Read the Bible in 90 days?

How long does it take to read through the entire Bible? Would you guess just 90 days?

The Bible in 90 Days is a Bible reading plan created by Ted Cooper in 2002, designed to walk you through the Bible over the course of just three months. That works out to 12 pages of reading each day—a commitment, but certainly manageable, and one that's well worth making.

Starting on June 1, you can start the summer reading 90-day challenge. To sign up officially to take the challenge, head over to Biblein90Days.com, where you'll find lots of other supporting resources as well.

Global Day of Prayer May 31

The most massive prayer movement in history is this Pentecost Sunday, May 31st -- the Global Day of Prayer! with registered prayer gatherings in every one of the earth's 220 countries.

Registered or not, Christians worldwide will lift their voices and hearts in prayer to our Almighty and Faithful God! As you pray, where ever you are, you will be joining prayers with millions of others from all around the world! The Global Day of Prayer Broadcast will be live in the USA on DIRECTV Channel 365 or on the web at http://www.god.tv/

Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #9

Continued from Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #8

A ninth objection is that inerrancy is really not about the character of the biblical text. It is about a narrow interpretation.

Daniel Day explains that “what was really being deified wasn’t the Bible at all, but the interpretations of it by fallible humans. They play our love of scripture as a trump card against us. They say, ‘The Bible, the Bible, the Bible!’ But what that means is, ‘My interpretation, my interpretation! And I refuse to be bullied by any who today would dismiss me as a liberal, as one who ‘doesn’t really believe the Bible,’ because I happen to disagree with their interpretations on their chosen wedge-issues – not one of which is within the historic creeds!”[1]

No doubt some do use biblical inerrancy, as others use the encounter with the Living Word, for their own selfish and manipulative ends. But such sinful activity does not do away with the entire authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures.

---

[1] Day, “Errors.”

Continue on to Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #10

Also on Sunday in the South: Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2, #3 & #4, #5, #6, #7, #8

Obama: Wreath to Arlington Confederate monument

Wreaths win Obama praise from Sons of Confederate Veterans

Gestures honor black Union soldiers as well as Confederate war dead

By WAYNE WASHINGTON
wwashington@thestate.com

President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black chief executive, will be getting a thank you note from the Sons of Confederate Veterans for continuing a tradition of honoring the Confederate dead on Memorial Day.

A group of 48 historians, including one from Coastal Carolina University, had asked Obama not to send a wreath to an Arlington National Cemetery monument honoring Confederate dead — a practice started in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson, who was born in Virginia and lived in Columbia as a young man.

Obama sent the wreath to the Confederate monument, but he also sent one to a Washington, D.C., cemetery that honors black Union soldiers.

The president’s actions pleased Chuck McMichael, commander in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

“The president did very well by sending a wreath to honor American veterans of all types,” McMichael said. “He upheld the tradition of the office to which he was elected. I do intend to send him a thank you letter. This is the kind of thing that transcends politics.”

Orville Vernon Burton, who teaches Southern culture and history at Coastal Carolina, was among the 48 historians who signed the letter asking Obama not to send a wreath to the Confederate monument.

Burton said there is not enough appreciation for the many Southerners — black and white — who fought to keep the Union together.

On Memorial Day, presidents typically lay a wreath at Arlington’s Tomb of the Unknowns,a monument to U.S. service members who have died without being identified.

Presidents also have directed that a wreath be sent to the Confederate monument.

Burton said he was concerned that Obama would be “singling out a group that wanted to split the Union” unless he also sent a wreath to a Union monument.

“People don’t know how close we came to not having a Union, and what that would mean for freedom today,” he said.

Burton said he learned about the historians’ letter through one of its two authors, James Loewen. A sociologist, author and professor, Loewen also has argued the statue of former S.C. politician “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman on the State House grounds should be toppled because of Tillman’s career-long support of white supremacy and violent black disenfranchisement.

Officials at the White House did not respond Tuesday or Wednesday to questions about Obama’s decision to send a wreath to the Confederate monument.

McMichael of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said he was glad the president did not address the letter. “I thought the letter was absurd and should not have been taken seriously.”

Burton said he does not know of any official response to the historians’ letter, which detailed the Confederate monument’s history, its Latin inscriptions and the words of those who have spoken in its shadow.

