The Prophecies of Paul: 1 and 2 Thessalonians

For B. B. Warfield's view of Paul's predictions about the "Coming of the Lord", "Man of Sin", "Restraining Power", and "Restrainer" -- read pages 30-44 of his article on "The Prophecies of Paul:1 and 2 Thessalonians" (here)

The salient points of the article are summarized in a power point slide show (here).

If you want the bottom line only, here it is. For comparison I have inserted Gary DeMar's views from his book "Last Days Madness".

Man of Sin: Single emperor or line of emperors? Probably the latter.


(While a political man of sin is plausible, a better fit is a religious man of sin, ie., Jewish religious leaders led by the high priest – DeMar)

Restraining Power: appears to be the Jewish state.

(Roman civil government – DeMar)

The Restrainer: possibly James of Jerusalem

(possibly King Agrippa – DeMar)

The Apostasy: obviously the great apostasy of the Jews.

(DeMar agrees with Warfield on the Apostasy.)

Rev. Joe Morecraft's sermon on 2 Thessalonians 2 is connected with Warfield's views and is helpful. (here)

About Piety and Theology

From The Resurgence Blog Theological Enemies Post

Philip Ryken, President of Wheaton College and author of Loving the Way Jesus Loves, writes on loving your theological enemies. He says, "Be loving in church, in friendships and online." There are blogs that I don't like to go to now because the comments are not loving. People are bent on being "right". LORD, please forgive our pride. No longer do I care to debate. I care to grow in sanctification, love for my LORD and for everyone.

Video from The Gospel Coalition on Pietism and Confessionalism

Mike Horton, Ligon Duncan and Devin DeYoung discuss this issue. Duncan says, "In the face of dead orthodoxy all of us are concerned about piety, and about confession and about a lived-out theology. We are not interested in having our heads filled up with notions that do not express themselves in the totality of our being in the way we think, in the way we act, in the way we life." Horton says he is not a pietist, but believes in piety. I wonder if I am a pietist at heart reacting to the Reformed debates which see to go on endlessly.

From the Ligonier blog  Theology and Doxology

Here Michael Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Seminary, writes on the "cold intellectual system" of the Sandemanians. He points out that "faith and right theology must entail more than knowledge."

LORD, may I show Your love in my life, not just theological obsession. I repent of my theological obsession earlier on this blog. When I get to heaven, may You say well done with how I handle creeds and piety and keep me growing in wisdom and knowledge. Amen.

Billboard Advertises Easter Services

Billboards in Zephyrhills, Florida, 2012

Between six services you can have a total of 50,000 eggs dropped on you!

Personal injury law firm at top can help you with the suit!

What is the celebration of Easter coming to! 

20 Ligonier Conference Quotes

Moderator Chris Larsen asks questins of RC Jr.,
 Horton, Tackett, Meyer and Sproul, Sr.

I was privileged to have the time to listen to the live streaming of the 2012 National Ligonier Conference held at the end of this week in Orlando, Florida. Quotes were put on the TV screen under the speaker and Ligonier and Greenbaggins blogger also reported. So I picked up quotes and checked them with other sources.

I got a favorable impression of theology from this conference. I loved the casual way in which R. C. Sproul himself said that he keeps changing his mind about the end times and doesn't have an opinion about how old the earth is. Nobody was particularly political as you see from quote #16 below.

I am just going to list 20 Quotes here, but you can go to the links below for summaries of eleven of the presentations.

1. St. Francis of Assisi – They should pray more than they study. Quoted by Robert Godfrey.

2. Al Mohler gave fourteen noetic effects of sin, that is, fourteen ways the fall affected our thinking:

a) Ignorance

b) Distractedness

c) Forgetfulness

d) Prejudice

e) Faulty Perspective

f) Intellectual fatigue

g) Inconsistency

h) Failure to draw right conclusions

i) Intellectual apathy

j) Dogmatism and closed-mindedness

k) Intellectual pride

l) Vain imagination

m) Miscommunication

n) Partial knowledge

3. It is not enough to go to four Bible study groups a week. This can mask the fact that you aren’t digging into the Word of God yourself. Dig into it for yourself. Pray to God over passages.  —Sinclair Ferguson

4. God's great concern is never for what we do or who we are...but that we know Him and are known by Him. —Sinclair Ferguson

5. We need to be filled with the Word of God so that we have something to think about when we're not thinking about anything. —Sinclair Ferguson

6. Greenbaggins on his blog said that RC Sproul, Sr., said , “We need to contend for the truth without being contentious.” I missed that, but am grateful for the Greenbaggins blog picking that up.

