Heresy Helper

"Dancing In The Streets" - Martha Reeves and The Vandellas

Continuing on with our Motown 50th anniversary celebration is Dancing in the Streets by Martha and the Vandellas. The song is from 1964 and really shows the Motown sound. The tambourine is mixed high on the second and fourth beats, the horns, guitars and piano congested in the middle and the bass bouncing around like a pinball.

Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will - Part 2

"the commandments are not given inappropriately or pointlessly; but in order that through them the proud, blind man may learn the plague of his impotence, should he try to do as he is commanded." pg. 160

Speaking to Erasmus, "Throughout your treatment you forget that you said that 'free-will' can do nothing without grace, and you prove that 'free-will' can do all things without grace! Your inferences and analogies "For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?" Martin Luther BW pg. 149

"Even grammarians and schoolboys on street corners know that nothing more is signified by verbs in the imperative mood than what ought to be done, and that what is done or can be done should be expressed by words in the indicative. How is it that you theologians are twice as stupid as schoolboys, in that as soon as you get hold of a single imperative verb you infer an indicative meaning, as though the moment a thing is commanded it is done, or can be done? pg 159

"The passages of Scripture you cite are imperative; and they prove and establish nothing about the ability of man, but only lay down what is and what not to be done." pg 161

"Does it follow from: 'turn ye' that therefore you can turn? Does it follow from "'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart' (Deut 6.5) that therefore you can love with all your heart? What do arguments of this kind prove,
but the 'free-will' does not need the grace of God, but can do all things by its own power...But it does not follow from this that man is converted by his own power, nor do the words say so; they simply say: "if thou wilt turn,
telling man what he should do. When he knows it, and sees that he cannot do it, he will ask whence he may find ability to do it..." 164

"By the law is the knowledge of sin' [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair." pg. 168

As to why some are touched by the law and others not, so that some receive and others scorn the offer of grace...[this is the] hidden will of God, Who, according to His own counsel, ordains such persons as He wills to receive
and partake of the mercy preached and offered." pg. 169

Quoted from Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will

Gran Torino

I took my daughter Jessica to see Gran Torino yesterday and I was impacted more the 2nd time I saw the movie. Some people may be put off by the language but I can remember my dad's friends and the men who worked at his shop, Freer Industries talk exactly the same way. There is a strong message that can be easily turned towards the gospel in this movie. Men of Clint Eastwood's generation and anyone who has worked in an auto plant or shop can relate.

Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will

Many of the following quotes I found to be really delightful. They come from, what Luther saw as his most important work,"The Bondage of the Will".

For context, Luther, is responding to some of Erasmus' assertions in support of our natural moral ability to obey the gospel. Erasmus presupposed that all of God's commands to obey proved that we had the "free-will" to do so. Luther, with great wit and irony exposes why free will is an erroneous, unscriptural doctrine which, ultimately, undermines the gospel itself.

These quotes hit the crux of the issue: whether grace alone saves or whether salvation is a mixture of nature with little sprinkling of grace. This is still extremely relevant for today's Christian, for many of us carry the that unbiblical assumption that Erasmus held, which concludes any command from God to believe or obey the gospel, must somewhow imply the moral ability to to do so. Large numbers of evangelicals today make this same jump in logic and build a whole theology on it ...assuming God's commands somehow automatically implies moral ability (this belief includes, ironically, many Lutherans), but as Dr. Luther said to Erasmus, "when you are finished with all your commands and exhortations ... I’ll write Ro.3:20 over the top of it all" ("...through the law comes knowledge of sin."). In other words, the commands exist to show what we cannot do rather than what we can do and our inability to repay our debt to God does not take away our accountablity to do so.

This includes God's command of all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, an impossible act of will apart from a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit uniting us to Christ. Only the quicking grace of Jesus Christ applied by the Spirit can illumine The Text in such a way (to open blind eyes and deaf ears) wherein we and able to see Christ's beauty and excellency. Those who are unregenerate cannot see Christ's excellency and thus have no capacity to love what is spiritual and so are not partly but wholly dependent on God to translate them from darkness to light. The following are some quotes from Dr. Luther to this end:

"For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?" Martin Luther BW pg. 149

"...'if thou art willing' is a verb in the subjunctive mood, which asserts nothing...a conditional statement asserts nothing indicatively." "if thou art willing", "if thou hear", "if thou do" declare, not man's ability, but his duty. pg 157

More Tomorrow...

My Girl - The Temptations

I am celebrating Motown's 50th anniversary with the Temptations song My Girl. This was a #1 song in 1965. David Ruffin's voice is outstanding and the guitar riff hooks you.

