Posted by David Carroll
I am hanging out over at www.bellevueteachers.com doing some blogging, podcasting, etc.
Come and visit us over there.
Posted by David Carroll
My friend Bill Bryan mentioned to me that there used to be a link to the Cross Lighting event we had at church in the year 2000. I found it here. It is on my home server so it may be a bit sluggish but not too bad.
Also there some old mp3 audio files of Sunday School lessons here.
Thanks Bill for pointing that out to me!
Posted by David Carroll
Walt Morgan is a good friend of mine and is president of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Nicaragua. This week, I am helping Walt raise support for the Seminary among some churches in the Atlanta and East Tennessee area and then back in Memphis later this week.
Here is a brief video introduction to the Seminary:
Posted by David Carroll
My friend Michael Earls commented on my last post and expressed appreciation for my respect for God. (Hi Micheal, good to hear from you!) I’ve been thinking about respect for God. First let me say that respect for God is a a rare thing in today’s world and I know Michael too respects God. So many people have no respect for God because they do not believe in Him. Or if they do believe in God, he is not occupying much place in their thoughts. So I really appreciate Michael noticing that and it is something everyone should take a step towards. But respect for God is not a final destination rather it is just a step or a move towards God. Although God is worthy of respect because respect has the meaning of being honored and esteemed, somehow respect does not rise to the level of adequately describing my attitude toward God.
What attitude then glorifies God? I’d like to say that I love God but even that sounds like too much like me giving something to Him. (I do love Him, I’m just trying to find the attitude that really glorifies God.) You see God is the source of everything; He is always the giver and never the receiver as if He needed anything from us. I might say and do in fact fear God because of his holy righteousness. That’s good and true too certainly in the sense that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. (Don’t you fear someone who could squash you in an instant and moreover knows all your secrets?) Let’s see, how about grateful…yes that works too because of God’s great mercy. Mercy is the part that keeps God from squashing me or making me pay for all those dirty dark secrets that only He and I know about.
But someone did pay. God paid. God absorbed the righteous wrath of God against my sin. Wait a minute. Did I say that right? God paid God’s penalty? Yes of course, Jesus Christ paid it all. And all the while God the Son was hanging on that cross suffering for my sake, it was God the Father in heaven pouring out his wrath. That way he is both just and the one who justifies. God’s wrath was spent not withdrawn.
How do I know all this is true? Of course I got it all out of the Bible. But God provided proof by raising Jesus from the dead. The ressurection is the proof that God is satisfied.
That’s why respect, love, fear, and gratefulness as attitudes toward God don’t seem enough. Oh they are necessary and right. I suppose gratefulness comes the closest because it describes my receiving instead of my giving. But when I talk about God and see His work in everything around me including in the budding forth of spring foliage and flowers, I am delighted. Delight, yes that’s the word. I am really delighted and soul-satisfied when I consider God. And I am not giving him anything in my delight rather I am soaking it all in: His love toward me, his mercy toward me, his goodness all around me, his magnificence in his creation.
He made me and he made you to delight in his glory!
Posted by David Carroll
I was out walking in the forest last week (March 23) and took this picture of a ridge and a ravine. The weather was delightful and you could tell the forest was waking up from it’s winter slumber.
Nine days later (yesterday April 1) I was walking the same trail and took a picture of the same ridge (below).
Now I was standing a litte further up in the second shot but you can tell it is the same location by examining the roots of some of the trees hugging the ridge.
The astonishing thing I’m sure you notice is the difference in green foliage. A little rain, a little warmth, longer days and the program kicks in to high gear. I say program because that is what it is, it does this every year automatically. Such astonishing beauty and unbelievable and complex innerworkings of sap rising and photosynthisis. I’m glad I got to see this as I ponder God’s unfathomable excellence in His design for life.
Psalm 8:1,3–4
O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
Posted by David Carroll
Genesis 1:31 (NKJV)
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
I went backpacking with some wonderful friends this past weekend to the Richland Creek Wilderness area just north of Russellville AR. What a delightful trip and considering what I've been through, a miracle! God is good! Three Davids went (should have been four David D. :-) and Roxanne and Tiffany and Kyle.
