Who are we?
We are a group of young (mostly), Reformed (all 8 points), Evangelical (we think the term is still good to use), “apologete” (defenders & proclaimers), politically incorrect, culturally insensitive unashamed of the Gospel, and passionate followers of Jesus Christ.
What do we like to do?
We love to make an apologia for our belief.
Who’s who
SlimJim (Jim Lee) is a graduate of UCLA. Currently, he is a seminary student at TMS. He is a faithful servant of the church and his Saviour. Although young in age but he is already a formidable opponent to the atheists and cultists. He is a debater and a preacher. He is very active in evangelism and apologetics in the campuses of Southern California. His interests include Christian history, military history, apologetics, philosophy, politics and theology. He is currently serving his country in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, including a tour in Iraq.
Dizzy is currently completing his undergraduate degree in business administration. His passion is biblical business, evangelism and apologetics. An active church member, Dizzy is also active in campus ministry in student leadership. He is an Iraqi war veteran in combat unit and currently still serving in the United States Marine Corp Reserves. His interests include listening to John Piper’s Sermons on Romans, studying and engaging in presuppositional apologetics, managing websites, and business and finance.
Andy Chu is a pastor in Los Angeles. Andy’s testimony of how he came to know the Lord is an inconceivable story of God’s saving grace. He came out of a life of extreme spiritual depravity. He was in the military, police and corporate business before entering the Kingdom work. Andy’s passion in life is to worship God through the study of His inerrant, authoritative and inspired Scripture, live a Christ-like life and to proclaim the truth. His present study interests include philosophical theology, and epistemology. Andy is very involved in evangelism and apologetics at the campuses in Southern California, and have experience in teaching apologetics and theological subject both local and overseas. He thinks that the Piper-like pastor is a rare commodity today (scholarship and holiness). A former table tennis competitor (he still has his Waldner blade with Waldner & Pronte rubber). In addition, Andy is a big fan of Fedor from PrideFC. You can contact Andy at tobiblion at gmail dot com.
Thank you for linking my blog to your blog. In a few days I will link your blog to my blog.
Claude Mariottini
Interesting description of yourselves; referring to yourselves as culturally insensitive. I sometimes get concerned with those who treat culture as if it were the “anti-Christ.” Jesus did say that we should not love the things of this world. Yet, that does not mean that we eschew the stewardship of things God created because they are of this world. Culture is as much a part of God’s creation, fallen as it might be. There are things there, in the garbage dump his creation has become through sin, that still reflect the beauty of the Savior and the beauty of his creation. My experience, and please forgive my “self-righteousness,” has been that Christians who generally fall into hyper-reformed categories are less loving than they should be toward what they consider “the world.” It is important to defend and to proclaim. However, most of the time it is more powerful and effective to simply love, listen and build relationship with “the least of these.” Just a reflection…..
dumbsheep,
Thanks for your comment and observation. My original intent of the phrase “culturally insensitive” was on the proclamation of the Gospel over being concerned about how people would view us. Perhaps I would one day change it to “unashamed of the Gospel.”
btw, you mentioned hyper-reformed, would you kindly tell me who (within the last 50 years) would fall into such a category?
also, if you notice from our blog that we do not use vulgar language and we try to be as respectful as we can. Therefore, we are not culturally insensitive in regards to being respectful towards people.
I apologize if this is the wrong spot to post this, but i couldn’t find any email addresses on the site.
In the post with all the Bahnsen links, comments were recently closed. Why is this? In any case, I did ask the host of those files about copyright, and here is his reply:
“As far as I know, the audios between Bahnsen and Stein are NOT copyrighted and I definitely did NOT get them from a copyrighted source. No one has asked me to take them down either…God Bless…”
You might want to make that information available to your readers.
Richard,
the comment was open for issues relating to the debates or about the articles. Not on copyright stuff.
But, we will let you comment on it.
“Love not the world….” I John 2:15 is not a quotation from Jesus. I have, as a Calvinist preacher, always noticed that anyone who is consistently reformed is usually anathamatized as a hyper-calvinist. I don’t want to apear obtuse but what do you mean by all 8 ponts? Some include preterism, dominion theology, etc… but I’m not sure how you mean it. God bless, RLJ
On logic– inductive reasons are always false because they have more in their conclusion than they have in their premises:
All men are mortal,
Socrates was a man,
therefore Socrates had to shave every day to avoid growing a beard.