Mark Driscoll And The Paradoxes Of Calvinism

This is in response to the New York Times article I posted

Mark Driscoll And The Paradoxes Of Calvinism From the A-Team Blog

by David N on Sat 10 Jan 2009 12:44 PM PST

Molly Worthen has written an interesting article for The New York Times Magazine on Mark Driscoll and his "hip" Mars Hill Church entitled Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

The point of her article seems to be to highlight the "paradoxes" that surround Mars Hill. Not only is it an Evangelical church where the pastor swears and talks explicitly about sex and the members are pierced and tatooed. Not only is it a thriving megachurch in the Country's most secular and unchurched city. But Driscoll preaches a hard-edged, no-holding-back Complementarianism and Calvinism. The paradoxes here being that Complementarianism, which teaches that women ought to be functionally subordinate to men in the church, is helping men in the congregation to treat women better than in their non-Christian days, and Calvinism, which teaches the total depravity and moral inability of all people, is creating a church of passionate activists and evangelists.

I'd only like to make 2 comments and then I'll just let you read the article for yourself. First, Worthen doesn't really seem to know any actual history of Calvin or his work in Geneva. At one point she comments on Driscoll's unwillingness to compromise and how quick he is to "shun" church elders or revoke a congregant's member privaleges when they voice disagreement with him, suggesting that Driscoll is just like Calvin in this respect. She then goes on to say, "John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness." As far as I know Calvin only oversaw the burning of one person in Geneva, and from several sources I've read the general consensus seems to be that he was reluctant (perhaps even unwilling). As to the other charge, I'd really like to know where she gets this story from. Dr. Scott Clark comments,

More to the point, she resurrects the worst caricatures of Calvin. I suppose her resuscitation of them is a good reminder that we have to keep repeating the history. I admit, I don’t remember hearing or reading any story about Calvin making “a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness.” As far as I know the polity in Geneva, he didn’t have that sort of authority. Typically the Consistory fined people. I’ve never seen any instances of this sort of discipline. If everyone who criticized Calvin in Geneva was made to do this there would have been no place to walk!

In any case, my point is that her assessment of Driscoll's Calvinism would be far less paradoxical if she better understood the theology, the history, even the man himself (I noticed that most of her quotes come from random members of the congregation, rather than elders or Drsicoll himself. I wonder why that is).

Lastly, some of the things she says about Drsicoll's disciplining practices are a bit alarming. In traditional Reformed churches, it could take years to officailly excommunicate someone, and in my denomination (URC) the final step cannot be taken until a regional assembly of elders is called. Again, as Dr. Clark (half jokingly) comments, "shunning is an Anabaptist practice."

I'd like to give Driscoll the benefit of the doubt for now. I really hope he isn't practicing a dangerous kind of authoritarianism that could backfire.

Read Worthen's article here.

"I Heard It Through The Grapevine" - Marvin Gaye

Today is the 50th anniversary of Motown. now that might not mean much to you, but being born and raised in Detroit its a big deal to me. I was born in 1950 and Motown was born in 1959, so for all those who were influenced in their teenage years by Motown music you know what I talking about. I'm going to be posting some of Motown's greatest hits and some of my personal favorites, starting with I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye. This song was #1 in 1968 the year I graduated from high school.This is the sound of the Motor City.

New Foxe's Book Of Martyrs American Edition

At the Heart of Reformed Theology

"At the heart of Reformed Theology, at the heart of Luther and Calvin's struggle, and in Knox and Jonathan Edwards, were men who were awakened to the greatness, to the majesty, to the holiness, and the sovereignty of God. By contemplating the holiness and sovereignty of God, they were driven to develop their doctrines of the grace of God. Because until you meet a God who is holy and is sovereign, you don't know what grace means. I don't think we are ever going to see a healthy evangelical church until the evangelical church is solidly Reformed, where it takes biblical Christianity seriously with a right concept of a sovereign God.

That's because unreformed Christianity has failed in our culture. It has been pervasively antinomian (no law, no Lordship), and has been pervasively liberal in it's trends and tendencies away from scripture, because there's been no real basis in the sovereignty of God.

Today's evangelicals are never amazed by grace, because they don't understand sovereignty. They don't understand God. The evangelical church today is sick, more sick than it has ever been. We need a style and a variety of Christianity that is not a religion, but is a life and a worldview, where at the heart and foundational structure of it is a sound and deep biblical concept of the character of God."

R. C. Sproul - from his series "A Blueprint for Thinking."

Milt Jackson - For Someone I Love

This Album - Sunflower - has been one of my favorites since it came out in 1973, I have no idea how many times I have listened to it. It has some of my favorite musicians Herbie Hancock on Piano, Ron Carter on Bass, Billy Cobham on Drums and Freddie Hubbard on Trumpet.

