Chamber Singers

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Treasuring the Letters of a Scottish Preacher

http://awordfromthepastors.blogspot.com/2007/05/treasuring-letters-of-scottish-preacher.html

An Amazing Conference

I just returned from an amazing conference. It was the ninth annual New Attitude Conference put on by Sovereign Grace. It is geared towards 18 and up singles and young married couples. We decided to try it out as a substitute for a leadership conference for our teens, and I have to say, it did not disappoint. We were priviledged to hear Josh Harris on conformity, Mark Dever on discerning Doctrine, Al Mohler on culture, John Piper on God's pleasure in Himself, and C.J. Mahaney on overcoming idols of the heart among others. This was all surrounded with being led in worship by Bob Kaughlin and his sons, singing classic and modern hymns which exalted God and His justifying work of redemption with 3,000 other like-minded individuals.
I wrote a bunch more on my personal blog, but I just wanted to encourage all of you to think about this conference for yourselves and maybe the older students in your youth groups next year. You won't be disappointed.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Post #200! Summer Plans

As lethargic as the activity has been on this blog for the past few months, I'm pleased and surprised to be writing the 200th post. I am going to use this opportunity to ask everyone what their summer (and beyond) plans are. Some of you are well out of school, some just graduated, and others are still making their way through BBC, but it would be nice to know what all are up to. Christa and I are, as most of you know, living in the San Diego area and going to Westminster Seminary, enrolled in the Master of Divinity program. This summer will be busy and varied. I will be working basically three part-time jobs: construction with some guys from school, Audio/Visual assistant at Westminster, and my job at our churching leading all the music stuff. I'm also an intern at my church -- I have to log many and varied internship hours for school over the next few years. I have two other large tasks I hope to accomplish this summer. I will hopefully get about 1,000 pages of reading done for school and pleasure. I'm also trying to finish up a record I've been working on for a few months. My hope is to get it done and out before the Fall, but we'll see; there's lots still to do. Christa (Honorary Chamber Singer by matrimony!) will continue working at the seminary as the Admissions Coordinator. She enjoys working there, which is great. It stinks though because summer comes along and everyone (faculty and students) get the summer off, but administration has to keep working. Hard to believe, we are celebrating our 3 year anniversary tomorrow!

So I hope everyone who can will take the time to respond with their plans, either by commenting on this post or by creating your own post.

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Sunday, May 27, 2007

The end of the story is like its beginning

http://awordfromthepastors.blogspot.com/2007/05/end-of-story-is-like-its-beginning.html

Thursday, May 24, 2007

A Band of Brethren Reading The Freedom of the Will

There are 8 BBC professors and administrators reading Edwards's The Freedom of the Will this summer.

Check out the site we've created for virtual conversation:

www.thefreedomofthewill.blogspot.com

Based on the first 15 pages of the reading, I wrote a true story [with an original photograph] entitled, To grill or not to grill - that is the choice. I'll be posting a reading list shortly. This is a 2 month project. We'll actually meet 4 times over the next 2 months and discuss the readings. Good times!

What are you guys reading this summer?

Arianna, David, Laura and Connie

Hey you guys,

I'm blogging live here with Arianna, Laura, David, and Connie. We're having a great night. Pizza [David singlehandedly ate 2 pizzas], Connie's Mexican dip, and sweet fellowship. Wish you were here. How are you all? Laura accidentally just spilled her white cake with chocolate icing on Arianna's head. "Yum, yum says Arianna!"

How is everyone? I'd love to hear from you -- even if only in the virtual circle.

Friday, May 18, 2007

life is good. books are many. read many good books.

Hey you all,

Given the recent discussion of what books to read and how to read them, I thought I'd recommend The New Lifetime Reading Plan [4th ed., 1997] by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major. Life is good. Book are many. Read many good books.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The other side of life

I'm glad to see that Doc has been posting. I haven't had much internet access, I don't have it set up at my apartment yet. Yes, Dunmore is home now. It's weird, but nice. Working at the library 8 hours a day is nice too. I'm actually dorm-sitting in Barndollar right now, though, until Sunday.
It's interesting to be at "life after graduation" now. I'm not sure what I think yet. I've felt lonely and helpless at times, but also loved and cared for. God is showing me that He even cares about things like how I get to and from work without a car. He really has provided so much. I have to remember that none of it is coincidence.

I'm still settling in to this other side of life. I haven't really had a moment that felt normal yet. But I'm trying to read when I can. I'm reading the second part of Pilgrim's Progress, hoping to finish Mortification of Sin, and just picked up Lewis' The Abolition of Man. The goal now is to really think about what I read. I'm used to reading a lot for pleasure. I've read many books simply for their entertainment value, even if they were significant on some other level. I've approached movie viewing in the same way for many years. It is only more recently that the new world of digesting and really learning from good books and good movies has been opened up to me. Any advice for beginners?

