Category Archives: Reforming

Culture, Interviews, Misc, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Songs

Lacrae – Rebel CD – Free Mp3

This is a great song from a really good rapper who is a Christian! I encourage you to listen to it and read the story behind the song here. You can also download it for free here:

What was your inspiration for your new album—”Rebel”?

The inspiration for the album was largely realizing my own need for a biblical worldview. As I would navigate through arts, economics, politics, media, and culture as a whole I’d wrestle with a dichotomy between sacred and secular all the time. I’d either embrace aspects of secularism or the other extreme be very separatist in my views. I began read and listen to stuff by D.A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, and Francis Schaeffer, and taking another look at Genesis, Daniel, and Romans and I found a better grid to see the world through.

Over time I’ve worked to see Urban culture through a biblical lens and it’s really helped. So I wanted to share with the listener the need to take a stand for Christ in culture yet still be a blessing and cultivator for the culture.

Apologetics, Atheism, Debate, Evangelism, Evolution, False Religion, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology, Trinity

Free Apologetic MP3 Downloads from Doug Wilson

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If you’ve never heard Doug Wilson debate, now is your chance and best of all… it’s FREE! Pastor Wilson is a very important figure in the ongoing debate with the “New Atheism” that has so loudly proclaimed itself as the truth in recent years. Thankfully, Canon Press is now offering several mp3s and a new book where Pastor Wilson has debated these atheists. See the information below for what they are offering. But first, I would like to draw your attention to the free mp3 they are offering on why Doug Wilson would even attempt to debate an atheist. You can download that mp3 from my web site here or listen to it from the player in this post. Enjoy!

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Here is the info about the free mp3s:

Apologetics, the Why and the How

“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

For most Christians, Peter’s words present a daunting challenge. Unless you’re a pastor, or an evangelist, or someone else similarly gifted and accustomed to preaching the Gospel, giving a defense of your faith tends to be a messy enterprise. Answers rarely come easy. Objections, on the other hand, come like a mighty river, and they’re often difficult to refute and turn aside. And often, Christian apologetics seems to be a futile exercise—we can’t argue anyone into the truth, and sometimes it looks like our efforts only make unbelievers more stubborn in their resistance to the Gospel.

Over the past year-and-a-half, Pastor Wilson has written several books attacking the “New Atheism” movement, but debating atheists is not a newfound hobby for him. Wilson has debated atheists Eddie Tabash and Dan Barker—each of them twice, no less—in the past fifteen years. And in this CRF Lecture, Why Debate an Atheist, he explains what good can come of such debates and why he has taken the time to participate in them. For those who question debates’ worth, or who would simply like to know what they can learn from them, this lecture provides answers.

To celebrate the release of Is Christianity Good for the World?, we’re offering this talk as a free MP3 download. Please visit the item page to download the talk, and please share it with your friends: it is a wonderful introduction to and defense of Christian apologetics, particularly since we face the ongoing attacks of New Atheism.

And speaking of Is Christianity Good for the World?, we have been very pleased with the reception it has received thus far. Not only has it sold well on Amazon and other online retailers, but it is also being featured on front tables in Barnes & Noble stores across the country. (Please feel free to point your friends or your blog links to ischristianitygoodfortheworld.com: not only can they see a good-sized picture of the book, but they can choose where they would like to purchase a copy.)

Books, Promotionals, Reforming, Systematic Theology, Theology

Westminster Bookstore – New Arrivals

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to point you all to some interesting and promising newly published books that are certainly worth reading if you find the time and interest in the subject. Please check them out and see what you think. Enjoy!

A Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institutes: Essays and Analysis

The Legacy of John Calvin: His Influence on the Modern World

New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ

Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach

An Old Testament Theology: A Canonical and Thematic Approach

Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future

The Reformed Faith: Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith

Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives

Apologetics, Biblical Theology, Creation, Eschatology, Interviews, New Testament Theology, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Bishop bucks views of heaven: NT Wright Interview at Tennessean.com

N.T. Wright’s recent visit to Nashville, TN, included an interview with the Tennessean. It includes some very interesting comments regarding hell and the final state of those who reject God’s Glory and Gospel. While I do not share his views on hell in full, I would say that his heart to see the world renewed is a blessed hope and central teaching of the Bible that we should all think about regularly and share with our family and friends. Below I have reproduced the article found here:

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Bishop bucks views of heaven

Long-held notions not biblical, he says

By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer

Heaven is not retirement on steroids, where people sit around doing whatever they like, with nothing but time on their hands.

Instead it’s more like going on vacation. You rest, relax, stop and smell the roses, and then get back to work. At least, that’s what the Bible says.

