we see that the doctrine of adoption is not an exception to what I said above. It is not true that we are adopted at a singular time and in a singular sense in two different ways. Rather, we are adopted in one sense of the term presently, and we will be adopted in another sense of the term in the future. I believe a case can be made that “adoption” encompasses these two related truths which are distinct and can be carefully distinguished so as not to violate our sense of the law of non-contradiction.

Paul uses the term “adoption” to encompass both the realities of present receipt of the Spirit of adoption and the future reality of the resurrection and glorification of our bodies. There is some tension here. I will quote from Moo, Romans, NICNT, p. 521, who expresses this tension: “Christians, at the moment of justification, are adopted into God’s family; but this adoption is incomplete and partial until we are finally made like the Son of God himself (v. 29). This final element in our adoption is the ‘redemption of our bodies.’ ‘Redemption’ shares with ‘adoption’ and many other terms in Paul the ‘already-not yet’ tension that pervades his theology, for the redemption can be pictured both as past and as future.” So can we unravel the tension? I believe we can. The resolution is simply that there are certain elements of the adoption “umbrella term” that are complete for the believer, and there are certain other elements that are not. To me, this does not contribute to a kind of vacillation: “Am I adopted or am I not?” It simply points out that I am adopted and awaiting all the benefits that come with the package. I’m a son and an heir, I just have not received the inheritance as of yet.

In my September 14, 2007 post, I probably raised more questions than I answered with respect to the issue of polygamy and its practice in the Old Testament. One statement I made elicited some response from at least one reader. I said that "though Exodus 21:7-11 regulates polygamy, this does not necessarily endorse it." The question was whether that is a valid principle. If something is regulated, shouldn't we suppose that it is within God's will? That is to say, since God regulates polygamy, it seems that, at least in some cases, it must be allowable and God does thus endorse it. Of course, later in the same post, I said that the Levirate institution causes tension with my view "in that God gave this as part of the Law and so in some sense endorsed it."

I supported my position with a similar statement regarding divorce. In the case of divorce, God definitely regulated its practice in the OT (Deut. 24:1-4, among other passages). In fact, Exodus 21:10-11 sets forth some case law in the situation where polygamy and divorce together are at issue and again God "endorses" divorce by way of commanding that the first wife go free. However, Matthew 19:6-8 makes it clear, at least to this reader, that God did not endorse the general practice of divorce "from the beginning" of creation. It does not seem reasonable to suppose that God would positively endorse an act which is always the result of other sins. What marriage ended in divorce where there was not some sin leading up to the divorce? So I still believe the principle to be valid on the face of the texts--what God regulates he does not necessarily endorse. The specific cases cited are exceptions with regard to polygamy and divorce. But not all things that God regulates are within the boundaries of what he desires. (Of course, all things that come to pass are within the bounds of his decreed will. I am speaking of his "moral" or "desired" will.) Sometimes he regulates things simply to prevent total anarchy from taking over.

As both polygamy and divorce are disputed examples in this area, the reader asked if there are other examples. I could not think of any others besides the example of sin in general. God does not endorse sin of any type, but he does legislate punishments when it happens. In the OT, he regulated sacrifices that were to be made for particular sins and types of sins. He decreed for sin to occur, but clearly he is not the author of it, nor does he endorse it in some positive way. But he very definitely does regulate it. So, it is regulated but not endorsed.

Still this leaves me with an uneasy feeling regarding those exceptional cases with divorce and polygamy. Are those things that God "endorses" themselves sin? Would God command something to be done that is sin? Certainly we would agree that even if divorce were OK in some cases, it is definitely sin in others. When God commands it, we would not be correct to say that it is sin, for God cannot sin nor does he tempt any man to sin (James 1:13). It was somewhat of a help to me to think of the example of the killing of a person. If it is murder, then it is sin according to the 10 commandments. But God regulates this sin with another act that, on the surface, seems to be sin: namely, the killing of the murderer himself. This killing would seem to be sin, but as it is commanded by God, it is not sin. In fact, it is right and just as a punishment to extract a life for a life. God regulates murder with the death penalty but he is not thereby endorsing murder. It is only that without capital punishment, the end result would be more egregious than if capital punishment were not done, and the murderer was allowed to live. This would be a great miscarriage of divine justice, for the loss of life made in God’s image would not be recompensed with a punishment of commensurate weight.

