Category Archives: Protology

Concerning Same Sex Adoptions

Yesterday, a friend’s question on social media in response to an article I shared about children in same sex households provoked the following thoughts on the issue of adoption, even dealing with single parent adoptions and the detriment to the child (not to mention the selfishness they expose). Here is the article I shared:

Here are my thoughts on the issue of same sex couple adoption and single parent adoption, as well as the destructive force they (in particular same sex couple adoptions) have on children and on society:

Yes, I am opposed to single parent adoptions. Though, I will firmly argue that a single parent is less destructive than homosexual parents – who effectively guarantee the perversion of the child’s mind from naturally understanding God as their Father and the Church as their Mother. For no one can have God as their Father if they do not have the Church as their mother.

Further, at least a child with a single mother or father can have a motherly or fatherly figure (respective of the one missing) enter their lives through other relatives or friends or future marriage. Same sex couples are claiming to be married and in need of no other member of the opposite sex to be required in the household (though I’m sure some single parent adopters have thought the same thing, wrongly).

Now, I say this not to disregard the grace of God in saving people out of their twisted thinking and broken upbringings… I am saying this as a point of genuine natural law and civil society. As Christians – by conceding this to be acceptable – we further degrade and destroy our society and our witness to those who would seek to understand what a true human society should look like.

For those of you who might think that (simply) 2 is better than 1… This thinking ultimately breaks down because all children in America today (who are not being held captive by criminals of course) have plenty of people helping to raise them in their lives – whether it is school teachers, grandparents, neighbors, fellow church members, etc.

This issue, from a Christian perspective, has everything to do with nature, the created order, and human salvation – and NOT anything to do with having enough people to help a child have some kind of ‘better’ life. For a child who has a better life and ends up not worshiping God will receive more damnation in hell than the child who was poor and needy, yet still did not believe. For we are all going to be judged according to our deeds – either for rewards in heaven or punishments in hell.

By nature – on the adoption issue – any child raised in a single parent or same sex couple situation is going to be devoid of any real life experience of how God created them to grow up naturally – thus the basic problem of allowing either kind of people to adopt. Therefore, as Christians, to have any part in “okaying” or affirming such practices in adoptive circumstances is to rip apart the very fabric of our civil society. It not only harms the child, but it also puts one more stumbling block in the way of that child growing up to see these two fundamental truths of reality:

  1. No one can have God as their Father who does not have the Church as their Mother. (Galatians 4:26)
  2. Marriage between a man and a woman has always stood to show this mystery – the relationship between Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:32)

And as we all should recall here… Jesus said, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Luke 17:2)

Desert Like a Rose by Peter Leithart

First Things has published a thoughtful article by Peter Leithart regarding missions and culture. I encourage everyone interested in understanding how missions should be done in light of various cultures to read this article. It addresses the issue of compromise and the gospel and much more. Enjoy!

A Rose in the Wind

Excerpt:

Time was when Christian missions occurred “over there.” Every now and then, the missionary would show up at church dressed like a time traveler, to show slides of exotic places and to enchant the stay-at-homes with tales about the strange diet and customs of the natives. Foreign missions still happen, but that model seems like ancient history. With the new immigration and the increased ease of travel and communication, the mission field has moved into the neighborhood, and every church that has its eyes open is asking every day how to do “foreign missions.”

That poses a problem. Missions has always been the place where the bookish question of “Christ and culture” turns practical. Now, at the same time that missions has become a challenge “right here,” multiculturalists question the very legitimacy of missions. Since the gospel always comes clothed in culture, how, on the premises of multiculturalism, can missionary work be anything but a veiled form of cultural imperialism? From Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, missionaries are depicted as tools of Western hegemony. But, if we’re all missionaries now, are we all cooperating in genocide?

Under the regime of multiculturalism, mission efforts face a cruel dilemma. Either missionaries can preach an uncompromising gospel that will cause everything to fall apart, or they can soft pedal the gospel of God’s judgment and grace in order to permit non-Christian cultures to survive. But is the situation as dire as this? Does the Bible perhaps offer a model for re-conceiving the question in a way that avoids the unhappy choice between compromise and cultural cataclysm?

The answer, I think, is yes. [Continue…]

Bavinck’s Covenant Christology

Covenant Christology: Herman Bavinck and the Pactum Salutis
By Rev. Mark Jones, Leiden Universiteit

For Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) ‘the doctrine of the covenant is of the greatest importance.’ Behind the temporal covenants of works and grace stands the pretemporal pactum salutis (counsel of peace/covenant of redemption). The pactum salutis is an intratrinitarian covenant between the Father, Son and Spirit that provides the eternal, inviolable foundation for the temporal covenant of grace (foedus gratiae). The Reformed orthodox in particular, since the sixteenth century, used the pactum salutis as an argument for the ad intra trinitarian grounding for the ad extra work of salvation. Thus, soteriology is decidedly trinitarian, that is, ‘salvation is an undertaking of the one God in three persons in which all cooperate and each one performs a special task.’ Consequently, this doctrine is the starting-point for any Christological discussion of the person and work of the Mediator, Jesus Christ.

