Category Archives: The Solas

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.

Gheens Lectures by Simon Gathercole

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has now posted online lectures by Simon Gathercole (NT lecturer at the University of Cambridge), delivered there in November 2004:

The first three talks in these Gheens Lectures served as the foundation for Gathercole’s book, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[HT: JT]

OPC Report on Justification – Greek Font Problem

For those of you who might want to read this report, I finally got a hold of the Greek NT Bold font, which the report’s PDF document uses. This font will allow you do read the report with the Greek text clearly displayed (once you install it in the “fonts” under your Windows “control panel”). Here is the font:

GreekNTb.TTF

Also, for those of you who haven’t read the report or heard of it…

OPC Report on Justification

Trevin Wax Interview with N.T. Wright

Here is the full transcript of the interview Trevin conducted with N.T. Wright. This is a really great interview and I hope that every one of you will read through it or listen to the mp3 of it. The mp3 is available for direct download here.

I really appreciated Wright’s response and comments regarding his critics, in particular John Piper. Here is what Wright had to say about Piper and his new book:

Piper is in a different category. He graciously sent me an advance manuscript of his book which is critiquing me and invited my comments on it. I sent him a lengthy set of comments. I’ve only just got on email about two days ago the book in the revised form and I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. So I cannot say whether he’s being fair or not at this stage.

But I do know that he has done his darndest to be fair and I honor that and I respect that. People have asked me if I’m going to write a response, and the answer is that I don’t know. I’m kind of busy right now. But I maybe should, sooner or later.

I would love to see that response! Pray that Wright will find the time to respond and that this Piper/Wright dialogue will continue to bear fruit for God’s Kingdom.

The breakdown of the interview is also available in individual postings. Here is the breakdown:

  1. Introduction
  2. Wright’s conversion, calling, and personal worship
  3. Wright on “the gospel”
  4. Justification by faith
  5. Justification – present and future
  6. Justification and the Roman Catholic Church
  7. Sola Scriptura
  8. Is Wright arrogant to assume he has just now figured out what Paul meant?
  9. Wright on his critics
  10. Justification in practice
  11. Wright on penal substitution
  12. Wright on the resurrection
  13. Wright on Evangelism
  14. Wright on Church and State
  15. Upcoming Writings and Conclusion

John Piper’s Book is FREE to read online!

The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright

This is the free PDF of Dr. Piper’s new book that Desiring God Ministries has made available for free online! Wow! I cannot say thank you to John Piper’s ministry enough. I’m just waiting for N.T. Wright to make some of his books available for free in response to Piper’s mass distribution campaign. 😉

BTW, if you missed it or if you cannot read the book right now, here is the interview series where Dr. Piper talks about his critique of N.T. Wright and why he wrote the book:

The Future of Justification

Well folks, it’s almost here! Thankfully JT over at Between Two Worlds is giving us some shadows and types of the book about to be released in the near future by Dr. John Piper. The first blurb is a commendation by the well known Dr. Darrell Bock:

A good biblical dialogue needs two good conversation partners, who work hard to understand each other and make their case biblically. Piper’s look at justification does this with a superb tone and a careful presentation of his case. He and Wright exchanged communication before this book went public. Piper appeals to the wisdom of the ages on justification, a wisdom deeply rooted in Scripture. Wright argues his approach is also deeply rooted in Scripture as seen through a fresh appreciation of the first century context of Paul’s writing, a context we too often underestimate. This dialogue is important for the church; Piper has put us in a position to hear both sides of the debate and understand what is at stake. He has served us all well by enabling the reader to be put in the place of considering what Scripture says as he or she listens to this conversation and to our God. Iron sharpens iron, and Scripture is a sword that cuts between the soul and Spirit. Be prepared to be sharpened by a careful dialogue about what justification is.

–Darrell Bock, Research Professor of NT Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

The Future of Justification

This book is going to be well worth buying as soon as it comes out, whether you are on one side of the New Perspective debate or the other. As Dr. Bock tells us… iron really does sharpen iron!

It is my hope and prayer that any mysteries will be dispelled in regards to the views of N. T. Wright as well as clear concerns stated by John Piper about where the New Perspective, embraced too strongly, can lead people.

I still do not know what the book will ultimately conclude, but I trust that (from past experience) John Piper will have done his best to do justice to the views of N. T. Wright. May God get all the glory and may this book help many, many people to understand the Bible even more than they did before having picked it up!

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

N.T. Wright on Faith and Works

Today’s ON FAITH question is an excellent one…

What’s more important from a faith perspective? Being saved? Or doing good works?

I would like to point out Bishop N.T. Wright’s response to the question. It is an excellent answer as well as another verification that he is in fact a very orthodox Theologian. I hope you enjoy the article. I have re-posted it on this blog entry below:

Continue reading N.T. Wright on Faith and Works

Scripture Alone – “sola Scriptura!”

Do you really believe that the Bible (defined as the Old and New Testament Scripture only) is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the church? Or is it simply inerrant and infallible, but not really sufficient for Christian life?Well, let me quote a declaration (the Cambridge Declaration to be exact) so that we may understand what Scripture Alone is all about…

“We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian’s conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.”

