Monthly Archives: May 2012

God’s Providence

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by James Montgomery Boice

There is probably no point at which the Christian doctrine of God comes more into conflict with contemporary worldviews than in the matter of God’s providence. Providence means that God has not abandoned the world that he created, V, i). By contrast, the world at large, even if it will on occasion acknowledge God to have been the world’s Creator, is at least certain that he does not now intervene in human affairs. Many think that miracles do not happen, that prayer isn’t answered and that most things “fall out” according to the functioning of impersonal and unchangeable laws.

The world argues that evil abounds. How can evil be compatible with the concept of a good God who is actively ruling this world? There are natural disasters: fires, earthquakes, and floods. In the past, these have been called “acts of God.” Should we blame God for them? Isn’t it better to imagine that he simply has left the world to pursue its own course?

Such speculation can be answered on two levels. First, even from the secular perspective, such thinking is not as obvious as it seems. Second, it is not the teaching of the Bible.

A Universe on Its Own?

The idea of an absentee God is certainly not obvious in reference to nature, the first of the three major areas of God’s creation discussed earlier. The great question about nature, raised by even the earliest Greek philosophers as well as by contemporary scientists, is why there is a pattern to nature’s operations even though nature is constantly changing. Nothing is ever the same. Rivers flow, mountains rise and fall, flowers grow and die, the sea is in constant motion. Yet, in a sense everything remains the same. The experience of one generation with nature is akin to the experience of generations that have gone before.
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The Strategy of the Cults

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Deceived people, or people you know and love. Every Jehovah’s Witness receives training for multiple hours each week on how to convert professing Christians into their fold.

Phil Johnson at the pyromaniac blog writes: Here’s a set of talking points the Jehovah’s Witnesses hand to their door-to-door teams to instruct them on how to foment doubt about the deity of Christ. Some lazy JW saw an article I wrote on the deity of Christ and as a kind of shorthand reply, he e-mailed me a copy of the handout he was given by his church.

I wonder how many evangelicals would be prepared to give an answer.

*The misspellings and typos in the document are all exactly as they appear in the original.

Good Points For Field Service

IF JESUS IS GOD

1. Why is he called the “firstborn” of all creation? Col. 1:15, Rev.3:14
2. Why did he say that he did not come of his “own initiative” but was sent? John 8:42, 1 John 4:9
3. Why did Jesus not know the “day and the hour” of the Great Tribulation but God did? Matt. 24:36
4. Who did Jesus speak to in prayer?
5. How did he “appear before the person of God for us”? Heb. 9.24
6. Why did Jesus say “the Father is greater than I am”? John 14:28, Php. 2:5, 6
7. Who spoke to Jesus at the time of his baptism saying “this is my son”? Matt. 3:17
8. How could he be exalted to a superior position? Php. 2:9, 10
9. How can he be the “mediator between God and man”? 1Tim. 2:5
10. Why did Paul say the “the head of Christ is God”? lCor. 11:30
11. Why did Jesus “hand over the Kingdom to his God” and “subject himself to God”? 1 Cor. 15:24, 28
12. Who does he refer to as “my God and your God”? John 20:17
13. How does he sit at God’s right hand? Ps. 110:1, Heb. 10:12, 13
14. Why does John say “no man has seen God at any time”? John 1:18
15. Why did not people die when they saw Jesus? Ex. 30:20
16. How was Jesus dead and God alive at the same time? Acts 2:24
17. Why did he need someone to save him? Heb. 5:7
18. Who is reffered to prophetically at Prov. 8:22-31?
19. Why did Jesus say “that all authority has been GIVEN to me in heaven and on earth”? Matt. 28.18, Dan. 7:13, 14 (similar)
20. Why did he have godly fear? Heb. 5:7
21. How could he learn obedience and be made perfect? Heb. 5:8-9
22. Why would an angel be able to strengthen him or angels minister to him? Luke 22:43, Matt. 4:11
23. Why would Satan try to tempt him if he KNEW that he was GOD? Matt. 4:1-11
24. Jesus when sent to the earth was made to “be Lower” than the angels. Heb. 2:7. How could any part of a God Head EVER be lower than the angels?
25. Then if Jesus was the sameas God, who was he being tempted to rebel against? could God be tempted to rebel against himself? Matt. 4:1
26. Near the end of his earthly life, Jesus cried out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Matt. 27:46 Can God desert or forsake himself?
27. Heb. 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience! To whom would he obey if he was GOD? And Does God need to LEARN anything?
28. God’s justice is strickly perfect. Ex. 21:23-25 for example. The ransom price was one perfect human for another. An imperfect man’s life would be too low. Ps. 49:7 If Jesus was the same as God, the ransom price paid by a God would have been too high. Adam was a perfect MAN and the ransome price was a perfect MAN, not higher nor lower.

