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Free Kindle Books at SharperIron

By Jay Wed, 06/19/2013 - 12:00am

From time to time, Sharperiron has provided links to free e-book resources via the Filings sidebar. One of the issues that the site ran into was that Filing links tended to get buried quickly as new stories were aggregated and that it became difficult to maintain a centralized location of all the available resources. Several site readers asked if there was a better way to keep track.

Well, your requests were heard.

Starting today, the “Featured Discussion” forum will have a new, stickified thread titled “Free E-book resources.” We decided that the best way to manage the flow of information in regards to the free ebook resources was to segregate all the data into a specific forum and then make it so that a few SI users would be able to administer that thread, rather than having a large, ongoing thread with discussion of what resources are available, when they’re available, the merits of each resource, and other issues.

So, please send your free ebook resource links to me via PM, and I’ll post them as they become available. There are a few guidelines to keep in mind: read more

Sanctification, Faith and Works: An Index of Recent Web Debate

By Aaron Blumer Tue, 06/18/2013 - 12:00am

Debates about various aspects of the doctrine of sanctification have been around for a long time. In the summer of 2011, a fresh round of debate on sanctification, works, faith, depravity, justification and union with Christ broke out on the Web and has continued, in one form or another up to the present.

Because the exchange has featured skilled and articulate participants, it has also been insightful. The following is offered as a tool for the benefit of anyone interested in studying the matter from the perspective of recent interactions among theologically conservative, mostly (but not entirely) Reformed leaders.

A few notes appear below, randomly. I hope to eventually annotate most of these entries more fully and fairly.

Despite the length of this list of links, it is not comprehensive. Feel free to post other links of importance in the comments. read more

The Pitfalls and Joys of "Trying Harder"

By Aaron Blumer Mon, 06/17/2013 - 12:00am

I recently wrote a brief defense of the importance of personal effort (or “trying harder”) in God’s gracious design to transform His saints. My central claim was that we put ourselves at odds with the NT if we understand or teach the dynamic of sanctification in a way that devalues or strongly cautions against hard work.

But that doesn’t mean emphasizing hard work has no attendant hazards.

Bob Hayton wrote of one of these pitfalls in a post last summer: Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Performance-Based Sanctification.

Work hard, feel good; blow it and feel terrible. Where is the confidence in God’s grace in this model? The secret to living victoriously for Christ is gritting your teeth, doing more, and not doing the things you shouldn’t do. Try, try, try. Harder, harder, harder! Don’t quit. Keep going. We say that salvation is by grace, but growing in Christ is about the will power, the commitment and the determination.

This can lead to despair or a terrible form of pride.

The solution Bob advocates (citing Terry Rayburn and Tim Kellar, in part) is to reject trying harder, and focus exclusively on faith. Several Reformed leaders have emphasized a similar perspective in recent years (with a burst of back and forth on the Web beginning in the summer of 2011, see the table posting tomorrow), Tullian Tchividjian and Sean Lucas among them.

My purpose here is to explore the problem Bob and others have described. Perhaps we can come to more fully understand it. read more

God Gave Us a Book

By Pastor Dan Miller Fri, 06/14/2013 - 12:00am

Can the supernatural and the natural realms talk together? Is communication possible between God and people? This crucial question polarized our nation’s founding fathers. All of the founders believed in a supernatural realm—God was a given. But a few of the founders insisted that God created the universe to run on its own without Him (a view known as Deism). For all practical purposes, these men dismissed the very possibility of communication between the natural and supernatural realms.

Since the early influences of Deism, American culture has been shaped by the anti-supernaturalist philosophies of biological evolution and secular humanism. Secularism is not merely anti-religious, although it is that. Secularism is, more fundamentally, an utter denial of the sacred and thus a disaffirmation of the indispensability of a supernatural realm—a supposition rendered reasonable by the theory of biological evolution. Whereas Deism was stuck with a Creator (albeit a silent one), evolutionism eliminated the notion of a Creator and completely eradicated the necessity of a supernatural realm. Secularism stands in at this point to assert what evolutionism suggested: supernaturalism is a myth.

It would seem that most Americans today embrace some form of evolutionism (fueled by evolutionism’s monopoly of the public education system), but few Americans are pure secularists. Surveys indicate that most Americans pray, and praying evidences at least a wishful hope in the existence of a supernatural realm (which goes far to explain the angst secularist educators suffer when public school students talk to God). Despite the inroads of Deism and secularism, many Americans still believe in a supernatural realm with which communication is possible. read more

Book Review - Biblical Essays

By Douglas K. Kutilek Thu, 06/13/2013 - 12:00am

Image of Biblical Essays (1904)
by J. B. Lightfoot
Book Jungle 2006
Paperback, 480 pp.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com

Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889) was the pre-eminent authority on the writings of Paul in the 19th-century English-speaking world and has few equals and no superior in any age on this subject matter.  He was a staunchly conservative and orthodox member of the Church of England, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University (where his lectures became the basis for his published commentaries on Paul’s letters), later Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity (also at Cambridge), and ultimately Bishop of Durham.  Lightfoot was well-versed in classical literature, both Greek and Latin, as well as Christian patristic literature (he was the recognized world-expert on the Apostolic Fathers). 

