Abraham’s Great Act of Faith

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb. 11:17–19).

Apart from Christ’s obedient sacrifice, probably the greatest act of faith in fear and trembling recorded in all of Scripture is the obedient response of Abraham when God commanded him to sacrifice his son Isaac. This occurred after God had given Abraham a promise of future generations through Isaac and after God had made him wait many years for the birth of Isaac. In the interim, Abraham had taken steps to make sure that this promise was fulfilled with the aid of his wife Sarah, who, regarding herself as barren, offered her handmaid Hagar as a surrogate mother so that Abraham could have a son in order to fulfill the promise. Hagar had a son named Ishmael—but he was not the son of promise. Finally, after more years of waiting, God opened the womb of Sarah, and in her old age and in her barrenness, she brought forth a son who was given the name Isaac (when told she would have a son, Sarah had laughed, and the name Isaac means “laughter” in the Hebrew language). All of Abraham’s hopes, his entire destiny, was wrapped up in this child.   Continue at R. C. Sproul

How Internet Porn Explains the Decline of American Faith

Since the early 1990s, there has been a significant uptick in Americans abandoning their faith. After crunching the numbers, one researcher says contributing factors such as upbringing and education only explain part of the increase. What about the rest?

After controlling for variables like income, environment, and so on, computer scientist Allen Downey of Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts found 25 percent of the decline can be correlated with Internet access. More Web, less faith. 

Why? Here’s Downey’s stab at an answer: “For people living in homogeneous communities, the Internet provides opportunities to find information about people of other religions (and none), and to interact with them personally.” So increased exposure leads to doubt, disagreement, disenchantment, and ultimately to discarding your faith.  Continue at Joel J. Miller

“Ask Jesus into Your Heart”: A History of the Sinner’s Prayer

Many an evangelical pastor has concluded a sermon by asking non-Christians to “ask [or receive, or invite] Jesus into their heart,” or to pray a version of what some call the “sinner’s prayer.” But some evangelicals, including Baptist pastor David Platt of Birmingham, Alabama, have in recent years criticized the sinner’s prayer as unbiblical and superstitious. Surely, Platt argued in a controversial March 2012 sermon, there must be more to salvation than saying a formulaic prayer.

Platt’s comments helped precipitate a debate at the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in New Orleans. In a voice vote, a majority of delegates, including Platt, affirmed the sinner’s prayer as “a biblical expression of repentance and faith.”

The phrase “ask Jesus into your heart” is not in the Bible, although there are similar phrases there (“ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” Col. 2.6 KJV). So where did this prayer come from?   Continue at Thomas Kidd

The Weakness of the World’s Strongest Man

When the writer of Hebrews listed the Old Testament heroes of faith, he included Samson (Hebrews 11:32). Really? Samson’s story, recorded in Judges 13–16, reads like a narcissistic super hero’s whose Kryptonite weakness does him in in the end.

But God wanted Samson included in the list because there are crucial things about faith that God wants us to understand from him. To explore these, let’s imagine two of Samson’s brothers on their way to collect Samson’s body in Gaza (Judges 16:31) reflecting on all that went wrong (I’ve given them the fictitious names, Abijah and Nadir).

---

The two brothers said nothing for a long time after the ruins of Dagon’s temple came into view. It lay on the ground like a torn carcass. The living were crawling through the debris extracting the dead.  Continue at Jon Bloom

The Two Johns On Old Testament Faith

John Newton and John Owen were two very different Christians but they were united in their view of how Old Testament believers were saved and what their faith was in.

John Newton taught that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed immediately after Adam and Eve’s first sin and became the object of faith from that moment on.

The Lord Jesus was promised under the character of the seed of the woman, as the great deliverer who should repair the breach of sin, and retrieve the ruin of human nature. From that hour, he became the object of faith, and the author of salvation, to every soul that aspired to communion with God, and earnestly sought deliverance from guilt and wrath (Works, Vol. 3, p. 3).   Continue at David Murray

What to Do When Faith Dies

Too often we lack works. Maybe we are not praying, not forgiving someone, not crucifying selfishness to care for others, or not sharing the gospel.

We know this is a serious problem, because James said that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). What’s more serious than dead faith?

But there’s a danger here in how we can read this verse. We can miss James’s point. We can think that since faith without works is dead, then if I lack works, I had better start working. I had better start praying, start forgiving, start caring more for others, start sharing the gospel. But that’s not what James is saying.