The water was high and so we could not make the second stream crossing like we had planned but no matter, the campsite we stayed at for two nights was delightful and we were close to a bend in the river with a beach and within a short (although rugged) hike to Richland Creek Falls and Twin Falls. It was cold the first night and the temp was in the low twenties when we woke up Sunday morning. We day hiked to the falls that afternoon and said our goodbyes' to Dave and Kyle who had to head on back home that afternoon. It rained in the middle of the night Sunday night and it was only in the thirties Monday morning. David S. and I determined that we could cross the stream at about thigh deep to go see the twin falls before we broke camp to head on back home. After a quick breakfast and finally some warm coffee after that cold crossing, we packed it up and headed out of the woods for the two mile trek and final stream crossing. The trail was wet and muddy in places so we gingerly scrambled over the rocks and narrow ledges and arrived at our car early afternoon. Two nights in the woods and base camping does not sound all that much but I was so encouraged and filled with gratitude for my friends who spurred me on and gave me a new start in backpacking adventures.
Check out the album on bubbleshare by clicking here. Dave and David, you can download a zip file of the pictures when you go to the album. They should be a decent size, but if there are any you want the fullsize original of, let me know and I'll email them to you.
Posted by David Carroll
Note that I have removed from the front page the "Notable Links" that I post here from time to time. They are also removed from the main RSS and Atom feeds for those who use aggregators.
Of course they are still available as two separate "Link Blogs" on the menu on the right side. You can subscribe separately to those "Link Blogs" on those pages.
The Misc Link Blog contains items I want to save or find interesting that anybody might find interesting. The Link Blog for Developers contains items that would be of interest only to other software developers.
Just trying to reduce the clutter and noise from the main page.
Posted by David Carroll
I was informed by a visitor (thanks Matthew!) that the site was not working right with FireFox 2.0 (embarrassed look :-). Anyway, I’ve been working on cleaning up the CSS stylesheets today and it all seems to work now in both browsers.
That explains the new spartan look. I may dress it up later but it’s growing on me so I may leave it for a while.
Posted by David Carroll
Ecclesiastes 12:12
And further, my son, be admonished by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
I buy lots of books. The two main genres are books about software development and books with a religious theme. For novels, I usually buy from Audible so that I can enjoy them while driving or walking or just sitting in the hot tub. Anyway, I am a very good customer of Amazon. I just cannot resist the latest book on some new technology. What amazes me about books about computer programming is that I am never satisfied. Typically I graze through the book looking for some little tidbit of information I can use or that I am unfamiliar with. Most of the time, I find two or three little things that I learn from the book and then I am done with it. I never use them as a reference manual. Google has replaced that.
So why do I keep buying these very expensive books (they are very proud of them at $50 each)? I guess I justify that the two or three tidbits of new information is worth it.
Posted by David Carroll
No big deal but I had to shut down the site for about 36 hours while I put some protection in against comment spam.
Somebody evidently found the site and was using it to post a bunch of links to other sites. Nothing trashy as far as I could tell without clicking on the links but still a bunch of gibberish in the comments. The motivation probably was in hopes of getting some “Google juice.” Google’s page-rank system uses a measurement of the number of sites that link to a given site to measure that site’s importance in the Google search results. The more important the site, the higher up in the search list it goes. So it is not only how many sites link to a site being measured for rank but their relative ranks as well. If a high ranking site links to a site, the linked site will increase in stature in Google’s page-rank system.
I’ve had enough high ranking sites link to me so that David’s Bible Blog makes it to the top of the search results for some queries. For example, if you search for “Bible Blog” (click here to try it) I am number two. And if you search for “David Carroll” (again click here to try it) I am number one!
Posted by David Carroll
Jesus can heal the sick and he does it through a touch or just a word. I’ve been healed and I am convinced that it was by faith and through the prayers of God’s people. (I am overwhelmed with gratitude when I think of how many people were praying for me!) But there are those who would say that when people get healed they simply want to give God credit when actually time or medicine actually did the work. In my case, time and medicine certainly were the means of God’s grace, but it was a miracle how God revealed where the real problem was because I went through two surgeries fixing something that evidently was not the problem. Go here to read more about that. But that’s not the point of this post. Healing could be dismissed by naysayers as wishful thinking.
When Jesus and the disciples were out on the sea of Galilee during the storm about to be swamped by the waves, Jesus was sound asleep in the stern of the boat. (It takes a real peace of mind to sleep in a situation like that!) Anyway, the disciples who were scared to death, wake Jesus to inform him of their plight. After rebuking their little faith, he “rebuked” the storm by saying “Peace, be still.” And immediately there was total calm. Now you’d think these guys would be relieved by now, but the Bible records that now they were exceedingly afraid. Think about what they have just witnessed! A man stands up in a boat and commands vast amounts of energy and matter to stand still. That got their attention. In fact the Bible says they exclaimed “What manner of man is this!?” That’s the point: Jesus is no mere man. He is the God-Man. Jesus is not just the Son of God, he is God the Son. He is the Logos, the Word of God who spoke everything into existance.
