The seeds of sin are always germinating in the garden of God's church. Let us therefore as Christ's ministers be ready to perform our duty as the appointed husbands of this divine orchard. We have the only solution that may exterminate these gross weeds. Those who do not diligently apply the holy Word of God will be guilty of destroying the fruit of the field.
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Man tearing himself out of the rock Our worldview class will be examining humanism today. As the name indicates, it is the worldview that is directly opposite that of Christianity. It is holds an optimistic view of humanity, touting the greatness and glory of man. The motto of this system was best expressed by the ancient philosopher Protagoras. He said, "Man is the measure of all things." The great Renaissance artist Michelangelo provides something of a monument to the humanistic philosophy in his sculptures of men tearing themselves out of the rock. The point is that man does not need the assistance of God. Man will make himself; he can become anything by his sheer will and determination. A contemporary parallel may be seen on our television screens, particularly in those advertisements that seek to sell sports apparel.
Even some of the athletes look manly, a way of saying, "You can overcome the limitations of your femininity." The final shot in the advertisement says it all: A girl dunks a basketball over a team of men. She epitomizes the title of the commercial: "Throw-down." These 30 seconds preach a different view of femininity. It is definitely not the ideal Christian woman, who is meek and ready to submit to her husband (1 Peter 3:1-4). She is beyond woman--a new species of woman, who is able to throw down the current limitations and roles that define humanity. That is humanism. It is the view that man is evolved and ever evolving. He is the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, and there is still more greatness to be achieved.
Yet, it is only in his imagination. Lennon is a dreamer because he does not recognize that man's nature is inherently sinful. No amount of human effort will be able to transform the heart and overcome the defects that become him. The world he imagines can only be brought about through the supernatural working of Christ's redeeming grace.
A woman who is desperately seeking solace asks through sobbing tears why people have to die. The man responds with a trite, "To make life important." For all the supposed greatness of humanity, humanists are bound to admit that man's life is but a breath. Even the supposed super-humans of Nike will only achieve 100 years at best.
I'm posting this here because I want to keep it for later. It is an excellent article distinguishing between "hard" postmodernism and "soft" postmodernism.
The former in the main applies to those outside the church. The later applies to those within the pale of the church who have tasted of the postmodern fruits yet wish to remain semi-Christian. Existentialism arose in Europe after WWII, after the time of optimistic humanism. While the philosophy was being developed by various men prior to this point in time, it didn’t really catch on until after the devastation of WWII. The calamity of two world wars and the excessive death exacted by Hitler & Stalin’s concentration camps made many rethink how humanistic thought had served mankind. Adding to the turn against optimistic humanism was the trouble caused by the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Given all these tragedies—which overtly demonstrated the failure of humanistic thought— and the growing prevalence of the naturalistic/materialistic worldview, people entered an “intellectual pothole.” The despairing attitudes of those in Europe & America were perfect breeding grounds for “a philosophy of despair.” A few notable existential philosophers include: Jean Paul Sarte, Camus, Martin Heideger, Rudolph Bultmon Definition Existentialism, as already noted, is a pessimistic philosophy. It is sometimes called “the philosophy of despair” or “the philosophy of the absurd.” This can be seen by the following quotes:
Existentialism is an offshoot of naturalism, just like secular humanism. Because this is so, it holds many things in common with humanism. Unlike humanism though, existentialism focuses on the despair, angst, and absurdity of life. To put it another way, humanism takes the high road, believing that man is great and can become greater. Existentialism takes the low road: man is a meaningless lump of dirt that has no ultimate purpose.
Anthropology “Man is absurd, but he must act as if he is not.” –Sarte As noted above, man is nothing more than ooze. You are a “cosmic accident,” an “overgrown germ,” and “a clog in the wheel.” As such, you have no purpose and you live in a world that has no purpose. Thus you must deal with the angst that this produces. Angst can be thought of as the anxiety or anguish that accompanies the realization that you and this universe have no purpose. It is the combination of fear and dread that expresses how sick you are with life. Existentialism also stresses the freedom of man to choose as he wills. You are defined by these choices. You are the sum of your choices. Against the facts, and despite the meaninglessness of life, you must choose to be (existentialism is the worldview of being!). If there is meaning, it is defined by what you make of it.
