One thing that I have thought about quite a bit is the “foolishness” of the Gospel and my perspective on it. This is not an exegetical study on the phrase, it is merely a personal perspective.

If I evaulaute my walk with Christ and my understanding of the Scripture (granted by God) , I find that the Gospel is the farthest thing from foolishness. In fact, if you study the Scripture (and all things surrounding/about the Scripture) you have to wonder why everyone isn’t a Christian. That is how clear and overwhelming the evidence for Christ is. Yet, many people think that following Christ and believing the Scripture is absurd.

So that leads me back to my very early days as a Christian and when I was born again.

Not to digress, but one might say that I have always been a Christian…but that is another post…suffice it to say, I “committed” my life to Christ when I was about 15 or 16.

So at 15 or 16 I didn’t know hardly anything about the Scripture. Sure, I had read the Bible a bit, I went to church, I had heard Bible “stories”, memorized verses and whatnot but my understanding of it was “different”(if it was understanding at all), nothing like it is today. The Gospel was foolishness to me. I mean foolish in terms of how “the world” thinks the Gospel is foolish.

Now I have to wonder if this is how all men come to Christ. Every Christian that I have talked to about it has come to Christ in a similar fashion (the whole concept was “foolish”). Yet, after time it becomes very unfoolish, that is, if you continue to grow in Christ.

I was a spiritual infant and it was all foolishness to me but after calling upon the name of the Lord I believed it without a doubt. No evidence, no logic, no reasoning, just faith.

That is one perspective on what is meant by the “foolishness” of the Gospel. In addition, it is a picture of regeneration (being born again). I did not come to Christ by logically (that is, human logic) weighing out the facts and determining the best course of action. I came to Christ because He called me. I came to Christ when everything about the Gospel was “foolish” to me.

1 Corinthians 2:13-15 NET. (13) And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. (14) The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (15) The one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is understood by no one.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 NET. (18) For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (19) For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the intelligent.” (20) Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Mosaic law? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world foolish? (21) For since in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of preaching. (22) For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, (23) but we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. (24) But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. (25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Oh how true these verses ring in a Christian’s mind. How foolish the world’s wisdom/intelligence truly is and how wise the foolishness of the Gospel.

Since I like ending with questions…

Do these verses show a picture of Christians trying to “reason” with the world in an attempt to “convert” them? Do they show the body of Christ catering to the “wisdom” of the world? …or does the Scripture teach that Christian’s should preach the Gospel, regardless of the world’s perception of it being foolish.

AMDG

New colors (theme) for the blog / website.

Being in the tech industry, I detest light backgrounds with dark text. It is much easier on the eyes to have a dark background and light text.

I have also become aware that the Scripture links do not work for IE users. I am a Firefox user myself so I was unaware of the IE error until today. I will look into the problem when I get some time.

CampOnThis: The Law and the Gospel
…and The Threefold Use of the Law by Sproul/Calvin

It is only fair that I comment on the good and the bad coming from my blogroll. Being that most of my comments on Steve Camp’s blog entries are good, I figured I would post on when I disagree as well (in the interest of fairness/balance). This is one of those cases. I do not believe Christians today are bound by the law.

Now obviously a big factor here is what is meant when we say the law. To make it simple, let me just say that the law, as we know it in the Old Testament, is not applicable to Christians today.

I realize this is a bummer for the churches that love to teach on tithing, I realize this is a bummer for those that love to recite the 10 commandments every Sunday, and I realize this is a bummer for anyone who likes to use a list of rules/commandments as a “rulebook” of sorts to measure a Christian. However, none of those reasons warrant a departure from Grace or breaking up of the law to suit our needs.

The freedom from the law (in Christ) we have does not give us a “license to sin” either. The law still serves a purpose, it just isn’t binding.

In addition, this is not to throw out all the other applications and meanings of “the law” or commandments that have been given to us (they must be looked at in context and application though).

So though all things are lawful for me as a Christian, not all things are beneficial (helpful or build up).

AMDG

JOLLYBLOGGER: Is Satan Bound?

