The following resources provide an understanding of the social justice movement of our day, and why many Christian leaders reject it as culturally defined. These resources expose and explain the basis of social justice ideology and vocabulary. The social justice movement is not sanitized just because it is accepted by some Christian leaders and uses Scripture, nor should it be confused with Biblical justice. Continue reading →
Category: Apologetics/Worldview
Jehovah and Allah are Not the Same!
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Some say yes. I say no. Those who say they are the same do so based upon similarities between Allah and Jehovah. Those who hold the sameness position say Muslims worship the same God as Christians but do so with errors in their understanding of God. That is to say; they simply need some correction in their understanding of God because they already worship the right God. In support of the same God theory, they would point out that Christians and Muslims each believe their God possesses similar attributes, both are monotheistic, both accept the Old and New Testament scriptures, although Islam says there are errors, and both have similarities in their recounting of history. Continue reading →
Clearing Up Some Ethical Confusion
Ethical decisions are a part of everyday life, and it is incumbent upon Christians to make moral and ethical decisions based upon the teaching of Scripture. Some of these decisions seem very easy; for example, murder, lying, and stealing are wrong, and truth-telling, mercy, and sacrifice are good. As clear as those seem to be, real-life experiences, recorded in the Scripture or lived out today, can create some nuances that becloud the issue.
For example, confusion can arise when a certain act that is condemned in Scripture has features similar to other acts that are not condemned and because of the similar features between that which is condemned and that which is not, the two acts are unjustifiably equated as being the same. An example of this would be the difference in being a martyr and committing suicide.
In The Round Table in Ethics, I have noticed a few things that tend to create confusion for Christians trying to understand and apply biblical ethics. This primarily revolves around making similar acts identical or equating God’s commendation of some elements of an event with God’s implied approval of all the elements of the event even when those elements are without exception said to be sin everywhere they are explicitly mentioned in Scripture. An example of this would be lying.
Consequently, in the second week of my Round Table in Ethics, I present something I call “Ethical Considerations and Clarifications”. In this presentation, I seek to address some distinctions that can be helpful in avoiding ethical dilemmas. The issues addressed in this paper do not address every relevant issue, but only those that seem to present problems when considering various ethical issues in The Round Table. I address the relationship of similarities and dissimilarities, the difference between intrinsically good or evil acts and extrinsically good or evil acts, the Is-Ought fallacy, the Sin of Omission, arguments from silence, and then I explain what a lie is. Continue reading →
The Dynamic Gospel Encounter: John 12:35–36
This passage gives insight into the very nature of the gospel encounter. We see the genuine offer of the gospel, and the need and urgency to accept it, which the listeners can do; or they can reject it with full knowledge and remain in their sin.
“So Jesus said to them, ‘For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.’ These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them” (John 12:35–36). Continue reading →
Upon Whom Shall We Exercise Church Discipline?
I remember the first time we implemented church discipline in my former church. It was the greatest spiritual challenge the church had faced. The process took over a year, and it ended with a young lady having to be removed and others leaving because of her removal.
But that was not to be the end of the story. Sometime later, I received a call from the young lady. She said she needed to come and repent before the church. She came and shared her story. She told how she had been saved subsequent to being disciplined by our church, and that it was the discipline of the church that God used to bring her to that salvation. She said she had always gotten away with everything she wanted—a pattern developed because of a lack of parental and self-discipline. The church had made her really examine her life and through that, she came to realize that she was not a true Christian. Correspondingly, she bowed her heart before our wonderful Lord, and He gloriously saved her. We welcomed her back to the Lord’s Table and the fellowship of the body. Continue reading →
The Practical Reasons for the Banishment of Church Discipline Answered
I have practiced church discipline for over thirty years, and here are some of the practical reasons often posed to me against the practice of church discipline.