No Hope Outside of Christ by Paul David Tripp

The following is an excerpt from Paul David Tripp's excellent book,
Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

"The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15)

"This is what God has been working on. All of history has been moving toward this one moment." God had not forgotten or lost interest in humanity. Since that horrible fall into sin, he had been bringing the world to this day. What looked pointless and out of control was, in fact, the unfolding of God's wonderful story of redemption, which reached a crescendo with the coming of Christ...

The question is, "The time has come for what?" Jesus is announcing the nearness of the kingdom of God. It is a quiet way of saying, "I am the King of kings and I have brought the power of my kingdom with me."...

In our self-absorbed culture, we need to see the grandeur of this kingdom. We cannot shrink it to the size of our needs and desires. It takes us far beyond personal situations and relationships. The King came not to make our agenda possible, but to draw us into something more amazing, glorious, and wonderful than we could ever imagine. Perhaps the best way to understand the grand purpose is to eavesdrop on eternity. In Revelation 19:6-8, the great multitude of the redeemed stands before the throne and, like the roar of rapids, exclaims:

Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear."

Think about what they are singing. It is not, "I got my that job! My marriage was fantastic! I was surrounded by great friends and my kids turned out well." It is not, "I defeated depression and mastered my fears." Two things capture the hearts of the assembled throng:

The first is that Christ has won the final victory. His will has been done, his plan accomplished, and he reigns without challenge forever. God has gathered a people who have a passion for his glory and find ultimate comfort in his rule. They are people who followed by faith and obeyed at great cost, who sacrificed and suffered, but with no hint of regret. They have found lasting satisfaction in the person and rule of the Redeemer.

The second glorious thing is that the ultimate celebration has finally come, the wedding of the Lamb. A thunderous should goes out as the multitude realizes that they haven't just been invited to the wedding-they are the bride!.

Madoff Is a Piker by John Stossel

Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of bilking sophisticated investors out of $50 billion, is reported to have told two of his executives that his business was "a giant Ponzi scheme."

Perpetrators of Ponzi schemes lead clients to believe their money is invested and that their profits are the fruits of the money manager's savvy. But in fact, the "profits" are merely revenue provided by the next group of dupes. Eventually, when no more new dupes can be found, the scheme crashes.

Political leaders say Madoff's alleged crimes show what's wrong with the country. President-elect Obama said the "massive fraud that was made possible in part because the regulators who were assigned to oversee Wall Street dropped the ball." Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid added, "[R]egulators have been asleep at the wheel."

Politicians go on and on about Wall Street "greed" and "irresponsibility."

But Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare.

To read the rest of the article click here

Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

Mark Driscoll is profiled in the New York Times. The article is well worth the read
Click here to read article

Muddy Waters & Johnny Winter - Going Down Slow

Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Quaeda With Patriotic New Song - "Bomb New York"

Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Qaeda With Patriotic New Song �Bomb New York�

Jesus Actually Saves by C. H. Spurgeon

Matthew 20:28 "Even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Some preachers and professors affect to believe in a redemption which I must candidly confess I do not understand; it is so indistinct and indefinite — a redemption which does not redeem anybody in particular, though it is alleged to redeem everybody in general; a redemption insufficient to exempt thousands of unhappy souls from hell after they have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus; a redemption, indeed, which does not actually save anybody, because it is dependent for its efficacy upon the will of the creature; a redemption that lacks intrinsic virtue and inherent power to redeem anybody, but is entirely dependent upon an extraneous contingency to render it effectual. With such fickle theories I have no fellowship. That every soul for whom Christ shed his blood as a Substitute, he will claim as his own, and have as his right, I firmly hold. I love to hold and I delight to proclaim this precious truth. Not all the powers of earth or hell; not the obstinacy of the human will, nor the deep depravity of the human mind, can ever prevent Christ seeing of the travail of his soul and being satisfied. To the last jot and tittle of his reward shall he receive it at the Father’s hand. A redemption that does redeem, a redemption that redeems many, seems to me infinitely better than a redemption that does not actually redeem anybody, but is supposed to have some imaginary influence upon all the sons of men. - C. H. Spurgeon ("Christ's Great Mission," Published 10/5/1916, delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle)

A Chilling Account and a Word of Warning by Al Mohler

Most Americans would probably be surprised to know that Sen. Edward Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, and former Vice President Al Gore all were once solidly anti-abortion. That seems almost incomprehensible now, but the record is clear -- and the pattern is chilling.

By the time Jesse Jackson and Al Gore came onto the national stage, abortion rights represented a major plank in the Democratic Party platform. Jackson had actually written attacks on the abortion culture, pointing to the disproportionate number of aborted African-American babies as evidence of racism. Al Gore ran for both Congress and the U.S. Senate on a pro-life record. When both men launched campaigns for the presidency, they changed positions on the abortion issue.