So I'm still sticking to the notion that though polygamy and divorce did happen in the OT, we do not have to bow to the idea that they were or are institutions that must necessarily continue in the present age because they carry God's stamp of approval. They do not. Perhaps you have some more thoughts that will help me refine my thinking.

One of our families brought some relatives with them to church on the weekend of February 2-3. On the Saturday, they were planning to visit the Bible display at the University of Michigan called “The Evolution of the English Bible: From Papyri to KJV” and they brought with them their own replica edition of the 1611 KJV. The next day, they brought their Bible to Fellowship Bible. I got the above picture holding the Bible. It weighs 35 pounds and is a very nicely done replica.

I joked with everyone that I was going to switch to using this for my preaching Bible. The only problem was, the 1611 style of the text was a little hard to read, and the Bible left no room on the pulpit for my sermon notes! One other downside is that it contains the Apocryphal books.

Please do not worry--I am not going the KJV-only route!

I was in the parking lot of a store this afternoon and was approached by a young man who asked me if I would take some literature about God’s love and Jesus. I looked at it—a full color brochure of several pages—and asked him what it was about. He said he was a missionary from “The Family.” When I questioned him about his belief in Christ and salvation by faith alone, he seemed to say some true things. When said that I was a pastor and I indicated that I would look at their website and find out more information, he wanted me to give them a donation (even a small one, he said) to offset the cost of printing the brochure. I declined, and he wanted the brochure back, and instead gave me a little piece of paper with a message supposedly from God on it. The message emphasized God’s love but says nothing about sin or Jesus’ death or repentance. Jesus is simply the “key” to eternal life that one needs to receive to get in at the end of one’s road.

I looked them up on the Internet at www.thefamily.org. They are known officially as The Family International and call themselves a Fellowship of Independent Missionary Communities. Their doctrinal statement looks fairly evangelical upon a first glance. However, they have a number of peculiar beliefs which the reader can find here. The beliefs of note are:

One can see by perusing our website that we do not hold to these beliefs. We believe all true saints are indwelt and baptized by the Holy Spirit upon conversion; that revelatory and other miraculous spiritual gifts have ceased in this age; that physical healing is something we may request from God but cannot expect it simply on the basis of our faith nor on the basis of Jesus’ immutability and that he healed many in his earthly sojourn. We do not believe that departed spirits come back to bring us messages. Those cases in the Scripture where this occurred are extremely rare and out of the ordinary. We believe in water baptism for born-again believers; and in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.

A careful reader pointed out that the preterist view is not "one size fits all." There are "full" preterists and "partial" preterists. The latter are more common. The website http://www.therefinersfire.org/preterism.htm has a couple of helpful paragraphs on this.

So, in the previous entry on this topic, I started from the end of Revelation and began to work backward. We definitively showed that chapters 21 and 22 are yet future. This makes the full preterist view completely untenable. I had also continued working back to chapter 20 and showed that the imprisonment of Satan has not yet occurred. This alone would seem to negate the partial preterist view, if it takes Rev. 20 as already fulfilled or at least being fulfilled in the church age. But furthermore, the kingdom, of whatever length you take it to be, has not happened either. One might argue that Christ is reigning in his kingdom now, but it is hard to find resurrected saints reigning with Him anywhere. Finally, the Great White Throne judgment has not yet occurred.

We briefly stated last time also that Revelation 19 refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is manifestly Him who alone can be called "Faithful," "True," and "The Word of God." Orthodox believers confess that a fundamental of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ. Normal interpretation of the words of this passage show it refers to the second coming. It can be correlated with Matthew 24:29-31. It seems so obvious as to not need stating that Christ has not yet returned. I can only conclude that Rev. 19 refers to events yet future.

The preterist interpreter may quibble with some of these points, or may bring up others such as the marriage supper or other events that he thinks happened already. But so far, all the major events point to future fulfillment. It is safe to conclude that God is painting a picture through John of what He has decreed for the end of times.