7. We have to fight the reality of the fall. Without the fall there is no Savior. —Del Tackett

8. Parents, give your children a Bible. Their faith needs to be anchored in God's Word, not yours. —R.C. Sproul, Jr.

9. According to Christian Smith, the practicing religion across America today is moralistic therapeutic deism. —Michael Horton

10. All truth is God's truth, but not all truth is in the Bible. —Michael Horton

11. Much of evangelicalism today is selling its soul to popular culture in the name of being relevant. —Michael Horton

12. This is our Father's Kingdom. This Kingdom will last because we didn't build it. —Michael Horton

13. Michael Card spoke on “Christ and Creativity." He said “You are not your gift.” I was thinking that some celebrities need to learn that. Then he sang some of his songs. First he sang “Better Freedom”: Christ revealed Himself to me, Enslaved my soul to set me free, I was bound to Him at Calvary, And found a better freedom. I found this song on a By/For :: Sweet Sacrifice Podcast and downloaded it. That song was new to me. Then he sang a song I love and have heard--“Things We Leave Behind”: When we say no to the things of the world, We open our heart to the love of the Lord, And it’s hard to imagine the freedom we find , From the things we leave behind. I downloaded this song from iTunes. 

14. You are the most connected generation in all of human history, but you are also the loneliest! [On Facebook] we say Here’s my story and I want you to love it. Then he noted that we get angry when someone steps on our script which leads to depression, despondency and finally lack of hope. —Del Tackett

15. A commitment to Christ and Christianity is not a commitment to defending all things done by Christians. —Robert Godfrey

16. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democrat Party care about the cause of Christ. —Robert Godfrey

17. Don't let the world and its marketing establish your desires. —Robert Godfrey

18. Ignorance is not bliss. Knowing Jesus Christ is bliss. Live not to build a name for ourselves in this world. —Robert Godfrey

19. We're not saved from low self-esteem...we are saved from the wrath of God that rightly hangs over every unconverted person. —Steven Lawson

20. The mind does not love God at all and it will not love God unless God the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our hearts. By nature we do everything we can to suppress every natural revelation given to us, and that is not without consequence. What does it mean to love with the mind? It means to think about God with reverence and with adoration. —RC Sproul, Sr.

It is amazing what you can learn from your computer! These links are from this conference and I have 34 pages of notes!

Session One with RC Sproul Sr.

Session Two with Robert Godfrey

Session Three with Al Mohler

Session Four with RC Sproul Jr.
Session Five with Sinclair Ferguson

Session Six with Stephen Meyer

Session Seven with Michael Horton

Session Eight with Del Tackett

Session Nine with Robert Godfrey

Session Ten with Steven Lawson

Session Eleven with RC Sproul Sr.

Who is a Prayer Warrior?

My mom was one--a Prayer Warrior. When she passed away, I cleaned out her purses. There I found her prayer lists on paper. I know that years later her prayers for me and her family have been answered.

2011 kept me busy recording Scripture highlights every day. In 2012 I also want to be more diligent in my prayer life. This is the life of the Christian afterall.

There is actually more technology for doing this. I learned about this through http://www.challies.com/resources/prayermate. Echo Prayer  and PrayerMate--Quiet Time Organiser, an application on iTunes. The picture is from the later and the spelling is O-R-G-A-N-I-S-E-R. It is available in English and German and the developer is Andy Geers.

Prayer is a discipline and as a discipline it needs training. I am enjoying how others pray in classic books such as Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening and Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions.

 John Piper writes on The Sovereignty of God and Prayer and  R. C. Sproul answers the question, If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?

Who is a prayer warrior? He or she has an important nonvisible role in God's kingdom. I aspire to be one. Are you one? "How can I pray for you?" might sound condescending or patronizing , but is it really? Daniel said in 1 Samuel 12:23,

far be it from me that I should sin against

 the LORD in ceasing to pray for you.

On Resolutions

“Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.”― John Heywood

I finally kept a resolution last year. Yes, I did start with January 1, 2011, and finish December 31, 2011. The resolution involved my devotions--a rich practice of applying Col. 3:6. Highly edifying in my life. Study of the whole Bible, with more than just listening to the Daily Audio Bible all year as I have for several years; in 2011 I found my highlight verses for year. Much more punch in my life than just listening to the Bible all year.

