Tried With Fire

There is an utterly false idea that God does not want us to use our minds in loving and worshipping Him (anti-intellectualism), as well as the idea that "theology is for cold, unfeeling people. We want a living faith." This last reason is the most irrational because a living faith is one that is focused upon the truths of God's revelation. The deepest feelings and emotions invoked by the Spirit of God are not directed toward unclear, nebulous, fuzzy concepts, but toward the clear revealed truths of God concerning His love, the work of Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit... The idea that there is some kind of contradiction between the in-depth study of God's Word, so as to know what God has revealed about himself, and a living, vital faith is inherently self-contradictory. The Forgotten Trinity , James R. White, Bethany House, 1998, pg. 16.

“In whom do you trust?” “I trust,” says the Christian, “a triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I trust the Father, believing that He has chosen me from before the foundations of the world; I trust Him as my Father to care for me, to provide for me in providence, to teach me, to guide me, to feed me, to correct me if need be, and to bring me home to His own house where the many mansions are." "I trust the Son. Very God of very God is He—the Man Christ Jesus. I trust in Him to take away all my sins, for He suffered their penalty upon the cross; I trust Him to put all those sins away forever by His own Sacrifice; I trust Him to wrap me about with His perfect righteousness, and to adorn me with all His excellences. I know Him to be my intercessor—as often as I pray to present my prayers and desires before His Father’s throne, I believe Him to be my resurrection and my life, that, though I die, yet I may live again! I expect Him to be my advocate at the last great judgm...

I had an encounter with a Jehovah's Witness this morning. I had seen them in the neighborhood earlier, so I knew it was a matter of time before the doorbell rang. I even had a tract ready to give them in exchange for their Watchtower Magazine. I was up front about what I believed, especially the trinity. The gentleman honestly admitted they do not believe in the trinity and became a tad more insistent once he knew where I stood. He also put his magazine away, figuring I wouldn't be swayed, and refused to take the tract. After a few minutes, neither of us were getting anywhere. I ended the conversation by politely telling him he wouldn't be able to convince me otherwise. We'll see if our address gets taken off their list in the future. Either way, I need to do some homework and be better prepared the next time.

Religious tinkering: "the joining together of seemingly inconsistent, disparate components.... What first seems like straightforwardly orthodox belief, such as the view that the Bible is inerrant, turns out to be a jumble of orthodoxy and more relativistic assumptions about truth, salvation, and civility." While God cares about our daily concerns, God's action in our lives is not as a butler or a problem solver.  It is much more expansive than that.  Indeed, at times we are called to activities that seem useless to us yet enter into the larger work of God's kingdom.  Ironically, while many Christian leaders helps to cultivate the culture of religious tinkering because it seems relevant and applicable, it is also a significant cause of nominal Christianity.  Self-centered faith quickly becomes small and dull, easy to jettison when another device for problem solving comes along.   If we want to expand the context of our Christian life beyond a narrow preoccupation...

I have been thinking about the role of the Trinity in the atonement. Part of it is from listening to Mission Accomplished and High Priest by Shai Linne. Part of it is reading Leviticus and Hebrews with the parallel of the high priest and Jesus, our Great High Priest. Part of it is the whole Shack craze which appears to be muddying the doctrine of the Trinity, promoting Patripassianism, and denying substitutionary atonement. Interestingly, Patripassianism and Sabellianism/Modalism were brought up in a recent Sunday school class on early heresies in church history. So nothing is really new under the sun. I was always taught the Trinity but I feel very ignorant about the implications of the doctrine to the rest of Christianity. For example, if you believe that the Father suffered on the cross, than who was atonement being made to? This confuses what the atonement really is. So having an accurate Biblical view of the Trinity can be a safeguard against other errors. A mental picture I ha...