“…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect..” – 1 Peter 3:15

Must Baptism Precede Membership? Of course!

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From the what church membership is, as well as what baptism represents. I tried to briefly answer those questions in previous posts. Let me try to answer this question with a story. Let’s call this story…

Must Wearing the Team Jersey Precede Playing with the Team?

Player: “Hey coach, the team owner just hired me. I’m ready to play.”

Coach: “Great, let’s get your jersey on and put you out on the field.”

Player: “Wait a second, I’m not comfortable wearing a jersey. I’d prefer to hold off. Maybe I’ll play a few games, and then consider wearing the jersey.”

Coach: “Well, no, actually, you have to wear a jersey before you can play for us. It’s how everyone knows who you are playing for.”

Player: “That’s ridiculous. First, I admit the rule book talks about players wearing jerseys, but nowhere does it explicitly say that I HAVE to wear a jersey BEFORE the first game…”

Coach: “Ahhh, hmmm, you’re right. The rule book doesn’t actually say that baptism must come before membership. Maybe we should not require our team to wear their jerseys at all. Some will; some won’t. Nobody will be confused by that.”

Player: “You’re being sacrastic.”

Coach: “Yes, I am. But lovingly so. Look, the rule book says players must wear jerseys–period. It doesn’t say before or after the first game. It just says they have to wear them. And the point is, you need them from the start because those jerseys are the very thing which tell people whose team you belong to. That’s what this little rite is for.

Player: “Okay, fine. But I haven’t got to my second point.”

Coach: “Yes?”

Player: “Second, I still think you’re being a little legalistic. I mean, I’m a team member! The team owner hired me. I don’t need the jersey’s to prove that I’m a member. It’s a done deal. So now I want to go and play, and I think I will play best wearing my old gym shorts.”

Coach: “True, the owner hired you, and that’s what made you a team member. I’m glad he did. But the owner ALSO wrote rule book which said that all the players have to wear uniforms. And he delegated to me the authority to make sure you wear it. So jersey up!”

[Curtain close.]

I hope it’s clear why I would say that baptism should precede church membership. Baptism is a public identification with the Trinity. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of being baptized “into the name” of Father, Son, and Spirit. When you are baptized, you are saying, “I’m with them!” You are putting on the team jersey.

What’s is local church membership? At its heart, it is the same thing. It is a declaration that we belong to Christ’s kingdom and to his universal church.

How does a local church make that declaration? It does it through baptism (and the Lord’s Supper).

So go find my own local church’s directory of names. Inside you will find all the people who we have collectively taken responsibility for as members of the universal body of Christ. We have taken responsibility to declare this short list of names to be “Christ’s church” whenever we administer baptism and receive the Lord’s Supper.

Must baptism precede membership? Well, I mean, I can imagine an extraordinary situation where the order might get reversed by a few weeks. It’s not a matter of ontological or salvific necessity, per se. But basically, yes! Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the mechanism that Jesus has given us for declaring someone to be a member of his body, and this happens among real people in a real place called the gathering of a local church.