Just thinking out loud here...I thought about entitling this entry "Enough Already Not Yet Enough" but I wondered if that would confuse the issue! I don't know about you, but the "Already/Not Yet" view of the fulfillment of prophecy has been grinding on my theological nerves for some time. Frankly, it seems to be theological double-talk. I cannot grasp something that is "already" true and "not yet" true at the same time and in the same sense. Is the kingdom of God already inaugurated, or is it not yet? Progressive dispensationalists will answer "yes," just like I answer "yes" to the question "Do you want pie or ice cream?" I want both pie and ice cream! Progressives want both "inaugurated" and "not" at the same time. Granted, the meaning of this phrase seems to be "already in the spiritual sense" and "not yet in the final sense" but the finer points don't always come across clearly.

Let me give an example. Sometimes folks say "we are already righteous but we are not yet righteous." This has the same already/not yet flavor to it. (The terminology has crept out of its original "prophetic" domain into other areas.) But if we specify our words more carefully, we note that believers already have been given a righteous standing before God, which is a positional righteousness. But believers have not yet been transformed to be fully without sin, which is a practicing righteousness. The two "legs" of the already/not yet statement are not the same type of legs. One is positional, and one is practical. The already/not yet statement becomes really no more than a play on words where one word is used in two senses. It seems that the already/not yet terminology embraces theological ambiguity. We ought to urgently dismiss such ambiguity as we press for more theological clarity, not relying on a word-play type of statement in our theological expression.

Thoughts?

The preterist view of Revelation basically teaches that most, if not all, of the book of Revelation was fulfilled in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. There are several sources that the reader may visit to become more familiar with this view:

There are a number of severe problems with this interpretation of Revelation. The first is that it depends on a very particular date of composition. If Revelation was composed by the apostle John after 70 A.D., as many conservative scholars understand, then the preterist view falls apart. A date of 68 A.D. or so must be assigned for the preterist view to be viable.

The second major problem is that there are parts of the book which are unequivocally predictive of future events--events which have not yet occurred as of the writing of this blog. Consider a couple of them in the following paragraphs. We will work backwards from the end of the book.

Chapters 21 and 22 are unquestionably future predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. The new heaven and new earth have not yet made an appearance. The New Jerusalem has also not been seen as of yet. The elimination of death, sorrow, crying, and pain in 21:4 has obviously not yet occurred. We have not yet been spared from everything that defiles or causes a lie or has to do with unbelievers (21:27). No church on earth has those qualities, much less the world at large. Chapter 22 follows chronologically after chapter 21 and explains the presence of the tree of life, another thing which has not yet come to pass.

Moving backward from chapter 21, we see also many features of chapter 20 that prohibit it from being interpreted as a record of now-past events. Satan does not seem to be bound in any way during the present age. However the 1000 years are understood, either literally or as a very long time, it is apparent that Satan has not been on any kind of severe restriction for that length of time. There is a first and second resurrection (the first is mentioned in 20:5b-6, the second in 20:5a and 20:12), yet there have been no mass resurrections of dead people in history up to this point. The Great White Throne judgment has not happened. When it does, something very serious will happen to the old heaven and earth (20:11). Also, many dead will stand before God and be judged. The unbelieving among them (it turns out that all who appear there will be unbelievers, but let us not get hung up on that point) will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (20:15). None of this has yet happened.

It should hopefully be fairly obvious that at least the last three chapters of Revelation cannot be correctly interpreted as having happened in the past. We will have to consider the other chapters of Revelation in another blog entry. But the reader might in the meantime consider that in chapter 19 Christ returns so that he can be present to reign in his kingdom in 20:4. The second coming of Christ has also not yet occurred, except in those systems of interpretation that suggest a secret coming at some past date. Such interpretations ring hollow when compared with the Revelation.

There is a proposed hermeneutical principle in the study of the Bible which its proponents call the principle of first reference. When a word or concept is encountered, the first reference in the Bible to that word or concept is consulted as the most significant defining or foundational passage. (If anyone reading can supply a better definition, please send it to me.)

Even though I had studied quite a bit of theology, the first time I remember running into this concept was a couple years ago in the book Velvet Elvis by post-modern/emerging church guru Rob Bell. I then ran into it in a Days of Praise devotional last week (November 24 - Magnified Mercy).

