On Fundamentalist Separation

• Bob Bixby posts his paper “Unanimity vs. Unity” on his blog Pensees. He explores the problems with the mainstream fundamentalist position on separation, and gives a young fundamentalist perspective. Very worth reading!
• In a similar vein, Dr. Kevin Bauder makes a compelling case for  the severity of failing to separate from apostates, and thus the need to separate from those who don’t. Since unity is based in the gospel, disunity (separation) flows from a “demeaning” of the gospel’s importance, he argues. He concludes as follows:

Separation from apostates is the necessary corollary of Christian unity….To reject separation is not some ordinary disobedience of Scripture. It is a grave act, and it requires an equally grave response. [Read the whole post.]

• Both of these articles follow on the heels of a series on secondary separation by Nathan Busenitz over at Faith and Practice. These articles give a succinct discussion of secondary separation and why conservative evangelicals like John MacArthur do not agree with the Fundamentalist version of it. Be sure to check them out: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.

On Charles Spurgeon and the IFBx Movement

• The Big Orange Truck wonders if Spurgeon would really be welcomed in the IFBx movement. He provides quotes from a single sermon which proves that Spurgeon believed in Lordship Salvation, repentance as required for salvation, and Calvinism! Check out the evidence for yourself by reading this post.

On Patriotism’s Place in the Church

• I know I am going back in time here, but I read this post a while back and determined I just had to link to it. Mike Hess, of Extreme Fundamentalist Makeover, just before July 4th gave us a post entitled “The Flag and the Church”. I believe the message of that post is very important, even if the 4th is long gone. Please, go check it out and think it over

Well, more blogging later. You all, take care.

We are back from our trip. It was long, somewhat restful, and fun. I enjoyed the time with family and being with our children as they enjoyed time with grandparents and great-grandparents. I was able to get some reading done, but alas virtually no blogging. Actually it was nice to vacation from the blogging world (I tend to want to read everything out there, and it leaves my head spinning…).

But now back to the real world, and the imaginary one as well (the blogosphere). “Imaginary” is too harsh, I know. But I can always imagine I have much greater influence and more readers than I do. It’s not about readers and influence, really. It is about Christ. I want to glorify Him and grow in my own sanctification. Putting what I am thinking into words and sharing it with others is one way to do that. I enjoy blogging, but I must be careful not to let it take away from my ultimate goal–living for Christ. To that end, I may post less often and not keep up on as many blogs as I would like to in the future. But I hope that what I post will be helpful to me and also to my readers!

This is really not an exhaustive blogroll. But I did want to point out some great posts I read last night; so, here goes.

On Aggressive Soulwinning (Quick Prayerism)

• Regular Joe at the Big Orange Truck has three great posts on the topic. He exposes the more extreme examples of this and asks all the right questions. He says “sometimes ‘soul winning’ is ‘soul losing'”, and that is the sad truth. The posts are found here, here, and here.

On IFBX Preaching

• Matt Richards of Bread and Circuses, makes some poignant observations concerning Jack Schaap’s claim that the people at First Baptist of Hammond, IN are “well fed” (with the Bible from the preaching). His point is sad yet true–and the truth goes beyond that one church in particular. Sadly a whole movement is largely guilty of underfeeding their sheep. Check out his assessment (part 1 and part 2) and see for yourself if it rings true!

On Extreme Fundamentalist Makeover

• Mike Hess, of Extreme Fundamentalist Makeover, has a couple reflective posts, in which he reminisces concerning his extreme fundamentalist past. I particularly enjoyed his post entitled “What the IFB Movement Taught Me”, you’ll just have to check that one out. Also he had a good post on his dealings with KJV-onlyism entitled, “Removing the Cobwebs”. His posts are always worth reading, but these are especially so!

Well, more blogging later. You all, take care.

GEMS FROM REFORMATION THEOLOGY

• Nathan Pitchford writes on the Christocentricity of the Psalms in “Augustine on Psalm One”. This is excellent! If you like this, be sure to check out his earlier post, “The Reformers’ Hermeneutic: Grammatical, Historical, and Christ-Centered” [I blogged about that one, here].
• Pastor John Samson highlights comments by Dr. James White (from his website: aomin.org) which brilliantly defend limited atonement. This article also is enlightening for its discussion of logical flaws (real or wrongly supposed) in argumentation.
• Finally, check out an essay critiquing the “Free Grace” movement written by Phillip Simpson. To get a taste for the essay check out the comments. It looks like a worthy effort to speak up against a theology that in affirming free grace, actually denies grace. This is the theology that leads people to claim that people who ever once decide to believe, can walk away from Christ for the rest of their lives, and yet meet Him one day in heaven [I blogged about this before in my “Once Saved, Always Saved?!?!” post].