In defending and giving expression to the pactum salutis, Bavinck is conscious that this doctrine has a fairly long and illustrious history among Reformed covenant theologians. And though this doctrine is ‘rooted in a scriptural idea’, Bavinck suggests that not a few of the Reformed were guilty of ‘scholastic subtlety’ by quoting various Scriptural passages (e.g. Zech. 6:13, translated by the Latin Vulgate as consilium pacis) that did not have reference to the pactum salutis. Thus, while clearly appreciative of his Reformed heritage, Bavinck is not uncritical of various formulations of the pactum salutis.

In order to understand why Bavinck gives such prominence to the pactum salutis, something of this doctrine’s history must be understood, which will show, among other things, that his theology reflects the broad parameters and concerns of the Reformed interpretive tradition.

(Continue Reading…)

[HT: James Grant]

Battle for the Beginning MP3 Audio by John MacArthur

Brian says:

John MacArthur‘s podcast on oneplace.com recently featured a series of talks entitled: The Battle for the Beginning. Although not reflecting the complete content of his series, this 20 part podcast covers the main material of his view of the Genesis creation narrative. Contrast his young-earth view with William Lane Craig‘s old-earth view (available on his podcast as well) in order to have a firm grasp of both angles. I found both the young-earth view and old-earth views very informative.

This batch will also be added to The Ultimate Apologetics MP3 Audio Page.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |

12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Enjoy.

Is Sarah Palin sinning b/c she’s running for VP?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Please leave your comments below.

But for starters, watch this ABC video broadcast where reporters came to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky and interviewed students about their views on Palin as VP and women in the pastorate.

I personally do not believe that there is a problem with Sarah Palin running for VP. There’s a fundamental difference between the role of government and the role of the church. The government, as it exists today, is a function of the old creation order of sin and judgment on sin (Romans 13). The church is the government of the new creation order, which consists of life, redemption, and renewal (Romans 8). As we participate in these two spheres which exist in the overlap of the ages (the already and not yet), we must remember that they are distinct from one another and never to be confused. In the new creation, or regeneration, God is calling His people, the church, to once again fulfill the created order and the rolls for man and woman in the worship and glory of God. Given this reality, the church has a higher calling to be a witness in the world to the way Christ and his bride, the church, function together in union and communion. Simply put, the government is not the church and the church is not the government.

What are you thoughts? Leave them below in the comments section.

N. T. Wright Interview: Christians Wrong About Heaven

And to this I must say, Amen!

N. T. Wright is one of the best Bible teachers out there when it comes to eschatology and God’s ultimate purpose for mankind and the rest of the creation. One of the things he loves talking about is “life after life after death”. His point is that “life after death” is not the end. It’s not our final resting place. Heaven, as most Christians think today, is not the end goal of the Christian life. The “end”, instead, is the beginning of life as God always planned it to be. Life after life after death begins with resurrection. And in resurrection the Christian inherits a new heaven and a new earth.

In other words, heaven and earth will finally be one, God will be all in all, and man will finally dwell on the earth as God has always intended it to be. Had God decreed something other than the fall, Adam would have fulfilled his calling to expand the Garden and dwelling place of God on the earth (i.e. – to fill and subdue the planet, Gen. 1:26-28) and his descendants would have been brought into a new heavens and a new earth once the Genesis dominion mandate was fulfilled.

Let us thank God for the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, who fulfilled Adam’s calling and guaranteed a new heavens and a new earth to all who trust in him!

So, why the interview? Well, Wright has just published his second book in a trilogy of books on the essentials of the Christian Faith. Thankfully, Time has interviewed him for us here. I am reposting the interview below. Enjoy! Continue reading N. T. Wright Interview: Christians Wrong About Heaven

Last Things First

This should prove to be an interesting book. I have Dr. Fesko’s book on Genesis 1-3 entitled “Protology” and found it to be very informative. I think this might be the same book, but now it has been published by a bigger company. Eitherway, this should be a very thought provoking book for anyone interested in understanding God’s plan for mankind throughout the ages.

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Publisher Description: We think that we know the first three chapters of the Bible well – Creation and the Fall, we say, knowingly. But have we ever stopped to consider that Jesus in the book of Revelation is called ‘the last Adam’ and the ‘Alpha & Omega’? Should this make a difference to how we look at the first three chapters of Genesis? Dr. John Fesko says that it does and that without seeing Christ and the end days, we cannot understand the first days.

Over the controversies that surround these first three chapters he says ‘there are many theologians who represent different schools of thought. Is there a better way to approach the opening chapters of Genesis in spite of the debate? The answer to that question is an unqualified, ‘Yes’… The way through the impasse is to interpret Genesis in the manner presented in the New Testament. More specifically, one must interpret Genesis 1-3 in the light of Christ and Eschatology.’

By doing this, he is able to explain this important portion of scripture from a holistic Christological viewpoint, one that is consistent throughout scripture. If you are tangled up on origins in Genesis then this may be your way through the maze.

(HT: Green Baggins)