It strikes me as a very unreliable and unbiblical principle--I considered it nonsense from the first time I heard it. For one thing, "first" reference has to be defined--is it first in chronological composition of the Bible? Or first in "Bible order" in the 66-book English Bible? Or is the order of books as it is found in the Hebrew Bible (which is different)? Second, there is no mention of such a principle in the Bible. Third, we do not apply this principle to any other book. Finally, there is no inherent reason that just because a word is used for the first time that this use defines its characteristics. That use could be the odd use, the opposite of normal, or a bad example of the practice of that word or concept.

Wednesday evening we had a combined meeting at Faithway Baptist Church in Ypsilanti. We sang some hymns, listened to a men's trio and ladies quartet sing, shared testimonies of salvation and of God's goodness in many other ways, and heard preaching from Ephesians 5:20 on "An Exhortation to Thanksgiving." The service concluded with the baptism of two young people who gave testimonies and shared a verse regarding their salvation. It was the first time that I remember when our two churches got together for a meeting. It was great to meet the folks of Faithway Baptist and to let them know personally that we are praying for their ministry. Thank God for others of like faith and practice.

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned the issue of the cross as a decoration in our church. We do not have a cross upon the front wall or on the outside of the building. There are some historical reasons why this was the case up to the time I started the pastorate at Fellowship Bible. So what is wrong with putting a cross up in the front now?

The way some folks have talked, they might be surprised to hear my answer. NOTHING!

There have been some pragmatic concerns that have led me to ignore putting up a cross. Some of them include preparation for preaching, counseling, teaching, transitional work from the previous pastor, managing all the infrastructure projects around the church, spending large amounts of money to install major new HVAC systems in our building, and many other small details. In short, there have been many more important issues with which to concern myself. Further, those folks to whom the task could be delegated are also busy with other things around the church or just don't have time for other reasons. But at this point there is a far more important reason that the cross-decoration is not high on my priority list.

And that reason is that we have a great "teachable moment" going on here. What might also be surprising is that the push for a cross tells me more about the theology and heart desires of the folks doing the pushing than they might at first realize. It demonstrates a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Ecclesiology, the Church. It also demonstrates a focus on the external, the visible, the unimportant. Some have said that people don't come to our church because it doesn't "look like" a church. To which I respond, "What is a church, anyway? And what does a church look like? Did they have crosses in the churches in the first century? Did they even have church buildings?" I have tried to remind folks that the church is not the building, it is the believers. Further, it is there, among the believers, where the Bible is preached. People still come to our church, not because we have a cross as decoration, but because we preach the cross as the way of salvation. Unfortunately, there are many well-decorated churches that are not well in their doctrine. And as far as decoration goes, I'm far more concerned that our lives make the gospel attractive (Titus 2:10), not that we first make the church attractive!

So, maybe I should modify my answer to the question, "What is wrong with putting up a cross?" The answer is "NOTHING--as long as we understand decoration does not make a church, and decoration is not important when set over against how we decorate our lives with the practice of the gospel."

Lately I was reminded that some folks that have left Fellowship Bible Church have spread the word that we are a "cult." I wondered what that meant. When I inquired of the best source I could find for information on what these folks are saying, I found that the we are a cult because:

I would hope it is obvious that among any community of believers, including ours, there is not complete agreement on all details of theology. For instance, my position on divorce is "No divorce, but if there is divorce, no remarriage (Mark 10:1-12, 1 Cor. 7:10-11)." But there are divorced folks in our church; there are divorced-and-remarried people in our church; there are folks who disagree with me who have stated their disagreement; and there are probably folks who disagree who have remained silent. And I'm glad they are in our church. But everyone in the church knows that I am going to do the best job I can to show them from the Scriptures why they should not be divorced, and not get themselves into a situation where it becomes an issue. Same goes for the issue of women preachers. I believe 1 Tim. 2:12 is unequivocal on this issue. Others may disagree, but they know I'm not going to invite a woman to preach! I'll leave the issue of the cross decoration for another blog entry, since I don't have any Bible verses to appeal to on that one.

Well, that list still did not satisfy me that I understood why we are a cult. So, I looked up a definition of the term "cult" that is consistent with our fundamental Christian position. From the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, I found this helpful definition:

"A religious group that follows a particular theological system. In the context of Christianity...it is a group that uses the Bible but distorts the doctrines that affect salvation sufficiently to cause salvation to be unattainable. A few examples of cults are Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Christadelphians, Unity, Religious Science, The Way International, and the Moonies."