“The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy,” the letter states. “It isn’t just a remembrance of the dead.”

In not responding to the letter, Obama steered clear of the passions that still exist regarding slavery and the Civil War.

Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America, said in 1861 that “African slavery” was “the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution,” a verdict many present-day historians accept.

But the Web site for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which describes itself as “the oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers,” says the “citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.”

Burton said Obama’s decision also to send a wreath to a cemetery honoring black Union soldiers was “extremely diplomatic.”

Not sending a wreath to the Confederate monument “would have been harder for him because he’s African-American,” said Burton, adding Obama would have encountered a backlash from some white Americans.

In the end, Burton said, he can accept Obama’s decision to send a wreath to both Union and Confederate monuments.

“It does represent the reconciliation of North and South,” he said.

Reach senior writer Wayne Washington at (803) 771-8385.

© 2009 TheState.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thestate.com

Have more children

Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #8

Continued from Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #7

An eighth objection is that inerrancy is too complicated. Daniel Day complains that the inerrancy claim prima facie is that there is no error anywhere of any kind, but then its claimants “undermine its claims with exclusions and exceptions so as to permit wiggle room for this or that indisputable finding of science or for some post-biblical social revolution, proving that the initial ground staked out was too high.”[1] Day is talking about Article XIII of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, a paragraph on the phenomena of Scripture.

We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture. We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and errors that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.[2]

What this paragraph means is for example, ain’t might be poor English, but it can communicate truth. It means that it is not problematic that the biblical writer might have measured the Sea in the Temple in a general measurement of 10 x 30 cubits when any seventh grader knows that it will measure π (3.1416…). It means that inerrancy is not affected when Jesus says that a mustard seed is the smallest seed but there are actually other smaller seeds on the earth. It means that when one passage says there were two persons and another only mentions one, instead of calling into question inerrancy, it rather gives us confidence that these are independent witnesses, that no one tried to harmonize the passages, that there was no illicit collaboration.

These types of issues in the Scripture actually increase our confidence in the integrity of the text and buttress the doctrine of inerrancy. The problem with what Day and others are saying is what they do not say. Actually the many shades of inerrancy were concocted from the moderate/liberal side. Noninerrantists, they posit, could be instead “functional inerrantists” or “infallibilists,” meaning that the Bible is entirely faithful in matters of revelation of God while other errors of a factual nature may exist. It was the liberals who wanted to disguise a lower view of the Scriptures to speak of “limited inerrancy,” “qualified inerrancy,” or even “critical inerrancy,” the view that the Bible is true in all that the Bible affirms to the degree intended by the biblical authors. This view accommodates a historical-critical view of the Bible.[3] The dissection of inerrancy was not among conservatives. It was among those who had reservations about errors being in the Bible, and that is not an intellectually honest approach. Article XIII of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy is a more honest approach to an understanding of the inerrancy of Scripture.

On the other end of the spectrum, fundamental Jeffrey Khoo of Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore rails against a view that ascribes inerrancy only to the autographs: “What is the use of having a Bible that was only perfect in the past but no longer perfect today? The Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), despite its name, is mostly populated by neo-evangelicals who deny the total inerrancy of Scriptures albeit in varying degrees. The ETS definition is so loose that it allows for all kinds of interpretations with regard to what inerrancy means.” Khoo advocates an inerrant preservation of the Scriptures. He says that Jesus affirmed the Scriptures which he had in hand though the canon closed in the fifth century B.C., and Paul’s declaration in 2 Timothy 3:16 also affirmed the inerrancy of the apographs. Further, the Reformers “in their declaration of Sola Scriptura,” Khoo says, “always thought in terms of the existing infallible and inerrant apographs rather than the autographs.”[4] Khoo is talking about Article X of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the paragraph on the autographs.

We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from the available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original. We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.[5]

This article softens Khoo’s argument and implies a divine preservation of Scripture’s inerrancy. What is problematic is that if Khoo were being completely intellectually honest, he would agree that humans have made dumb errors in transmission through the centuries and a few willful changes, but the great wealth of extant manuscript evidence is a self-preserver of the inerrant text. With the ability to compare a large number of manuscripts across a wide geographical area and various languages, accidental errors and the occasional willful emendations can be spotted with precision. In summary, inerrancy is about truth, not grammar or misspellings. Error is the absence of truth, and the Bible demonstrates its own inerrancy.

