Rick Warren

Rick spoke at this years DGNC, I am still miffed as to why John Piper had him but he did. Much has been made of Rick's no show at the conference. Some say he did not want the pressure of having to answer direct questions from well-read reformed Christians. Personally I have no way of knowing the real reason Warren appeared via video message but this I do know. Rick Warren's character is above reproach. If he says he has persons close to him in need that require his presence in Southern California I believe him. As to his message, well, once a heretic.....

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I Live In An Interesting Place,,, Or Not!

I am testing uploading a picture from my Android phone. This is a picture of an app on my iPad and shows just how interesting the place we moved to is.

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Tidying Up The Place

I have been cleaning up the blog since it has been a couple of years since I paid it any attention. Yesterday I was cleaning up the blogroll, deleting old ones, looking for new ones to add, when I ran across a blog by a woman taking care of her parents, what are the odds?

I thought I would post about this and direct my readers, how ever few there be, her way. Go visit the blog and comment, I am sure she could use the encouragement. Find her here: Adventures In Eldersitting.

Hermeneutics Observation

I am doing Hermeneutics as a directed study, which means since there are no lectures I have to read about 5000 pages. I don't care who you are that's a lot of reading. Currently I am reading "Let The Reader Understand" by Dan McCartney and Charles Clayton. I must say, being about two-thirds through the book, it is an excellent introduction to the discipline.

I used to swear by the NASB because it was the most literal of all the translations. I am not so wooden, get it, that's a pun, in my stance any longer. Having spent the last two years studying Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, not to mention English has opened my eyes to the fact that a wooden translation is not always the best. A couple of sentences in the book I am reading sumarize my paradigm shift beautifully. "A 'literal' translation is not 'more accurate' than an idomatic one. Quite the reverse; an idiomatic translation, if it is a good one, is much more likely to convey the exact meaning than a literal one."

Don't get me wrong, I still love the NASB and The Message still sucks but the NIV and the ESV often give a better sense of the original language than does the NASB. This is due to the fluidity of language and wood can not be fluid. Just an observation, go Wolverines!

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Are We As Crazy As The Liberals?

I don't know why but I am following a liberal Presbyterian on Twitter. He is insane. He curses like a sailor, calls me and several others "fundieloons," and has compassion for everyone{except the "fundieloons"}, even celebrating their sin.

Over the past several days there have been some suicides of some teens who were apparantly homosexual. He is blaming the "fundieloons." Now there are those "conservative christians" who resort to vulgar language and have no compassion, I am thinking here of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist folk, but I think they are a small minority among conservatives and I loath being lumped in with them. I, as a conservative Christian, would treat these young ones as I would anyone living in unrepentant sin. With love I would point them to Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, who lived the sinless life we never could, died the perfect sacrificial death to pay for our sins and rose again on the third day assuring us of eternal life. The gospel of God is strong enough to save even sinners such as these poor young men who felt they had no option but to take their own lives.

If I could talk with this liberal on twitter without him cursing me out or resorting to ad-hominem attacks I would ask him what is more loving, telling them there is escape from this sin in the gospel of Christ or telling them it is ok to live their lives in a sin that will condem them to hell?

Finally, the point I began this post thinking about is this. Are we as guilty of misrepresenting the liberals sometimes as they are of us? What say you?

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I Have A New Phone!

My wife and I got new cell phones last week. We were due for upgrades and since her Centro was literally falling apart we went for the newly released Samsung Epic. I was going to get the new HTC Evo but the slide out keyboard and super amoled screen sold me on the epic. This is an adroid phone so now I just need Logos to put out their android app and all will be well in the world. They do have a Blogger app, which I am using now, so maybe I will get around to posting more often. One thing I don't like is the battery life on this thing,, gotta run now and charge my new phone, again.

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What Is Redemptive-Historical Preaching?

I have had a couple of people comment on my previous post and ask what RH preaching is so I will try and explain it using as many monosyllabic words as possible. Basically RH preaching takes Jesus' words in LK 24:27 seriously, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

The Bible is a Redemptive-Historical book. Gen. 1-3 informs us of the creation and fall of mankind. Gen. 4-Rev. 22 informs us of God's redeeming of fallen mankind. It is easy to find Christ and His work in the New Testament, but Christ Himself informs us the whole of the Old Testament is about Him as well.

Let me give an example. It is all too easy today to find someone preach the David and Goliath passage as moralistic. What do I mean by this? Well what you might hear is a sermon on "What are the giants in your life?" or "What are the smooth stones in your life that can help your slay the giants in your life?" The problem with this is the sermon is then centered on you, the listener, instead of Christ. David in this story is a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of the great deliverer to come. When David defeats the giant the Old Testament is preparing the people of God for the coming of Messiah. To make the listener live up to a type of Christ in David is just plain cruel, this is a burden no believer should have to endure.

In this story if one must identify with anyone it surely is the Israelites who stood around, afraid of the giant waiting until a deliverer finally arrived on the scene. We should be able to identify often with the people of Israel, miserable failures who are graciously delivered by a merciful God.

One accusation leveled against RH preaching is that it is against application. This is entirely unfounded. There is a small group who surely feel this way but the vast majority of Biblical Theologians do not. Biblical Theology and Redemptive-Historical for the most part go hand in hand. RH preachers most assuredly believe in application, as one of my former pastors said you have to make sure you answer the "So what," of the sermon. Meaning the listener in the pew is saying "so what," to the sermon until the pastor informs him.

The bottom line is this, a Christian sermon must be about Christ, not about the listener. Let me give two quick diagnostics you may use when listening to a sermon. The first is very simple, ask yourself "Did Christ have to die to make what is being said in this sermon true?" If the answer is no, you have not heard preaching, you have heard a lecture. The second is three parts but I find this one very helpful. 1)Is Jesus mentioned? Don't laugh you could go for months listening to Joel Osteen and not hear a thing about Christ. 2)If Jesus is mentioned, is He the subject of the verbs? Is He doing the action or is being acted on? 3)If He is mentioned and He is the subject of the verbs, what are those verbs? Is He making you happy, healthy, wealthy? Or is He suffering and dying on a cross for the redemption of the believers, and is He rising again on the third day assuring us of eternal life.

I hope this helps shed some light for some of you. I also want to say how delighted I am to have at least a couple of people reading this while my posting has been so terribly sparse. Feel free to ask any more questions if I have not lived up to expectations with this post.

In Christ,
Alan