Continuing with the series, you can listen to the audio of the second Sunday School lesson on Jesus Miracles from the book of Matthew here. (right click on the link and choose “save as” to download the mp3 file)
Posted by David Carroll
It has been a long time since I taught Sunday School and last weekend I got the chance to teach for several Sundays in a row. I was a bit anxious about teaching again after my hiatus but I have been praying about when I would start full time again. So this opportunity to teach as a substitute for a few weeks is really an answer to prayer. What is an answer to prayer if not a miracle? Speaking of miracles, that is what I am teaching on. Beginning in Matthew 8, Jesus performs a series of miracles mixed in with some teachings. I really like this section because there is so much action. Jesus is showing his muscle which is his complete authority over everything including human sickness, demons and even nature itself.
So in keeping with the podcasting I have done in the past, I am posting the audio of the first lesson on Jesus’ miracles here. Sorry about the recording quality, I inadvertantly set the mic switch on high gain boost so there are some pops in the audio.
Needless to say, I really am enjoying digging into God’s word and the discipline has been good for me. Thank you Lord!
Listen to the audio of the first lesson on Matthew Chapter 8.
Posted by David Carroll
Things around here have been a bit stressful, not bad, just a bit overwhelming when thinking about all that I need to get done over the next few months. Times like this can make you feel guilty for procrastinating which tends to make the stress even worse. It is important to have some times of refreshing during such a period, something that makes the worry melt away even for only a few hours.
I know two things that accomplish this. One is prayer. Prayer that admits your own fraility and inadequacies and lays your burdens on Jesus. It is not that the prayer itself makes you feel better although it certainly helps. Rather it is that prayer actually works. God answers prayer.
James 5:16 (NKJV)
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
The second thing that works is worship and fellowship. Go to church and love and be loved by the brethren. Sweet fellowship and worship can accomplish wonders for the weary and stressed out soul.
Psalm 84:1-2 (NKJV)
How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Psalm 84:10-11 (NKJV)
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly.
I sat with dear friends from my old Sunday School class tonight and sang and worshiped and I could feel my worries melt away. That’s what I call times of refreshing. Jerry Vines preached the last of four Wednesday nights we call Awesome August. He preached on the importance of Church and my own experience of being refreshed totally underscored and validated the message.
Acts 3:19 (NKJV)
Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord
Johnny Hunt preached last Wednesday night. It was the next to last night Bethany was home before we took her back to Birmingham for her Junior year in college. Johnny is a dear friend and gifted preacher. Bethany was baptised by Johnny back in 1997. What a great message Johnny preached on perseverence as the proof of our faith. God has given us all things that pertain to life and Godliness. Johnny preached on the following text.
2 Peter 1:1-11 (NKJV)
Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
You can listen to the mp3 here.
Posted by David Carroll
Time to reform my inner life, that is to form again into what it should be. I may look OK on the outside but that’s only because I can prop it up and build quick facades so that no one notices what’s behind. It’s time to work on the inner man. That means I might start to look like a “construction zone.” Like my body has been in tatters and I am now starting to exercise and make it stronger, healthier, my spiritual disciplines are in tatters too and I need to begin to exercise it and make it stronger, healthier. Just like the goal for my physical reformation is stamina, strength, and flexibility I could describe the goal for my spiritual being in the same way but that would be superficial and ignore the most important thing. Jesus is the focus of spiritual reformation; Christ-likeness is the goal.
What does Christ-likeness look like? I think it looks like obedience on the outside. But that is not what it is on the inside. Obedience is the manifestation, what you see as a result, not what causes Christ-likeness. Obedience simply makes me look like the scribes and the Pharisees.
Matthew 5:20 (NKJV)
For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
So, what does Christ-likeness look like on the inside? It looks like thoughts, affections, choices, rest, peace, desire, love and all that. But still, it is not the source. The Holy Spirit of God is the source and it is His work. That’s called grace. Grace is not so much like resting in a tub of warm water; it is more like standing under an invigorating waterfall. Grace is not so much what God has done for me but more what God is doing for me and continues to do for me. Piper calls that Future Grace.