FROM THE IFBX BEAT

• The Texas Baptist Underground has been busy lately! James Spurgeon has pointed out some pitiful examples of IFBx rationale as seen in LBT’s The Baptist Magazine here. He gave an excellent example of IFBx preaching while plugging three new links in this post. And then he commented on the “ministry” of a radio station with the hilarious call letters: WKJO (We are King James Only)!
• My friend regularjoe over at The Big Orange Truck has been busy posting about Lord Vader of the bus ministry’s dark side! You can check out his posts on that subject here and here.
• Also, thanks to James Spurgeon of The Texas Baptist Underground, I ran across a new blog attempting to become the underground ministry for First Baptist Church of Hammond, IN! You’ll have to check out Matt and Josh Richard’s first few posts over at Bread and Circuses. It promises to be both interesting and important.
• By the way, I recently discovered a new version of the old Fighting Fundamentalist Forums. It is much more moderated than what the old FFF has devolved into. Anyway, I registered, and plan to post there off and on. You may want to check it out; the new name is The Fighting Fundamental Forums. [Interestingly it is moderated by someone I went to school with and knew fairly well.]

ON UNITY

• You absolutely must check out Nathan Pitchford‘s excellent article entitled “Love, Unity, and Doctrinal Precision”. It should be required reading for anyone thinking through the issues facing fundamentalism (and indeed conservative evangelicalism) today.
• Along these lines, my blogging friend Mathew Sims concludes that the separatism expressed in fundamentalism today could be termed (sadly) genocidal fundamentalism. I second his assessment and stress that this is happening over the most minor issues. This article and the one I mention above stress how such a view of separatism actually minimizes the importance of the major and key doctrines around which fundamentalists and evangelicals unite. [Check out my post regarding my new banner and motto, for more of these sentiments.]

LASTLY

• I leave you with an encouraging book recommendation by Mathew Sims on The Bruised Reed by the Puritan Richard Sibbes. May you be encouraged as I was.

This week I have been closely following the posts and discussion at the Pyromaniacs blog on the issue of perseverance. Besides commenting at Pyromaniacs, I also blogged about this discussion here.

I have also tried lately, to stick to the subjects my blog is most directly concerned with when linking to other blog articles. But do not despair (do I have any readers who actually would?), I still plan on posting blogrolls periodically, as I like to share what I am studying and thinking about. Perhaps these resources can be a blessing to you all, as well.

On Studying and Reading for Pastors

• Check out two great posts by J. Ligon Duncan on this topic, here and here.

On the Need of Teachers

• Check out another post on this subject from the Pyromaniacs here.

On Controversies

• Frank Turk, of Centuri0n (and also Pyromaniacs), pointed my attention to Hugh Hewitt’s publicizing a blogger’s harsh criticisms of John Piper’s recent “10 Ways to Waste Cancer” article. [To be fair, the blogger did follow up with a post having a less harsh tone, but he did not retract his statements.]
• There has also been a controversy brewing this week concerning the origins of the ESV. Ben Witherington (a seminary professor at Asbury Theological Seminary) posted “The problem with the ESV”, in which he intimates that one translator (Wayne Grudem) was the prime mover behind the ESV, and that the translator’s big axe to grind (which necessitated the ESV) was opposition to the TNIV’s gender inclusive language. The ESV blog, responded to this charge, with the true origins of the ESV. Justin Taylor, posted Wayne Grudem’s reply, which was originally in the comments section of Ben Witherington’s blog. Witherington did graciously rescind some of his comments. Interestingly, the original post has now been deleted from his blog. (I linked to a cache of the page from Google, but I am not sure how long that link will work!).

On Calvinism

• Jonathan Moorhead has had some interesting posts lately on his blog concerning Arminian (and other) reactions to Calvinism’s doctrine of monergistic regeneration (see my post here about this here). Anyway, he had a post not to long ago summarizing some objections by one of the commentors. He later responded by posting a long answer from Gene Bridges of Triablogue. The answer is worth looking at (you can skip some of the technical stuff about Molinism, if you’d like, but he has some good responses to the earlier posted objections.”
• And for another great response to Arminian objections to monergistic regeration, check out this post
• Now concerning perseverance, Faith and Practice had a very interesting post (and debate) on free grace theology vs. Matt. 7:21-23 (see my post on perseverance as a duty here).

On Ethics

• Doug Eaton has a great series on different approaches to Biblical Ethics. It is very informative, especially to those who have never formally studied the issue (like me!). Here are the links: Introduction/Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

On Tithing

• Doug also points us to an interesting debate on Tithing–is it required of us today?

This blogroll will necessarily include some older material due to the joyous birth of my daughter interrupting my blogging plans. But I still wanted to compile this blogroll as some of what I read was very interesting and worthy of sharing with you all.

