Are learning the Biblical languages important?

Westminster Seminary professor Elizabeth Groves on why learning the biblical languages is so important:

What would you change?

A friend of mine sent me an email a few days ago that really got me thinking.

None of us who attend a church would claim to have found the perfect denomination (or non-denomination) right? I mean, as long as it's made up of the people it's going to have room for growth. So that's where the question starts. Here's what I was asked:What do you believe are the key areas of [your church's] doctrine or culture which need the most biblical clarification among the general membership? In your opinion, what doctrines or practices seem to be most widely misunderstood (from a biblical standpoint), and yet strongly held?

In other words, if you could hand a typical member a one-page tract that would gently challenge their thinking from the Scriptures in a few key areas, what would you hope to see addressed in the tract?So, let me pose that question to you, my reader. Is there any thing you would address?

Or maybe you've found the perfect church.

I'd love to get lots of feedback in the comments, but most of all I want to challenge you to think positively critical. I want to challenge our sense of complacency in church attendance. Think about how you could make your church better. Because that's where it starts.

Or maybe you think we shouldn't ask these kinds of questions. I'd love to hear from you guys too. Let me know why you think what you think.

Peace

Does believing in Sovereignty really matter?

I found comfort in this article this morning. Hopefully you will also. Remember, if you're reading this in facebook, the HTML formatting doesn't import well, so it may be easier to read here: http://lrknapp99.blogspot.com/2009/09/does-believing-in-sovereignty-really.html

10 Reasons Why Believing in the Sovereignty of God Matters

September 16, 2009
By John Piper

Read this article on our website.

What we mean by the sovereignty of God is captured in paragraph 3.2 of The Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith. The dozens of biblical passages used to support this paragraph are found in the online version.

3.2 We believe that God upholds and governs all things—from galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary persons—all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself, yet in such a way that He never sins, nor ever condemns a person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image.

Why does it matter whether we believe this? Ten reasons.

1. The good news of God’s substituting his Son for us on the cross depends on it.

“Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (Acts 4:27­–28)

2. The perseverance of the saints in the fear of God depends on it.

“I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” (Jeremiah 32:40)

3. Progress in holiness now, and the final perfecting of the saints in the end, depends on it.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13)

“But you have come to Mount Zion . . . and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” (Hebrews 12:22–23)

4. The assurance of God’s final triumph over all natural and supernatural evil depends on it.

“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” (Isaiah 46:9­–10)

5. The comfort that there is a wise and loving purpose in all our calamities and loses, and that God will work all things together for our good, depends on it.

“Though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. . . . Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” (Lamentations 3:32–38)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

6. The hope that God will give life to the spiritually dead depends on it.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4–5)

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

7. Well-grounded expectation of answered prayer depends on it.

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” (Romans 10:1)

“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. . . . For the promise is for . . . everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38–39)

8. Boldness in the face of seeming hopeless defeat depends on it.

“Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.” (2 Samuel 10:12)

“Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there are more with us than with him.” (2 Chronicles 32:7)

9. Seeing and savoring the revelation of the fullness of God’s glory depends on it.

“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ . . . What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power . . . [acted] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy?” (Romans 9:20–23)

10. Praise that matches the fullness of God’s power, wisdom, and grace depends on it.

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. . . . We will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 115:3, 18)

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.” (Psalm 96:4)

The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is an anchor for the troubled soul, a hope for the praying heart, a stability for fragile faith, a confidence in pursuing the lost, a guarantee of Christ’s atonement, a high mystery to keep us humble, and a solid ground for all praise. And oh so much more. O Lord, turn this truth for the triumph of your saving and sanctifying grace.

