Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and the Apostles' Creed

At the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's chapel, Dr. Mohler has been going through a series on the Apostles' Creed.  This peaked my interest, not only because Dr. Mohler is one of my 'heroes,' but also because I am going through the series.  Dr. Mohler is a couple of weeks behind me at the moment.  I am thinking of slowing down to match his pace so that I can pick up pointers from him before I preach on the same statements.

Below are the links to the chapel audio of this series so far:

The Apostles' Creed

"Credo: I Believe"
Hebrews 11:1-6, Acts 16:30,31

"God the Father Almighty"
Daniel 4:34-37; Psalm 139; Matthew 6:9

"Maker of Heaven and Earth"
Genesis 1-2; Job 38:1-39:30

"Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord"

"Conceived of the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary"

"Suffered Under Pontius Pilate"
Isaiah 52:13-53:12

"Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried"

"The Third Day He Arose Again from the Dead"

"He Ascended into Heaven and Sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty"

"Whence He Shall Come to Judge the Living and the Dead"

A Bad Weekend

This past weekend was not a good weekend for me, in the area of football and  both at the collegiate and professional level.  During my elementary school days, I lived just a few miles outside of Iowa City, Iowa; so, naturally, my favorite collegiate team are the Iowa Hawkeyes.  So far this year the team has looked as good as it has in years (so I've been told, since I can't get any of their game on TV), having beat all of their opponents handily.  Even this past weekend, when  they played the Pittsburgh Panthers, they only lost 21-20.  Hopefully things will be looking up for them this year.  But, my guess is they have a hard road ahead.  This coming Saturday they are facing Northwestern at home, and the following weekend they are at Michigan State.

On the professional level, like I said it was not a good weekend for me either.  Truthfully, I don't think it has been a good summer for any of us Packers fans either, with the whole Brett Favre fiasco, but that's a different story.  Any way, the Pack faced off against the Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys.  It was a poor showing for the Pack, losing 27-16, and falling to a record of 2-1.  However, they are still ranked number 1 in the NFC North.  Next week they will face off against Tampa Bay, we'll just have to wait and see how they do.

Johannine Comma

I was preparing my lesson for this coming Sunday evening I came across something that peaked my interest.  In looking at the cross-references for the Heidelberg Catechism's answer to question 53: "What do we believe about the Holy Spirit?"  The cross-reference was for the proposition "First, that he is true and coeternal God with the Father and the Son," and was 1 John 5:7-8.  These two verses were supposed to support that proposition, but when I look at my ESV all it said was "For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree."  Looking at that, I thought to myself that's not right...  So, I looked at my King James and it read: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."  So, I thought to myself again: I wonder if there is some sort of textual variant there.  I looked, and sure enough, there was, and it is one of the more famous ones at that.

After talking with Dr. James White, the founder of  Alpha & Omega Ministries, I found out that this was known as the Comma Johanneum or Johannine Comma.  After doing some research I found out that the phrase "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one...  [a]nd there are three that bear witness in earth," was an insertion into the text that occurred somewhere around 1000 AD.  If it occurred before that in the Greek texts, it was something akin to interpretational note written in the margin of 1 John.  However, Erasmus, when writing the 3rd edition of the Textus Receptus (the standard Greek text for around 300 years afterwards), inserted the text because it was present in the manuscripts he was using.  The Textus Receptus was then the text that was used to translate the King James Version.  Later research showed that the unreliable nature of this insertion, so it was excluded from later Greek texts such as the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament and, the one that I use, the United Bible Society Greek New Testament.  These to later Greek Texts are the basis for the majority of the the modern translations such the New International Version, New American Standard Bible, and the English Standard Version (my bible of choice).

I Believe in the Holy Spirit

This coming Sunday Evening (9/21/2008) we at FBC Monroe City Youth Group are going over the first proposition in the third paragraph of the Apostles' Creed, which says "I believe in the Holy Spirit."  As a starting place, I am using the 53 question of the Heidelberg Catechism:

Question 53. What dost thou believe concerning the Holy Ghost?