Epistemology Truth is not something that is revealed or gained by rational investigation. Reason cannot be successful in finding the meaning to life because everything is ultimately meaningless. Instead, truth is primarily gained through experience. For the Existentialist, experience is everything. Your main goal is to create meaning out of your personal experience. Sometimes you will hear it said that “being is more important than knowing.” According to this worldview, it is not so much what you know as what you do and what you make of yourself. You may hear that “life is a journey.” That is, your life is a road trip where you must make yourself into what you are. In the end, one must “follow his heart,” even if it is illogical and means committing to something against all evidence. Ethics When it comes to ethics Existentialism admits that there is no absolute that guides what is right and wrong (after all, everything is meaningless). Instead it stresses one’s personal freedom and free choice. The existential worldview emphasizes the need to make a choice, and that choice must be free from all outside influences. No one can tell you what to do and you must not let anything govern you or influence you. In sum, all forms of oppression are to be tossed off, for that is the only thing that is ultimately wrong.
Again, it is choice and freedom that are predominant. Jean Paul Sarte once said regarding the “old woman crossing the road” that “It doesn’t matter if you help her cross the road or run her down, what matters is that you choose.”
Ultimately, suicide may be considered good. “The greatest question man must face is not so much if he should commit suicide, but when.”--Albert Camus Perhaps the best way to summarize existentialism’s view on ethics would be in saying: “Be true to yourself.” I will have opportunity once again to speak at the community Good Friday service here in Ashland. This year I will be speaking on the seventh saying from the cross, which is "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
It is interesting that this word is the seventh, or what could be called the Sabbath word. The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, the day in which God rested from all his work. Throughout Scripture the number seven takes on a symbolic sense of completion and fulfillment. It is with this word that Christ breaths his last. He has completed his work and enters into a sort of rest. His body goes to the grave where it will lay undisturbed through the Sabbath day. His soul returns to the Father where it finds its rest in the perfect enjoyment of that communion. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. 1 Corinthians 16:2 In our last post we said that the resurrection of Christ was so monumental that it altered the Christian calendar. No longer was the seventh day mandated as the day to observe as the Sabbath. This specific day was temporary and has passed with the coming of Christ. On the basis of this some in our day would say that we can now freely choose whichever day we want to be the day of rest and worship. They say that God has not mandated any one specific day, but simply that the principle of sabbath rest ought to be upheld at some point. This view has had some significant proponents. Indeed, this has been said to be John Calvin's view. But one ought to wonder why God would be so very specific about which day we were to observe in the Old Testament and allow so much freedom in the New Testament. It would seem that God's specification would have some "carry over" between the testaments. We may also ask why the church came to a universal agreement so very early on that Sunday ought to be the day which the church would designate as its day of rest and worship. One would expect that if it were left to conscience or convenience that the church would have a variety of days it recognizes as the Christian Sabbath. When the text of Scripture is analyzed we can see that the Lord does leave us some divine guidance regarding the specific day. The first regards the day Christ rose from the dead. Again, this was the monumental event of redemptive history, save Christ's second advent. The subsequent appearance of Christ is also significant in this regard. John 20:26 records how Jesus appeared to the disciples a second time after his resurrection. On the day of his resurrection, Thomas was missing from the gathering of the disciples. His disbelief is renowned as he said, "Unless I see the wounds and put my hand in the holes, I will not believe." The text records that eight days after the original appearance Christ revealed himself again to the disciples, for the benefit of Thomas. The eighth day would have again been Sunday, the first day of the week. That Christ chose to reveal himself on this particular day seems to indicate that there is now something special about this day of the week. We can also look at the rest of Scripture to see that the church got the message. For instance we read in Acts 20:7, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” What are they doing here? It is obviously a worship service. Paul preaches and they gather for the purpose of “breaking bread;” that is to say to observe the sacrament of communion. 