Confident and comforted with you,

Pastor John

Responsibility, Inability, and Grace

If you're reading this in facebook and the chart doesn't make sense, read it on my blog here: http://lrknapp99.blogspot.com/2009/09/responsibility-inability-and-grace.html

Responsibility, Inability and Grace

"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me..." - John 6:37

John Hendryx

The truth of God's word is honored not in holding exclusively to one truth to the exclusion of another truth, but in believing the whole counsel of God. The Bible plainly teaches that man is responsible to repent and believe the gospel just as it plainly teaches that he is morally unwilling and unable to do so. These two seemingly contradictory assertions can be reconciled when we understand that even the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Christ who justifies sinners, belongs to us, not by nature but by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness. The Apostle Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8).

Furthermore some teach that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his regenerative grace, we believe, will and desire, but do not confess that it is by the work and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we even have the faith, the will, or the desire to do all these things; If we make the assistance of grace depend on our humility or obedience but don't agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, we then contradict the Scripture which says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).

The following chart shows that the Bible clearly teaches both man's responsibility to believe the gospel and his inability to do so. The third column helps us to understand how those whom God has set his affection on infallibly come to faith, in spite of this inability and, most of all, how this gives all glory to God in the work of salvation: Augustine once said, "God bids us do what we cannot, that we may know what we ought to seek from him."

(This chart is loosely based on a chart by Lamar McKinney)

The Responsibility of Man	The Inability of Man	Monergistic Grace of God
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt. 11:28	No man can come to me, . . . John 6:44a	. . . except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:44b
...whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16	...men loved the darkness rather than the Light...and will not come into the light... John 3:20, 21	.."But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." John 3:21 Note: there are, indeed, those who come to the light -- namely those whose deeds are the work of God. "Wrought in God" means worked by God. Apart from this gracious work of God all men hate the light of God and will not come to him lest their evil be exposed.
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Isa 55:6	There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Rom 3:11	. . . I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. Rom 10:20b
This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ... 1 John 3:23	"...the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Romans 8:7 you do not hear, because you are not of God. John 8:47	"...and these whom He called, He also justified; Rom 8:30 ...and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48
God...commandeth all men every where to repent. Acts 17:30	...the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him John 14:7	"...if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth." 2 Tim 2:25
. . . whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Rev 22:17b	So then it is not of him that willeth, . . . Rom 9:16a	Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power,. . . Ps 110:3a
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Isa 45:22	. . . Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3a	. . . The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest . . . see that Just One, . . .. Acts 22:14
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: John 1:12	But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor 2:14	But as many as received him, . . . were born, not of . . the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13
. . . if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, . . . ROM 10:9	. . . no man can say that Jesus is Lord . . . 1 Cor 12:3b	. . . but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor 12:3b
. . . make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, . . ? Ezek 18:31	The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: . . . Jer 17:9	A new heart also will I give you, . . . and I will take away the stony heart . . . Ezek 36:26
"If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Matt 19:21	"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Matt 19:23	"Then who can be saved?" And looking at them Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matt 25b-26

"God knoweth we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requireth no more than he giveth, and giveth what he requireth, and accepteth what he giveth." - Richard Sibbes

The Altar Call

An excellent brief video outlining the concept of the altar call, the decisions for Christ, and the historical church. It's a relatively new concept and a damaging one. However, it's so embedded in evangelical Christianity that many of you are questioning if you should even watch this video based on what I just wrote.

If you're reading this on facebook, it doesn't import video's from my blog, so here's the link:
http://lrknapp99.blogspot.com/2009/09/altar-call.html

Healthcare Truths

If you're reading this on facebook please go here: http://lrknapp99.blogspot.com/2009/08/if-youre-reading-this-on-facebook.html to read it on my blog so all the links are available. Thanks!

August 26, 2009

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Make no mistake: there's a strong, unrelenting push to destroy what remains of private health care in this country.

And now congressional leaders are attempting to overcome their scheme's plunging approval numbers by manipulating Ted Kennedy's death to create support for a “legacy” health care bill.

Our representatives and senators are eager to get back to Washington and away from the tremendous grassroots opposition to health control.

Which means it's time for us to turn up the heat.

