Oklahombres

ouglas Wilson at Blog and Mablog, has begun to post comments on the individual essays in the “NT Wright” issue of Table Talk. I know, this adds an extra layer of brain torture, but if you can take the strain, it’s well worth the effort. Wilson, when it first erupted, was very close to the New Perspective controversy. Because he floated in those circles many automatically lumped him in the group, partially because he rightly defended some of the issue, which was a bit unfair. He eventually outlived the slander among all but the most close-minded. For many reformed, however, he remains an odd character, I believe due at least in part to his post-mil views and his uber-sharp intellect defending it.
Here are links to the two responses thus far, one to R. C. Sproul’s essay, and one to Dr. Mohler’s:
A Polecat In a Hollow Tree
Introspective Weird Beards in the Monasteries

If you are not a subscriber to Table Talk these posts won’t be of much use. Next month when the February issue appears online, you may be able to read some of the articles. The best bet is to see if you can order the February issue online, or find a friend who has it and is willing  to share.

Happy Reading

his may turn out to be an all-lily month for  my Friday Floral pics. I nearly waited too long for this weeks gem, but I knew I had a very narrow window on the Lycoris last week, and decided to push it back till this week. The Crinum lily, Crinum sp. is made up of a number of species that readily interbreed. This promiscuous behavior makes identifying parentage very difficult, often impossible. The one Crinum we have, C. ‘Ellen Bosanquet’, is no exception. It was hybridized in Florida in the 1920’s by a plant breeder, Louis Bosanquet, which he named in honor of his wife, Ellen. To this day nobody is sure of the parentage, and to date no one has been able to recreate this hybrid with any known combination of species and/or varieties. Wow! Mystery in the front yard!

And don’t you just love the way the buds in this first shot are lined up in the queue? Unfortunately, the down side is that the spent blooms don’t fall off by themselves, and increasingly take away from what was a beautiful beginning. A good gardener will go around and snip out the spent blooms every day. Yeah, right. Notice in the second shot the stubs below the main bloom. This cluster is nearly spent.

More closely related to amaryllis than lily, all in the genus Crinum are tough, pest-resistant plants. They are usually listed as hardy to zone 7, which makes them technically half a zone shy of the Tulsa area. We have never had a hint of trouble here, and these bulbs are planted well away from the house, so they are not benefiting from winter house heat. Back in the seventies the USDA realigned the hardiness zones and I think there is a bit of confusion in the nursery trade; some growers using the old charts, some the new. That’s how I explain it. The foliage is a rosette tropical-like floppiness, reaching about two foot high. The flower stalks stand almost a foot taller.

Rain is forecast for this weekend, so if you can get out in it, do so. See you in church on Sunday.

One Layman’s Thoughts on the End Times—Part 1
Here are some thoughts for you pre-mil types to chew on. I don’t want to argue with you. Just read the texts in their context, and try to square them with your preconceived notions. I know, I was raised in a dispensational, pre-mil SBC church too.

The Rapture
When it comes to the rapture, here is the classical text:

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Matthew 24:40-41, ESV

So who is going to be left behind? The immediate text doesn’t say, does it. What is it that causes you to decide which category represents God’s people? If you will drop back a few verses and catch the context of the passage, you will see that Jesus is comparing what will happen in that day, the day of his return, to what happened in the days of Noah and the great flood:

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Matthew 24:36-39, ESV

Notice that in the “days of Noah” it was the godless who were “swept away” or taken. It was Noah and his family, whom God preserved in the ark, who were left behind.

Let Both Grow Together
Now look at Jesus’ parable of the farmer who sowed good seed in Matthew 13:24-29:

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ” Matthew 13:24-29, ESV

Notice here too it is the weeds that are first bundled and cast away. The wheat is left behind, to be gathered in the farmer’s barn. Jesus goes on in the following verses to explain the exact meaning of this parable:

“The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Matthew 13:37-43, ESV

Here again we see that it is the wicked who are taken away to be thrown into the firey furnace. I think the important thing to take away from this parable is the fact that the lost and saved alike are to remain together until the end of the age, and then it’s over; the final judgment. Jesus gives no hint what so ever of the end of the age coming in stages with raptures, tribulations, battles, millennial reigns, and judgments, all stretched out over a thousand plus years.

Think about it.

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. Mark 16:1-6; ESV.

We had an interesting discussion yesterday (I started this post on Monday.) in Sunday School on the topic of sin. I have been working my way through the book, The Reason for God, which is a modern approach to apologetics by Timothy Keller. I have to say that I am still quite fond of Mere Christianity, but I can see the need for this new approach in a post-modern age of skepticism. I have gleaned profitably from Keller’s book for these lessons, however, and some weeks we have had some lively discussions. Yesterday’s look at sin may have been the best yet.