Though written before the papyri discoveries in Egypt let to the recognition that the language of the NT was everyday koine Greek, Lightfoot’s numerous published commentaries (Galatians, Philippians, Colossians & Philemon, I & II Thessalonians, Romans 1-7, I Corinthians 1-7, and Ephesians 1:1-14) are nevertheless filled with the insights gathered from his classical and patristic learning and remain even now of immense value.  Most contain special essays on important topics as well.  read more

What is the "New Perspective on Paul"? A Basic Explanation (Part 4)

By Paul Henebury Wed, 06/12/2013 - 12:00am

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

NPP righteousness versus Pauline righteousness: The “Works of the Law”

In an excellent piece for Christianity Today entitled “What Did Paul Really Mean?” (thanks, Filops!) Simon Gathercole called attention to the way New Perspective scholars interpret the phrase “the works of the law.” He writes:

According to the new perspective, Paul is only focusing on these aspects of Jewish life (Sabbath, circumcision, food laws) when he mentions “works of the law.” His problem isn’t legalistic self-righteousness in general. Rather, for Jews these works of the law highlighted God’s election of the Jewish nation, excluding Gentiles. Called by God to reach the Gentiles, Paul recognizes that Jews wrongly restricted God’s covenant to themselves.

Gathercole’s comment matches Dunn a little more than Wright, but neither scholar thinks “works of the law” means the achieving of merit through religious deeds. Certainly we can say it is doubtful if many Jews in the Second Temple period were “legalistic” in the sense that they truly believed their works were good enough. But they were still going about to establish themselves by the law: read more

In Defense of "Trying Harder"

By Aaron Blumer Tue, 06/11/2013 - 12:00am

Christians agree that those who come to Christ in faith and repentance are supposed to behave differently thereafter. We also agree that God’s plan for every believer is to remake him or her in the likeness of Christ. Most also understand that this is a process that continues throughout this earthly life and culminates when “we shall be like Him,” seeing Him “as He is” (NKJV, 1 John 3:2). It is God’s great gospel purpose to graciously change sinners into saints.

But what responsibilities do believers have in that plan? What attitudes should dominate our thinking? How does grace relate to effort and struggle?

Some insist that “effort” has no role at all. Beyond preaching the gospel to ourselves, struggle and striving are incompatible with grace and draw our attention away from the gospel and from Christ. Others concede (with evident reluctance) that effort is required, but quickly emphasize tension in the opposite direction. To them, believers are in constant danger of lapsing into “performance based” thinking or, worse yet, “trying harder.”

Both of these views tend to favor language and emphases that are out of sync with the simplicity of the New Testament teaching regarding sanctification. What we find in the NT is that properly understood, “trying harder” (i.e., discipline, hard work, and old fashioned effort) is a vital part of God’s design for the remaking of His saints. read more

What's Wrong with Capitalism?

By Christopher Cone Mon, 06/10/2013 - 12:00am

These words of Marx and Engels (Communist Manifesto, 3:I:a) suggest that Christianity may be initially quite useful for the socialist cause:

Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.

Even though the abolition of all religion is ultimately a necessity in their suggested system, Marx and Engels recognize the practicality of incremental progress toward their goals. Hence, they welcome a slight retasking of Christian ideas in order to facilitate societal drift toward socialism, and ultimately toward communism.

Marx and Engels perceive that all conflict is traceable to class struggle, and that class struggle is economic at its core. Redistribution of wealth is a key to neutralizing the conflict and liberating the oppressed from their oppressors. For Marx and Engels, class struggle is an economic issue that can only be resolved politically, hence their political efforts toward an economic final solution. Capitalism represents, for them, a system that enables continuing oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Capitalism is a great enemy to be conquered, and one that will naturally fall—if and when the proletariat realizes their great strength, unites, and acts in accordance with Marx’s and Engels’ designs. read more

A Biblical Perspective on Environmentalism: Man's Rule (2)

By Douglas K. Kutilek Fri, 06/07/2013 - 12:00am

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com. Read the series so far.

Hunting and fishing

There are two means of obtaining animal flesh for human consumption—hunting/fishing, and domestication. Hunting, an essential widespread practice in the first years of European settlement in the New World, and the universal practice of the native American populace, has been given a bad rap in contemporary American society, in part fueled by such emotionally inflammatory propagandistic fare as the Disney movie Bambi in which the helpless fawn is orphaned by a hunter’s bullet (see similarly the book The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings). In reality, modern hunting laws commonly prevent taking game during the rearing season before the offspring are capable of surviving on their own, so the story has an essentially faulty premise. Not only so, but in fact, hunting has become essential in our day to maintain the over-all health of several species. read more