Click here to get contact information to write, call, and fax Congress to express your outrage at their plans to finish taking over what remains of private health care. And be sure to sign our "Stop the Government Health Care Scheme" petition.

Health control propagandists claim that we are defending the status quo of a "failed" private sector by opposing their latest scheme.

However, their bill cements the status quo in health care: continuing (and expanding) government intrusion.

Protectionist regulations have decimated competition in health insurance at the local level, and the vast, complex tax code has subsidized employer-provided high cost health care. The FDA, in the name of consumer protection, has restricted the supply of drugs from home and abroad. And individuals are barred from shopping across state lines for health insurance.

Watch this YouTube video to see a ER physician describe how the government obstructs the supply of health services.

Does any of that really sound like the free market at work to you?

Government-manipulated health care is bankrupting this country. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are drowning in tens of trillions of dollars worth of unfunded liabilities and red ink, yet the response from Congress is to propose more 1,000+ page bills that will move our health care system perilously close to other nations' statist care.

You know as well as I that this unfair plan is doomed to be a fiscal nightmare comparable to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that Congress-created HMOs are notorious for denying care to control spiraling costs.

Our nation has seen enough big government schemes, especially in medicine. President Obama is right about one thing: it's time to take action.

It's time to let the free market work.

Click here for contact information for the House and Senate in order to demand real reform. In addition to contacting your representative and senators, be sure to campaign hard for health freedom at your local townhall meeting.

Urge your representative to fight to allow individuals to shop across state lines for insurance, curb the authority of the FDA to prevent Americans from going outside the country for cheaper medications, and enable individuals to purchase their own health insurance without being taxed for doing so.

Tell Congress to give Americans control over their health care by giving them control over their health care dollar via tax credits and deductions similar to those outlined in Congressman Ron Paul's Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act (HR 1495).

Ask your congressman to protect privacy rights by allowing patients and physicians to opt-out of any government-mandated or funded system of electronic health care records, and to repeal the federal law creating an "unique patient identifier" by adopting the policies contained in Congressman Ron Paul's Protect Patients and Physicians Privacy Act (HR 2630).

In the meantime, we can push for reform of our respective state's competition-destroying mandates on private insurers. These simple, common-sense reforms would immediately alleviate the costs of health care without adding to the exploding national debt.

And if you are able, please donate to Campaign for Liberty today so that we can educate Americans on a true free market health care system and defeat this latest health control scheme.

Don't let the proponents of Obamacare sell you on the notion that we need the government to save us from the mess that government made. Click here to demand that Congress support legitimate health care reform!

In Liberty,

John Tate

President

P.S. Campaign for Liberty is committed to fighting this health control scheme and Congress' other attempts to further shred our Constitution, but we can't do it without your continued support. Please contribute to Campaign for Liberty today to ensure we can not only defeat big government's plans for our lives, but also champion the principles of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Jesus is All the World To Me.

Is he? Is he really? I was reading the "Kaeb Family" blog this morning and she had posted this story. It really touched my heart. What a great challenge as we start this week!


“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.

“On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.

“As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.

“I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’

“I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’

“That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.

Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.

“It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. . . .

“During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’

“And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’

“I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote . . .:

I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied. . . . Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.

And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad He makes me glad.
He’s my friend.

This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it? “The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.

Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer. Imagine being in her condition and saying, “I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.” This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Audit the Federal Reserve

Please take a few minutes to look through the following website. It lays out the case for giving the Congress the authority to audit the Federal Reserve. Right now, there are trillions of dollars of our tax-payer money that we don't know where it went or how it was spent because the Fed is an independent entity from our elected government. That independence is, in some respects, a good thing. It keeps monetary policy from being controlled by politics (somewhat). However, when the Fed refuses to give a full account of what they're doing and how they're distributing our money, it's time to look a little deeper. Not mention I think their monetary policy has been disastrously horrible the last several decades.

http://www.auditthefed.com/