1 Cor. 16:2 also hits along these lines. Paul tells the Corinthians, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” Why did Paul designate the first day of the week? Well, what better time to take up an offering than when all the saints are gathered together for worship? Another revealing text is found in Rev. 1:10. There the apostle John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.” John indicates that though he was detained from having communion with God's people due to his exile, he still sought communion with God on the day that was designated as His. And what can that be but the day he instituted in commemoration of his having finished his work of redemption! These Scriptures provide us with the pattern of the early church. The first Christians understood that the Lord Jesus, by virtue of his resurrection, claimed a new day as the Christian sabbath. It was to be set apart from all the other days of the week as "the Lord's day", the day belonging to him and for the purpose of giving homage to him. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested in the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. As a Christian matures, he eventually will come to a face off with the fourth commandment. It is the natural outcome of wanting to conform one's life to God's law. To that end he will seek to understand how the fourth commandment ought to be observed. But prior to that, he will most likely question the very legitimacy of the Sabbath command. There have been some who have taken an extreme view and deny the fact that there are still 10 commandments. However, to say that the fourth commandment has passed away and now there are only nine commandments is an obscure minority. Most would recognize the fact that the fourth commandment does continue to have force to some degree. It is simply a matter of what degree. A number of objections do typically rise when thinking through the Sabbath issue. The first of which usually goes something like this, "Hey, this Sabbath thing--isn't that an Old Testament thing? After all, it was the seventh day that the Lord told them to observe." It is true that the Jews did follow the pattern set by God. The Lord rested from the work of creation on the seventh day, and by doing so God set an example for subsequent generations. This then was codified in the Law of Moses given at Mt. Sinai. Our Seventh Day Adventist friends confess that nothing has changed and that "the law is the law." Therefore they continue the same practices required of the Jews, day and all. However, the majority of the Christian church no longer recognizes the seventh day as the day of rest and worship. This is because the fourth commandment is understood to have two parts to it, one that is perpetual and one that is temporary. Some might say that there is a ceremonial element that accompanies the moral principle the law addresses. The same can be said of the fifth commandment, which is "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land the Lord your God is giving you." There is no doubt that the commandment itself is a part of the moral law and to be observed perpetually. At the same time, we should readily admit that there is a ceremonial dimension. The blessing attached to the command (that of long life) is primarily linked to the land of promise. It is true that there is a perpetual element to the blessing as well. God does typically grant length of life to the obedient. However, there is no doubt that the original blessing references that temporary piece of real estate known as Israel. When it comes to the fourth commandment then, we can make the same distinction. The ceremonial aspect of the commandment (i.e. it being designated as the seventh day), passes away due to the work of Christ. The resurrection of Christ is such a monumental event in redemptive history that it it initiates a seismic shift in the Christian calendar. To put it more colloquially: it is a game changer. From that point on, God's people no longer looked forward to their eternal rest (like the Jews looked forward to the seventh day sabbath). We now look back upon the work of Christ (like we look back upon Sunday), recognizing that it was early on that first morning that He claimed for us the blessings of the covenant. Today I taught sixth, seventh, and eighth graders the doctrine of predestination. Not an easy task by any means. During my prep work I searched the net, but didn't find many helps out there. So I thought I would share my lesson plan here. Perhaps someone in a similar position might be assisted.
Terms we use to talk about God’s having planned everything in advance. You may note that most of them are used in Scripture.