---

[1] Day, “Errors.” See also Joel Stephen Williams, “The Error of Inerrancy,” EncounterRestoration Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1995): 158-177. 57, no. 1 (Winter 1996): 51-73. Note Roy Honeycutt’s similar complaints about inerrancy in Joel Stephen Williams, “Inerrancy, Inspiration, and Dictation,”

[2] Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, 1978, Article XIII.

[3] Edgar V. McKnight, “Baptists and Inerrancy,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 20, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 147-159.

[4] Jeffrey Khoo, “Sola Autographa or Sola Apographa?: A Case for the Present Perfection and Authority of the Holy Scriptures,” The Burning Bush 11, no. 1 (January 2005), [article on-line]. Singapore: Far Eastern Bible College. Available from http://www.febc.edu.sg/VPP1.htm; Internet; accessed November 25, 2008.

[5] Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, 1978, Article X.

Continue on to Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #9

Also on Sunday in the South: Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2, #3 & #4, #5, #6, #7

Kids in Rocky Mount

Here are the kids on our trip to Rocky Mount this past weekend.

Matthew 22:41-46: The Son and Lord of David

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Pray and Read: Matthew 22:41-46

Opening thought: “Turn about is fair play.”

That’s one thing my Daddy always said when somebody got a taste of what they had been doing to somebody else. He usually said it when my younger brother started doing to me what I had been doing to him to aggravate him.
Another saying my Daddy has is “You can dish it out but you can’t take it.” For those of you not from the sunny South, that means you enjoy doing something, usually teasing or downright harassing, to another person, for me usually my brother, but when someone (usually the same person) does the same thing to you, you become angry and cannot handle the treatment.

That’s what happened to the Pharisees at the end of Matthew 22. They had been dishing out questions which were really traps for him, and he was successful in dealing with each one. Now Jesus plays a round. After all, turn about is fair play. He asks them an honest question to help them open their eyes to whom He is. But they didn’t like things turned around. They could dish it out, but they couldn’t take it.

Key Truth: Matthew wrote Matthew 22:41-46 to show that Jesus, the Son of David is the Promised Messiah, fully human, fully God, and he fully demands an answer.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what the Bible says about who Jesus is and what He expects from you.

Sermon Points:

1. Jesus is fully human (Matthew 22:41-42).
2. Jesus is fully God (Matthew 22:43-45)
3. Jesus fully demands an answer (Matthew 22:46).

Contextual Notes:

It is Jesus’ final week of his earthly ministry. Beginning at chapter 22:15, Matthew shows us four encounters Jesus has with the religious leaders at the Temple. The leaders’ goal is to trap him through questions (Matthew 22:15). The first question is political (22:15-22). The second is theological (22:23-33). The third is legal (22:34-40). The fourth is Christological (22:41-46). Three of the four involve the Old Testament Scripture. Today we look at the last one, and this time, Jesus takes a turn.

Having silenced all his questioners from all the major Jewish leadership groups in the previous three encounters, the King now returns the favor and asks a question of the Pharisees, the religious conservatives. “Whose son is the Messiah?”

In traditional Jewish halakah, Jesus suggests to them a problem. How do they account that David called the Messiah his Lord. How could the Messiah be David’s son and also his Lord? A father, especially Israel’s greatest king, would never call his son his lord. Children called their father master or lord.

He is just setting up his point – a startling one – that the Messiah is greater than David (22:43). Here’s where Jesus is going: If David, speaking prophetically, calls the Messiah my Lord (22:44; Psalm 110:1), then the Messiah must be greater than David. And Jesus’ point is that He is the Messiah.