James is saying that since faith without works is dead, then if there are no works, the problem is that to some extent, my faith is dead. And that to correct the problem my faith must be revived.   Continue at Steve Fuller

When the Faith "Once for All Delivered" . . . Isn't Delivered

Wes Bredenhof (Yinkahdinay) posted this link to a short essay from the Banner (the official publication of the Christian Reformed Church).  Rev. Bredenhof was saddened upon reading it, as was I.  The provocative essay is entitled "Relics of a Bygone Era" and recounts the difficult task of a son and daughter packing up the earthly remains from their recently deceased father, which included the father's Reformed books, personal teaching notes, and favorite cassette sermon tapes (Relics of a Bygone Era).  The author writes,

Dad had been a staunch defender of a somewhat cramped version of Calvinism formed by his upbringing in the Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherlands. Early on, his parents had put the kibosh on his aspirations to ministry; unless he had a distinct call from the Lord, he had a duty to help his father run the farm. But disappointment did not snuff out his enthusiasm for the cause of John Calvin. He read commentaries and wrote essays that he read at men’s society meetings. Dad eloquently argued points of doctrine, articulating and defending each letter of TULIP. He collected cassette tapes of sermons by Dutch dominees and those Christian Reformed ministers who shared his passion. In retirement he pored over black-bound tomes and cobbled together sermons, reading them to the captive audience in a nearby retirement home. He had become a preacher after all.

The essay concludes with the following lament:  Continue at Kim Riddlebarger

Lay Aside the Weight of Fragmented Focus

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. (2 Timothy 2:4)

The Debilitating Weight of Too Much

 

If we’re going to successfully run the race of faith with endurance (Hebrews 12:1) and finish our course and the ministry we receive from the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:24), we must learn the martial art of doing less.

I call it a “martial art” because of Paul’s military metaphor in 2 Timothy 2:4. By “doing less” I don’t mean (necessarily) working less hours or doing less intense work. I mean doing fewer things more effectively. Mark Forster is right when he says,

We tend to think unsuccessful people are unsuccessful because they sit around doing nothing. But it’s often for quite the opposite reason: they take on far too much—all sorts of wonderful projects at the same time—and never bring any of them to fruition. (Do It Tomorrow, 18)

A fragmented focus results in our carrying the debilitating weight of doing too much.

Time Is Not the Problem

 

Doing too much is not a time problem. It’s a distraction problem. When Martha was frazzled with tasks, Jesus said that her “many things” were making her “anxious and troubled.” Only “one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:41–42).

Our days are as long as God designed them to be and we have as many days as God allots to us (Psalm 139:16). Each of us have God-given “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Romans 12:6), as well as weaknesses that God has assigned to us so that Christ’s power may be uniquely shown through us (2 Corinthians 12:9).   Continue at Jon Bloom

Whatever Is Not from Faith Is Sin — Really?

People from the time of John Chrysostom (347–407) have tried to limit the meaning of Paul’s words in Romans 14:23, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” Chrysostom cautions, “Now all these things have been spoken by Paul of the subject in hand, not of everything.”

Leon Morris follows this limitation and says,

Whatever be the truth of actions done before one becomes a believer, Paul is not discussing them here. His concern is with the believer who sometimes does things that are not motivated by faith. (The Epistle to the Romans, 493)

But Lenski says, No!

Is this to be restricted to the Christian alone and to the matter of the adiaphora alone, namely to faith in this domain? No; it covers this domain only because it is a part of one that is much larger. (The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 854)

What do you think?

Here’s the context to help you get oriented (Romans 14:21–23):

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Augustine in his Lectures on the Gospel according to St. John cites Romans 14:23 as a universal statement covering all human conditions:    Continue at John Piper

Everyday Christianity: A Faith Free From The Accidental Pharisaism of Missional, Radical, Crazy and Other Superlatives

Every day matters. This is the very simple message of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God and to live one’s life to the glory of God. You don’t need to be “missional.” You don’t even need to be “radical” (especially since radical commonly means “very different from the norm”). 

In fact, the Bible does not encourage superlative adjectives to describe following Christ at all. Adjectival superlatives tend to create new forms of legalism whereby the work and person of Christ is no longer sufficient to be in right relationship with God. The norm is not enough. Although those promoting various adjectives have no intention of doing harm, hearers often embrace the adjective as the basis of genuine faith instead of the language of Scripture.

