“Hezbollah refused to disarm and withdraw its fighters from the battle-scarred hills along the border with Israel on Tuesday, threatening to delay deployment of the Lebanese army and endangering a fragile cease-fire†(Washington Post).Is anyone surprised that Hezbollah is refusing to disarm and to pull out of South Lebanon? Is anyone one surprised that Hezbollah is jeopardizing the cease-fire brokered at the U.N.? Does anyone have any more doubts about who is gunning for a prolonged fight? I hope not. Read on: “Hezbollah Balks At Withdrawal From the South†– Washington Post
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Review of Richard Bauckham’s The Theology of the Book of Revelation
Rudolf Bultmann famously derided the biblical book of Revelation as “weakly Christianized Judaism” (Theology of the New Testament, 2:175). But, as Richard Bauckham points out, this phrase “betrays the influence of the tendency of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Christianity to deny its Jewish roots. It makes the extraordinary suggestion that only what is not Jewish is really Christian and that Christianity somehow came into being by negating Judaism. We should now be able to recognize . . . the unconscious tendency to anti-Semitism in this approach” (pp. 147-48). The anti-Semitic approach is not the one that Bauckham himself follows in his helpful little book The Theology of the Book of…
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Who Needs Apologetics When You Have Chick Tracts?
Who needs apologetics when you have Jack Chick’s Tracts at your disposal?Perhaps you have never heard of these little publications, but they are fascinating little pieces of literature. Chick Tracts are miniature “gospel†comic books. I first came across these tracts when I was in high school, and they immediately piqued my interest because they had a knack for the sensational–even depicting people burning in hell who had rejected Christ. I have since come to the conclusion that the best use of these little booklets is to set them forth as illustrations of how not to share the gospel. For this reason, I still use one of Chick’s tracts every…
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Why Are Emergent Pastors Reading N. T. Wright?
For those of you who think I’m too critical of N. T. Wright (see previous post), I direct you to Jim Hamilton’s recent evaluation of Wright’s theology. Jim and I have discussed this many times, and we are on the same page when it comes to Wright. There is much good, but there are also some things to be concerned about.Go check out Jim’s post: Why Are Emergent Pastors Reading N. T. Wright?.
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John Piper Is Back (with Guns Blazing)
Maybe you don’t like the war-metaphor “with Guns Blazing,†but it is a biblical one (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). John Piper is back in the pulpit after a five month sabbatical, and in his first sermon he goes to war with the New Perspective on Paul and its denial of the imputed righteousness of Christ.In particular, Piper confronts the imputation-denying theology of N. T. Wright.
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Ned Lamont: Karl Rove’s Dream Come True
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Peretz boils down what’s at stake in the much ballyhooed senatorial contest in Conneticut between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont. The contest in Connecticut tomorrow is about two views of the world. Mr. Lamont’s view is that there are very few antagonists whom we cannot mollify or conciliate. Let’s call this process by its correct name: appeasement. The Greenwich entrepreneur might call it “incentivization.†Mr. Lieberman’s view is that there are actually enemies who, intoxicated by millennial delusions, are not open to rational and reciprocal arbitration. Why should they be? After all, they inhabit a universe of inevitability, rather like Nazis and communists, but…
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Too Wimpy To Win the War?
John Podhoretz of the New York Post poses a set of questions that we would all do well to ponder: WHAT if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests? . . . Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Didn’t the willingness of their leaders to inflict mass casualties on civilians indicate a cold-eyed singleness…
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Baptism and Church Membership
You can be a lot of things, but you can’t be Baptist if you allow people to join your church who have not been baptized. That is why I am happy to see that the elders of Henderson Hills Baptist church in Edmond, Oklahoma have backed away from their proposal to admit into membership believers who have not been baptized.The Baptist Press reports: Elders of Henderson Hills Baptist Church decided against proceeding with a church-wide vote July 30 on a proposal to remove baptism as a requirement for church membership. . . Henderson Hills pastor Dennis Newkirk, in an extended entry on his weblog July 31, stated that the church’s…
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Bessie Marie Criswell, R.I.P.
“Mrs. W.A. (Betty) Criswell – “Mrs. C†as she was affectionately called – taught the Bible for over 70 years, most of those here at First Baptist Church of Dallas. She devoted herself to Dr. Criswell’s gospel ministry during his life, and after his death continued to preserve his legacy through First Baptist Church and The Criswell College.“Mrs. C was a blessing and a beacon to all who knew her, as well as the many thousands who listened from her radio audience. We mourn her loss as a church family and staff and celebrate her homegoing to see her Savior face to face, Whom she has so wonderfully served.†–From…
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Moral Equivalence?
I am watching world reaction to the tragedy that occurred in Qana, Lebanon, and I am stunned that world opinion continues to make a moral equivalence between the actions of the state of Israel and those of the Hezbollah. I am not speaking as a person who thinks Israel has a divine-right to the land that they occupy. Nevertheless, they are a democracy that is defending itself from the attacks of a vicious terrorist group. How can Israel acquiesce to a cease-fire while Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at their cities?Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, summed up the difference between Israel and Hezbollah on “Meet the…