Now it may be true that Socrates faced the necessity of shaving daily to avoid facial hair accumulation BUT it does NOT follow, logically, from the premises. Silver Blaze, to state Holmes’ argument correctly and make it a valid argument would go:
Slver Blaze is EITHER at place A or place B.
Silver Blaze is not at place A
therefore
Silver Blaze must be at place B.
Just because an argument is valid does not mean what it says is necessarily true.
Mermaids can breath underwater,
Beings who breath underwater can live in the sea,
Therefore mermaids can live in the sea.
Most people don’t believe in the existence of mermaids, self included, but it is a valid argument, the conclussion follows from the premises although they are not true. When you say Neil Armstrong went to the moon, you do not say Neil Armstrong went and STAYED on either the moon or Mars. To say in a conclussion that he is not [now] on the moon is equivocating, or at the very least casting a shadow of ambiguation on the exact intended meaning of your premises. When you say he went to either the moon or Mars it can be understood to say he VISITED either the moon or Mars. I peronally feel this is the way many people would take that statement. To suddenly change horse midstream and assert he is not ON one or the other is to begin comparing apples and oranges. We are wanting to know where he WENT and NOT where he IS. I take the time to go through this point because, in my experience in apologetics, most cult members as well as atheists are extremely irrational (as you have well pointed out above.) Albert Camu, who, as an existencialist didn’t believe in right or wrong or moral absolutes, once made the statement that France’s involvement in the war of Algier was immoral. Go figure. On the blog called The Atheocracy, they often loudly deny universal morals and then turn around and say Christians are immoral for condemning homosexuality. I like to pont out that God also hates adultery and fornication as well. I am used to atheists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons using faulty logic. I don’t like to see us, as Christians, make irrational leaps of logic. Irving Copi and Patrick Hurley have both written excellent text books on logic. The short primer LOGIC by the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark and published by the Trinity Foundation is good too. RLJ
Oops! I posted this in the wrong place, it was a comment on the post What is wrong with this argument from where I went to a site called a quick introduction to logic. Sorry about any confussion. RLJ
Richard Leo Jackson,
Don’t worry about the wrong post on the wrong blog. As part of the 8-points Calvinism which is forgiveness, we forgive you =)
Btw, what I mean by 8-point is non-literal but in general to include other important areas such as special revelation, Scripture, deity of Christ, etc. In total, it is probably a few hundred-points. What was originally intended is that we do not focus only on the 5-points.
Didn’t know where else to put this.
Yall seem to know a fair amount about reason.
I have used a verse for my belief (i think there are many verses) for Perserverance of the Saints in which I think I am using good reason.
You probably have heard it.
Hebrews 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance film until the end.”
My reasoning: Only those who hold fast were partakers of Christ.
I think the key phrase is “have become”
Does that reasoning hold up. (I do not know what devices I am using to make the conclustion).
Is there a way to present it that would have more “strength and validity”
Any thougts would be appreciated.
TLT,
We agree with what you are trying to present, that those who are firm until the end and have become partakers of Christ will indeed be saved by peserverence.
Do you have any systematic theology book at home? Curious…
I’ve started the course at bibletraining.com
Thinking about picking up Wayne Grudem’s book.
I’m glad you agree. So i guess that means you think it is good reasoning? From that verse specifically. Can it logically be argued for something else.
P: We have become partakers of Christ
H: Hold fast the beginning of our assurance until the end
If H, then P; H, therefore P:
If we hold fast the beginning of our assurance until the end, we have become partakers of Christ
We held fast the beginning of our assurance until the end
—————————————————————————-
Therefore, we have become partakers of Christ
By comparing verses that state a Christian will persevere until the end with verses that show that a person who isn’t saved will not persevere (1 John 2:19), it ought to be logically clear. However, sin impedes our ability to think rationally so we ought not to be surprised nor prideful if they reject the rational.
Jim,
Some new additions to my video series on Van Til are now online.
You can see them at either my YouTube site:
http://www.youtube.com/neoconvert
Or you can see them at the blog.
http://www.thebrothertheophilus.wordpress.com
-tbth
Thanks Theophilius,
Hoping to eventually link it one of these days