That did not help me either, because we are very plainly teaching the gospel of God's grace alone, through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, received by faith alone--the Biblical way of salvation and the only way that it can be attained. I suspect the term "legalism" may have some bearing on the issue (i.e. we are a cult because we are legalistic, that is, hold to some standards of Christian behavior), but I'm not sure. Maybe those folks who are spreading the word that we are a cult could communicate with me directly () and share some more reasons why they think we are a cult. I will report in this venue if I learn anything more.

I decided I should read Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation to learn about the current state of the atheist community. One thing I learned by reading his initial "Note to the Reader" is that he believes we are in a moral and intellectual emergency because of the supposed Christian beliefs of the population of the United States.

His starting point for drawing this conclusion comes from polling data regarding American religious beliefs--such beliefs as a young earth, God's hand in creation, the inspiration of the Bible, the requirement of believing in Jesus Christ for salvation, and the imminent return of Christ. Although it seems far-fetched to me that such beliefs are really so pervasive, let us accept Harris' undocumented data for now, and his first conclusion that the United States really is an odd country in the world because of these convictions.

Harris proceeds to say, "many of us [speaking of Christians] may not care about the fate of civilization." His conclusion is based on another polling datum, namely that 44% of Americans believe Christ will return soon, and only after devastation on the earth. "It is...not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud..."

So goes Harris' argument for the moral and intellectual emergency. But is it a convincing argument? Look back a mere five years before the writing of Harris' book to September 11, 2001. A great disaster did occur in the city of New York. Did a significant portion of the population get some sick glee out of the deaths of thousands of Americans? Did Christ return? Did many people really think great and glorious things were about to happen? Much to the contrary, while a few Christians might have thought they could with certainty ascribe those events to God's direct judgment and a sign of Christ's soon coming, the "significant percentage" recognized the evil for what it was, and prayed for justice and protection.

In short, Harris' conclusion does not follow logically from his argument. Christians are never really glad for evil that is done, even if such evil does indicate that prophesied events are still on the way to fulfillment. His moral and intellectual emergency is fabricated, based as it is on an exaggerated hypothetical situation weakly coupled with some polling data. Harris goes on to respond to this so-called emergency in the remainder of his book. Lord willing, we will look at some more of his arguments in future entries, even if we have to suspend disbelief about his major premise.

Atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote in a 1989 New York Times book review, "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." He later added a fifth possibility, that such a person is a victim who has either been tormented, bullied, or brainwashed (see his essay Ignorance is No Crime).

If Dawkins would subject his own statement to careful scrutiny and objective measures, he would see that it does not hold up to scientific standards.

Consider the number of scientists who hold doctoral level degrees from secular universities, and are at the same time Christians. I personally know several, and know of many others. Because they have been granted doctoral level degrees, they can hardly be called stupid or ignorant. Their intelligence and knowledge has been objectively validated by the secular establishment. Dawkins might argue that they are stupid or ignorant in the areas of physics, astronomy, geology, paleontology, and other such specialties. The trouble with such an argument is that there are many Ph.D.s in those very fields that do not accept the evolutionary worldview. And many Ph.D.s whose specialties are in other fields are still well-read and intelligent thinkers.

These well-educated, Christian scientists are also not considered insane by any objective measure, even by secular psychiatrists and psychologists. They behave normally, hold jobs, have good interpersonal skills, are well-balanced, and so on.

In addition, these Christian "non-conformist" scientists behave very well and do not have any hidden agenda to promote their views of God and creation. They are not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, they are of good character, and are quite clearly not "wicked."

Furthermore, Dawkins' statement was overly general. Almost everyone believes in "evolution" in one way or another. Basically everyone understands evolution of technology, or micro-evolution of germs. What creationists object to is the "macro-evolutionary" theory of one species changing into another species.

Finally, I'll give a little personal testimony. I don't feel like I'm a victim of others trying to keep me in the dark on the issues of creation. I've made a careful decision for young-earth creationism. If I am tormented or bullied , it is by scientists like Dawkins who keep calling me names. If I am brainwashed, it is by educators like Dawkins who try to keep views such as ID or creationism out of the public square. Too bad Dawkins does not use the scientific method he embraces to measure his own statements. If he did, he would find them wanting.