Young Christian adults are torn in a sea of modern adjectives that tend to become shame-filled and often debilitating burdens. Larry Osborne warns about five tribal communities that may be accidentally doing harm: 

(1) “Radical” Christians, 

(2) “Crazy” Christians, 

(3) “Missional” Christians, 

(4) “Gospel-Centered” Christians and 

(5) Revolutionary and Organic Christians. According to Osborne, each of these tribes has inadvertently created accidental pharisaism because if one does not live out one’s Christian life according to the norms and codes of their respective tribe one will be looked down upon. Moreover, for those within each tribe, it leaves them vulnerable to the arrogant narcissism that believes “our” tribe gets Christianity “right” while the others are substandard.   Continue at Anthony Bradley

Columns from Tabletalk Magazine, June 2013

The June edition of Tabletalk is out. This issue examines faith and repentance.  The words “faith” and “repentance” are misunderstood by many people, including a large number of professing Christians. Skeptics caricature faith as the opposite of reason. Richard Dawkins, for example, has defined faith as “belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” Repentance is sometimes seen by Christians as optional. Because faith is central to the message of the Bible, and because faith and repentance are demanded of all who hear the message of Christ, it is necessary that we come to a true understanding of the meaning of these words—not in order to increase our vocabulary, but in order that we might trust and obey the living God.

 

Contributors include R.C. Sproul along with Guy Richard, Sinclair Ferguson, Joel Beeke, Keith Mathison, R.C. Sproul Jr., Trip Lee, Douglas J. Moo, Cal Thomas and Abdul Saleeb.

We do not post all of the feature articles or the daily devotionals from the issue, so you’ll have to subscribe to get those. But for now, here are links to several free columns and articles from this month:    Continue at Columns

The Sufficiency of Grace

The following is an excerpt from R.C. Sproul's book, Willing to Believe

 

The classic issue between Augustinian theology and all forms of semi-Pelagianism focuses on one aspect of the order of salvation (ordo salutis):

What is the relationship between regeneration and faith? Is regeneration a monergistic or synergistic work? Must a person first exercise faith in order to be born again? Or must rebirth occur before a person is able to exercise faith? Another way to state the question is this: Is the grace of regeneration operative or cooperative?

Monergistic regeneration means that regeneration is accomplished by a single actor, God. It means literally a “one-working.” Synergism, on the other hand, refers to a work that involves the action of two or more parties. It is a co-working. All forms of semi-Pelagianism assert some sort of synergism in the work of regeneration. Usually God’s assisting grace is seen as a necessary ingredient, but it is dependent on human cooperation for its efficacy.

The Reformers taught not only that regeneration does precede faith but also that it must precede faith. Because of the moral bondage of the unregenerate sinner, he cannot have faith until he is changed internally by the operative, monergistic work of the Holy Spirit. Faith is regeneration’s fruit, not its cause.

According to semi-Pelagianism regeneration is wrought by God, but only in those who have first responded in faith to him. Faith is seen not as the fruit of regeneration, but as an act of the will cooperating with God’s offer of grace.

Evangelicals are so called because of their commitment to the biblical and historical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Because the Reformers saw sola fide as central and essential to the biblical gospel, the term evangelical was applied to them. Modern evangelicals in great numbers embrace the sola fide of the Reformation, but have jettisoned the sola gratia that undergirded it. Packer and Johnston assert:    Continue at R. C. Sproul

Which Comes First, Faith, or Repentance?

For Spurgeon the question is needless, because the new life necessarily contains both – like the spokes on a wheel, they move at the same time. Yet this is not always apparent to the individual who is converted. An individual may be so downcast in true repentance that he is not even conscious that he has faith. Spurgeon, preaching on true repentance, can tell his hearers: 

Repentance is the result of an unperceived faith. When a man repents of sin he does inwardly believe, in a measure, although he may not think so. There is such a thing as latent faith: although it yields a man no conscious comfort, it may be working in him truthfulness of heart, purity of spirit, and abhorrence of evil. No true repentance is quite apart from faith . . . It is clear that no man can repent towards God unless he believes in God. He could never feel grief at having offended God, if he did not believe that God is good. To the dark cloud of repentance there is a silver lining of faith; yet at first, the awakened soul does not know this, and therefore laments that he cannot believe; whereas his very repentance is grounded on a measure of faith. [Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 35:130. Read sermon online: Two Essential Things.]    Continue at Thirsty Theologian

Regeneration Precedes Faith

One of the most dramatic moments in my life for the shaping of my theology took place in a seminary classroom. One of my professors went to the blackboard and wrote these words in bold letters: “Regeneration Precedes Faith.”

These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again. I use the words in order here for a reason. I was thinking in terms of steps that must be taken in a certain sequence. I had put faith at the beginning. The order looked something like this:

“Faith - rebirth -justification.”