I actually typed them up and that list is 164 pages single spaced 11 point type. I used the New Living Translation. In 2012 I will use the NIV Passages Bible in  an e-Book that lets me highlight and shows those highlights in context. Just this week I put this on my Nook and every day it will open up to the OT, NT, Psalm and Proverbs without my having to do much. A comment I heard about e-Bibles is that it is hard to find your way around in them. Not for with this Bible on and e-Book for my purposes on continuing letting the word of Christ dwell in me richly (Col. 3:16).

Jesse Johnson has said much about resolutions in the Cripplegate blog Self-examination and Resolutions post. Go there! Nathan Busenitz also wrote on the same blog  about Top Ten .

But the problem with resolutions is the same as a "to do" list. It depends upon human will. Rather I think we need to have a heart towards God and find out what He wants us to do. Be WITH HIM.

Four years ago this blog was started and my goal was theological. Now I am pretty fed up with theological debates because people are all consumed in the debate. My brother says it's a "guy" thing.  Rather as I age I just want to have that quiet relationship with the LORD, to meditate on His word and to concentrate on prayer--rejoicing, intercession and supplication. This is what I should have been doing all along instead of depending on my efforts of the flesh.

I just started a small journal that I am carrying around in my purse now with prayer for the week:

• Sunday--My church family and other congregations I have been a part of
• Monday--My sibblings and their families and two recent widowers
• Tuesday--My husband's family
• Wednesday--People who are acquaintances and friends
• Thursday--My cousins and the few older persons in the family (we are seniors now)
• Friday--My social media friends
• Saturday--My neighbors, our politicians, legislation, the election of 2012, and the world

This doesn't leave me much room to be self-centered, but I am requesting special prayer from a few friends about my husband's Alzheimer's. On my computer desktop I created Word documents for each day of the week so I can check back. Some of the daily prayers I have also posted on people's blogs. I also am writing prayers that praise God in the book and cherishing this time WITH Him.  Hopefully a new attitude of prayer with come into my life even as Bible meditation did last year.

LORD, make me willing to follow your bidding in 2012.
Help me be with Your program.

Favorite Christmas Lyrics

O come, Desire of nations, bind

In One the hearts of all mankind;

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,

And be Thyself our King of Peace.

from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown

When thou camest to earth for me,

But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room

For thy holy nativity,

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus:

There is room in my heart for thee! . . .

When the heav'ns shall ring and the angels sing

At thy coming to victory,

Let thy voice call me home, saying, "Yet there is room,

There is room at my side for thee."

And my heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus,

When thou comest and callest me.

from Thou Didst leave Thy Throne

Can't We All Just Get Along?

With all the terms out there, Two-kingdom is new to me. So is Escondido Theology.  John Frame in his fresh-off-the press book, The Escondido Theology: A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology makes some striking distinctions about the reformed camps. I did not want to read much theology anymore, but was able to buy the book at a discount from Whitefield Publishing.

So I read it, not understanding all of it, but causing much reflection. Basically it is a collection of Frame's critique of writing from former colleagues at Westminster Seminanry in Escondido, California.

Frame points out that "postmillennialist encourage Christians to seek change in political and social institutions. Such encouragement is counter to the tenets of the Escondido theology." (p. 6) Since I decided on postmil finally after much deliberation on this blog and after my pastor's preaching over the last year, it occurred to me that I need also to take a fresh look at change in our society, rather than have that two-kingdom approach. Some call this "theonomy", a position, that I thought I had rejected. But it won't be my preoccupation--Scripture is my preoccupation.  All this theology should draw me back to Scripture, meditation and prayer--not time on theology attacking other believers.

Frame says that some of the Escondido theologians belittle private worship and relevance of Power Point in churches. He says they also have a hesitancy for unity with other believers not in their Reformed camp. In critiquing one author Frame writes:

No shades of gray can be discussed, balanced, and weighed. Only light and dark exist, and Clark, because he knows the objective truth, is always on the side of light. p. 7

Those given to prayer and evangelism are treated with some suspicion, as if they are at least on the brink of losing their allegiance to the Reformed movement. p. 116

I do not have the background to critique this book and those who have two-kingdom theology. I do not see anything wrong with Power Point, but that is not a significant point, Mr. Frame. I would not choose a church on the basis of Power Point. Yes, we all need private worship and are called to that, but I seriously doubt the men in Escondido don't engage in private worship.

