Old Testament terms for Sins Part 2

 

Purpose: In this session we will look at three more Old Testament words used to describe sin so that we understand more biblically what sin is and see sin the way God sees it.

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Old Testament terms for Sins Part 1

 

Purpose: In this session we will look at three Old Testament words used to describe sin so that we understand more biblically what sin is and see sin the way God sees it.

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Sin and the fall of man

Next few weeks I’ll be posting an outline series on a Christian theology of sin.

Purpose: In this session we shall see two questions concerning the Fall and Sin so that we lay the foundation to understand our need for Christ and the Gospel.

• What lead to the Fall?
• What are the results of the Fall?

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Review: Answers Book for Kids Volume 4

In continuing with our blog’s “wee-kids Wednesdays” here’s a review of a Christian Children’s book.

Ken Ham and Cindy Malott. Answers Book for Kids Volume 3: God and the Bible.  Green Forest, AK: Master Books, March 27th 2009. 48 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Out of the first four volume in the Answers Book for Kids series by Ken Ham this is probably my favorite one thus far, exceeding my delight of the third volume.  A big reason is the topic of book four: Sin, Salvation and the Christian life.  These themes are related to the Gospel and one can never go wrong with going over the Gospel to one’s children!

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Pre-Marital Abstinence Makes the Married Heart Grow Stronger

Have you heard of the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

For the Christian a related corollary would be “Pre-Marital Abstinence Makes Married Heart Grow Stronger.”

Christians who are in courtship: I want to encourage you to continue pursuing godliness even as you battle temptation.

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Quick Devotional from 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (Observation from the Greek)

This is from my daily Greek exercise of sight reading some few months ago, courtesy of Vincent S Artale Jr.

Our text is from the Greek translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:3.  Here is my translation:

“SUPPORT 3 ‹→ τοῦτο →› γάρ ἐστιν θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ ‹☉ ὁ ☉› ‹☉ ἁγιασμὸς ☉› ‹☉
For this is the will of God your sanctification

ὑμῶν ☉›

ELABORATION ‹☉ ἀπέχεσθαι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς πορνείας”
you abstain from immorality

Here are some observations:

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Dallas Seminary’s Faculty Responds to Same-Sex Sexuality

Four Faculty Members of Dallas Theological Seminary got together to do two Podcasts to have a Biblical response on the topic of Same-Sex Sexuality.  Specifically they are responding to the arguments that some have tried to explain away the verses in the Bible that described Same-Sex Sexuality as a sin.

The four professors are Dr. Darrell Bock, Dr. Robert Chisholm, Dr. Joe Fantin, and Dr. Jay Smith who are from the Old and New Testament department of the Seminary.  I appreciate that these are scholars of the Bible giving their input on the text.  They examined the biblical passages often brought up on homosexuality.  The first video is on on material in the Old Testament while the second video is on the material in the New Testament.

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Review and Free Booklet: Struggles of Conscience by Charles Spurgeon

Charles H. Spurgeon. Struggles of Conscience.  Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, April 23^rd, 2014. 29 pp.

5 out of 5

This booklet is from a sermon by Charles Spurgeon that he preached on September 23, 1860 based in part upon Job 13:23 (it is a more topical sermon in the way that Spurgeon often gets a textual preacher from one verse).  This year I have been reading more of Spurgeon and I must say thus far this is one of my favorite work that has been made available through Chapel Library.  Here in this work Spurgeon tackles on the problem that some have that one must have a deeper sense of feelings of their sinfulness before they would repent and turn towards Christ.  Anyone who knows Spurgeon knows he loves the Puritans but here he does fault some Puritans for making the mistake of confusing post-conversion “feelings” must manifest before one come to saving faith in Christ.  At times some of these preachers make their own experience to be the litmus test of true conversion.  In tackling this problem and objection towards the Gospel we see a display of the “classic Spurgeon” in which his message is pastorally directed towards the heart, is Gospel driven, biblical, practical, illustrative and dripping with memorable one-liners.

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How do you tell if you are a lover of money?

Christian ought not to be lovers of money (1 Timothy 6:10).  But this challenge is harder than most think.

Then there is this prediction by Paul: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,” (2 Timothy 3:1-2).  Given the times that we are living in how much do we need to be discerning to see if we are lovers of money!

