From Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal, Vol 3, No. 2, Fall 2013. Reproduced with permission. Read the series so far.

Approaching the Issue

The issue whether the sign gifts continue or have ceased is closely tied to the question of continuing revelation. Is God giving us Scripture today? Are the sign gifts of the New Testament still in operation today? And is the prophetic gift of the Old Testament identical with the prophetic gift in the New Testament? These issues are connected because the New Testament seems to indicate that the sign gifts were apostolic and that they were specifically given to accredit the apostles as the channels through...

From Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal, Vol 3, No. 2, Fall 2013. Reproduced with permission. Read the series so far.

Claims for Continuing Gifts with a Closed Canon

Sovereign Grace

The Sovereign Grace movement is an example of this. This movement affirms that the Bible is the authority for faith, and it denies that God is giving any additional biblical revelation, saying of the Scriptures:

They are totally sufficient and must not be added to, superseded, or changed by later tradition, extra-biblical revelation, or worldly wisdom. Every doctrinal formula­tion, whether of creed, confession, or theology must be put to...

The Grace Evangelical Society (“GES”) explains the organization “was founded in 1986 to promote the life-giving truth that God offers man the free gift of everlasting life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from works done before or after the new birth (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:35, 47; 11:26).”

The organization is often associated with the late Zane Hodges, a former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary who co-authored an edition of the Majority Text with Art Farstad in the early 1980s. Hodges infamously published a book entitled Absolutely Free! in 1989, which...

Reposted, with permission, from DBTS Blog.

I’ve been reading, recently and with great interest, a blog series defending what is sometimes called the “traditional view” of Christian decision-making—the view that (1) God has an “individual will” for believers and (2) that it can be “discovered.” My intent in this post is not to offer a point-by-point analysis of that series, but rather to offer a succinct statement of an alternative view, together with some hesitations I have with the “traditional” view.

• The idea of the will of God is plainly taught in Scripture in at least two senses. There is, firstly, God’s decretal will, that comprehensive conglomerate of all things that shall occur....

Many people have deep convictions about the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day is the seventh day of the week. In Spanish, Saturday is rightly called “Sabado.”

Some think the Sabbath Day was changed to Sunday—quite a leap, in my view. Others think that the church should meet, and people should not work on Sabbath Day, so they form “Seventh Day” religions. Some Messianic Jews even believe that Christ actually arose on Saturday!

When people have agendas, it is difficult to reasonably address these matters. Emotions fly high. And, even among those who are reasonably objective, there is always room to disagree. Here is my take.

Although God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, there is no implication in the Bible that the Sabbath Day was observed until...

Baptism really isn’t a difficult topic, but it’s become difficult by all the history, tradition and baggage associated with the different interpretations of this ordinance. It’s a beautiful ordinance, and it’s too bad there’s so much misunderstanding about it!

Here’s the bottom line; baptism doesn’t “do” anything to you or for you. It’s a picture of what the triune God (Father, Son and Spirit) has already done in a believer’s life. This means it’s only for repentant, professing believers – not infants.

There are good reasons why the Baptist position on baptism is correct, but that’s not my goal, here. Instead, I just want to look at what baptism means. What significance does baptism have? What does it mean? What spiritual truth does it convey? How does it...

Reposted from The Cripplegate.

A few months ago “The Statement on Social Justice” was released. Authored by a group of pastors (including John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, and James White), the statement declares that the modern concepts of intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory run contrary to the Bible’s depiction of justice. Moreover, it argues that the concept of corporate guilt is more at home in the Old Covenant than the new (an excellent post on that here), and that people only inherit guilt for sins they actually commit, not for sins that their ethnic...

In this excerpt from his little book Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance,¹ Os Guinness puts his finger on a key issue in the conservative Christian sub-culture. His comments are even more interesting when you consider the book was published in 2003:

It’s sad to say that rarely has the church seen so many of its leaders solemnly presenting the faith in public in so many weak, trite, foolish, disastrous, and even disloyal ways as today. Such leaders do not speak for most ordinary Christians I know. I suspect the press and media invite them to fulfill a stereotype rather than represent a serious position, but again and again for those who hold the faith with all their hearts and minds, the outcome is anger...