...police are only minutes away.

Or, sometimes, three hours away when your family is being threatened by axe-wielding burglars in your home.

Father confronted by axe-wielding burglars - but police are too busy to turn up for THREE hours

Incredible.

from Ann Widdecombe:

You can join in a Puritan Reading Challenge here  .

Here are the books in the list:

January: The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes
February: The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel
March: The Godly Man's Picture by Thomas Watson
April: Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks
May: Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ by John Bunyan
June: The Mortification of Sin by John Owen
July: A Lifting Up for the Downcast by William Bridge
August: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs
September: The True Bounds of Christian Freedom by Samuel Bolton
October: The Christian's Great Interest by William Guthrie
November: The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter
December: A Sure Guide to Heaven by Joseph Alleine

Reformation Heritage Books has put together a package to help those who would like to join this challenge, so you can buy the whole set of books for about 30% off.  Here's the page


I'd like to do some of this challenge; I know I can't manage to read them all but I would like to read a few.   I kind of bailed out of Tim Challies' read-along of John Owen's The Mortification of Sin in Believers but I would like to finish the book soon.

I've finished The Truth War by John MacArthur although I didn't blog about it as much as I'd hoped to.   It's an excellent book and I recommend it highly.   Maybe I'll manage to do another post about it later.

... regarding Emergent Post-Modernism, courtesy of Fightingforthefaith.com .

 

Rob Willmann has done us all a great service by transcribing the interview of Doug Pagitt (one of the head emergent types) by Todd Friel (host of Way of the Master Radio).

You can go to his post and read the transcript, or find a link to an MP3 thing so you can listen to the interview HERE.

Tim Challies will be hosting a weekly study on John Owen's  Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers.   The idea is to read a chapter and then if you want to, comment on what you have read in the comments section, or just read what others have said.   I'm having a "blonde" (green?) moment and can't recall how much Tim is planning to write on the chapters, or if it will be more of an open thread thing.

Here's the link to the announcement post..  I've already ordered the book that he recommended (which has 3 Owen books; we're only reading one for this study).

The introduction to TTW is a discussion of the nature of truth, and the necessity of fighting for it.  The emergent church attack the idea of truth (not a new thing) and think that true humility means not believing you know the truth.   Instead, God's word tells us that truth begins with God - He determines what is true and reveals what is true.  He gave us minds that would be able to understand truth.  He gave us Scripture.  We can know the truth and grow in truth.  "... He sent  Christ, the very embodiment of truth itself, as the culmination of divine revelation (Hebrews 1:1-3) (p.xix) .   There is ultimate truth which is an objective reality. (p. xx) 

2nd and 3rd John, and Jude, all very short letters, deal with the importance of fighting for the truth.  I like what Daniel Chew, whose post I linked to yesterday, pointed out  - we are all called to contend for the faith, whether we want to or not. 

Chapter 1 is called "Can Truth Survive in a Postmodern Society?"  In this chapter Dr. MacArthur gives a Biblical definition of truth, and spends more time on the concept of truth.  He gives a brief history of how philosophers have sought to understand truth apart from God, ending in postmodernity.  There is a bit of "logic" discussed.   One thing I found interesting is that Dr MacArthur states that logic is not something Greek that goes against Hebrew thought. (p14)  

I think I am going to have to re-read the section on propositions as I do not have a firm grip on some of the ideas he discusses.  That is, although I agree with him, I want to learn to better articulate what I believe and why and currently my familiarity of the terms involved is still too basic for my liking.  He points out that postmodernists are self-defeating when they want to reject propositions ("A proposition is an idea framed as a logical statement that affirms or denies something, and it is expressed insuch a way that it must be either true or false." italics in original, p. 14) because you can't even argue against using propositions without using propositions themselves. 

I am going to have to guard against writing and quoting too much.  My idea for these reviews was to just talk a bit about the ideas of the chapters and write a few of my reactions to them.   Right now I would like to type out a fairly long quote - three paragraphs!  Instead I will try to be brief (ha).  Dr MacArthur points out that truth is not simply a set of propositions, and faith is more than assent to those propositions.  "Authentic faith in Christ involves love for His person and wilingness to surrender to His authority." (p15)  More than our mind is involved in faith - our heart and will are engaged as well.  I will go ahead and quote the last paragraph of the group:

On the other hand, truth simply cannot survive if stripped of propositional content.  while it is quite true that believing the truth entails more than the assent of the human intellect to certain propositions, it is equally true that authentic faith never involves anything less.  To reject the propositional content of the gospel is to forfeit saving faith, period. (p. 15)

I have long noticed that many folk today want to avoid propositions and statements of fact when it comes to faith.  Yet they live out other areas of their lives in subjection to the rules of logic.  When discussing spiritual matters then they begin saying there is no way to know the truth.  When I've listened to them saying this, in my own limited discussions with people, or in simply listening to others talking with postmoderns, I get the feeling that this is all just a smokescreen to avoid dealing with the truth.  I wonder if they really believe what they say they believe.  It just sounds so dumb!  Then again, Scripture informs us that unbelievers' minds are blinded, so maybe they do believe that there is no absolute truth.  

The final sections in the chapter are "Uncertainty is the New Truth" and "War in the Church."  In the final section MacArthur points out we are obligated to participate in the war for the faith, and that we are both ambassadors and soldiers.

 

edited November 17 2007

Since I'm reading J. MacArthur's The Truth War and wanting to blog about it, when I found this post by Daniel Chew I thought it would be worthwhile linking to it. 

Loving God in contending for the faith

Here's how he starts:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 4)

The task of contending for the faith has been entrusted to all Christians, regardless of whether they want it or not.


That first comment of his gave me several minutes of thought right there.

I'm reading The Truth War by John MacArthur.   I'm thinking of posting some of my thoughts on it as I read.  I'm in chapter 3 right now but I will backtrack a bit when I do the first post on it.   Right now I'm battling a bad cold and just want to go back to bed!

I'm not likely to have deep thoughts so I will likely just put up a few quotes and perhaps make a comment or two when I really get going on it.

For those who don't know of this book, it discusses the need to "earnestly contend for the faith" (and uses the whole book of Jude) in the context of the  "emergent conversation."

A couple of observations here that I was able to think of on my own (at least one of which Dr MacA also has and certainly articulates a lot better!) is that all this postmodern and emergent stuff don't seem to be very new.  Postmodernism is said to have really started in 1987 (is that the year?  It's when the Berlin wall came down, which event people now say symbolized the end of Modernity) and I have read that it ended in the late 90's (what's replacing it now?).   But the idea of "there are different truths and your truth may not be my truth" and the dislike of applying logic or even basic thinking has definitely been around a long time!  I don't remember all the 60's but I do some of it and that kind of (non-) thinking was definitely around then.   And the emergent stuff - much of what I am reading about now seems to have been around in various places and in various modes, from ages ago!  It seems to be nothing more at its heart than what the serpent asked Eve,  "did God really say?"  

Off to get some soup in a cup and hide in my bed.  Schoolwork for the younger kids is going to be pretty basic today - but we have gotten some things done!