Got Fruit ?

Hat tip to Crosstalk blog

From the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” department, here’s a news story to make your day. It appears that 3 bisexual me are suing a gay softball group because they claim they were discriminated against two years ago. (original story @ the Seattle times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011657770_lawsuit21m.html)

Looks like us Christians aren’t the only “intolerant” ones.

Jeremiah 13:22-24 

Grace and peace be with you.

Evangelical Leaders Sort True Gospel from ‘Gimmickry’

Originally posted Tue, Mar. 30 2010 at the Christian Post

Evangelical theologians expressed concern at a recent conference that fewer churches in America seem to be preaching the biblical Gospel.

The Gospel is not "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," nor is it "God gives you meaning for life," said Dr. R.C. Sproul, prominent author and founder of Ligonier Ministries.

Sproul was in Los Angeles this past weekend for Ligonier’s West Coast conference, which ran under the theme "Christless Christianity." He was joined by prominent theologians including Dr. Michael Horton, John MacArthur and Peter Jones to examine the popular misunderstandings of the Gospel today.

"Together we’ll sort the true gospel from the gimmickry," conference organizers said.

Objectively, the Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, being born under the law, as a human, living a perfect life (by the aid of the Holy Spirit), and giving His life as a substitutionary sacrifice for others, Sproul explained to conference attendees.

But it doesn’t stop there, he continued. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and promises to return to consummate His kingdom.

And it is by faith alone – sola fide – that we are justified, he added. Righteousness is imputed to you and appropriated to us by faith alone, the theologian stressed.

The biblical Gospel, however, is not being faithfully preached in many churches, the speakers indicated.

MacArthur, pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., specifically criticized one of America’s most well-known pastors – Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston.

He accused Osteen of making Jesus "a footnote in his ministry to satisfy his critics" and for offering "the unregenerate" things that appeal to their immediate desires.

Osteen, MacArthur said, has no biblical understanding of God or man. The Houston pastor teaches that everyone was made to be winners but the idea that man is helpless and hopeless, a loser, is also the most Christian doctrine, MacArthur noted.

Borrowing Osteen’s bestselling book title, MacArthur said this is not "your best life now."

Our best life, he said, is what is to come.

Amid much misguided teachings, Horton noted that a majority of Americans are religious but have their own spiritual playlist.

Christianity for many is just "a subjective affair between the individual and his own construct of God," said Horton, professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California.

The movie of our life is about us and God just has a supporting role, he lamented.

Christians today are shifting from a historic faith towards a more amorphous spirituality – epitomized by the trivializing of God, our human condition, and the salvation wrought by God in Christ for us, Horton said.

The professor called for leaders who will pass down the historic Christian faith and for churches where the Word of God is rightly taught, the sacraments rightly administered, and church discipline practiced.

Ligonier Ministries is an international Christian education organization committed to faithfully present the "unvarnished truth of Scripture and help people grow in their knowledge of God and His Holiness." The Lake Mary, Fla.-based ministry will hold its national conference in June in Orlando.

I found this over at Apprising Ministries, headed up by pastor/teacher Ken Silva; who in his spare time fulfills the role as object of affection for some of the folks that sit in the camp of Emergent/ing/ “Christianity”.

2nd Timothy 4:3
3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Grace and peace be with you

The Providence of Jesus
by Jerry Bridges

The feeding of the five thousand, recorded in Matthew 14:13–21, is probably the most well known of all of Jesus’ miracles. It is the only one recorded by all four of the gospel writers (see Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:10–19; John 6:1–14). It is also one that skeptics have most often tried to explain away. A common explanation is that the little boy’s example of generosity in giving his bread and fish to Jesus prompted others to share the food they had brought along, so that there was enough for all.

That this was an amazing miracle is beyond doubt. To use a contemporary expression, it was “over the top.” It is impossible to visualize in our minds what it must have looked like, and the extreme brevity of the account tempts us to fill in the details. But we should refrain from doing so, knowing that the Holy Spirit guided the gospel writers to give us only as much detail as He wanted us to know. 

Rather than puzzling over omitted details, we need to ask of any portion of Scripture what it teaches us. Without claiming to have plumbed the depths of this passage, let me draw out one obvious lesson: Jesus controls the physical universe, and He exercises that control for His people.