When I taught elementary Hebrew at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary during the 2006-2007 school year, I recorded some helps for the students regarding the vowel points. My Hebrew teacher, Dr. Robert McCabe, passed on the audio of a native Jewish man saying the alphabet. Please click the following links to download the mp3 audio.

I also recorded Allen Ross's vocabulary from the first 40 chapters of his Introducing Biblical Hebrew. These files can be accessed below:

There is also a complete collection of the Hebrew Bible on mp3. It is available to stream through the Audio Scriptures project. The actual site to visit is talkingbibles.com. Earlier, I was able to download any of the mp3 files directly. This site apparently does not do that now, but requires you to buy a CD. However, the same audio files are available elsewhere. You can search google for them. One nice site is at the University of Washington. Good places to start listening to the Hebrew Bible include Genesis 1, Genesis 12, and Psalm 1.

One of the tensions with my "no polygamy" stance is how to understand the Old Testament, where polygamy abounded. It is first mentioned in Gen. 4:19 where Lamech took for himself two wives. We see many men, including Abraham and Jacob, with multiple wives. Kings David and Solomon had a huge number of wives.

It should be noted first that God never specifically commands men to take multiple wives; rather, the teaching from the time of Adam is one man, one woman, and one flesh (Gen. 2:23-24). Second, it is obvious that God allowed polygamy, and that, good or bad, it accomplished certain things like allowing prominent men to have many children more quickly than they would have been able to have with one wife. It also resulted in intra-family rivalries (e.g. 1 Sam. 1:6). Third, though Exodus 21:7-11 regulates polygamy, this does not necessarily endorse it. Similar regulations were given to regulate or curb the sin of divorce (Deut. 24:1-4) but this did not change God's desire for marriage (Matt. 19:6). Fourth, God's allowance of David to have Saul's wives is simply that--an allowance which indicated a complete transfer of the kingdom rule to David (2 Sam. 12:8). In the midst of the rebuke given by God through Nathan, God is saying that He gave David everything he could ask for and then some, and then David was still not satisfied and wanted yet another wife from a man who only had one! Here is a clear-cut case when taking another wife was done so in adultery.

There is another problem with respect to the Levirate marriage institution which was used for the propagation of the family name and inheritance rights (Deut 25:5-10). The brother of the deceased could do the levirate marriage or not. Presumably if he were already married, then he would have two wives after taking his deceased brother's widow as his own. Fortunately for my position, we are not under the Mosaic Law today so I don't have to worry about this case in the present day as if it were legally sanctioned by God. But it is a legitimate tension in that God gave this as part of the Law and so in some sense endorsed it. I'm willing to live with that tension for now until I have time to think it through more fully. In western cultures, this is not a problem because polygamy is outlawed anyway. In other cultures where polygamy is legal, we should explore why is it used. Is it done for religious or pragmatic reasons? Is it tied to certain religious beliefs, as in Islam? Or is it related to the culture's view of inheritance, property transfer, and sustaining the family name? Or is it simply a way for men to indulge their sinful desires?

All of that may be somewhat less than perfectly satisfying, but I am trying to deal honestly with the Biblical text. What we can say without any doubt, gentlemen, is that God wants you to love your wife as yourself and enjoy her as the gift from God that she is. Solomon might say, "My son, keep my words. Don't look elsewhere to satisfy your desire for love."

I wanted to add some more "interview questions" to my earlier entry on finding a pastor. Some of these should be asked before the candidate ever comes for preaching, particularly the first three questions below:

Be sure to explore these areas deeply so you know what the candidate means by what the says.

An alert reader of this page pointed out that my previous wording (now fixed) regarding the "baby brigade" picture below might mislead some folks to think that we had new babies added to the membership of the church, or that we had four new babies "saved" because of infant baptism or because they were born into Christian families. Far from it, of course! They were gifted by God to four of our church's families, but not until each one makes an individual, conscious decision to follow Jesus Christ are they converted. After that point, they may decide to join the membership of our particular local church, having already become "members" of the church of the truly redeemed at the time of their conversion. No baptism or any other ritual can wash away original sin or bring a baby into salvation. Only Jesus Christ's work on the cross can do that.