I hadn’t thought that matter through very carefully. Nor had I listened carefully to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. I assumed that even though I was a sinner, a person born of the flesh and living in the flesh, I still had a little island of righteousness, a tiny deposit of spiritual power left within my soul to enable me to respond to the Gospel on my own. Perhaps I had been confused by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome, and many other branches of Christendom, had taught that regeneration is gracious; it cannot happen apart from the help of God.   Continue at R. C. Sproul

History & Faith

The student of the New Testament should be primarily an historian. The center and core of all the Bible is history. Everything else that the Bible contains is fitted into an historical framework and leads up to an historical climax. The Bible is primarily a record of events. 

That assertion will not pass unchallenged. The modern Church is impatient of history. History, we are told, is a dead thing. Let us forget the Amalekites, and fight the enemies that are at our doors. The true essence of the Bible is to be found in eternal ideas; history is merely the form in which those ideas are expressed. It makes no difference whether the history is real or fictitious; in either case, the ideas are the same. It makes no difference whether Abraham was an historical personage or a myth; in either case his life is an inspiring example of faith. It makes no difference whether Moses was really a mediator between God and Israel; in any case the record of Sinai embodies the idea of a covenant between God and his people. It makes no difference whether Jesus really lived and died and rose again as he is declared to have done in the Gospels; in any case the Gospel picture, be it ideal or be it history, is an encouragement to filial piety. In this way, religion has been made independent, as is thought, of the uncertainties of historical research. The separation of Christianity from history has been a great concern of modern theology. It has been an insping attempt. But it has been a failure.

Give up history, and you can retain some things. You can retain a belief in God. But philosophical theism has never been a powerful force in the world. You can retain a lofty ethical ideal. But be perfectly clear about one point-you can never retain a gospel. For gospel means "good news," tidings, information about something that has happened. In other words, it means history. A gospel independent of history is simply a contradiction in terms.    Continue at J. Gresham Machen

Christian Scholarship and the Defense of the Faith

This Address was originally delivered in London on June 17, 1932. 

There are, indeed, those who tell us that no defense of the faith is necessary. "The Bible needs no defense," they say; "let us not be forever defending Christianity, but instead let us go forth joyously to propagate Christianity." But I have observed one curious fact -- when men talk thus about propagating Christianity without defending it, the thing that they are propagating is pretty sure not to be Christianity at all. They are propagating an anti-intellectualistic, non-doctrinal Modernism; and the reason why it requires no defense is simply that it is so completely in accord with the current of the age. It causes no more disturbance than does a chip that floats downward with a stream. In order to be an adherent of it, a man does not need to resist anything at all; he needs only to drift, and automatically his Modernism will be of the most approved and popular kind. One thing need always be remembered in the Christian Church -- true Christianity, now as always, is radically contrary to the natural man, and it cannot possibly be maintained without a constant struggle. A chip that floats downwards with the current is always at peace; but around every rock the waters foam and rage. Show me a professing Christian of whom all men speak well, and I will show you a man who is probably unfaithful to His Lord.

Certainly a Christianity that avoids argument is not the Christianity of the New Testament. The New Testament is full of argument in defense of the faith. The Epistles of Paul are full of argument -- no one can doubt that. But even the words of Jesus are full of argument in defense of the truth of what Jesus was saying. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" Is not that a well-known form of reasoning, which the logicians would put in its proper category? Many of the parables of Jesus are argumentative in character. Even our Lord, who spoke in the plenitude of divine authority, did condescend to reason with men. Everywhere the New Testament meets objections fairly, and presents the gospel as a thoroughly reasonable thing.    Continue at Modern Reformation

13 Reasons why Election is not Foreseen Faith

Is it that important to believe in unconditional election – God’s sovereign pre-creation choice to save specific people, irrespective of anything they would do or be? Can’t we just agree with other Christians who say that election simply means that God foresaw which people would believe and therefore chose them?

In his chapter on Unconditional Election, in Whomever He Wills, Andrew Davis lists 13 damaging consequences that follow from understanding election as merely foreseen faith (pages 58-74).

The Damaging Consequences

1. It robs God of His glory as sovereign King of the universe: If God is the responder and man the initiator, God has surrendered control of the universe to the creature. God is a student of the human heart rather than the potter shaping the clay.
2. Gives man ground for boasting: If our faith is the fundamental cause of our election before the foundation of the world, we can stand on our faith and boast.   Continue at David Murray

Does Faith Mean Faithfulness?