Exposition:

1. JESUS IS FULLY HUMAN (22:41-42)

a. He is the descendant of King David, the greatest king of Israel. Immediately they answer accurately, “He will be the son of David.” That is no surprise. And have you noticed that no one has ever questioned Jesus’ lineage from David? Why is that?

b. Adam Clarke: “The evangelists, Matthew and Luke, were so fully convinced of the conclusiveness of this proof [of his lineage from David] that they had recourse to the public registers; and thus proved to the Jews, from their own records, that Jesus was born of the family mentioned by the prophets. Nor do we find that a scribe, Pharisee, or any other, ever attempted to invalidate this proof, though it would have essentially subserved their cause, could they have done it. But as this has not been done, we may fairly conclude it was impossible to do it.”[1]

c. Matthew has been constantly putting Jesus forward as the Son of David.

i. In his genealogy he is called a descendant of David (1:6, 17),

ii. The two blind men in Jericho called him “Son of David” (9:27),

iii. When he drove out a deaf, blind, and mute demon, the people exclaimed, “Could this be the Son of David?” (12:23),

iv. When he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, the people shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (21:9)

v. Children in the Temple called him Son of David (21:15).[2]

vi. But Jesus is not grand standing his ability to confound the scholars, and His point is not that the Messiah is David’s son. He wants to reveal Himself to them.

d. By this point in his Gospel, Matthew has now pointed to Jesus as greater than

i. the Temple (12:6), ie., more worthy of worship;

ii. Jonah (12:41), ie., a greater prophet;

iii. Solomon (12:42), ie., greater wisdom;

iv. and now David (22:43-44), ie., a greater King and greater Man after God’s own heart.[3]

e. APPLICATION: Knowing about Christ does not mean you know Christ (22:41-42). The Pharisees answered quickly and accurately. They knew about the Messiah, but they stood and looked him in the eye and did not know Him. What about you? Some of you know a lot about Jesus Christ. But do you know Him? Do you have a relationship with Him? Do you walk with Him? Do you know His Presence? Do you know the voice of your Shepherd? Is your life His Life? Is there any doubt? There is nothing more important for you to settle in your heart. You can settle that issue today. Submit your life to the Son and Lord of David.

2. JESUS IS FULLY GOD (22:43-45)

a. Jesus is quoting Psalm 110. He says three things about this psalm.

i. Jesus said David wrote it. We are told today that he did not.

ii. Jesus said David composed it by the Spirit’s inspiration. We are told it is not inspired.

iii. Jesus said David wrote it about the Messiah. We are told it is not Messianic.[4]

iv. But if Jesus is Lord, then His Word is sure.

b. This was Jesus’ point. Jesus takes them to Psalm 110:1, what would become the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament (Matthew 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:34-35; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:17, 21; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22), and widely recognized even by Jewish scholars as a Messianic prophecy by David.[5]

c. Adam Clarke: “Take the place of the greatest eminence and authority. Till I make thine enemies thy footstool - till I subdue both Jews and Gentiles under thee, and cause them to acknowledge thee as their sovereign and Lord. This quotation is taken from Psa_110:1; and, from it, these two points are clear:

i. That David wrote it by the inspiration of God; and

ii. That it is a prophetic declaration of the Messiah.”[6]

d. Let’s look at Psalm 110:1 for a minute. This psalm not only gives a picture of the coming Messiah, but answers the question of the identity of the God-Man of Psalm 1-2. It predicts the Messiah’s throne at Zion (Jerusalem) (110:2), calls him a King (110:3) and Priest (110:4), gives a picture of the end time (110:5-6), and says he will be given authority after his resurrection (110:7).

e. Matthew Henry: “it is a prophetical summary of the doctrine of Christ; it describes him executing the offices of a Prophet, Priest, and King, both in his humiliation and also in his exaltation.”[7]

f. APPLICATION: You can trust the Word of God (22:43-45) Jesus affirmed the author as David, called this Psalm inspired as Scripture, and confirmed its interpretation as pointing directly to the Messiah. The word of God is true, and Jesus the Son and Lord of David, Who Himself is the Word, puts His name and integrity behind it.