A church I know is searching for a new pastor after their former pastor was called to another ministry. I was considering what advice I might give to them. My first counsel is to "stick to your guns and get clear answers from the candidate." When I say "stick to your guns" I mean that the church should not compromise its beliefs to find a pastor. I will use the example of young-earth, 6-day creationism. If you believe in that doctrine, then do not offer the pastorate to a man who does not believe that.

Related to that is the "get clear answers from the candidate" advice. Theoretically, if you ask the candidate if they believe and teach 6-day creationism from a young-earth perspective, then there are several possible answers: No, Yes, or something more vague like "I don't make an issue of that" or "I don't know." Stick to your guns and do not call a man who says anything other than "Yes." If he says "No," you don't want him because he will change the church or make life very difficult at some point down the road. If he says "I don't know," you don't want him because he has not thought through some issues. We are not talking about some esoteric theological point here. This is basic doctrine. And if he says "I don't make an issue of that," he has not answered your question! This is perhaps the worst of all, because he probably does not believe what you are hoping, and he is being equivocal. Maybe he is doing so to appear to be reasonable or just to get the job. It will happen again in the future! The end result will be little different than if he just says "No."

Now the question probably arises in your mind, what issues should we treat this way? Here are some, in no particular order, with my answers in parentheses:

Of course, you should explore the candidate's views more deeply than this--what are the fundamentals and what do you believe about them? What does it mean to be Baptist? And so forth.

I did get some feedback on the Polygamy entry from August 16. One query had to do with whether my use of Romans 7:1-3 is valid at all. That is, does Romans 7:1-3 really have any bearing on the issue of polygamy, since that is not at all what Paul is teaching about? Good question--since I am committed to the belief that we must teach the Bible in context and not lift passages out of context to make a point we desire to make.

The answer to this is basically that there is an implication in what Paul is teaching that does have to do with polygamy. It seems quite clear from the passage that polyandry is adultery. "Polygamy=adultery" seems to be a straightforward extension to this. Certainly Paul's point is not to teach about polygamy or polyandry. But based on this implication, a man who runs off with another woman and commits adultery with her, but remains married to his original spouse all the while, is in egregious sin. I don't see anything "sanctifying" about parading that adulterous relationship up to a civil magistrate, having him declare it a "marriage," and then pretending it is better than if you didn't have it legally declared a marriage. Just saying it is right doesn't make it right. Dressing up adultery with marriage vows and a marriage license does not make it any more righteous.

Today in the mail, I received a glossy trifold in the mail from the Christadelphians. I had to review what these folks believe (too many cults out there to keep track of.) But these folks are definitely a cult. Like the Jehovah's Witnesses, they do not believe God exists in three persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are strictly monotheists who believe that Christ is a man, and that the Holy Spirit is the emanation of God's power. They also believe baptism is necessary in order to be saved, that souls sleep at death until (some) are resurrected, and that there is no real Hell. Clearly, these people are opposed to many of the fundamentals of the true Christian faith.

Don't be tricked by them. They claim that they can help you read the Bible more effectively. They cannot.

In July four new babies were born to families in our church. The baby brigade, with proud parents, is shown below. "Goliath" on the left was born at the end of March; the rest were born in July. We rejoice that God has gifted these little lives into their families and into our care as a local church.

For the inaugural entry in my blog, I thought what better than to tackle a tough theological issue like polygamy? There are many "sub issues" to this one, such as whether men with multiples wives can be members of a local church (say, in Africa), whether they can take communion or be in leadership roles, how they should handle their wives after becoming saved, whether they should divorce all but one (and which one?) or support them without having relations, and whether the law of their home country has any bearing on the question at all.

Before we can get to those questions (perhaps in future blog entries), it is important to note that Romans 7:1-3 has some bearing on this issue. It speaks of a wife becoming an adulteress if she marries another man while her first husband is still alive. By implication, a man who marries another woman while his first wife is alive also becomes an adulterer. This seems quite obvious to most Christians. The application to the case of polygamy is just that the man who marries a second wife is an adulterer with respect to his first wife. It does not seem to make a difference to me if you call it a marriage or not, as it is no different than if the man has an ongoing affair with another woman. This comes to bear on the question of whether the second marriage is valid, and would have significant impact on the answers to the questions posed in the previous paragraph.