Biblical Foundation: 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21; note also the implications of Matthew 22:29-32; Luke 24:27; Acts 20:29-32, 26:22-23

In the above noted passage of Matthew we see that Jesus says God spoke to them through what they read (the Scriptures). In Luke, Christ shows them in all the Scriptures what all the Prophets and Moses said concerning Him. In Acts Paul commits them to the Word of God. And again in Acts, Paul says he is simply restating what the Prophets and Moses foretold (in the Scriptures) would happen.

This is paramount to understanding orthodox Christianity and, more over, understanding anything about God with any certainty. If we do not believe this great doctrine then how can any of us know Jesus Christ or trust Him for who He really is? If we don’t believe this, then who was Jesus? Was He an enlightened man after the likeness of Buddha? Was He simply the prophet of Islam? Or maybe He was just a swell teacher… oh wait… we actually have to read historical documents and believe they are true in order to know anything about Him, more over, to even know he existed or taught anything at all! =) Thus my obvious sarcasm.

So, then we must ask what our Authority is… As stated above, the Bible is the sole Authority for orthodox Christianity and fully infallible and inerrant in the original documents. Thus, if we believe this truth, we should have no problem relying on God to preserve His Word for us in reliable copies made throughout history by Godly men seeking to have God’s Word (as we have Bibles in our houses) and help other people know God’s Word by spreading the Scriptures around as much and as far into the world as they can.

Do you know that the New Testament is the most historically attested book from antiquity? And that the Old Testament is the second most historically attested? That simply means that the Bible is the book with the most manuscripts (compared to any other book in antiquity), from many different areas in the world, that all line up with each other and show hardly any variance in the copies that still exist today. We actually have (though few) papyri of a portion of John’s Gospel from the second century, AD, that contains the same text found in the other manuscript copies that contain the full text of the New Testament!

And with a Church that was brutally persecuted the first 300 years of its existence, it didn’t actually have the time or resources to track down or keep up with all the copies that were made of the New Testament. Therefore the idea that the Bible has been changed over the early Christian years will never hold up because there were so many New Testament documents passed around in the known world the first three hundred years that, with no central controlling authority (like Islam), the Church would never have been able to obtain all the copies of the New Testament books, let alone make any amendments to the documents without many copies being left out or hidden from being changed. Besides, we have no evidence throughout early Church history that such a thing took place!

Do you really think that the teaching of the Bible has ever been popular with the non-Christian world?! Look at the first 300 years… the world governments persecuted and killed Christians for their teachings. Even now it’s still hated today in most of popular culture. People by default don’t like the doctrines of hell, grace and Jesus Christ. (Note, the ‘christians’ who don’t subscribe to all those doctrines are not Christians and they hate God) Christianity is not a religion that has ever been popular with the majority of the world, so why would we ever conclude that the Church “tried to change,” or “actually did change,” the Bible (into what it ‘currently’ teaches – Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and eternal life) when people (as a whole or majority), throughout history, have never wanted to follow what it teaches anyway? They still don’t! And therefore the only way they can place doubt on Christianity is to cast doubt on its Authority, because they don’t like what it says and teaches, just like those who persecuted Christianity the first 300 years! Books like the Da Vinci Code only tell us in the end that all roads lead to heaven and that you can worship what ever gods you want. Do you think that a polytheistic culture like the Roman Empire would care about such RELATIVE teachings that, note this, they already had?! I don’t think so…

Christianity is the only world religion that teaches man can do nothing to change Himself or even work with God to change Himself. But instead, God alone gets to choose who goes to heaven and man has no right to say anything about it! (John 6 & Romans 9) For God “has mercy on whom He has mercy” and God “hardens whom He hardens.” What other world religion teaches such a thing? What other world religion teaches that man is dead in trespasses and sins and cannot resurrect himself to life? (Ephesians 2) What other world religion teaches that faith and repentance is granted to the people of God (Ephesian 2:8-9 & 2 Timothy 2:25) in which they can THEN freely love God and praise Him for saving them from hell and giving them eternal life according to His good pleasure? What other world religion actually doesn’t teach that man has to perform something to merit heaven? I have yet to find one and don’t actually see one existing anytime soon.

True Christianity doesn’t make sense to people (1 Corinthians 1:22-23) and that is why it’s such a deficient argument to think that the Bible has been changed over the years when it still teaches what I have just stated above. Haven’t you seen that people always want to change things, or ignore them, so that they can be more affluent or more accepted? If the Bible has actually been changed over the years then why wasn’t it changed into something more universal like the rest of the world religions?

The Dark Age should tell us enough that the Bible was never changed because it was the Roman Catholic church that kept people from reading it (the common people didn’t know Latin, only the priests knew it) because that church wanted to stay in power and simply wanted people to think they could buy their way into heaven and merit God’s grace by doing something or following some procedure to earn their way into heaven.

Lastly, the fact that Scripture has not been changed over the years leads us to believe that either the writers were liars or actually telling the truth. But if they were liars, then why did Christianity flourish in the face of persecution? It wouldn’t unless they had sufficient testimony that Jesus Christ died and 3 days later rose from the grave! The Bible is that testimony and record of historical facts including what Christ and His Apostles taught and did in the first century, AD.

It should be trusted as such and accepted as God’s revelation to mankind about Himself and what He has done, is doing, and will do in the midst of mankind – namely saving His people whom He loved before the foundation of the world and bringing the greatest Glory unto Himself by creating the best of all worlds in which to do so.

People just don’t like that, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God by which to save them and bring them into all truth! Amen!