So although I am to do all things He has commanded me, I must not forget that He is master over everything in heaven and He will be with me every step of the way. So when I decide to do a command He is right there with me and He has all the resources under his power.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV)
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Posted by David Carroll
Lots of errands to run this morning, but as I stepped onto the back deck I saw this critter. When I would approach him he would raise his hind legs up and hold this tail up in the air as if it were a sword he would attack me with. So this is the guy (among thousands) who has been making all the noise at night. Those crickets are really loud and they have this rhythm when they all get to going at the same time it just magnifies. God really makes some strange creatures and they are everywhere. I don’t see any eyes on this bugger. I think those flat spots on his head are his hearing organs and those antenna have sensory purposes too. Amazing!
Posted by David Carroll
All’s been quiet on this front for a long time. I have spoken about how the Lord was healing me of a long term health problem with back pain culminating in having a tumor on my spinal cord in my neck discovered (revealed may be a better word 
) and removed. This post will explain this period of quiet and the good news that came out of it but before I can explain the good news, I have to explain why I was so quiet.
Take a look in the picture on the right of my pre-Op MRI. Can you see what is not supposed to be there? Look up and down the spinal cord coming off the base of the brain. About two thrids the way down is a blob which was pinching the spinal cord.
The surgery required removing the bones of my spinal column which surround and protect the spinal cord. This would give the surgeon access to the tumor on the cord. It was quite a delicate surgery to remove this mass which had attached itself to the spinal cord itself. The tricky part was that the tumor was the same texture and color as the nerve. Furthermore, the tumor had extended down one of the nerve roots going down to my left arm. This required removal of facet joint which keeps the vertabra from coming out of alignment. Without this joint, my neck would be easily broken. The solution here was to fuse the two vertabras together requiring rods and screws to hold it all together while the fusion takes place over the next year.
This is a an x-ray (not an MRI) showing the screws. You can see the rod and screws easily but also notice the missing spineous process bones. You can see two of them at the top of my neck (that’s my jaw on the upper right). Then they dissappear for the next five vertabra. These bones are part of the structure fo bones which surround and protect the spinal cord which sits just behind the spinal column of vertabra. The vertabra are separated by discs forming a column which is the backbone of your body. The spinal cord, or main nerve, runs down just behind this backbone of vertabra and discs and is protected by the spineous process bones. As you can see, I don’t have those spineous process bones anymore. You can feel yours on your back. They are the bony things that stick out and make bumps on the skin down the middle of your back. I have a noticable flat spot on my neck now because those bones are missing. The back and neck muscles normally attach to 
these bones. I asked the surgeon where those muscles attach now and he said that he sewed the two sides together so that they now attach to opposing muscles groups rather than to a central bone.
The next xray on the right shows a frontal view and you can see the absence of these spineous process bones as the long oval darker shape in the middle of my neck just next to the screws. This was the cavity the surgeon made to gain wide open access to the spinal cord and the tumor.
I blogged my recovery from that surgery and how God was healing. The wonderful part was that the pain I had been dealing with in my back and my legs for three years was gone. So I have had two failed surgeries on my lower back and then a tumor which according to the doctors should have had nothing to do with my back pain. Healed! Right? Well, yes and not yet.
I realize that there are many stages of healing particularly when we talk of “complete healing.” What I did not realize several months ago was that although my pain was gone, my body had become dependent on pain killing drugs. I have been taking strong narcotics on a continual basis for over 18 months. I had figured out how to cope with the intestional problems that are typcally associated with opiods. But back last March, I started experiencing severe headaches that lasted 24–48 hours at a time, several times a week. Associated with this was dizziness and loss of appitite. Although I was experiencing no back pain I was having a very difficult time being productive even with simplest of mental activities. Furthermore, I went into a state of depression that was like a vice grip on my head. I am wondering if I wouldn’t rather go back to the back pain, at least I was able to accomplish some work. The worst part was this state of mind was affecting my spiritual well being.
I have wonderful news to report however, my headaches have been gone for several weeks now. I am exercising again, and my appitite has returned. Thank you Lord and thank all of you who were praying for me. Especially you Millie!
Now for the story of how this wonderful turn came about. I had convinced myself that the pain killers were a necessary part of my life since I still suffer from pretty bad arthritis in my left hip and left knee. Although I did not need the pain medication anymore for my low back or my shoulders (from the surgery on my neck), I still felt I needed it for my arthritis since it worked so well on that malady. I kept looking for some reason why my headaches started back last March. It seemed so drastic of a change from how well I had been doing during since January.