“The book of Revelation talks about God making us kings and priests,” said N.T. Wright, bishop of Durham, England, and author of Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. “It isn’t just salvation and now you can sit back and relax. It’s that we are saved to be God’s agents and stewards in this new creation.”

Wright who was in Nashville on Tuesday speaking at West End United Methodist Church, believes the notion of going to heaven after death isn’t found in the Bible. Instead, he says, God brings heaven to earth.

“It’s like this world with all the beauty and the grandeur and the power,” he said, “but unfettered by death and decay.”

The Church of England bishop says that he isn’t trying to come up with a new or inventive view of heaven and resurrection. Instead, he is trying to point people to the Bible.

“The odd thing is that I don’t think I am saying anything remotely unorthodox,” he said. “I am trying to give people back some bits of the Bible they have forgotten about … Resurrection may be crazy, but it is what Christians are supposed to believe.”

That’s a notion that appeals to Scotty Smith, founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin. Smith is currently preaching a series on heaven based on the book of Revelation.

He says that evangelical Christians, in particular, have replaced a biblical view of heaven with a romanticized view.

“It (heaven) is going to look a little more like this world than a place filled with cherubs sitting around and singing Bill Gaither songs,” Smith said. “The story the Bible tells is one of redemption, not replacement.”

Resurrection is the focus

Wright, appointed bishop of Durham, a diocese south of Scotland, in 2003, says the Bible and the Christian creeds speak more about resurrection than about going to heaven.

“Without resurrection you are left with a theology which says that the present world of space, time and matter is just junk, and God is going to throw it in the trash,” he said. “If you say this world is basically junk and trash, you can exploit it, you can exploit people. You can abuse the world, and you can abuse people and it really doesn’t matter.”

This focus on resurrection and not just getting to heaven also appeals to Gavin Richardson, director of youth ministries at Faith United Methodist Church in Hendersonville.

“It’s not just ‘get Jesus and you are good to go’,” he said.

In all his talk of heaven, Wright still believes in the reality of hell. He says that, in the end, people are free to choose to be separated from God.

“The Bible doesn’t talk about heaven and hell side by side. The Bible talks about God bringing all things on heaven and earth together. Heaven and earth will be joined. That is the great renewal and God’s victory over evil and suffering and death,” he said. “At the same time, the Bible talks about the certainty of final loss for those who choose not to worship the God in whose image they were made. And it seems to me that the New Testament doesn’t leave us with the option of saying all will be saved. I often wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

Apologetics, Church Year, Creation, Eschatology, New Testament Theology, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Resurrection! That is our hope!

Well, since I wasn’t able to post on Easter Sunday, I figured I would at least post about the resurrection sometime this week. So here goes!

This article is from Christianity Today. I encourage you to read more than just the excerpt. 🙂 Enjoy!

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The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate.
by N. T. Wright – posted 3/24/2008

There is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a classic passage, Paul speaks of “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life. The rest of the early Christian writings, where they address the subject, are completely in tune with this.

The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God’s ultimate purposes. If we squeeze it to the margins, as many have done by implication, or indeed, if we leave it out altogether, as some have done quite explicitly, we don’t just lose an extra feature, like buying a car that happens not to have electrically operated mirrors. We lose the central engine, which drives it and gives every other component its reason for working.

When we talk with biblical precision about the resurrection, we discover an excellent foundation for lively and creative Christian work in the present world—not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety.
Bodily Resurrection

While both Greco-Roman paganism and Second Temple Judaism held a wide variety of beliefs about life beyond death, the early Christians, beginning with Paul, were remarkably unanimous on the topic.

When Paul speaks in Philippians 3 of being “citizens of heaven,” he doesn’t mean that we shall retire there when we have finished our work here. He says in the next line that Jesus will come from heaven in order to transform the present humble body into a glorious body like his own. Jesus will do this by the power through which he makes all things subject to himself. This little statement contains in a nutshell more or less all Paul’s thought on the subject. The risen Jesus is both the model for the Christian’s future body and the means by which it comes.

Similarly, in Colossians 3:1–4, Paul says that when the Messiah (the one “who is your life”) appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. Paul does not say “one day you will go to be with him.” No, you already possess life in him. This new life, which the Christian possesses secretly, invisible to the world, will burst forth into full bodily reality and visibility.

The clearest and strongest passage is Romans 8:9–11. If the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah, dwells in you, says Paul, then the one who raised the Messiah from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies as well, through his Spirit who dwells in you. God will give life, not to a disembodied spirit, not to what many people have thought of as a spiritual body in the sense of a nonphysical one, but “to your mortal bodies also.”