g. Albert Barnes: “Nor is there any way of answering the question but by the admission that the Messiah was divine as well as human; that he had an existence at the time of David, and was his lord and master, his God and king, and that as man he was descended from him.”[8]

h. Matthew Henry: “We must hold this fast, that he is David's Lord, and by that explain his being David's son. What those Rabbis could not then answer, blessed be God, the plainest Christian that is led into the understanding of the gospel of Christ, can now account for; that Christ, as God, was David's Lord; and Christ, as Man, was David's son.Rev_22:16); I am the root and the offspring of David. Christ, as God, was David's Root; Christ, as Man, was David's Offspring.”[9] This he did not now himself explain, but reserved it till the proof of it was completed by his resurrection; but we have it fully explained by him in his glory (

i. Jesus forces a startling but obvious inference. He himself is David’s Lord, as well as his son, descended through the flesh from David, yet existing before David. Jesus bases his Messiahship not merely on his Davidic descent, but on His absolute supremacy and Lordship, as David had foreseen long ago.[10]

j. APPLICATION: Is Jesus your Lord? Have you given yourself to Him? Have you declared your submission to the Messiah as David did? Do you bow to His supremacy? One day everyone will whether they like it or not. One day Jesus is coming back, and it will not be on a donkey with children calling Him the Son of David. He will be on a white horse with a sword and a rod of iron in his hand as Lord of David, to sit on David’s throne. And every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

3. JESUS FULLY DEMANDS AN ANSWER (22:46)

a. The religious leaders were entirely thrown off and could not reply (22:46).[11] At the same time, He brings them face to face with the reality of His Person. He Himself is the solution to the problem he raises. But their silence was their answer. They would not submit to Him as Lord. They saw the truth, and they refused it. What about you? Jesus demonstrated to them their ignorance of their own Scriptures and their own history.

b. This is the second time in his Gospel (the first being Matthew 16:13-16), that Matthew urges his audience to come to grips with the person of Jesus Christ and consider our commitment to Him.

c. Richard Owen Roberts, that great scholar of awakening and revival, says that the problem in the churches in the Colonies of the 1730s, just before the First Great Awakening, was baptismal regeneration. People believed that because they had been baptized, that they had been saved. No concept of relationship with Christ – I did my religious duty of being baptized, therefore I have ticked off that requirement for heaven. That is a lie that will send many to hell. We still have some of that attitude today in our churches. The First Great Awakening recovered the Scriptural teaching that one must have a personal encounter with the living God and a relationship with Jesus Christ.

d. Today, Roberts says, the problem is decisional regeneration. Because they made a “decision for Christ” once, a mental assent to the facts of the Gospel, they believe they are saved. They have made their decision, and then they think they can live their lives any way they want to without regard for the Lordship of Christ in their lives. Their faith is one of mental assent to facts, not active obedience to Christ. In John 2, a group of people told Jesus they believed in him because of his miracles. Jesus rejected their faith because it was not based on relationship with Him. In John 3, Nicodemus, that great Jewish rabbi, told Jesus that he had seen that Jesus was a great teacher. Jesus rejected his faith because it was not based on relationship.

e. What about you? If you were in Christ’s presence right now, would Jesus reject your faith because you based it on something other than your relationship with Him? 2 Peter 1:1 says that faith is not something you work up, not some mental assent to facts. It is something you receive. James says that the devil mentally assents to the facts of the gospel, and he does more than most pseudo-Christians. He trembles.

APPLICATION: You must decide what you will do with Jesus.

a. Will you embrace Him as Lord, or will you, as the Pharisees, walk away in silence, not wanting to change your life or your mind, not wanting to think about capital-R Reality, daring not to ask any more questions of Him?

INVITATION:

What do you think about the Christ?

Albert Barnes: “We may ask here of each one, What think you of Christ? (Matt_22:42). What do you think of the necessity of a Saviour? What do you think of his nature? Is he God as well as man, or do you regard him only as a man? What do you think of his character? Do you see him to be lovely and pure, and is he such as to draw forth the warm affections of your heart? What do you think of salvation by him? Do you depend on him, and trust in him, and expect heaven only on the ground of his merits? Or, do you reject and despise him, and would you have joined in putting him to death? Nothing, more certainly tests the character, and shows what the feelings are, than the views which we entertain of Christ. Here error is fatal error; but he who has just views of the Redeemer, and right feelings toward him, is sure of salvation.”[12]

Sources:

Barnes, Albert. Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, e-sword.net.

Beale, G.K., and Carson, D.A., eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

Clarke, Adam. Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible, e-sword.net.

Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993.

Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, e-sword.net.

Kapolyo, Joe. “Matthew.” Adeyemo, Tokunboh, gen. ed. Africa Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Keener, Craig. Matthew. Osborne, Grant R., ser. ed., The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1997

――‌――――. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1993.

