The Great Debate: Does God Exist? Bahnsen vs. Stein
In 1985 at the University of California in Irvine, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, a Christian theist, debated Dr Gordon Stein, an atheist, on the question of whether God exists. “The Great Debate,” as it was titled, provides a good example of presuppositional apologetics and the use of the transcendental argument for the existence of God or “the impossibility of the contrary.” Namely, one must assume the existence of the God of Scripture in order to make sense of reality (metaphysics), to justify truth claims (epistemology), or to have any cogent basis for morality (ethics). The YouTube video below provides the audio and text of the debate which lasts just under two hours. Enjoy! Read more
The Church Militant Is the Church Missional
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus responds to Peter’s affirmation of Jesus’s messiahship with the programmatic statement: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The reader shouldn’t miss Jesus’s mixed metaphor—the church is like a building project and like a military operation. One should also note that neither metaphor conveys a passive or defensive posture. Both metaphors, on the contrary, denote the ideas of growth, advance, completion, and victory. Read more
God Is Enough: A Theology of the Book of Job
The book of Job has rightly earned a place among the great works of classical literature. For over two millennia its dramatic language, powerful metaphors, elegant poetry, lofty ethics, and profound ideas have intrigued philosophers, theologians, and laymen alike. Yet the Book of Job is more than a great piece of human literature. As part of the canon of Scripture, the book constitutes divine revelation. Read more
Worship for Dummies: The Regulative Principle Made Simple
God created man for worship. Jesus declared that the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship Him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Not surprisingly, the Shorter Catechism begins by affirming, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” But this raises the question, “How should God be worshiped?” To be more precise, “What kind of worship pleases God?” The answer is vital. Thankfully, it’s not that complicated. Even a child may understand. Read more 
Ancient Near Eastern Religion and the Old Testament
The discovery and publication of ancient Near Eastern literature has shed much light upon the religious beliefs and practices of earliest civilization. It has also generated much discussion about the relationship of Mesopotamian and Egyptian religion to that of the Old Testament. Indeed, many scholars view the similarities in cosmogonies, flood accounts, cultic ritual, legal texts, wisdom literature, and belief in the afterlife as proof that the Old Testament writers borrowed from or adapted the literary corpus of Israel’s Near Eastern neighbors. As a result, Old Testament religion is treated as essentially one more primitive religion among many, Read more
Abram’s Response to God’s Call: Trust and Obey or Doubt and Delay?
The Bible often compares the Christian life to a marathon race. But if the Biblical writers lived in modern times, they might have chosen a slightly different metaphor to describe the Christian life. I suspect that they might have likened the Christian life to competing in the Decathlon. A Decathlon is a modern type of marathon race that involves ten different competitive events that are performed over a two-day period. The winner is traditionally called, “The World’s Greatest Athlete.” Read more
Good But Not (Yet) Tame: A Theodicy for Animal Death Before the Fall
All Bible scholars agree that plant life was subject to “death” before the Fall since it was to serve as food for man and beast (Gen 1:29-30). Moreover, most conservative scholars trace the origin of human death to God’s judicial curse upon the human race as a result of the Fall (Gen 3:17-19). However, the Bible nowhere explicitly links the origin of all animal death to Adam’s sin. This leaves open the possibility that some of the creatures alluded to in Genesis 1 were carnivorous. If so, we should view the phenomenon of animal predation as creational rather than as curse. Yet, a challenge remains. How can we reconcile a world “red in tooth and claw” with a created world that God assessed as “very good” (Gen 1:31)? Read more
“Joy Comes in the Mourning”: How Jesus Wipes Away Tears
Do you know what it’s like to feel the sorrow of a bereaved mother? A mother’s life is wrapped up in the care and well being of her children. When those children are taken away from her or, worse, when they’re wantonly slaughtered before her eyes, it’s like ripping out her heart. She feels empty. She feels as if she no longer has any purpose for existence. Perhaps you’re experiencing that kind of grief. You’ve not been bereaved of your children, but you feel the same kind of empty sorrow. You feel hopeless and without purpose in the world. Read more
A Brief Theology of Human Death
The Bible portrays death as the consequence of human sin. Death was the sanction that God tied to the Garden of Eden stipulation: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). And God’s expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden on account of their covenant breach and treason demonstrated that His threats were not empty. Death became the lot of Adam and his posterity. To borrow the apostle Paul’s language in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin [became] death.” Read more
Making Disciples: Purposing Reproduction and Practicing Replication
Pastor Bob Selph of Grace Baptist Church in Taylors SC gave two lectures on the subject of “making disciples” for our course on Church Ministry. In the first lecture entitled “Purposing Reproduction,” Bob discusses the biblical basis and importance of discipleship as a vital facet of the church’s ministry. He focuses on the practical ways in which the pastor and church members may disciple one another in his second lecture entitled ”Practicing Replication.” If you’re a church leader and are seeking to equip the saints for works of ministry as well as training future gospel laborers, I heartily commend these lectures. Read more