Below is a comment I composed for the above blog entry. I decided to use a trackback instead of posting a mile long comment on David’s blog. Please disregard the references to making a blog entry here as I just cut and paste and didn’t bother revising to remove those references.

When I get time I will try to make a blog entry on the subject but let me respond to what was directed at me.

First off, let me state that my comments are never meant to be malicious (this is directed to David Wayne). In fact, I read your blog regularly and link to it from my blog. Now, I stand by my statement that saying Satan is bound right now in some sort of figurative/metaphysical way is a stretch to say the least. In addition, I am perplexed that you stated I am “way off base”, after all we are discussing eschatoloty. How am I way off base here? I definitely must have missed something if the amillennial position has somehow become the strongest eschatological view Scripturally.

Now on to the things mentioned because I am still not seeing it.

Matthew 12:25-29 ISV He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. (26) So if Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How, then, can his kingdom stand? (27) If I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own followers drive them out? That is why they will be your judges! (28) But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. (29) How can someone go into a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions without first tying up the strong man? Then he can ransack his house.

Where is this saying that Satan is bound? In context, I don’t see the binding of Satan even remotely relating to the above Scripture.

John 12:31-33 ISV Now is the time for the judgment of this world to begin. Now will the ruler of this world be thrown out. (32) As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” (33) He said this to indicate the kind of death he was about to die.

I suppose I can see where someone could try to use this verse to say Satan is no longer in the world. However, we have plenty of Scripture contrary to that, written after this particular book (i.e. 1 John 5:19). We must interpret Scripture by Scripture.

Colossians 2:13-17 ISV Even when you were dead because of your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with him when he forgave us all of our offenses, (14) having erased the charges that were brought against us with their decrees that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. (15) And when he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross. (16) Therefore, let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with respect to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath day. (17) These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality belongs to Christ.

Once again, I am not seeing a specific reference here to Satan being bound. Even if Satan was “disarmed”, that is not the same as being bound, thrown into the bottomless pit, and sealed up.

Hebrews 2:14 ISV Therefore, since the children have flesh and blood, he himself also shared the same things, so that by his death he might destroy the one who has the power of death (that is, the devil)
1 John 3:8 ISV The person who practices sin belongs to the evil one, because the devil has been sinning since the beginning. The reason that the Son of God was revealed was to destroy the works of the devil.

Are you really trying to use these two verses to say that Satan has already been destroyed? Read a few chapters further into 1 John and you will see…

1 John 5:19 ISV We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one.

In addition, if Satan was already destroyed why would he need to be destroyed again later on in Revelation?

So, I by no means think I am “way off base” on my statement that taking a position that Satan has been tied up, thrown into the abyss (locked up and sealed) is a “stretch”.

This is only a short response…even so, I feel it may be too long for a comment so I apologize. When I get some time perhaps I will make a blog entry on the subject matter.

Oh, and BTW, I am not stating that I am firmly grounded in my eschatological view, however, I like to have strong Scriptural support when taking certain positions on issues/doctrine and the amillennial view of eschatology doesn’t fall into that category (I am not sure any of the views do, hence such debate on the subject). I liked some of the comments David and BlackCalvinist made on the subject in a previous post.

AMDG

Wayne at Better Bibles Blog has posted some instructions on how to enable trackbacks on your blog. This is for those of you who are using a lame “trackback-less” service such as blogger.com (I realize some may be stuck using them).

I am posting this because, working in the tech world, I have always been one to push the use of good technology.

I have already written about the annoyance of blogger.com not having trackback capabilities so no need to go in depth there.

On a side note, Tim Challies is having a drawing, so click the link to enter (it is free). Use my referral ID to give me an extra entry. My referral ID is 80608.

P.S. If any Christian bloggers happen to run an edifying (at my discretion) blog, I may be willing to host your blog at little or no cost on WordPress (which happens to be the best IMO). The available subdomains are on Christianos.org (i.e. yourblogname.christianos.org or www.christianos.org/yourblogname).

AMDG