CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES
This website is devoted to adult Christian education. The content is geared toward an adult learning approach. For this reason, the content will usually focus on those major areas of major areas. In other words, the largest mountains with the largest boulders. However, links to specific details will be built into the major areas as the site grows over time. The major areas of concern are theology and apologetics. Any approach to apologetics that is not rich in theology is generally deficient and inadequate to serve as a good tool for engaging the lost. Such approaches are quite often heavily influenced by enlightenment philosophies and views of Christianity that are more rational than biblical. They should be avoided.
The author of this site is a confessional, reformed Baptist. I adopt a covenantal approach to theology and a presuppositional-biblical-theological approach to apologetics. I embrace all but one article of the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession.
What you will find in this site are major sections on theology, apologetics, cultural issues, major challenges to the Christian faith, and my blog. Within some of those sections, you will find links to tutorials that take you a little deeper on certain subjects. The site is new and the content is scant at this point. Please continue to stop by as the site will continue to grow and evolve over time.
This site defines Christian apologetics in this way: the attempt to persuade men to believe the truths of Biblical Christianity.
What is the basic tenet of non-Christian thought? The one thing that all non-Christians believe regardless of age, race, gender, or religion? That Jesus Christ is not Lord of all! It is that tenet that Christian theology aims to correct and that apologetics is responsible to refute, to reduce to irrationalism in honor of our Great God and King, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God!
I cannot find your name anywhere on the website. I believe I “met” on the Faithlife site during a discussion with Nathan and others. However, I don’t recall your name.
warm regards,
Oke Shannon
LikeLike
https://faithlife.com/posts/902562
Check out that location. You should be able to find the thread.
LikeLike
AHA! I was somewhat caught off guard by the ejection by Faithlife. I have followed many of those folks from that forum over to DivineCouncil.org. I am trying to engage them on the early verses of the Bible and the absolute requirement to START with the Bible and THEN consider science. Many Christians shrink back in fear of being ridiculed if they hold to Genesis historicity in the face of what some scientists say. My ongoing discussion (http://divinecouncil.org/forum/threads/systematic-theology-texts-and-the-age-of-the-earth.75/#post-491) asserts that even our most respected theologians (Grudem, Erickson) are very soft on early Genesis. I may plagiarize some of your thoughts on this site in that discussion. Please forgive me. BTW: Terence (the site Moderator) encouraged me to start that topic.
LikeLike
Feel free to use whatever you want. There is some defective reasoning going on not to mention serious exegetical fallacies. I have stayed away from the new site thus far. I will take a look at your link. I will be out of pocket starting this weekend until the week of 6/5. When I return I will look at it a little closer. You are correct that many Christian positions are shifting for the wrong reason: discomfort due to modern sensibilities. This is a dangerous trend in my opinion. Where do you stop? Andy Stanley has already said you can reject the virgin birth. Mike Licona has everything whittled down to the resurrection. Mere Christianity is trending but in my opinion, it is more likely to uncover the pseudos than anything else in my opinion. The real issue is that these people do not seem to understand the logical implications of embracing some of these views.
LikeLike
I would like to understand the following better”a good example of this is Romans 14 and the claim that there is in it a general principle known as the weaker brother principle. Close exegetical scrutiny, however, reveals that this is simply not the case at all. There are numerous other examples, such as issues related to Christians eating meat that had been offered to idols in the very epistle with which this post is concerned. This is an important component of New Testament exegesis that must always be kept in mind during the interpretive process.” I have always been taught the principle of the weaker brother ,etc and am very much interested in understanding the difference between passages that hold principles for us and those that do not. Can you explain this or recommend a place I can read an explanation?
LikeLike
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for the question. Modern pastors and leaders have taken the situations in Corinth and Rome and recontextualized them in our culture. So when I say there is no “weaker brother” principle, I really mean the modern way in which that principle is argued has no support in the Scripture. First, the “weaker brother” is defined as anyone with a weak conscience regarding certain practices in modern culture. The most common practice I see is alcoholic beverage consumption. Christians are told they shouldn’t have a beer or glass of wine because a weaker brother might see them and make a wrong judgment and therefore stumble and sin themselves. But this is not what Paul was dealing with in Romans or in Corinthians. There was a time when God himself had prohibited eating meat offered to idols. This means we had Christians who were actually rightfully abstaining from meat, but now no longer needed to under the new covenant. This would have been very difficult transition for these Jewish believers to adjust to. Paul was charging the Christians who did NOT struggle with this issue not to abuse their liberty in those circumstances. But no where do we see Paul or anyone else arguing that Christians ought to submit to legalists who make up rules as they go which what we see in modern times. I wonder why we never hear a pastor rebuke Christians for judging other Christians who drink wine! Why is that? They are guilty of sinfully judging their fellow brother. Instead, the argument almost always goes in the other direction. This is regrettable and needs to be addressed more biblically.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for clarifying. Is there a book that addresses other passages frequently distorted to create other similar principles?
LikeLike
Probably the best book I can think of along these lines is “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth” by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart. The books is not a collection of negative example. However, if you apply its positive principles, it will help you spot these poor but popular interpretations that have made their way into the basic thinking of many Christians.
LikeLike