What does this doctrine mean for me? Did God cause the school shootings that happened in Connecticut? Depends on what you mean by "caused." Yes, he willed it to happen and permitted the evil man to shoot those children. But he did not cause it in that he made the man pull the trigger. We may not understand how it all plays out, but we do know this: 1. God can never cause anyone to sin because He is too holy. 2. Man does have a free will where he can make choices. So, therefore, we understand that this evil man did this terrible thing by his own free will yet all the time was doing all according to God's decree. Read Acts 2:22-23. The most heinous act of all time, the crucifixion of Jesus. These men were guilty for having killed him of their own volition. Yet, at the very same time, Jesus was delivered up according to the direct plan of God. Does God care about the “little things” of life? He sure does! Some people say that God is in charge of the big things, but doens't care about the little things. This isn't true. Every big thing is connected to many little things. They say that world history was changed by a grain of sand that was caught in Oliver Cromwell's system and a mosquito that bit Alexander the Great. Another way of looking at it might be like this... For lack of a nail, the shoe was lost. For lack of a shoe, the horse was lost. For lack of a horse, the commander was lost For lack of a commander, the battle was lost. If God has already planned everything that will happen, why should we pray? It is sometimes said that prayer doesn't change God, it changes us. That is true. Prayer is designed to be a "means of grace," that is, a way of growing in faith and grace. As we pray we express our dependence upon God and grow to be more dependent upon Him. We also need to remember that God has ordained our prayers. More than that, He has ordained that our prayers be used in the outworking of His plan! Somehow our prayers are "powerful and effective" and will effect the course of events in history! How does the Bible present the doctrine of predestination? Romans 8:28-30 tells us that it is a... ...a doctrine that provides comfort. It reminds us that God is working all for our good and nothing--not one thing!-- can make it otherwise. No matter what ill may come to us, God is using it to further his purpose in our lives. Ultimately, we are given the assurance that we will be glorified on the last great day and nothing can keep that from happening. Ephesians 1:5-6 tells us that it is a reason to... ...praise God. Because our salvation is so wrapped up in the Lord and not owing to our own initiative, God ought to be given all worship and adoration. 2 Timothy 2:10 that we should be encouraged to... ...evangelize! Some think that this doctrine would prevent our evangelism or stifle the desire for it. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Since we know there are some who are elect, we work diligently to bring the gospel to them! God has, after all, ordained preaching as the means of retrieving the lost! Acts 27 and Philippians 2:12-13 give us the encouragement to ... ...work hard! Paul knew the boat was ordained to survive, but that didn't keep them from laboring to keep it so. Paul also knows that it is "God who works in us to will and to do his good pleasure." And that serves as the motivation for us "working out our salvation." Far from giving us a lazy spirit or an attitude of a sluggard, the doctrine of predestination gets us moving! This doctrine also has to do with the eternal destiny of men Election means that God... ...God has chosen who will be saved. To elect someone means you chose them (like choosing teams for a game of kickball). Matthew 24:22-24; Eph. 1:4, 11; Rom. 8:30 Reprobation means that God... ...God determines who will go to hell. God chooses to save some, but he chooses to pass over others. Jude 4, Proverbs 16:4, 1 Peter 2:8 In all, the doctrine of God's decrees tells us that all of our life is in the hands of a sovereign God. As history unfolds, we see the workings of His hand and the wisdom of His glorious plan. Our latest newsletter hits at a topic that is near and dear to my heart. The theme for this issue is that of the Primacy of Preaching. Two of the articles express the inherent power of the spoken word and why sermons ought to demand our attention. The third deals with some practical steps on what we who listen to the Word ought to do. Included in the package is a link to a very nice synopsis of what Reformed theology all entails. One of the things I like about this article is that it deals with more than simply the doctrinal distinctives of our brand of Protestantism. It also deals with our view of personal piety and cultural transformation. I mention this because the section on piety touches on the Reformed view of preaching. It says, "Reformed Christians have a high view of preaching. Preaching is not just a lecture in which the preacher talks about God; it is a Spirit-charged encounter with God in which the preacher, in the reading of Scripture and in preaching, proclaims the Word of God. Reformed Christians actually speak of the sermon as the Word of God to highlight the revelational significance of preaching in the context of public worship."
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