As I start this online journal I am not sure where it will lead or what I will actually do with the space. My thoughts are it will give me a place to put thoughts on stuff I am reading, where possibly I can look back at later, or maybe even have others interact with.

Sometimes it is easier to write out your thoughts so you can interact with them and clarify them.  But sometimes my thoughts are not too clear and others might help me get a better grasp of the implications of my thoughts, and then I can change them.  That said, nothing posted here is more than my thoughts at the moment.  I am willing and more than ready to change my thinking when a well reasoned argument to the contrary is given.

As father of 7 (6 at home from 19 to 7 years old) and a wife who would like me to get more done at home, I doubt I will have too much time to keep up with too much, but this will give me a place to post as I ruminate on my cud.

Was just reading Doug Wilson’s blog on the Lord’s Supper and it reminded me of this past weekend’s reading in Table Talk about how to answer those who pose the question, “Are you saved?” with a response such as, “Do you mean was I saved?, am I saved? , or am I being saved?  Wilson comments:

“It is quite true that you have been saved already; you are freely justified through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But according to the Word, we are also being saved, and at the last day, we will be saved.”

I wonder how much of the confusion about the Federal Vision theology has to do with confusing the fact that we have been, are being, and will be saved?

Of course the big todo is about the church - is it visible, invisible, or what?  I think the distinction is what causes most of the confusion.  Just because there are tares in the wheat field does not make it any less a wheat field!  And it definitely does not make the wheat part of some invisible field! 

God is the God of space & time.  God is the God of history.  The community he is creating is a community in space & time, a community in history - not some ethereal, invisible church but a church that is called to be salt and light to the world, a church that by it’s visible unity is supposed show the world the truth of the gospel.  No, this is not an invisible church, but a church triumphant, victorious, and VISIBLE.

Are all that are in the church going to heaven?  Did all who were part of Israel, and saved from Egypt make it to the promised land?  See how silly it would sound to say that only the invisible Israel were saved?

Ah, but bed time calls….  What was to be just a short note has become a rant.

I was just reading some of the Federal Vision / Knox Seminary papers that I downloaded a while back. One of the articles I was reading was “Covenant and Salvation, or What is a Christian” by Richard D. Phillips (minister of preaching at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, and speaker-at-large for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals). After the author makes some unsupported statements such as “The Federal Vision says we are saved by the covenant; Reformed Theology says we are saved by Christ.”, he writes on page 80 of his essay something that totally floored me:

By Faith Alone
God’s covenant is the means for what we tend to call a “saving relationship” with God. That Abraham’s physical offspring formed a covenant community which as a whole was presented with the covenant, but not all of which realized its blessing, is essential to understanding the matter of infant baptism and the Christian church. A baptized child is objectively presented with the covenant. This does not, however, bring the child into the relationship with God offered by the covenant, but rather brings him into the community of the church in which this offer is presented. The church is the new covenant corollary to the tents of Abraham; here the covenant is presented for salvation, in contrast to the outside world which knows not the way to God. The covenant has its conditions, along with blessings for fulfillment and curses for non-fulfillment. But the child is not in the fulfilled relationship with God offered by the covenant simply because the covenant has been presented to him or her. The covenant is a means to the relationship contingent upon its fulfillment. Until the conditions of the covenant are fulfilled, the child is not in the relationship offered by the covenant, even though baptism enters the child into the covenant community. Baptized children gain profound benefits by virtue of outward membership in the church: the blessing of the prayer, oversight, Christian nurture and teaching of the church. But the child must still be evangelized and must come to a personal faith in order to receive the salvation offered by Gods covenant, that is, in order to become a true Christian.

Did I miss something? I did not know this was a possible view within Reformed circles! Am I really supposed to treat my children as heathen until they make profession of faith? I thought it was only Arminians and Baptists who believed the that their children are little heathen. I now see why paedocommunion is anathema to these people. How can you serve communion to heathen? But back to the point, I see now that if this is the ‘orthodox’ view of our children and others in the covenant then the Federal Vision truly is outside orthodoxy. But I will take my stand with those, like Paul, who hold that the the child of a Christian should be considered ‘holy’, and that membership in the covenant community will be equated with membership in the Body of Christ until such time that it is proved otherwise.

I just finished reading this and really liked Ralph Allan Smith’s points on many issues. Here are some quotes:

How old does a child have to be before we take his profession of faith seriously? I do not mean to sound terse or rude, but I do want to put the issue in straightforward terms. Little children from the age of two to four or six can and do profess their faith in Christ. Our tendency — and I say “our” because I have done this also — is to reject their confession of faith on the grounds that they are children and their confession is not quite the “real thing.” I have come to believe that treating children in this fashion is wrong. We need to rethink what it means that God has given us children as a blessing to train for Him and His glory. We also need to rethink the implications of our Lord’s teaching about children.

