Reformation 21 » Ferret Breeding

My Petra Appreciation post is unavoidably delayed.

In the meantime, have a loock at this interesting article from Reformation 21. (HT: Emeth Alethia)

Here's the thing. Surely there must be a way to weed out "the beardless Calvinists" without requiring initials behind our names before we've earned the right to speak. Whatever happened to "God used the foolish things to shame the wise," "knowledge puffs up," etc?

Generic Christmas Card of the Year

A brief foray into the world of Corporate Christmas Cards


When you work for someone else, very rarely do you get to pick your own Christmas cards. Cards sent from work are generally selected for two reasons: business & budgetary.

By business reasons, I'm talking about furthering the company's interests. So, those who receive the cards may not be the ones you have the best relationships with, just the ones that make you the most money. You'd think one would follow the other, but it's not always the case. The other business implication is that, to avoid offending anyone who makes you a lot of money, you tend to drift toward the lowest common denominator. Your choice usually ends up with something that's not particularly inspiring but is hopefully unoffensive.

At this point, you might be asking yourself why you don't just personalize the cards, which would avoid this problem altogether. Two reasons. First, you don't always know those you deal with well enough to know what will & won't offend them. Second (as many of you know), cards are expensive, and are better bought in bulk. Hence the "budgetary" reason.

The net result of this is a card that sends a greeting that's less than personal, but apparently better than omitting a holiday greeting for that all-important big-money client altogether.

And so, without further ado, I present to you my nomination for Generic Christmas Card of the Year (and I use the term "Christmas Card" loosely):

Cover:
The joy of the holidays
Inside:
For all the things that
matter to you this season,
we wish you the very best.

Note: I'm not declaring this the winner yet. If you think you can top this, make sure you leave a comment.

Have it your way at the ESV website

I had forgotten that the ESV site lets you customize how you view verses, allowing you to include or leave out what you will. Section headings, subheadings, verse numbers, chapter numbers, footnotes, and even words of Christ in red--all optional.

For instance, I pulled up Hebrews 1-16 and included only footnotes. (You have to adjust the options first before doing the search). It reads just like a real letter--or in this case, what sounds to me like a sermon transcript.

HT to Puritas, who is studying Romans without any additions, for reminding me. (I don't know anything about this site except it was caught in Warnock's Bible Translation Blogsearches to Watch. It's all Reluctant Puritan's fault really, for putting Adrian & me in a song.)

Merry Christmas from the Gumms

The blog version of our 2005 Christmas letter




Dearest Family and Friends,

We hope this Christmas season finds you all well and enjoying the blessings of our Savior. We continue to praise God for His love and faithfulness to our family.

In addition to providing for our family through work, Matt is leading our homegroup for our church family, and also a book study for men on Wednesday mornings. His growing maturity in the Word of God constantly amazes me. To top all of that off he just finished his first Biblical studies class offered through the Bible Church of Little Rock.

I am still at home full-time, and in addition to my duties as Mom, I stay busy and enjoy several ladies Bible studies. Averee and I are homeschooling--she is in the first grade.

Trevor enjoys his preschool time and will be entering kindergarten next year. Caleb is a joy at three and he stays busy with speech and developmental therapy. Please pray for wisdom for us as we continue to make decisions about his progress and development. Jayden is growing up so fast at nineteen months and the others enjoy getting him to repeat anything they say. He just loves his Sissy and Bubbies.

God has been gracious to bless us with one more boy due May third. We will have a house full but we feel so blessed. No name for this one yet but we will let you know.

We think of you and pray for you all often. Please have a wonderful Christmas holiday.

Blessings to you,

Hollie for the Gumms

New Blog--Running Well

I found this blog during a search for articles on N.T. Wright. Like mine, it stood out like a sore thumb, being one of the few not gushing praise on Wright for his latest book.

D.R. Booker's blog is a tribute to Reformers & Puritans, from whom he quotes liberally.

Like me, he has some concerns about new doctrines coming forth from folks like Brian McLaren & N.T. Wright.

And like me, he is unhappy about McDonalds promotion of witchcraft in their Happy Meals.

I've been enjoying it this morning, and thought I would share.

Introduction to N.T. Wright & the New Perspective

There are several ways to be introduced to N.T. Wright, as well as the "New Perspective on Paul." For Wright, you could start by reading some of what he's written. For a broader sweep of the whole of the New Perspective, The Paul Page provides both sides of it. But I don't recommend this.

My own recommendation is Phil Johnson's critique of Wright's popular level book, What Saint Paul Really Said. His critique of Wright is compelling, since he utilizes Wright's own words and bases his critique on Scripture. He also makes some useful distinctions between Wright and other members of the NPP, while at the same time showing what they have in common. Unlike some others, I found his review even-handed and thoroughly Evangelical.