Answer: First, that he is true and coeternal God with the Father and the Son; secondly, that he is also given me, to make me by a true faith, partaker of Christ and all his benefits, that he may comfort me and abide with me for ever.

As you can see, this is a good outline of some of the basic elements of who the Holy Spirit is and what His role is in our lives as Christians.  From this I have extracted the following teaching outline:

 

You Have to Watch This

I was look at the Fide-O blog today and I saw this video in the sidebar.  It shows how ridiculous the Arminian argument is:

Testing Out Window's Live Writer

Today I downloaded what appears to be a nifty little piece of software from the Window's Live team. It is working with blogger so I can type on my computer without having to get online. It appears to also be able to automatically upload pictures to my image hosting service as well. We will see how this goes, but it appears to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship!

Another Reason Not to Vote for Obama - Between Two Worlds: A Despicable Vote

Here's an ad by a 527--BornAliveTruth.org--on Senator Obama's consistent votes against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, featuring abortion survivor Gianna Jessen:



Here is Obama's response ad, which effectively says that Ms. Jessen is telling a "despicable lie":



Notice that the ad says that “Obama has always supported medical care to protect infants.”

Yuval Levin writes:

But in the debate about the born-alive bill which he voted against (see page 87 of this transcript), Obama said:

[I]f we're placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we're probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality.

So a child who has been born and is living and breathing outside the womb can’t get medical care because by some legal definition he or she is “pre-viable”? That doesn’t sound like always supporting medical care to protect infants.

HT: JT

The ESV Study Bible

In my ministry and in my personal studies I use the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. In my preparation for preaching I nearly always go back to the original language and make a fresh working translation of the text. In nearly every instance that I have found, it is one of the most accurate translations. It combines translation accuracy with literary beauty. Now, Crossway (the publisher of the ESV) is coming out with the ESV Study Bible. From what I have seen of it, I am very excited and can't wait to get my hands on my own copy. Below is a video from Crossway publishing promoting the study bible. The host of the video is Tullian Tchividian, the grandson of Billy Graham.

Boys and ADHD

This morning I was watching the Today Show, on NBC. They had an article on ADHD and school-age boys. I missed it, but went online and read the article about it there. One of the things that struck me was the symptoms of ADHD:

• Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes.
• Has difficulty sustaining attention.
• Does not appear to listen.
• Struggles to follow through on instructions.
• Has difficulty with organization.
• Avoids or dislikes tasks requiring sustained mental effort.
• Loses things.
• Is easily distracted.
• Is often forgetful in daily activities.

My son, Daniel (who is now a kindergartner), has every single one of those symptoms and it only takes 6 of them to be diagnosed with ADHD. Here's the thing, I have every single one of those symptoms as well. Do I think that either one of us has ADHD? Nope! Not at all! It seems to me that those 9 symptoms pretty much describe any normal little boy. When I was in school, any boy that didn't act like that was considered a teacher's pet and was beat up. Why is it that many people can't seem to understand that little boys learn differently than little girls. As much as people would like believe differently, the two genders are different physically, mentally, and emotionally. There are some tasks that girls are better at than boys and there are some tasks that the opposite is true. I wish that people would just let little boys be little boys.

From Thence He Shall Come

In our Sunday youth meetings at FBC Monroe City, we have been going through the Apostles' Creed. If you couldn't guess by the title of this post, this week we are covering the line of the Creed that goes "from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."

This week's lesson is proving difficult for me. I "grew up" in a church that taught pre-tribulation, pre-millennial, dispensationalism. That is what I assumed the Bible taught, though I never delved into it too much because, frankly, most of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible confuses and/or scares me. However, the more I have studied my Bible and gone deeper in my reformed theological convictions, the more I realize that much of dispensational eschatology just doesn't make sense. The more I study the more I am coming to something of an amillennial, or inaugurated millennial, view. The position basically says that the millennial kingdom that is spoken of in Revelation 20 is speaking of the church age, which began at Pentecost and will end with the second coming of Christ for a single judgment over all the Earth. However, my understanding of this whole issue is in upheaval at the moment, and I am not feeling very confident about teaching upon it.