In a nutshell, the chapter on sin works to point out that the fact that deep inside each one of us we know that things aren’t the way they are suppose to be, which points to a thing called sin, which points to God. Before that, critical ground work is laid by throwing away the popular yet ill-suited definition of sin—wrong doing—and redefining sin as taking good things and making them ultimate things in your life.

As the chapter on sin winds down to the final paragraphs the thrust turns from apologetic to evangel. Every good apologetic should lead eventually to the gospel. So what is the solution to this sin problem? Even as the popular definition is ill suited, the popular solution is equally amiss. Jesus doesn’t just clean up our lives, he makes us anew. Therefore we do not merely give our obedience,  but ourselves, our all.

Some of you may have noticed a bit of cynicism in the past few posts; looking at Christianity and then at “Christians” and seeing a disconnect. What is worse, is looking in the mirrior and seeing that same disconnect. As my dear pastor is fond of saying “Christianity is simple. That doesn’t mean it is easy.” So how does one put his faith into practice? I believe Paul puts his finger on the heart of Christian practice in Romans 12:1-2, where he tells us that because of the mercies of God we are to present our whole selves to him as a living sacrifice. The way that we go about that is by renewing our minds, which leads to transformation. Christianity involves the mind; such a novel idea, especially among some Southern Baptist folk.

I have been looking for a way to introduce the beginning of a series of posts that I have been planning for the coming new year. This post seems to be the one to do that. You may have noticed the text that has recently appeared at the top of the sidebar here at Oklahombres introducing the coming of the Heidelberg Catechism to this blog in serial form. The opening post will begin this coming Sunday, with what I believe may be the most poetic as well as accurate description of what it means to be a serious, thinking, real Christian. In the following 128 questions a three-part catechism is laid out as to how one lives out a real faith, how one lays hold of that opening question and makes it his own. Those three sections fall under the heading of Misery, Deliverance, and Gratitude.

In this coming year I challenge you to make use of this resource for the mind by at least reading the posts sometime early in the week. If you have a schedule that permits, come back to the week’s questions daily and meditate on them, and if possible memorize them. My prayer for you is that in this new year this resource will be used to bring you to a closer, more thoughtful walk with our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“I’m a five-point Calvinist. That means I believe there’s not any perspiration on God’s upper lip.”

Steve Brown, December 19th podcast of Steve Brown Etc.

ere’s a couple of jewels from a podcast I heard a couple of weeks ago:

Atonement is a non-negotiable concept. What do you put in its place? What happens is the gospel becomes “I can have a personal relationship with Jesus.” The devil has a personal relationship with Jesus! What kind of a personal relationship with Jesus, and what is the ground of that personal relationship? Obviously being a Christian involves having a personal relationship with Jesus, but there’s content to that relationship that defines that relationship and to just call it a personal relationship I don’t think is very helpful.

R. C. Sproul on The White Horse Inn; An Interview with R. C. Sproul, from September 7, 2008

And then there’s this. The quote is even more powerful when you realize its author is a theologian from a mainline denomination.

You just haven’t said “salvation” when you say “self-esteem.” Thank you, Robert Schuler. And you haven’t said “the good news of Jesus Christ” when you’ve said “I have found a way to help your marriage work.” In Christianity you’ve got to sit and learn the language.You’ve got to sit and learn the vocabulary, and the grammar. Christianity in a way is like learning a new language, and if you’ve ever tried to learn French, you know you’re not just learning different labels. You’re learning a different culture. You’re moving through the words into a different world. So I’m not much on the translation mode. That is the old, I think now, discredited liberal project of the 19th and early 20th century that many of us mainliners realize takes you nowhere. It’s an incredible thinning out of the gospel. It is so disheartening to see evangelicals now jumping on that and buying it. We’re all liberals now.

William Willimon, on The White Horse Inn; An Interview with R. C. Sproul, from Septermber 7, 2008.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Luke 13:1-5

he offices of Christ are something we Southern Baptists seldom speak much about. Maybe we are put of by Catholic-sounding words like “high priest.” We would probably profit from it greatly if we thought about the offices of Christ a bit more often. Hebrews 7:25 says that our Great High Priest “always lives to make intercession for us.” There is something to ponder: what that constant intercession looks like.

It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 403;
quoted by Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 628.

Could we bear from one another what He daily bears from us?
But this glorious Friend and Brother loves us though we treat Him thus.
Though for good we render ill, He accounts us bretheren still.

John Newton