Morgan, G. Campbell. The Analyzed Bible: Matthew. New York: Fleming Revell, n.d.

――‌――――. The Gospel According to Matthew. Tarrytown, NY: Fleming Revell, 1929.

Stern, David H. Jewish New Testament Commentary. Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996.

Wilkins, Michael J. “Matthew.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

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[1] Adam Clarke, “Matthew 22:42,” Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible, e-sword.net.

[2] Joe Kapolyo, “Matthew,” Africa Bible Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1159.

[3] Kapolyo, 1159.

[4] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Matthew, (Tarrytown, NY: Fleming Revell, 1929), 271.

[5] G.K. Beale, and D.A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 82-4.

[6] Adam Clarke, “Matthew 22:44.”

[7] Matthew Henry, “Matthew 22:41-46,” Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, e-sword.net. Michael J. Wilkins, “Matthew,” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 1:138-9. The Hebrew text has יהוה listed first and אדניע for the second occurrence of Lord. Since Jews did not read the name YHWH, they would have read it, “Adonai says to my Adonai . . .”

[8] Albert Barnes, Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, e-sword.net, Matthew 22:45.

[9] Matthew Henry, “Matthew 22:41-46.”

[10] G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel of Matthew, 271.

[11] G. Campbell Morgan, The Analyzed Bible: Matthew, (New York: Fleming Revell, n.d.), 243-4.

[12] Albert Barnes, “Matthew 22:21-46,” Barnes’ Notes, e-sword.net.

Frontline for His Sheep

La Bible

Missions pioneer Ralph Winter is gone

Yesterday we lost a giant of the missions history of the global Body of Christ.

Ralph Winter died at 9:05pm, May 20, 2009, after a long illness with a slow-moving form of cancer.

You've never heard of him?

Have you ever heard of an unreached people group?

He coined the term at the 1974 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization. An engineer by trade, he had taught in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary and then founded William Carey International University and the United States Center for World Mission in Pasadena, CA.

Dr. Winter was recently named by Time Magazine as one of the top 25 evangelicals in America and a lifetime achievement award from a major missions conference.

He affected my life in a profound and personal way. I met him at Urbana'93, at the Presbyterian student meeting. In just ten or fifteen minutes in a small group with him, he convinced me at a pivotal time in my life to come to the US Center for World Mission and do a missions internship. I ended up staying there for three years, attending the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary, filling my address book with scores of new friends and missions innovators from all over the globe, many of whom I am still in contact with, and volunteering for the AD2000 United Prayer Track headed at that time by C. Peter Wagner.

I remember sitting in morning meetings with Dr. Winter in 1994. He was then translating for himself the book of Romans, and every morning we heard his new insights on the missiological intonations and implications of Paul's letter. His well-known saying at that time was that Paul's letter to the Romans was a missionary fund-raising letter.

A very humble man, Dr. Winter always treated everyone with utmost respect and generosity -- but his incredible mind would not let an academic missiological issue lie still. He is credited with prodding the global evangelical church to think of the Great Commission in terms of ethnic linguistic peoples, a watershed in missiological history that transformed evangelical missiological theory and witness.

The memorial service will be at 3:00 pm on June 28th, 2009, in the main sanctuary Lake Avenue Congregational Church on the 210 freeway in Pasadena, CA. (Thanks to Rory Clark for the correction.) The family requests no flowers. Memorial gifts can be made out to the Roberta Winter Institute and sent to the following address:
USCWM
c/o Betty Leung
1605 Elizabeth Street
Pasadena, CA 91104

If you have a story about Dr. Winter that you would like to share, please email it to Greg Parsons at greg.parsons@uscwm.org, and he will share it with others.

Enjoy your reward, Dr. Winter.
www.ralphwinter.org

Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #7

Continued from Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #6

A seventh objection is that inerrancy hinders the work of the church. Dewey Beegle claims that wrangling about inerrancy is a barrier to getting out and challenging “the tremendous moral and spiritual problems that confront us on every side.”[1]

First of all, a robust belief in inerrancy is a solid foundation and preparation for tackling moral and spiritual problems on every side.

Secondly, we agree. If theological liberals would stop wrangling over inerrancy and accept the orthodox position of two millennia of Christian history, we could move forward to bring an encounter with the living Word to the mounting moral and spiritual problems we face.