Prayer and evangelism have always been important to me. So is what happens in our country and in the world important to me. I want to vote carefully and be there for others and tell them about Jesus.

I also read in Scripture about unity of Christians. At times do we need critiques, or can we just all get along? I am hurting about the journey I have with my husband's Alzheimer's, and really go to church for worship and comfort. Theological debate in the Reformed church makes me sad.

I am a friend to anyone who fears you—

anyone who obeys your commandments.

Psalm 119:63  NLT

I want to be a friend of people who fear the LORD

and obey His commandments whatever their theology.

"With" Review--Part Two

It's easy to take fault with the title of this book--With: Reimaging the Way You Relate to God. With? Huh? And what's precisely wrong about how I relate to God? 

One example from my life is my LIFE FOR GOD obsession that I wrote about in my spiritual memoir, Getting Off the Niceness Treadmill, published in 2009. That obsession was wrong--I was looking for significance and the credit for all the nice things I did FOR others and God. But biblical kindness that gives God the glory is what is needed and God doesn't need me working for Him. He just wants to be WITH me.


The Point of Skye Jethani's New Book

Some of us have grown up in legalism. For example, I was not allowed to dance in high school and I also signed a code in the 1960's in a Christian college that I would not dance. This is Life UNDER God. What's really wrong with life under God? I gave you the outward conformity without my heart.  Just adhering to a creed, even a correct creed, may be Life UNDER God.

Life OVER God is of course ignoring God's Word, or secularism. Pastors can use management of churches, grow them large and hollow with Life OVER God. You can be a Christian deist, the author points out.

Life FROM God? Doesn't God bless us? God does bless us, but sometimes he uses suffering to draw us close to Himself. He is not the divine sugar daddy where we run to get what WE want.

Christianity Today editor and author Skye Jethani  hit me where I needed to be struck in With .  I had wished that Jethani had used a lot more Scripture, but he didn't write it for me--it's for a broad audience, I believe. In that broad audience he spoke to me and I suspect will to others.

I have spent much time in Scripture in 2011--the whole Bible again in a year, and this time typing up my highlights and meditating on them. Next year? I have known for some time that my prayer and meditation needs more attention. Because I am UNDER God? No. Because as Jethani points out God desires to be WITH me and I desire to be WITH Him. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy needs Life WITH God, meditating, contemplating, communing and treasuring the LORD.

LORD,

I come to You not to feel good

or to get certain prayers answered,

but because You want to be with me.

I treasure You, LORD, and want to be found in You--

not because of any worthiness of my own--

but because of Jesus' worth and His wanting communion with me.

Forgive me for taking pride in religiosity

like "correct theology" and knowing creeds, 

when you didn't want that preoccupation on my part.

Forgive me for not thanking You for Your provisions.

Forgive me for not trusting You.

Take away all that distracts me from You during my day

and give me the discipline of practicing your presence.

Help me pray without ceasing. Amen.

Review of WITH: Reimaging the Way You Relate to God--Part One

I first heard the author on a Christian radio station and Skye Jethani's ideas resonated with me in my church experiences and observations. This new book has not been on blogs that I have noticed, however I think it has something to say to all Christians and it will merit more than one post. Scott McKnight says it will do for this generation what J. B. Phillips' Your God Is Too Small did for a previous generation. Jethani points out four views in terms of relating to God.

All of life is under God and He determines what will happen--what His will is. We need to follow His will or receive His judgment.

Jethani writes: "Many popular forms of modern Christianity leave little room for God." p. 49 Their existence is over God. Natural laws or principles control life.

Life from God includes the prosperity gospel or the name-it-and-claim it gospel. God exists to bless me and is giving us a second chance..

Life for God means that the Christian needs to have a mission to fulfill to help usher in God's kingdom.


Which is the correct view? There is some truth in each of these positions, but Jethani writes:

Having trusted Christ and the sufficiency of his sacrifice on the cross, [many people] assume any further experience of God must wait until death, when they will be set free and ushered into his presence. This view dismisses the remaining years of life as an inconvenient delay before entering eternity, and it sees the earth as little more than God's waiting room. But this is not at all consistent with what Scripture teaches. p. 110, 111

What does Scripture teach? This blog gets very little comments of late and I encourage your comments before part two on Jethani's book is posted.