Other New Testament writers support this view. The first letter of John declares that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The resurrection body of Jesus, which at the moment is almost unimaginable to us in its glory and power, will be the model for our own. And of course within John’s gospel, despite the puzzlement of those who want to read the book in a very different way, we have some of the clearest statements of future bodily resurrection. Jesus reaffirms the widespread Jewish expectation of resurrection in the last day, and announces that the hour for this has already arrived. It is quite explicit: “The hour is coming,” he says, “indeed, it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those who hear will live; when all in the graves will come out, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

(more… )

Anglicanism, Current Events, Denominations, Ecclesiology, History, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

The Global South Anglican: its origins and development

Here is a very helpful article for those of you interested in the conservative and orthodox churches of the Global South that exist withing the World Wide Anglican Communion. Peter Toon has a good summary that is well worth your reading. Please pray for the Anglican denomination, as it is going through a crisis that seems to be leading towards its ultimate demise and death for those we desire to maintain the unity of the Church in the bond of sexual immorality and abominable practices.

Here is a portion from Toon’s blog entry:

Though the expression, “Global South,” has been in use for a decade or more in the spheres of international relations, global economics, third-world development, and the like, its use in Anglican ecclesiological discourse is very recent. To refer to “The Global South” as one of the various constituencies of the Global Anglican Communion of Churches is now common; but; it has only been so for four or five years. (see the essay by Dr Poon listed at end of this article.)

Further, the economic and political use of the expression refers solely to the poorer countries of the world, the so-called developing nations, situated south of Europe and the U.S.A. (see for details of all this the work of “The Center for Global South” at American University in Washington D.C. founded in 1992); but, the Anglican use strangely includes both the provinces that are in developing countries and one or two that are in developed countries (e.g., S E Asia).

Today, 2008, the constituency called the Anglican Global South is generally associated with both a conservative theology and also opposition to the liberal-progressive agenda in sexuality of provinces in the West, especially North America. This has not always been so, for the original stance of this grouping was a continuation of the former South-South Encounters of representatives of Anglican Provinces not in the West or the North. As such it had admirable aims and sought primarily to do justice to the vocation and experience of being Anglican outside of the West and North and after colonialism. This explains why the relatively affluent province of S E Asia is in The Global South.

Totally separate from the work at, and between, the South to South Encounters, and beginning before the Lambeth Conference of 1998, continuing during that Lambeth Conference, and then more intensely afterwards, has been the persistent work of various American “ambassadors.” They have both made visits to Africa and Asia, and also invited to the U.S.A. bishops from these continents. The aim was to enlist these overseas bishops as orthodox allies in the battle being fought in and around The Episcopal Church over the innovations in sexual practice and ethics.

Audio Books, Confessions, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Systematic Theology, The Solas, Theology

Free Audiobook: Confessions of the Reformed Church

This month’s free audiobook from Christianaudio.com is the best one I’ve seen yet! I encourage everyone to download it ASAP for FREE! 🙂

Confessions of the Reformed Church

Here are some details:

The Augsburg, The Westminister, and the Heidelberg Confessions. Quite simply, these are three of the most important and well-known confessions of the Reformed faith. Concise, yet with excellent detail, there is no better way to get an introduction and background of historic Reformed faith.

Add the Download format of The Confessions of the Reformed Faith to your cart and then use the coupon code MAR2008 during checkout to receive this title for free.

Apologetics, Evangelism, Mp3s, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Master’s Seminary Faculty: A Biblical Response to Homosexuality

I just found out that the Master’s Seminary Faculty (John MacArthur’s School) just finished given their weekly lecture series on the topic of Homosexuality and the Bible.

Here is the link to the series and a list of the topics in the series. May God bless you through these lectures!

MP3 List:

2/14/2008 – Biblical Response to Homosexuality
Alex Montoya

2/12/2008 – Parenting and Homosexuality
Rick Holland

2/07/2008 – Marriage and Homosexuality
Irv Busenitz

2/05/2008 – Cultural and Medical Myths about Homosexuality
Michael Grisanti

1/29/2008 – The Bible on Sexuality and Homosexuality
John MacArthur

Apologetics, Eschatology, Interviews, New Testament Theology, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology, Videos

Nightline Reports: What Happens When You Die?

Video: What Happens When You Die?

New Report: Bishop’s Heaven: Is There Life After the Afterlife?

Nightline did a report yesterday on Bishop Tom Wright’s views on heaven and the afterlife. This interview dealt with the same thing that I post about in an earlier interview this year.

The Interview was good, but I know that they cut out several things that Wright said that could have clarified his views on things. I also didn’t like the way Nightline cast the interview. It sounded as thought Wright was saying that everyone will inherit the new heavens and the new earth, but I know that Wright does not believe that everyone will be saved. Some have accused him of that, but he expressly denies it.

What do you think about the Nightline interview?