Scripture teaches us that the Son of God was not only the agent of creation, but that He also upholds the universe and holds it together by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16–17). That is, He who created the universe in the beginning also sustains and directs it moment by moment on a continual basis. We know, for example, that ordinarily the physical laws of the universe operate in a consistent and predictable manner. The reason they do is because of the consistent will of Christ causing them to do so. They do not operate on their own.

This helps us understand why Jesus could perform miracles; in this case causing five small barley cakes and two small fish to multiply so dramatically that they fed more than five thousand people. Jesus, who created the physical laws and stands outside of them and over them, could, as He purposed, change or countermand any of them. In fact He could, if He so willed, create an entirely new law of multiplication for that specific occasion so that the bread and fish multiplied.

We really don’t know what Jesus did, or what the multiplication process looked like. We only know the results, and we know that the Lord of the universe could, in whatever way He chose, produce those miraculous results. Miracles were no problem for Jesus.

Today, at least in the Western world, we seem to see few miracles, and certainly none the scope of the feeding of the five thousand. What we do see, however, are the results of God’s invisible hand of providence. Setting aside the theological definition of providence  to keep it simple, we may say that providence is God’s orchestrating all events and circumstances in the universe for His glory and the good of His people (Romans 8:28).

Scripture teaches us that just as the Son of God was the agent of creation and is its present sustainer, so too is He also the agent of God’s providence. Jesus is in sovereign control, not only of the physical laws of the universe, but of all the events and circumstances in the universe, including those that happen to each of us. If you have food today in your cupboard and refrigerator, that is as much the result of Jesus’ care for you as was the feeding of the five thousand.

Just as the physical laws of the universe ordinarily operate in a consistent and predictable manner, so providence ordinarily operates in a predictable cause and effect relationship. “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (Proverbs 10:4). That’s cause and effect, and it is generally predictable. But just as Jesus intervened in the physical laws during His time on earth, so He intervenes in normal cause-and-effect relationships. Sometimes from our perspective His intervention is “good” and sometimes it’s “bad.” In either case He is in control “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” (Lamentations 3:38).

The good news, however, is that Jesus is not only in control of all the events and circumstances of our lives, He is also compassionate. In the record of the feeding of the five thousand, the text says “He had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). At the subsequent feeding of the four thousand, Jesus said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat” (Matthew 15:32). Whether it was healing the sick or feeding the multitude, Jesus was moved to act by His compassion. On other occasions throughout the Gospels we see Jesus acting as a result of His compassion. And what He was while on earth, He is today in heaven: a sovereign and compassionate Savior who works all things for His glory and our good.

Author Edward Sylvester Ellis wrote an interesting piece originally published by Porter & Coates in 1884 titled "The Life of Colonel David Crockett"; which essentially spells out the moral reasoning of why it is wrongful of a government to take from it’s people and then to redistribute what’s been taken to others.

Now I most certainly believe in charity; that it’s right to help a neighbor in need.  As Ellis’ piece points out however, legitimacy and earnestness of charitable acts begins and is at the personal level.   Analogy time…“Me taking from someone, to give to someone else is not charity, since “it” was not mine to give, nor mine to give from my heart.”  Compulsion, coercion, and the like do not justify the ends.

But… “What about render under Caesar?”(Matthew 22:15-22).  Something to to keep in order here is that Christ was telling the Pharisees and Herodians that the proper Christian response is to obey the laws of the land; as long as those laws don’t conflict with God’s ordained Laws. (See also: Romans 13 [Submission to Authorities]). 

Romans 13
1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves…

Understand that what the following article addresses is not the collective ie; those “rendering unto Caesar”, but rather “Caesar’s” lawful responsibilities.  Lawful in this case meaning to have a right to give, disperse or otherwise distribute possessions that are yours to give as a product of your work.  As you will hopefully understand from the article, this idea doesn’t negate charity.  What the article further points out; at least to me with a Biblical perspective in mind, is the mistaken notion that government’s role is to take care of society’s needs.

2nd Thessalonians 3:6-11
6In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. 10For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."

11We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. 13And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.

Grace and peace be with you.