---

[1] Dewey Beegle, The Inspiration of Scripture (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 188; in Saucy, 22.

Continue to Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #8

Also on Sunday in the South:
Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2, #3 & #4, #5, #6

HJRes5: To repeal Presidential term limits

H.J.RES.5
Title: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Sponsor: Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: 2/9/2009 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual... (Introduced in House)

HJ 5 IH

111th CONGRESS 1st Session

H. J. RES. 5

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 6, 2009

Mr. SERRANO introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

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JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article--

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.'.

New frontiers for CRCA-Liberia

There's a new report this morning from Dennis Aggrey on work going on in Liberia with Christian Revival Church Association. Click the link and check it out.

Amanda Brooks: 2009 Mother of the Year

The National Maternal Society
has announced

Amanda Brooks

the
2009 Mother of the Year.

"We are so proud of her."

See video from CNNBC here.

Adrian Rogers on the Bible's authenticity

Piper: "No, Mr. President"

Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #6

Continued from: Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #5

A sixth objection is that inerrancy’s exaltation of the Word of God denigrates the real Word Himself, Jesus Christ. The point comes from the idea of Schleiermacher, father of modern liberal theology, of a personal encounter with the living Word, Jesus Christ. Pinning God down to a written revelation is said to imprison God and deny his sovereignty. It comes with an accusation that the inerrantist is exalting the written Word over the living Word – thus bibliolatry.

Daniel Day of First Baptist Church, Raleigh, NC, calls it just that. “Bibliolatry is a departure from true faith, but it’s all the more insidious because it deceitfully wraps itself in the robes of piety even while it replaces the living God with a god of paper and ink. . . . God isn’t trapped within the covers of a book. God is living and free. To equate God’s book with God’s own self is idolatry.”[1]

This argument often easily derails most inerrantists on the basis of emotion, not of a superior position. It is based on a false comparison, pitting the written Word against the living Word.

No inerrantist wants to denigrate their Lord at the expense of exalting the Bible, and neither does the text of the Bible. God has the freedom to communicate in any way he wants. He is sovereign after all, but since most human beings communicate through speech most of the time, God has chosen to use that form of communication to exalt and glorify the Living Word, Jesus Christ.

When one comes to know the Living Word, his speech becomes that much more precious.[2] “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter said. “Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). The disciples of Christ personally encountered the person of Christ through infallible words recorded in historical time. There is no reason to expect a different process of encounter today.[3]

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[1] Daniel.Day, “The Errors of Inerrancy and the Glories of Scripture” (sermon preached at First Baptist Church, Raleigh, NC.) Macon, GA: Mercer University Center for Baptist Studies. available from http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/sermons/dayinerrancy.doc; Internet; accessed 25 November 2008. See also Claude E. Howe, Jr., “Doing Authority Baptist Style: The Bible,” (Brentwood, TN: Baptist History and Heritage Society and the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society). Available from http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/pamphlets/style/bible.htm; Internet; accessed 25 November 2008; and Charles W. Deweese, “Doing Freedom Baptist Style: Liberty of Conscience,” (Brentwood, TN: Baptist History and Heritage Society and the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society). Available from http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/pamphlets/style/liberty.htm; Internet; accessed 25 November 2008.

[2] “Biblical inerrancy is above all important because it undergirds our conviction that the words and promises of God which tell us of our salvation in Christ are absolutely reliable. If it were not for the constant attacks that are made on the Scriptures and the repeated charges that it contains mistakes, we probably would not emphasize the doctrine of biblical inerrancy to the extent that this has been done in recent times, and it is the opposition to biblical inerrancy that must in large measure bear the blame if the central doctrines of the Gospel are sometimes crowded into the background.” Siegbert W. Becker, “Luther and Inerrancy.” Joint Conference of the North and South Metropolitan Circuits of the Southeastern Wisconsin District, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, November 15, 1982. Accessed November 25, 2008; available from http://66.102.1.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cache:5daGW0Ut6s4J:www.wlsessays.net/authors/B/BeckerLuther/BeckerLuther.PDF+related:wtY1hR5ZtlsJ:scholar.google.com/

[3] Saucy, 22.

Continue to Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #7

Also on Sunday in the South:
Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2, #3 & #4, #5