In March, I had another MRI on my neck done and discovered that I had a seroma which is a pocket of spinal fluid that had collected at the site of the surgery. In the picture, notice the white tube-like thing just to the right of the spinal cord. You can see that the spinal cord is much more relaxed than it was but that there is still some damage from where the tumor was. The white tube-like thing is where the surgeon had to remove so much bone that there was a cavity and although he tried to tighen the muscles up around there, it was impossible to completely fill the cavity with muscle tissue. Now the body abhors a vacuum so it will fill up with something. Fluids are the easiest to fill such cavities and the nearest fluid in this case was spinal fluid. Such seromas are not uncommon and may or may not cause problems.
Some doctors I talked to, not my surgeon, thought that this seroma could cause the headaches because of the hydrolic fluid connection through the spinal column to the brain. Any pumping of this fluid due to muscle movement or whatever would directly affect the brain since it too is encased in spinal fluid. My surgeon did not seem too worried about the seroma but he did say we’ll keep an eye on it since I have to have four more MRI’s done over the next three years to make sure the tumor does not return. The only complications he mentioned are infection and he did not seem to be too concerned about that. So the headaches were somewhat of a mystery but I became fixated that the seroma was the cuprit and was convinced that was my problem. I even contemplated more surgery to repair the seroma.
Meanwhile, in March, I was asking my surgeon to renew my prescription for pain killers while telling him how I felt they were really helping my arthritis problems and that I might need to continue to take them indefinately. He frowned at that suggestion but acquiesed. But then he decided to prescribe a new synthetic opoid which had just come out in a forumulation where you only had to take one pill a day. It was an extended release type of narcotic. So whereas I used to take the pills when I felt I needed one for pain, typically three a day, now I just took one every day in the morning whether I needed it or not. No pain ever, such bliss right? Not really. I began to realize that the pain killers were complicating my life because the associated constipation was getting more and more of a problem. Twice I tried to stop taking the pills for a couple of days and immediately would have severe flu-like withdrawal symptions accompanied by diarrea, not a pleasant situation. This is a classic case of drug dependancy. It is a physical dependancy not a psychological addicition. But I must say that the psychologal element still comes into play when you know what will happen if you stop taking the pills, withdrawals and exacerbated arthritis pain. Bottom line, the pain killers were starting to show their ugly side. They were wonderful and truly a blessing for a time but now they were definately a problem to be sovled.
Interestingly, although I had read about these drugs, I had never noticed some of the side effects mentioned in the pharmecutical litarature. I have always assumed that the endless lists of “Some patients may experience this that and the other” you see was just for those rare patient cases who were perhaps reporting these symptoms but were mistakenly assumed to be related to the drug. As far as I was concerned, such warnings were just a legal requirement for the drug companies. But then I read again where the opiods I was taking could cause headaches, dizziness and loss of appitite. All of a sudden it clicked. The headaches showed up only after I started taking the extended release pain killers in March. Now I had a huge reason to get off these pills at least long enough to determine whether they were the cause of my problems. So now the question became how to get through the withdrawals. After consulting my surgeon I got a new prescription for normal pain killers (non extended release formulation) and I began to slowly cut down on the dosage. I worked my way down from 100% to 75%, 50%, 25% then 10% of the amount I was taking previously on a daily basis. I began to notice the headaches becomeing shorter, less intense and less frequent. Last Sunday, I decided to stop taking the pills completely.
Praise God, it has been four days now and I am completely off those narcotics with no severe headaches in two weeks! And all of the other symptoms are gone too. Last week, I returned to my personal trainer whom I had not seen in three years. I am lifting weights, walking and my outlook is fantastic.
So now I ask why did God allow me to go though all of these problems with depression and headaches? In retrospect I can say I really needed those pain meds over the last three years and I can thank God for that. But God knew I would become dependent on them and He had to allow me to discover what that was all about. If I had not been prescribed those one-a-day pills for pain, I might not have ever realized how detrimental that medicine could be over the long term. The last phase of my healing was to take me through a dark time so that I could see those last remaining problems which would have become demons had I not felt the need to fight them early on.
Thank you Lord for answering my prayers.
Posted by David Carroll
John Stott used the following time allocations dedicated to Bible study:
- One hour a day
- One 3 hour period a week
- One day every month
- One week every year
I am inspired. I pray I will have the dedication to turn it into action.
From C.J. Mahaney
Posted by David Carroll
1 Peter 1:2a (NKJV)
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father
Paige Patterson, while preaching on this verse at Southeastern Seminary, said:
While it may be a healthy exercise to wrestle with the doctrines of election, sovereignty and free will, theological debate must not distract Christians from fulfilling the Great Commission.