Of course people can often deceive themselves.  So how do you know if you are a lover of money?  The following are four diagnostic questions.  I tried to make it flow with the acronym “SNAP:”

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Church Discipline is unloving? Answering from 1 Corinthians

Is church discipline unloving?  How many times it has happened in churches all across America where leaders in the church say practicing church discipline as described in the Bible in such places as Matthew 18 is “unloving.”  Then their reasoning continues with the conclusion that “if  church discipline is unloving therefore we should not practice church discipline.”

We as Christians must ask if this type of argument is biblical.

Let me be clear up front that I think people can mess up church discipline in an unloving manner, just like how people can mess any good and right act outwardly with a wrong motive and attitude.

However the issue I want to deal with is whether church discipline in of itself is “unloving.”  I think the contents of the book of 1 Corinthians helps us answer this question biblically.

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Warning: The Continual Worldliness of Hipster “Missionary” Jaeson Ma

Jaeson Ma with Paris Hilton

In the past I have written about a false prophet and so called “pastor” and “missionary” (according to Wikipedia) name Jaeson Ma which have been compiled in a section under my post “Strange Fire: Problems in Asia Series” including one of how he is the epitome of the unbiblical Hipster and ‘Celebrity’ Pastor.  That last link I wrote nearly five years ago and one may wonder if Jaeson Ma’s have gotten better or worse.

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One Witty Ditty For Your Memory of Theology: Christ Atonement and our Sins

Earlier this month I wrote a post titled “One Witty Ditty For Your Memory: Why Meditating on Christ Helps Us Fight Sin.”  I’m thinking of making more of these kinds of posts in the future.

Two truths that Christian must hold is the severity of our sins and also the depth of God’s grace.  Soften either and you have an imbalanced theology.  So to remind myself of my guilt and also of God’s grace I thought this is ditty worth committing to our memory:

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D. G. Hart’s Odd Wife Post Responding to Sexual Immorality in films

Over at Christian historian Dr. Hart’s website, “Old Life,” he recently has a post titled “Would You Let Your Wife Be a Physician?” in which he responded to Christian blogger Tim Challies’ article “Sex on the Silver Screen.”  Challies makes a good point about Christians not watching sexual immorality on film but Dr. Hart didn’t like the following argument from Challies, which Hart describes as “the skin test to movies to argue against watching a performance that involves bare breasts:”

What would it take for you to be okay with your wife participating in that scene? Would you send her off to work tomorrow knowing that she would be topless for hours at a time, that she would be rolling around on a bed with another man as a crew looked on, as they adjusted the lighting, as they practiced different angles, as the director instructed her, “No, put your hands there. Move in that way…” She would not be having sex with him, but she would be doing her best to act like it, to make others believe it. She would be taking all she knows of the movements, the motion, the pleasure of sex with you and imitating it with this other man. Wife, what would it take for you to be okay with your husband stripping her and kissing her and carrying her to bed? My guess is that you cannot imagine any scenario in which that would be tolerable, in which that would be moral and right. Now hold onto that conviction for a moment.

I think Challies made a good point.  But Hart didn’t think so:

Why exactly is this a slam dunk?

Consider women who serve as physicians and examine men’s private parts (among others) for a living. Why doesn’t the skin test apply to careers in medicine? Heck, what about nurses who bathe men in hospital beds?

And it’s not just a question of exposed flesh. If we made comfort with-what-the-missus does a standard for engaging with the world, what do we do with a woman who is a defense attorney and represents people she knows to be guilty before the law? Or for those complimentarians out there, what do you do when your wife serves in the military? Leave the OPC?

The point is that we all have different standards for different levels of engaging the world.

Here’s my thoughts on Hart’s curious response:

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Theology Shapes Marriage: How does the Bible’s doctrine of sin help us have a more godly marriage?

Establish the need: People often have romanticize vision of marriage that’s picture perfect for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. People airbrush the most obvious reality of our life: sin.  Have you thought about sins and marriage?

Purpose: Explore how theology shapes marriage and here in our first series we shall consider how does the Bible’s doctrine of sin help us have a more godly marriage, by first looking at the Biblical teaching on sin and then explore some implications.

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Consider the possibility that the reason you aren’t going to church has to do with your sins

This post is part of my intention to posts things on Sunday to call people back to the church who has left it and whom God might be working in their lives to draw them to Himself.  Today’s post is going to be quite frank.

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