As for Ted Kennedy; he was pro-life as late as 1971, after New York had already legalized abortion. As Anne Hendershott documents in her article, "How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma," in 1971 Sen. Kennedy wrote to one of his Massachusetts constituents with these words: "When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception."

From the very moment of conception. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hendershott then explains:

But that all changed in the early '70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters). Politicians also began to realize that, despite the Catholic Church's teachings to the contrary, its bishops and priests had ended their public role of responding negatively to those who promoted a pro-choice agenda.

To Read The Rest

Jeff Beck Group & Rod Stewart - Shape Of Things

The Doctrines of Grace

"What are the 'doctrines of grace' and why do they matter? Such is like asking, "What does the Bible teach about the very heart of the gospel, and does it matter one way or the other?" The doctrines of grace are the biblical teachings that define the goal and means of God's perfect work of redemption. They tell us that God is the one who saves, for His own glory, and freely. And they tell us that He does so only through Christ, only on the basis of His grace, only with the perfection that marks everything the Father, Son, and Spirit do. The doctrines of grace separate the Christian faith from the works-based religions of men. They direct us away from ourselves and solely to God's grace and mercy. They destroy pride, instill humility, and exalt God. And that's why so many invest so much time in the vain attempt to undermine their truth. The religions of men maintain authority over their followers by 1) limiting God's power, 2) exalting man's abilities, and 3) "channeling" God's power through their own structures. A perfect salvation that is freely bestowed by God for His own glory is not a "system" that can be controlled by a religious body or group. And even more importantly, such a system is destructive of any sense of pride in the creature man, and if there is anything man's religions must safeguard, it is man's "self esteem."" - Dr. James White

Battling Doubt

Some good suggestions from Jared Wilson. Here's the outline:

1. Concentrate on the historical fact of the cross.
2. Do not seek refuge or advice with those who would shame you for doubting as if they never did.
3. Pray. Or, more specifically, hurl yourself at God.
4. Re-focus your doubts toward your own failings and inability. Doubt yourself, in other words.
5. Read your Bible. More specifically, meditate on Scriptural promises related to your area of doubt.

Read the whole thing.

Sweet Home Chicago - The Blues Brothers

God as Judge

Do you believe in Divine judgment? By which I mean, do you believe in a God who acts as our Judge? Many, it seems, do not. Speak to them of God as a Father, a friend, a helper, one who loves us despite all our weaknesses and folly and sin, and their faces light up; you are on their wavelength at once. But speak to them of God as Judge and they frown and shake their heads. Their minds recoil from such an idea. They find it repellent and unworthy. But there are few things stressed more strongly in the Bible than the reality of God’s work as Judge. Paul refers to the fact that we must all appear before Christ’s judgment seat as “the terror of the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:11), and well he might. Jesus the Lord, like His Father, is holy and pure; we are neither. We live under his eye, He knows our secrets, and on judgment day the whole of our past life will be brought under review. If we know ourselves at all, we know we are not fit to face Him. What then are we to do? The New Testament answer is: Call on the coming Judge to be your Savior. As Judge, He is the law, but as Savior He is the gospel. Run from Him now, and you will meet Him as Judge then – and without hope. Seek Him now, and you will find Him, and you will then discover that you are looking forward to that future meeting with joy, knowing that there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). - Dr. J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Rome and the Eucharist (Quote by William Webster)

"There are some present day Roman Catholic writers who deny that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the mass is the re-sacrifice of Christ, but the words of the Council of Trent are quite clear in their meaning:

And forasmuch as, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross . . . For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. . . If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice. . . and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities: let him be anathema.19

Trent teaches that just as Christ was the divine victim and was offered and immolated on the cross as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin, so in the mass, which is a distinct sacrifice in its own right, he is referred to as the divine victim who is again offered and immolated as a propitiatory sacrifice, just as he was immolated on the cross. The only difference, according to Trent, between the sacrifice of the mass and the sacrifice of the cross is that one is bloody and the other unbloody.

Continue reading "Rome and the Eucharist (Quote by William Webster)" »

Late Show Top Ten

Top Ten Signs You Are Watching Too Much Football

10. Only fresh air you've had this month is opening door for pizza guy
9. You refer to orange juice as FedEx orange juice
8. When wife finishes making dinner, you dump jug of Gatorade on her
7. You schedule an appointment to talk to your doctor about Andy Reid's cholesterol
6. Got a telestrator in the bedroom
5. Three words: Norv Turner tattoo
4. Fantasize about Gisele Bundchen falling in love with you and introducing you to Tom Brady
3. When you go to McDonald's you insist on ordering the McNabb
2. Laura has to keep reminding you you're still president for two more weeks
1. To be more like your favorite New York Giant, you shoot yourself in the leg