If you're a more ardent advocate of Calvinism than you are of Jesus as an answer to men's souls—and the way you tell that is by what you talk about most—then you are out of step with the clear teachings of the Word of God.
Two thousand years we've been talking about this, it's the only reason you build cafeterias and coffeehouses on seminary campuses, and nobody has come up with an explanation that will satisfy anybody else. Under such conditions, is it not better to say, “God, in your greatness, you have done and thought and acted in ways too transcendent for me to embrace.”
Good advice. I need to talk less about why people get saved and start doing more of the how.
Romans 10:13-14 (NKJV)
For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
Posted by David Carroll
Historians David Bebbington, Mark Noll, and George Rawlyk have identified four characteristic marks of "evangelicalism":
- a stress on conversion,
- a focus on Christ's redeeming work as the core of biblical Christianity,
- an acknowledgment of the Bible as the supreme authority,
- an energetic and personal approach to social engagement and evangelism.
(from Chrisitianity Today)
Posted by David Carroll
Commenters on my previous post on Irresistible Grace raise a good question regarding salvation. Is man responsible or is God? Also, who is the originator of salvation, man or God? Anyway I’ll say up front that the answer in my opinion is that it is God who is both responsible from beginning to end and it is God who originates salvation. Now let’s see if I can be consistent with the idea that man has to make a choice without being compelled to do so irresistibly.
I see God as responsible for my salvation because I cannot find heaven without him. In fact I don’t even know of it’s existence without him. And now that I am aware of it and believe that he has secured it for me, I am still just along for the ride without anyway of getting myself to heaven without him.
I see God as the originator of salvation because it was his idea and not mine. He offered it first as a free gift which I could accept through faith. This was his design for such a transaction and not mine. But notice the requirement: my acceptance or rejection of that free gift. He decreed that I should glorify him by requiring my exercise of faith. My faith in him does not glorify me—I only love him because he first loved me. This is the synergism that glorifies God, not because man may choose rightly thereby completing the transaction but because the choice gives God glory, praise, honor and adoration from his creature whom He in turn makes happy in Him.
I will even say that the faith I have has come from him. How could it not? He is the creator! All I know is that God has somehow made man’s ability to make true free will choices compatible with his sovereignty. And we are called upon to make a choice to repent and have faith in God which has real consequences in both positively and negatively. That seems to me to be the emphasis of the Bible in all of its warnings (including Jesus’ pronouncement regarding blasphemy against the Holy Spirit). He wanted it that way because faith is the only thing that accords with grace and faith is what gives God glory.
Romans 4:16a (NKJV)
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace
Romans 4:20 (NKJV)
He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God
There is a glorious mystery in all of this. One has to believe two apparently incompatible things simultaneously: 1) God is sovereign and knows everything past present and future. 2) man is created by God in His own image and thus has been given a free will with the responsibility to make a choice to trust in Him or not. This means God both knows the choice man will make and yet man must still make it freely. I cannot reconcile this and the Bible does not seem to worry one wit about helping me to do so.
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."
Posted by David Carroll
Irresistible grace is the fourth point of the five points of Calvinism. It means that according to God’s sovereignty, those whom he has chosen from before the foundation of the world will be subject to an irresistible call from God at some point in their lives and will exercise their faith in Him because of His working of grace in them apart from any movement of their own will. (I probably should look that up and get an exact definition but this is my understanding of it anyway.)
Let me say up front that I know and hear gladly many preachers who believe this doctrine including John Piper, John MacArthur, Al Mohler and many others. But I have a problem with irresistible grace.
First of all I find within myself the ability to resist and the ability to exercise my own free will to choose good or bad. When I came to Christ, I came under much duress within my own heart. I don’t believe I was being dragged but I certainly believe I was being wooed not out of fear but out of a desire. But it was a tremendous internal struggle of the will. So unless I am a deceived robot, then I find within myself immediate evidence to reject this doctrine. However, the Biblical support for this doctrine comes from such verses as:
John 6:37,39,44 (NKJV)
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
I believe the Bible is verbal and plenary (word for word and sufficient) inspired word of God. There is no way I would argue with the clear words of scripture, and even less with Jesus’ very own words. But do these words confirm the doctrine of irresistible grace? Not necessarily. Firstly they show a loving God who woos and draws people to Himself but this wooing and drawing is not necessarily irresistible. Secondly, they are compatible with a sovereign God who foreknows those will choose to come to Jesus. For the Calvinist however, God’s choosing is not based on foreknowledge but rather on his sovereign decree.