ON PERSEVERANCE

Doug Wilson had a great post on Heb. 3 (See also this recent post of my brother’s treatment of the same issue and passage).

Reformation Theology also had a post on Hebrews 6 which stresses that those who fail to persevere were never genuine belivers in the first place (cf. 1 Jn. 2:19).

Also, check out another good treatment of Hebrews 6 by Mathew Sims.

ON HERMENEUTICS

Reformation Theology gives a great Calvinistic understanding of 1 Tim. 4:10 in this post. (John Piper agrees with this interpretation as well, see his booklet on the 5 points of Calvinism here).

Dan Phillips of the new Pyromaniacs blog has a great post on understanding Proverbs. (This is the first of a 3 part series which promises to be very helpful).

ON BAPTISM

In the recent past, I was involved somewhat in a debate on credo vs. paedo baptism. I posted about it a bit here (including this summary post attempting to clarify what Scriptural bases paedo Baptists had for their views), but the main discussion was over at Pitchford’s Ramblings. You can find the debate recorded in the posts and comments under them listed here.

But more recently, Justin Taylor pointed our attention to another debate on this very issue in this post. Some of you may be interested in looking at the small debates pointed at from that post. For the debate over on Reformation 21 blog, you will have to search by date (this is done by clicking “next” a few times) and you will need to know the debate began on 1/28 and ended (sort of) on 1/30. And the debate at Denny Burk’s blog referenced in Justin’s post is spread over two posts, parts 1 and 2. At the end of part 2 of Burk’s blog, you will find a recent comment by me on the issue, if you are interested.

ON THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY

Justin Taylor brought my attention to some pertinent and insightful comments by John Piper on the current anti-Muslim cartoon controversy.

Also, there is a great satirical post on this controversy (and a little on the End of the Spear controversy: see below) over at NateNotes. (HT: Sharper Iron)

ON GREAT MEN OF THE PAST

Doug Kutilek gives a great article on George Whitfield over at Sharper Iron. This article is full of bibliographical information, and includes some great quotes by the Great Awakening’s most famous evangelist.

Reformation Theology in a post on Sola Scriptura has a good discussion of Martin Luther including his famous words at the Diet of Worms on the authority of Scripture.

ON THE END OF THE SPEAR

I have pretty much avoided talking about the controversy surrounding the placing of the gay actor Chad Allen in the starring role of a movie about Steve Saint and the 4 other missionaries who gave their lives for the conversion of the Wadonai (Acua) Indians in South America, back in the 1950s. I agree it was a wrong move for a professedly Christian movie company to cast Chad, but as it turns out they were not initially aware of his activist stance in the gay community. I do not think that every actor must be straight to play in any good or Christian movie, but it was not wise to give Allen such a platform to advance his agenda with, either.

But Jason Janz of Sharper Iron (whose early articles sparked much of the controversy in the blogworld, eventually reaching the New York Times) recently posted his second critique of the movie centering on its failure to present the Gospel message. I agree with Matt Simms that this is after all a movie. We should not expect it to overtly share the Gospel with pointed clarity. But Jason’s beef lies more in the realm of the movie promoter’s claims that the movie actually does convey the Gospel. I think much of his critique is accurate, and a movie about missionaries giving their lives to spread the gospel and the subsequent amazing changes the gospel made in the life and culture of an Indian tribe, at least should actually point out the main motivating force and prime mover in all of this””the gospel. It was the gospel that drove the men to such sacrificial lengths, and it was the gospel which so amazingly transformed the tribe. And sadly that fact is not explicitly declared in the movie itself. It allows evangelicals who know the story like the back of their hands, practically, to read into the movie what they want to see there. And in effect it does not educate the viewers ignorant of the story about the truly glorious power of the Gospel as shown in the story.

An interesting side development of this story was the controversy surrounding Kevin Bauder’s comments concerning the movie on his blog. For a brief overview of that story check out Phil Johnson’s post over at the Pyromaniacs blog. But I want to point out an excellent response to this by Bauder in which he graciously apologizes and owns up to what he is convinced was error on his part. He exemplifies a Christ-like spirit and presents a great challenge to us all to listen to the rebukes of our friends and be willing to repent when repentance is called for.

AND THANKS

Yes, thanks to Mathew Simms of Under Sovereign Grace and Nathan Fitzsimmons of The New OpinoNate for adding permanent (at least for now :)) links to my blog from their blogs. Oh, and thanks also to Nathan Pitchford for promoting my 1 Thessalonians “one-another” post over at his blog Pitchford’s Ramblings. May the content of my blog continue to earn links elsewhere as I desire to gain as large an audience as possible for the glory of Christ and the edification of His church.