Gospel Living

Funny Fridays now return, bringing the magic cure-all: BACON.

A "King James Version Only" (KJVO) advocate recently wrote the following to me, God promises to preserve His word for every generation and has not done so with Greek or Hebrew. That is clear since the Originals are gone. English was the 7th language that the Bible was translated into. The KJB was the 7th English Bible, if you minus the Catholic translations that come from the corrupt manuscripts. God's word was purified seven times. The fact is, God's word is here today and He said it would be PURE. If it is not the KJB, can you show me a Bible that is pure and without error? Thus, we have one of the most interesting contentions of the KJVO position: the Bible promises God's preservation of the biblical text in the KJV only (not in the Greek or Hebrew manuscripts).  Among the key proof texts for this premise would be Psalm 12:6-7.  In the 1769 revision of the KJV, the one most of us are familiar with, it reads: The words of the LORD [are] pure words: [as] sil...

Everyone defines who God is and what He is like in their minds, even if they try to avoid it. Those beliefs  color all life's issues.  Within the Christian church, they determine how we counsel and disciple others. The following series of posts will provide you an overview of God’s attributes and nature, including each person within the Godhead. God’s Attributes      This is not an exhaustive list of God’s attributes, but it represents how some of the basic teachings of Scripture affect us as believers. Immutability  “For I the LORD do not change...” (Malachi 3:6) Theologians use the term immutability to speak of God as immovable and unchangeable.  Such an affirmation gives believers hope in something solid during turbulent times. We find it in Psalm 33:11, where we see hope in God’s everlasting counsel contrasted to man’s (v. 10). Our trust in the sufficiency of God’s plans and work is well placed (Eccl 3:14). His immutabil...

Our current Tuesday offering is the "A Short Theology" series, and I hope you find it to be a simplified explanation of what God wants us to believe.  In it, we just finished our first part: discussing the nature of the Bible.  In case you've missed the recent posts, here they are: A Short Theology, Part 1: Introduction to the Bible A Short Theology, Part 2: The Bible's Inspiration, Transmission, and Translation   A Short Theology, Part 3: The Bible's Interpretation, Application, and Sufficiency This examination may lead some to wonder whether early Christians believed the same things about the Bible as we do.  Where the early church fathers as certain about a knowable collection of Scripture as we are today?  Is it possible that our beliefs about the Bible are more influenced by Luther and Calvin than by the Lord and His Apostles?  EvangelZ at the Veritas Domain has finished an excellent series in this regard: The Canon of the New Testament i...

If you think you know everything there is to know about John Lennon, think again. Genius will open your eyes. It premiers on the World Wide Web on December 8, 2012.  Visit  GeniusTheMovie.com  for more information.

ecause Scripture is infallible or without error in any of its teachings, the Bible is trustworthy . Related is Scripture's inerrancy, it's ability to express facts without error.  What makes Scripture so reliable?  The Apostles rest our assurance on the fact that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation” or understanding or even desire, “but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pt 1:20–21). Perhaps you have wondered, and now you understand why we call the Bible “Holy.”  It originates in the mind of a Holy God.  It exalts itself beyond any human invention. The Bible will not deceive or fail its faithful readers. Scripture calls its believers to typify reverence afforded it by the noble Bereans: a diligence to compare all truth to God’s revelation (Acts 17:11). We can and should test all things by Scripture (I Thes 5:21). We must not reason according to the wisdo...

en wrote the Bible as the Holy Spirit moved them (2 Pt 1:19–21). We don't how how this happened, but we do not believe God “possessed” humans or in any way superseded their intellects; they were not taking down diction from God. They were simply human instruments, each bringing a distinctive style to the Bible—much as different writing instruments would result in different weights and colors of print. The strange but beautiful union of the human and divine pictured in the living Word of God (cf. Jn 1:14). Scripture, being both fully human and fully divine like Christ, contains no distinction or division between the two. Spirit-led individuals wrote the original autographa in their language without error, thus, the facts of Scripture enjoy both infallibility and inerrancy. Therefore, we need not exalt fallible human reason next to or above Scripture to discover genuine truth. Our historical studies add rich colors to the text, but are not necessary to deduce the “real” chara...

Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the RNC are not our friends.  The issues in America cannot be fixed by pundits, politicians, or the ballot box. Watch as Todd Friel adjusts our Christian worldview:

How do you preach when you preach?  How do you share the things of God with those in need? Paul said that the pattern of Christ's apostles was to teach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and the Bible has some self-esteem-crushing passages in it.  Paul had some bad news to share with people about their genuine state before God.  That's because we can't get to the good news of the gospel until we understand how much we need it. This is more of an audio recording than a video, as it was recorded from a radio program, but in it you'll hear the difference between biblical gospel preaching of Paul Washer and the prosperity preaching of Joel Osteen.  One kind of preaching is grounded, the other is up in the clouds. You decide. ("Way of the Master Radio" changed their name to "Wretched Radio".)

TH 605: Theology I Dr. Andy Snider The good folks at the Master's Seminary want to see the Christ's church as biblically-oriented and God-honoring as possible.  As such, they have been placing their class lectures online for free. This post highlights the first of four theology classes offered by the seminary.  Here are a few questions these videos will help you answer: Is it okay for Christians to study theology, and are there dangers to it? What does it mean to be a liberal or a conservative theologically? What is God like, and how does He relate to His creation? Should we believe that God exists in a Trinity? What does the Bible really say about itself? Can we believe that the Bible is from God and without error? The class description according to the TMS catalog: A study of prolegomena, dealing with the essence and source of systematic theology, and reasons for its study; theology proper, including revelation, trinitarianism, and God’s relati...

As I originally posted here , when writing a paper on the history of English Bible translation, I came across a site with scans from an original King James or "Authorised" Version of the Holy Bible.  It is a Robert Barker 1611 edition, official printer of King James I: View scans . If you find the black-letter Latin font in the scans too difficult to read, I found a text version here  and here (choose from the drop-down). Keep in mind that parts of the original text of the KJV suffered immediate misprints and differences between the Cambridge and Oxford printers.  For those unacquainted with this piece of historical trivia, we have fun versions of the KJV such as: the "Judas Bible", where Judas's name was printed instead of Jesus's in Matthew 26:36 in an 1613 Barker edition the "Wicked/Sinner's Bible" that printed "Thou shalt commit adultery" in Exodus 20:14 and earned Barker a hefty fine and, of course, the hundreds of d...

Someone recently asked this question, and a quick reading of the text certainly indicates this: Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”  And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  (Acts 2:37–38) However, we must be careful students of God's Word.  Is this what the text is really saying?  So, let's go on a journey into the Greek: Πέτρος δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς·  μετανοήσατε, [φησίν,]  καὶ βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστος ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν  καὶ λήμψεσθε τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος.  First, note the shift in the language: in the first part of the verse, Peter addresses them corporately ( “ y’all repent”);  in the second part of the verse, he addresses them singularly (“and be ba...

od reveals Himself in the heavens above, meaning that every person both has a sense of God and is subject to Him (Ps 19; Rom 1:19–21). Yet, compared to Scripture, the universe communicates little about God, which is why theologians call it only general revelation . As animals rarely open their mouths to speak, those seeking a full understanding of God need His special revelation . The Bible, in conjunction with the illumination of the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:12–15; 1 Cor 2:7–15), is God’s means of communicating with man. It is a “breathed out” (cf. 2 Tm 3:16) spiritual truth taught by God (1 Cor 2:13). While the words might be human, expressed within particular historical-grammatical contexts, they come from the mind of God (see 1 Thes 2:13). It does not contain only some words or ideas of God, clouded or obscured by human intervention, but exists as it stands in the standard sixty-six book formulation as the Word of God . We should therefore test all human ideas and teachings by it...

...was not the KJV, though it laid the groundwork for that translation.  Do you know about the 1599 Geneva Bible?  Well, it's for sale once again, if you want to purchase a copy .  I'll let the Growing Pain explain: 

This  blog post title by Justin Taylor gives you a clue as to how well Rachel Held Evans' presents Scripture. Thomas Nelson Publishers thought " A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master' " good enough to print, and the secular media loves it.  The book presents an extension of the argument, "If you say you believe the Bible, then you also believe in stoning people, selling kids into slavery, and turning down shrimp cocktails."  The difference is that the author claims to be a Christian who knows the Bible. Justin Taylor recommends we read Kathy Keller's review (which I plan on doing and invite you to do the same), while highlighting the following: “you began your project by ignoring (actually, by pretending you did not know about) the most basic rules of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation that have been agreed upon for centuries.” “To ...