But there is a more pernicious problem I have with this doctrine of irresistible grace. That problem comes from Jesus warning regarding the unpardonable sin:
Matthew 12:31-32 (NKJV)
Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
Those are strong words and regardless of exactly what “blasphemy against the Spirit” is, the consequences are undeniable. No forgiveness means no heaven which means eternal separation from God, otherwise known as hell.
Now, lest anyone start worrying about whether they have committed the unpardonable sin or not, I am told by almost every commentary I have read on this verse that if you are worried about it then you don’t need to be worried about it. In other words, the mere fact that you express concern over it means that you have not been guilty of it. This means that blasphemy against the spirit is spiteful and willful and therefore is not concerned in the least with such action.
The problem this verse presents to the doctrine of irresistible grace is that one word unpardonable. (I know that word is not in the verse but it is a convenient term for “will not be forgiven him, either in this age or the age to come” which sounds even worse to me).
Follow me here. You must agree that the elect who will one day not be able to resist the drawing of God could not possibly commit an unpardonable sin. Why? Because they would not be elect if they did. So what does this say about those who are not elect, the ones who will certainly be able to resist God, which for the Calvinist is everybody else. If they are non-elect then they are by definition already unpardonable, regardless of what sin they will commit. So if the elect will find God’s grace irresistible, then why is Jesus even making such a stern and dire warning not to do something that cannot be done by one group and would not matter anyway to the other? It would make Jesus into a terrorist striking fear into people unnecessarily.
No doubt the staunch Calvinist has already thought out a way to reconcile this dilemma, but I have never heard it. And if it is similar to the way they redefine the “whosoever wills” then I probably won’t understand it anyway.
I believe in election because that is a clear doctrine in the Bible. The question is what is it based upon? Foreknowledge or sovereign decree. I’ll write some more about that later. So does that make me a four point Calvinist? No, because I have a problem with the idea of Limited Atonement too but I’ll write about that one some other time as well.
Posted by David Carroll
I just found out that there has been a bug in this blog’s software preventing adding new comments to entries 
. (Thank’s Millie!) You could reply to an existing comment but not add new comments. But I just fixed it.
Posted by David Carroll
My daughter Bethany asked me the other day why the Apocrypha is not included in our Bibles (meaning our protestant Bibles since of course it is included in the Catholic Bible). My answer was not very deep but I told her that these books were written during the inter-testamental period in the 400 years of silence. The silence refers to a period of time when God was not speaking to prophets. The other part of my answer to her was that none of the apocryphal books were quoted as scripture in the New Testament. At that point I had exhausted my entire knowledge of the subject.
You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.
John J. Plomp
I was not really satisfied with the extent of the answer I gave to her so today, I did a little investigating and learned a few things.
Did you know:
It is in the apocrypha that the Roman Catholics find their proof text for the doctrine for purgatory [2 Maccabees 12:46] which speaks of prayers for the dead.
The council of Trent in 1546 officially made these books part of the Canon of scripture.
That same council pronounced that anyone who did not recognize these books as scripture as anathema (removed from the body of Christ)
Hebrews 12 makes some allusions to some historical events that are documented in the apocrypha. (but there is not “it is written” or “thus says the Lord” type of language)
The early church fathers were not in agreement on the apocrypha, some such as Jerome completely denying their authority as scripture.
The apocryphal books were Jewish books and so would come under the authority of “God’s chosen people” who were given responsibility for the Old Testament scriptures. [Rom 3:2] “to them were committed the oracles of God.” Consequently it would not be the domain of the Church to determine the Old Testament canon. And in fact, these books were never “laid up in the temple” and the Jews did not consider them to be part of scripture included in the Law, Prophets and Writings.
Jesus spoke of all the prophets in:
Luke 11:50-51 (NKJV)
that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple.
it is interesting to note that Abel and Zechariah are bookends for the Jewish scriptures. The order of of the Jewish books are from Genesis (first book) to 2 Chronicles (last book). In essence, Jesus is excluding any prophets that might have occurred after Zechariah.
The only reason given by Catholics for the inclusion of the Apocrypha is the infallible authority of the Roman Catholic Church magisterium to proclaim on such matters. This excludes and is against another reasons to reject the apocrypha including historical evidence of the early church, and even precludes any blatantly obvious historical errors that might be found in these books.