With all the controversy that has raged about justification in the past generation, it is surprising that for some time the question of what faith is has remained more marginal. However, this issue has recently come into the foreground of both the church's and the academy's attention. The present essay aims to do justice both to Paul and James, and to clarify that faith is not itself righteousness but should be regarded as trust in Christ, which also has specific verbal content. It is also not an entity, however, which can ever be isolated in the Christian life from obedience, even though faith and obedience are not to be confused.

"Faith Reckoned as Righteousness" in Paul

 

As far as the interpretation of Paul is concerned, it is vital to recognize that God does not reckon righteousness to us on the basis of anything that we do in and of ourselves. One of the chief transformations that took place in Paul's conversion was in his understanding of sin: he came to see the true depravity of the human condition, that "the mind of the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to the Law of God, nor can it do so" (Rom. 8:7). This is in stark contrast to the understanding that he would probably have had as a Pharisee: that despite the internal struggle of the good impulse against the evil impulse, it was both necessary and possible to choose the good. After his conversion, he realized (we do not know exactly how and when) that only by Christ's atoning work and the power of the Spirit are new life and true obedience possible. 

Much of our attention here will be focused on Romans 4, which is one of the key chapters in the Bible on faith. The chapter is also taken up with a discussion of Abraham, and how Paul brings the patriarch as a key witness to his doctrine of justification by faith. Here the apostle is battling against the Jewish tradition of explaining Abraham as a model of piety and (in some cases) law-observance even before the law was given. The trials of Abraham, such as the offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah, are seen in Jewish exegesis as the basis for his justification:

Abraham was a great father of many nations, and no-one was found like him in glory, who kept the Law of the Most High, and entered into covenant with Him, and established the covenant in his flesh, and was found faithful in testing. (Sirach 44:19-20) This is the tenth trial with which Abraham was tried, and he was found faithful, controlled of spirit. [He begged for a place for burial in the land] because he was found faithful and he was recorded as a friend of the Lord in the heavenly tablets. (Jubilees 19:8-9; cf. 23:9-10) Abraham did not walk in it (sc. evil), and he was reckoned a friend of God because he kept the commandments of God and did not choose his own will. (Damascus Document 3:2-4) Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation and it was reckoned to him as righteousness? (1 Maccabees 2:52)   Continue at Simon Gathercole

20 Ways Satan May Seek to Destroy You

He is the serpent, the Great Dragon, Beelzebul, the ruler of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the evil one, and the adversary. He is Satan. And—if you are a follower of Jesus Christ—he hates your guts with a passion. Like a roaring lion he is prowling about seeking to destroy you. How can you stand firm and resist the devil so that he will flee from you? First, do not be naive; you must consider his ways.

1. He may slander God to you in order to cast doubt on God’s goodness and shipwreck your faith (Gen 3:4-5).
2. He may tempt you to deceive others in order to create, or maintain, the impression of being more spiritual (Acts 5:3; Jn 8:44).
3. He may corrupt your mind and steer you away from the simplicity of Christ and His gospel (2 Cor 11:3).
4. He may hinder [cut in on, as in a race] your gospel witness and steal it from unsuspecting hearts (1 Thess 2:18; Matt 13:19).
5. He may wrestle against you, fighting against your progress in Christ (Eph 6:12).
6. He may tempt you to commit sexual immorality against your spouse as a result of neglecting the intimacy of the marriage bed (1 Cor 7:5).
7. He may harass you with some form of fleshly affliction (2 Cor 12:7). Continue at Paul Tautges

“Francis Schaeffer at 100″

Open publication – Free publishing – More evangelicalism

 

Francis Schaeffer at 100

The year 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). It is difficult to think of an evangelical figure in the 20th century who so seriously engaged the philosophies and ideologies of the secular world and set them over against the Christian worldview than Francis Schaeffer.

But Schaeffer was no ordinary evangelical. The man wore knickers and knee high socks when he lectured, sporting not only long hair but a goat’s-chin beard! Most importantly, Schaeffer did not fear man, but feared God. Not only did he engage secular worldviews, but he confronted his fellow evangelicals, even rebuking them for doctrinal concession and compromise.

As many have observed, it is not an overstatement to say that the Schaeffers transformed, reshaped, and in many ways reformed American evangelicalism. Those writing in this new issue of Credo Magazine are proof, each writer bearing testimony to how Francis Schaeffer has made a monumental impact on how we understand and articulate the Christian faith and life in the world of ideas. Contributors include Bruce Little, William Edgar, Bryan Follis, Stephen Wellum, and many others.

Here is a preview of the cover and table of contents to get you started!  Continue at CredoMag