A 4 year old can tell you what he believes, if you teach him. He will accept his parents? teaching that God is a Trinity, though, of course, he will not understand exactly what that means. That is not a problem. Neither his pastor nor his parents really understand all that it means that God is a Trinity. It is a faith we confess because like little children we are willing to believe what our Heavenly Father teaches us, even when it transcends our understanding. Why should the child’s lack of deep understanding bother us?

The fact is that most Christians in the advanced world commit their little children “who believe whatever they are told” to a godless educational system. From the time they are 4 or 5, children are trained to believe they can understand the world without faith in the Triune God, prayer, or study of His word. That training continues until they are adults. It occupies the greatest part of their time during the week for most of the years of their lives from the time they are 5 or 6 until they are 18 or 22. Now think. If we sent our little ones to the Mormons 30 or more hours a week for 12 years or more, would we be surprised if they eventually thought and acted like Mormons?

I trust in God with the same kind of faith that a little child of 3 or 4 trusts in his parents. I accept what Jesus taught that this is the only kind of faith which can bring us into the kingdom. When you were 4, I accepted your faith. I treated you like a fellow believer because your faith and mine were fundamentally the same. I have not progressed to some advanced condition in which I now have knowledge and no longer need the faith of a simple child. On the contrary, the older I get and the more I learn, the more my faith is purified to the simplicity of relying on Jesus. I urge you to stand in that same faith. Seek knowledge, wisdom, and understanding on the basis of that faith. Never doubt your Father in Heaven, just like you did not doubt me when you were 4. That is the kind of faith I have. It is the faith Jesus taught us all to have.

Just reading Church in danger in Razor Mouth

“One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative,” theologian Francis Schaeffer wrote. In fact, for Christians to be stridently aligned with conservative politics is to miss the point of their religion. Conservatism, as such, means promoting a political agenda and, thus, maintaining the flow of the status quo. True Christians, however, are revolutionaries against a status quo dedicated to materialism and the survival of the fittest.

and…

All this does not mean that the church has to be silent. This is definitely not a day for a sleeping church. While Christians should avoid politicizing their religion, this does not mean that pastors or individuals should not address the pressing social and moral issues of the day. Just the opposite is true. Christians need to be clear in what they say and stand by it. The wishy-washy political correctness that characterizes many churches will simply not meet the challenges of the day. Finally, there is a dire need for a compassionate Christianity. Like the early church, the modern church needs to cut across all lines and reach out to every segment of society. If not, as Martin Luther King once said, the church will eventually become irrelevant.

I get asked if I am a Republican or Democrat. I don’t really like giving an answer because I am neither. I am more in the lines of a Christian Libertarian (link broken).

Was listening to Ephesians in the car on my new Rio Cali that I bought for myself for a birthday present. (Late 30s, Very Late 30s). I listen to MP3s I create from pulling content from BBC7 Drama and BBC4 Drama & Readings

Anyway, I was listening to Ephesians on the way to work this morning and when the reading came to verses 8 & 9 I could say the verses with the reader. But verse 10 made me stop.

Ephesians 2
⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (ESV)

How well we know this verse

…by grace you have been saved through faith…

And the follow-up

…not a result of works, so that no one may boast…

But how often to we skip the next verse

…created in Christ Jesus for good works….

The context shows we are saved by faith for works.

It amazes me that some people are so afraid of the W word that they have divorced works from faith. We are never saved by our works but our works are the natural result of our faith. If we cannot see ‘visible’ fruit of our conversion then we need to question the reality of our ‘invisible’ conversion.

How many times have we heard the ‘Great Commission’ but not really hear what it says.

Matthew 28
¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

1 Samuel 15
²²And Samuel said,
 "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
    as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,     and to listen than the fat of rams.

What is the Christian’s responsibility in politics? I thought this World Magazine article puts it in a pretty good perspective. Joel Belz gives 3 reminders as we look at our place in the political process:

First, it’s our culture - not the political process - that has to change. Mastering the political process, instead of the culture that political process reflects, is about as effective as training a dog’s tail. When you train the dog well, the tail tends to follow.

Second, Christians need to struggle in a fresh way with the sad manner in which the kingdom of God has become a culture coddler instead of a culture challenger. We have tended over the last few generations to show more zeal for discovering points of common interest with our culture than for highlighting crucial points of difference.

Third, none of this will happen on a grand scale until it has begun to happen profoundly with us as individuals. God uses structures, to be sure. But the structures He’s typically used have been those that are built on individual men and women who have done business with Him on a personal basis.

I have argued both that as Christians we should not support the ‘best’ of 2 evils and the opposite position that we have a God-given responsibility to exercise the God-given freedoms we have in this country. I do not feel we should be fighting for a ‘place at the table’, but I also do not think that we can sit idly by and watch our society commit suicide. But what do we do? Whatever it is, we need to “keep it all in some eternal perspective.”