Well, I hope we can all benefit from the virtual circle this summer.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Freedom of the Will and Feeding on Wings



Hey you all,

Yes, Kramer is now shaved. I'll send you a pic later this evening.

Well, I've decided that my big read for the summer is to be Edwards's The Freedom of the Will. I've invited some of the faculty to read it together. So far the Shumaker brothers are on board as well as David McGrew. Below is the letter I sent along with my take on Edwards's preface.

I've got to go. We're off to prayer meeting and then some church fellowship and wings at Armettas. The wings are up to .30 cents each. I like them a little crispy and all legs if they can manage it. Here's the post I sent to the faculty. If any of you are interesting in reading the text with us, let me know. I'll post a reading schedule to the blog.

Friends,

Are there any of you who would like to join me in reading this summer an important text – namely, Edwards’s The Freedom of the Will? My intention is to read 7-10 pages a day. The book [Soli Edition] is 348 pages so it could be a summer project. I could put together a reading list beginning in a week or two so books could be ordered. It would also be nice to meet and talk about the text.

I do think that Edwards may be our guy for General Studies [perhaps other Divisions] as it relates to his views on beauty.

I his preface to TFOTW, Edwards defends the “natural tendency” to distinguish persons of different opinions by different names [Arians, Arminians, Socinians]. Although he believes that sometimes “uncharitableness” is possible in the process of distinguishing persons by different names, yet he writes:

“There is no necessity to suppose, that the thus distinguishing persons of different opinions by different names, arises mainly from an uncharitable spirit. It may arise from the disposition there is in mankind [whom God has distinguished with an ability and inclination for speech] to improve the benefit of language, in the proper use and design of names . . . without being encumbered with an obscure and difficult circumlocution.”

Edwards goes on to say that we do this all the time when we use distinct names to signify different sorts of people. For instance, we speak of the “ancient inhabitants of France, who were subjects or heads of the government of that land, and spake the language peculiar to it; in distinction from the inhabitants of Spain, who belonged to that community, and spake the language of that country . . . It is always a defect in language, in such cases, to be obliged to make a description instead of a name.”

So ultimately Edwards is making a case for seeing how “Calvinist” [a name] doctrine differs in its view from “Arminian [another name] doctrine” concerning free will or moral agency.

Edwards finishes:

“Of all kinds of knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important . . . but the knowledge of ourselves consists chiefly in right apprehensions concerning those two faculties of our nature, the understanding and the will . . . Therefore I say, the importance of this subject greatly demands the attention of Christians.”

I’d love to interact. Thanks!


Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Cranmer's Sweet Sermon

Hey you all,

Mr. Mom here! School keeps rolling along for the family while I empty the dishwasher, tomorrow take Kramer to the groomer [it appears he's taken a canine Nazarite vow], fold and put away clothes [I'd almost rather do anything else], and keep the house cleaned up.

This morning I read the English Reformer Thomas Cranmer's sweet homily [one of 21 sermons] entitled A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture. In it he writes:

"Let us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the New and Old Testament, and not run to the stinking puddles of men’s traditions, devised by man’s imagination, for our justification and salvation. For in holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God’s hands at length. In those books we shall find the Father, from whom, the Son, by whom, and the Holy Ghost, in whom, all things have their being and keeping up; and these three Persons to be but one God and one substance."

You may remember that Mary had Cranmer burned at the stake even when at first he sent a letter to Mary submitting himself to the Roman Church. Mary didn't believe Cranmer and ordered him burned. Nichols writes:

"Cranmer's impending death brought a clarity and resolve to his true beliefs. At the very end he affirmed his his Protestant and Reformed understanding of the gospel. When the fire was lit on the stake, he put his hand into the fire first, exclaiming, 'I have sinned, in that I have signed with my hand what I did not believe in my heart.'"

Let me know how you're doing. I'm praying for you -- that you may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints [how about reading dead saints like Paul or umm maybe some noncanonical brothers like Cranmer's 39 articles?] what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Velvet Elvis and "Heavy Petting" with Heresy

Wow! It's really crazy that today's evangelical church, instead of lamenting and repenting its abandonment of Scripture, continues to flirt with heresy -- that ancient, painted prostitute who in the shadows looks young and inviting but laughs the morning after at the disease the church has contracted from her.

Notice how Rob Bell in his recent book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith [2005], playfully questions the necessity of the Virgin Birth while personally affirming its validity [Bell compares Biblical doctrines with the metaphor of springs underneath a trampoline]:

"What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being 'born of a virgin' also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?"
[pp. 26-27]

This is really nothing more than "heavy petting" with heresy. Innocently maintaining that you haven't "gone all the way" won't hide the fact that the perfumed bed is only inches away.

Paul, at the end of his grand systematic theology, says it this way to his brothers and sisters in Rome:

"I appeal to you brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." Romans 16. 17-18