Understand one thing: this isn't just about a bunch of Reformed guys sitting around and trying to defend Luther from modern criticism; it's about redefining the gospel in a way that says that the Bible doesn't talk about how someone gets into heaven, but only about "who belongs at the table." The personal dimension of Justification is erased.

Luther isn't being defended because he is Luther. He is being defended (as it were) because he was the visible proponent of Justification by Faith, the exact tenet that is under attack by the NPP.

More to come...

Congratulations to the Pixley family

A hearty congratulations goes out to the Pixley family on the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth Dale (thanks for the help, Chris), born 12/19/05 at 9:20 am (ET). Everyone is doing well, I believe. More details to follow.

The big question in my mind is if Chris was able to pull off preaching on Sunday morning before the trip to the hospital.
Update: see Chris's answer in comments

Congratulations, you guys!

This is the Narnia review I wanted to write

Every so often I run across a post and think "I wish I had said that." I'm going to start posting these. This is the first--the Narnia review I wanted to write.

Tying up some loose ends

I promised a Narnia review, and some comments on Doxo's Calvinism not posts. Here they are.

Narnia
"You will get whatever you seek out of Narnia." That's my assessment. By that I mean that if you go looking for Christ, you'll find him there. The obvious allusion is there. If you go looking merely for a good story, you will find it there. The story of the Pevensy children going through a wardrobe into a magical world is compelling, regardless of your views on symbolism. If you go wanting to see a good movie, you'll find it. The movie world hasn't been kind to families lately, and Disney has had some real clunkers. This is a an encouraging sign.

In fact, the only thing it was lacking was the narrator's voice that creeps out every so often. But had they chosen to include that (ala Lemony Snicket), it would have been a very different movie altogether, and not quite as good. Overall, the movie is faithful to the book, as far as one medium translates to another. I think Lewis would be proud.

On Men Doing Good
On men doing good, it may be helpful to make a distinction between good and righteous. From a human perspective, we may look at a particular action and see it as good. However, it's a whole other thing to proclaim an action righteous, because that involves a different type of judgment.

Also, I think this illustration may be helpful, as far as it goes. My uncle is a dairy farmer. He also loves to BBQ. One day, he goes out and works all day, and then comes home in the evening to cook the biggest, juiciest steaks around. The only problem is that he doesn't bother to wash his hands. The meat is good, but it is tainted, because the one who did them has hands that are tainted. Only with men, it is their hearts that are tainted.

Frank Turk offers an interesting discussion of this back in his very first post. The post is actually an open letter to Derek Webb, but has a bearing on what we're discussing here.

...let me offer a passage of Scripture and then ask my question. The passage is this (ESV):

James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
26If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. 27Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

This passage says that faith is not a feeling but an action. But for example, just because Sandra Bullock gives $1 million to the Red Cross (and has done so several times in the last 5 years), that does not make her a hero of the faith; Bill Gates has dedicated $1 billion to educating children, and that does not make him a hero of the faith. Walt Disney is not a hero of the faith for making family-friendly movies. Sinead O’Connor is not a hero of the faith for protesting the Pope.

My question to you is this: “Are all good works inherently Christ-centered good works?” Your essay is about 8 weeks old, and I suspect you have had others asking this question, and frankly you don’t owe man an answer. But I ask you this as someone who knows you have heard the Gospel and understand its Christ-centeredness.

Or, put a different way, are all the good works of man righteous works? I hope the obvious answer to this question is "no."

Let me finish by relating this point to N.T. Wright and the New Perspective. Rom 4:4-5 says this:

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

This is as clear a declaration of justification by faith, apart from works, as there is in the Scriptures. The NPP reframes this and other "works" passages to mean specifically circumcision--those things that would identify Christians with the OT Covenant, thereby changing the idea from one of justification by faith apart from good works to one of trusting God's faithfulness and eschewing covenant symbols. Bad enough that what the NPP says about Paul changes the definition justification. But in addition, by subverting these passages and redefining what "works" means, it opens the door once again for works-based righteousness. I'm not saying that any in the NPP are advocating this; I'm merely pointing out that by stripping out passages that say works aren't sufficient for salvation, what has been a foregone conclusion since Luther's time may now be put back up for discussion.

I've got family in town this weekend all the way from the UK, so I doubt I'll be posting much until midweek next week. In the meantime, let me recommend Doxo's discussion of sin (intro & part 1 of Origin of Sin currently written). This will set the stage for what I hope to post next week--"Sin is the Reason for the Season," and Part 2 of "Theology Really Is Important."

For a laugh, check out this post from Glenn. Even if you haven't been following the Baptism discussion at Centuri0n's blog, you'll still get a good laugh. And remember, Glenn pays for comments.

Finally, don't forget to spend some time with the people of God this weekend.

Purgatorio Does It Again

How did I miss this the first time around. My favorite was the list of Johns.

purgatorio: Help! I'm Going Hyper!