In fact the book of Judith which is an apocryphal book, claims that Nebuchadnezzar ruled from Nineveh which is by every historical and scholarly evidence completely untrue. Also this same book claims the second temple was rebuilt a century prior to when it actually was. Granted supposed contradictions and errors are just the sort of thing atheists use to discredit the Bible but none of the supposed errors atheists can come up with are unexplainable or could not be reconciled with further unknown information. The errors in Judith are so blatant as to be impossible to dismiss as only “apparent error.”
So as a protestant, what exactly is the criteria for knowing what is scripture? It is not the authority of the church but rather it is the book’s prophetiticy. That is is the book inspired by God to a prophet of God. We do not determine canon, God does. The way he does this is by speaking to his prophets. A prophet is a spokesperson for God. Now, God chooses his prophets but it is up to us to discover which books are prophetic. It is interesting that for all the books in our Bible, each book was immediately recognized for it’s prophetical content by the author’s contemporaries, not by someone centuries later.
The Jews had already discovered the Old Testament canon for us making that part easy. How was the New Testament canon discovered? My understanding is that the New Testament is written by first hand apostles of Jesus. In other words those who had direct contact with Jesus or were transcribing for those who did. These men were apostles and as such were confirmed by signs and wonders. They did miracles. And the epistles and gospels were passed around by the contemporary early believers as holy writ.
But really the New Testament Canon is another question for another day anyway. But that’s my short answer like I would have given my daughter Bethany if she asked the question. Perhaps I’ll investigate more later and write another post on the subject.
Posted by David Carroll
Wednesday, I was set free. Doc says I can go without the neck brace. Freedom is a wonderful thing but scary too I found out. I still walk around like I had the brace on and I am scared to turn my head too much. It’s weird, almost like I want to put it back on for comfort. Delaine tells me I snored last night too and I have not been snoring. I knew immediately what it was, my chin was being held up keeping my jaw from dropping which kept my mouth shut and kept me breathing through my nose. So now do I put it back on when I go to bed just to keep from snoring?
Ahh but I got to drive today…for the first time since driving to the hospital on Dec 13. (Except for that little emergency when Delaine got locked out of her car at Walgreens, about five minutes away, and I bravely drove to rescue her). Got my hair cut (great to visit with you Marilyn!), got Toby’s bath done, and picked up my prescription. And I finally have a few new twenty dollar bills in my billfold. I found out something interesting, if you can’t drive, you don’t need any cash. I’ve had the same single five dollar bill in my billfold since my surgery. Now I’m flush with cash! (It goes fast).
Toby and I went for another long walk whilst listening to Rush. I took the twin walking poles and really tried to kick up the pace a bit. Oh, and by the way, I asked Doc about how much exercising I could do and found out all that (light)weight lifting I’ve been doing was a bad thing (because the vertebra fusion is still trying to take). So no more weight lifting for another month. But I can do all the walking I want to, so I figured I could at least get the arms in on the act with the walking poles. Besides they make you feel like an Olympic cross country skier.
The main thing is the Lord is good and his word is sweet and I am grateful to his healing hand on my body.
Proverbs 3:7-8 (NKJV)
Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.
Speaking of being free from my neck brace, I have been freed from something else too. I have identified myself with Christ who died and was raised from the dead. So I reckon I am freed from sin’s power over me and one day I will even be freed from sin’s presence.
Romans 6:7-11 (NKJV)
For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posted by David Carroll
In the previous post, I talked about the requirement of salvation which cannot be earned or purchased. That requirement is faith. Faith includes and is evidenced by all sorts of things like obedience, childlike trust, and most of all desire to be delighted in Jesus Christ. But how does that faith come? First of all it is a gift from God but it comes through the mind by hearing the word of God preached. Someone must tell you the good news of the gospel of the Kingdom which is Jesus Christ who is the King. When you understand and receive that good news gladly and move toward it desiringly then you are exercising God’s requirement which may cost you but that cost is not a work, it is only more evidence of your faith.
Romans 10:17 (NKJV)
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
That’s what I am going to do today is hear the word of God preached in a clear and understandable way. There will be singing and praise too. But it will all be focused on God and Christ. That’s what we call worship. Then after the word is preached there will be many who will feel desire and faith welling up in them and an invitation to come to Jesus will be given. As a Deacon I’ll go back and counsel with one of those who come and explain more of what is happening to them. And whether they are exercising faith for the first time or whether they are already believers, I’ll test them to see whether their faith is based on their trusting Christ and him alone. If it is not, I’ll go through another gospel presentation to give them one more chance to do that.