Adrian Warnock has posted a substantial quote from John Piper on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I believe that Piper’s illustration–which I think is excellent–is in accord with my view that this experience can happen more than once.
Author: henry
-
Respecting Elders and Adjudicating Church Property
[Note: I’m fighting the flu, which is why I didn’t post at all yesterday. I’m up to reading again today, and found a few things to comment on.]
Peter Kirk posts on the church congregation of which J. I. Packer is a member, which has voted to leave its diocese and join the southern cone. This is not in my denomination, but it is becoming a more and more common issue as various denominations turn leftward, and conservative congregations try to leave their denomination.
There are two issues that concern me a great deal. The first is about the treatment of J. I. Packer. Now you don’t have to read more than a few posts to realize that I’m not very near J. I. Packer on the theological map. But I think those of us who are moderate to liberal in persuasion need to make sure that we treat people who disagree with us with a certain degree of respect. I am open to correction on this, but I fail to see where Dr. Packer has done anything to warrant this type of treatment. It appears to just be an attempt to silence him, and probably not a very effective one at that.
But second, this reminds me of a number of cases in this country in which property issues have landed churches in court. Now I don’t see that happening here in this particular case, but in many cases here in the United States, congregations are winding up in court over church property. There is very little value, I think, if a denomination keeps a piece of property, but loses the members.
When the dust has settled, and when we all stand before the great judgment seat of Christ, I don’t want to be the one who took a congregation to court over property issues. I can see some technical justification, but I think with Paul that we should say “It would be better to let yourselves be cheated and robbed” (1 Corinthians 6:7 CEV).
Where we have to separate in terms of congregations and denominations, we should all be able to agree to make a maximum effort to do so in a Christ-like manner, at least as much as is possible when disuniting. (Christ-like schism? Is that possible? Maybe it’s the flu!)
From a Christian point of view this treatment of Dr. Packer seems to come from the same angle. It looks like a rather unChrist-like attempt to score points because someone annoys you. Liberals should be in favor of openness. More importantly, Christians should treat one another with respect, and treat an elder with due respect. This looks like scoring cheap points.
Update: Can I use the illness excuse again? I somehow missed the fact that there is a property issue in this case. So it is more precisely an example of the issue I’m talking about here.
-
Totally Restored (I Presume!)
Everything should be back in place now. I found some additional glitches, including several posts with zeroed out dates (that puts them in 1969, which is miraculous!), but I think things are working again.
-
Hermeneutics Quiz
-
Site Restored (Mostly)
All the posts have been restored, but I tried to get creative, and to put it generously, the results were not quite what I planned. I have some comments to restore yet. If you commented between February 15 and February 26, it’s possible your comment isn’t there. I do have your comment, however, and will restore them shortly.
I’ll make another administrative post when all the comments are where they belong. Otherwise things are fine.
-
Christian Carnival #213 Posted
. . . at my Jevlir Caravansary blog. I note that I failed to include a post of my own or one from my wife, so I shall have to go over there and add them!
-
Site Restored
Well, it was a long couple of days, but the site is back up and working. I believe there should be nothing missing at this point. If there is, please let me know. There were a few things to restore manually, item by item, but not that many.
I appreciate your patience–assuming you had some!–and hope to keep things up and running at this point.
I’ll make a separate post about this, but I have already posted the Christian Carnival to my Jevlir Caravansary blog, because I knew that it would be some hours before I had time to straighten this one out. I have yet to fix my Threads blog, but it will doubtless be done yet this afternoon.
-
A Conservative Christian Republican for Obama
I found this post via if i were a bell, i’d ring, and find the arguments used interesting. Not being as conservative as the the post author, I have less policy concerns with Obama than he does, but I find his arguments very interesting.
-
The Historical Virgin Mary – II
In chapter 6 of his book What Have They Done with Jesus? Dr. Ben Witherington continues his discussion of the historical Mary, mother of Jesus. In general this is a harmonizing account based on all sources combined, though primarily it works from John and Mark.
I have already discussed the issues I have with this approach to establishing the historicity of the specific material, so I will continue simply looking at the general outline Witherington is producing of Mary.
He begins with he wedding at Cana, which he concludes is not the wedding of Jesus himself, which is probably a good conclusion, assuming the story is accurate as told in John. He also cites a number of incidents showing that Mary did not become a disciple until the crucifixion. He also finds no basis for the idea of the the perpetual virginity of Mary. He believes that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were indeed blood half-brothers and sisters.
There are two very interesting sidelines. First, Dr. Witherington says of the beloved disciple and Mary beneath the cross that “[w]e may perhaps also see a symbolic foreshadowing here of the equaity of man and woman beneath the cross” (p. 127). If it was anything but the gospel of John I would think he was reaching, but this is precisely the sort of symbolism that one finds throughout the Johannine narratives.
Second, Witherington includes Revelation 12:1-6, the woman clothed with the sun, under references to Mary in the New Testament, but he sees the possibility in the symbolism of a reference to Mary’s activities here on earth, and not to her position in heaven. It’s quite worthwhile reading this section in particular. (I have previously written about Dr. Witherington’s commentary on Revelation, which I believe is the best currently available for the non-scholar.)
I am generally less optimistic about the historicity of particular narratives, but nonetheless I found these two chapters on Mary fascinating and helpful.
The next section discusses “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
-
Christian Carnival #213 Coming
. . . and will be posted here tomorrow. You have until midnight tonight eastern time to get your posts in. Come one, come all (qualified folks!) and submit your posts!