It was abused in the past
When the subject of church discipline surfaces, someone will inevitably point to the abuses of the past as reason enough to squelch the whole conversation and move on to something more palatable. It is an undeniable fact that there have been abuses in the past. George Davis writes, “A perusal of old church minutes would tend to justify the claim that in the past church discipline was often wrongly motivated and sometimes concerned with petty matters.”[1] A classic example of abuse is when Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085) forced Henry IV to stand as a penitent in the snow outside the castle at Canossa begging the Pope to cancel his excommunication.[2] Continue reading →
Liberated through Discipline: The Five Kinds of Discipline
The term discipline, both in the Bible and in everyday usage, displays various nuances depending on the particular biblical or life context. The ideas communicated by discipline are that of chastening, instruction, nurturing, training, correction, reproof, and punishment. In the negative sense, the idea of punishment is most prominent. In the positive sense, things like nurturing, training, and instruction come to mind. However, since all discipline is based on the perfect character of God, all discipline is actually positive even though it is not always immediately apparent. Just as the Scripture says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). The reality is that discipline and discipleship are so closely connected that to minimize discipline is to minimize discipleship. Lynn Buzzard notes, “To separate discipling from discipline is not only to tear words from their etymologically common roots, but also from their organic relationship.”[1] Continue reading →
God’s Knowledge of the Future Requires Neither Passivity Nor Determinism
Calvinism believes that God knows what will happen in the future, including everything each person will do because he has microscopically determined that humans perform such actions through decrees and compatible freedom. In very stark contrast, Extensivism believes that God knows everything including everything each person will do as well, but for different reasons. Extensivists recognize that Scripture presents the picture that God chose to create man in his image.[1] This includes the ability to choose otherwise within the range of options God has established, libertarian freedom, which is ubiquitously evident in Scriptures reflective of choosing between accessible options. Given that God chose to so endow man, God has eternally known every choice that every individual will make; further, while libertarian freedom is a force, it is a force created by God, and therefore, entirely under his sovereign rule. Continue reading →
New Book Available – The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church
My new book is available in paperback and Kindle, along with my other books at Amazon
The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church seeks to clarify and demonstrate the incalculable and injurious influence that progressive education has had and is having upon preaching, thinking Christianly, and the local church. Progressive education began at the turn of the twentieth century, replacing classical education with what is purportedly a science-based education, which necessarily results in scientism. This seismic shift in public education has not only affected what we learn but how we think. In order to enable the church to detect progressivism’s deleterious sway and protect herself by being equipped with the progressive revelation of God, and thereby counter the influence of progressive education of man, I seek to highlight some of the underlying intolerable essentials of progressive education. My major concern regarding progressive education is that the vast majority of Christians can be or are unknowingly facilitating the very philosophy of education and thinking in the church that will ultimately cause Christianity to be regarded as the scourge of modern society, which will immeasurably complicate the task of evangelism and discipleship.
In the companion book to this one, The Equipping Church: Somewhere Between Fundamentalism and Fluff, I explain the biblical model for the local church and how to build such a church.
Copies are available from the publisher at wipfandstock.com and amazon.com as well as the author, ronnie@trinitynorman.org.
The Need to Equip the Saints
When Christians experience prolonged infancy and satisfaction with milk beyond normal infancy, they will have an immature and incomplete Christian worldview, which inevitably results in them advocating ideas that are merely human wisdom. George Barna’s research revealed, “Only 9% of all American adults have a biblical worldview…. [Those labeled] ‘born again Christians,’ the study discovered that they were twice as likely as the average adult to possess a biblical worldview. However, that meant that even among born again Christians, less than one out of every five (19%) had such an outlook on life.”[1] I would add to this that what Barna requires to be considered as one who has a biblical worldview is not by any measure demanding, but is in my opinion quite minimal.[2]
This dismal state of affairs is even more reason to return to an equipping model of the local church. If Christians do not have even a rudimentary understanding of Christianity, how can they communicate Christianity to a lost world, and how can they make biblical decisions in an ever-increasingly secular environment? If the shepherds themselves do not study deeply, they are utterly ill equipped to handle the task of engaging a hostile world.
They also are incapable of training those under their watch care beyond the most blatantly obvious truths of Scripture, which, when learned alone, are well suited for being reduced to clichés and the preferred diet of milkoholics (Christians who like to remain spiritually immature).
Man’s wisdom is not merely somewhat ineffective or unhelpful; it is as useless as a ship with no hull. Paul said, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless” (1 Corinthians 3:20). The consideration of what works in building the local church should always be evaluated by asking if it is human wisdom or divine wisdom as revealed in Scripture. If it is human, despite accolades received by the carnal, it is useless in building the temple of God regardless how fast or large the church grows.
[1] Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years.
[2] A “biblical worldview” was defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn his way into heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. In Barna’s research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a biblical worldview.