2011 is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The impact, both religious and cultural, of this event would be difficult to hyperbolize.
What is the relationship between Christianity and other “Abrahamic faith traditions”? Is Abraham really the father of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and if so, does this mean that each of these religions are legitimate ways to God? What are we to do with Abraham himself and with the other Old Testament patriarchs? Since they didn’t have explicit faith in Christ, how can Jesus be the only way of salvation? White Horse Inn: know what you believe and why you believe it!
Dr. Johnson (B.A., Westmont College; M.Div. and Th.M., Westminster Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) has taught at Westminster Seminary California since 1982. He previously pastored Orthodox Presbyterian churches in Fair Lawn, New Jersey and East Los Angeles, California.Opening Meeting
After teaching New Testament for 16 years, he now teaches primarily preaching and ministry courses, applying his background in biblical studies to the issues of ministry, the church, and the culture. He is Associate Pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Escondido, California. Dr. Johnson has preached and taught internationally in Africa, Asia, and Europe. He is the author of Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation; Let’s Study Acts; The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption; and Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures, as well as numerous articles and reviews. Dr. Johnson and his wife, Jane, have four married children, whose families are scattered from Florida to Asia.
According to sixteenth-century Roman Catholics, the Bible was a dark and obscure book that required an infallible interpreter. Given many of the abuses and interpretive mistakes made by Rome, the Protestants were unconvinced and began to argue for sola scriptura, that the Scriptures themselves were clear on the central points of law and gospel. But what are the implications of this view? Does it mean that each of us has the right to private interpretation? What about the role of creeds and confessions? that’s what’s on tap this week at the White Horse Inn.
This important work on the doctrine of perseverance examines Scripture's warnings and exhortations and their purpose in salvation.
Scripture's commands to persevere, and warnings of the consequences if we fail, have been met with apathy by some, and led others to doubt the state of their salvation. The fearful and eternal nature of these issues warrants careful examination of what the Bible says about perseverance. Thomas Schreiner once again tackles this difficult topic in Run to Win the Prize. Clarifying misunderstandings stemming from his more detailed treatment in The Race Set Before Us (IVP 2001), Schreiner draws together an illuminating overview of biblical teaching on the doctrine of perseverance.
Schreiner details how God directs the collective warnings and exhortations of Scripture toward believers as a means of preservation. We are to think of the call to persevere in light of the initial call to faith, both agents by which God leads us to final salvation. Those looking for a general treatment of the doctrine of perseverance will profit from the challenges and assurances in Run to Win the Prize.
The first picture is of a man who has set himself toward a commitment to sexual purity, and is living in sexual integrity with his wife. In order to fulfill his wife’s rightful expectations and to maximize their mutual pleasure in the marriage bed, he is careful to live, to talk, to lead, and to love in such a way that his wife finds her fulfillment in giving herself to him in love. The sex act then becomes a fulfillment of their entire relationship, not an isolated physical act that is merely incidental to their love for each other. Neither uses sex as means of manipulation, neither is inordinately focused merely on self-centered personal pleasure, and both give themselves to each other in unapologetic and unhindered sexual passion. In this picture, there is no shame. Before God, this man can be confident that he is fulfilling his responsibilities both as a male and as a man. He is directing his sexuality, his sex drive, and his physical embodiment toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.Next, Mohler considers a very different kind of man:
This man lives alone, or at least in a context other than holy marriage. Directed inwardly rather than outwardly, his sex drive has become an engine for lust and self-gratification. Pornography is the essence of his sexual interest and arousal. Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation, or demand. Arrayed before him are a seemingly endless variety of naked women, sexual images of explicit carnality, and a cornucopia of perversions intended to seduce the imagination and corrupt the soul.In conclusion:
This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene, or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure an accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor, and his physical appearance. He faces no requirement of personal respect, and no eyes gaze upon him in order to evaluate the seriousness and worthiness of his sexual desire. Instead, his eyes roam across the images of unblinking faces, leering at women who make no demands upon him, who never speak back, and who can never say no. There is no exchange of respect, no exchange of love, and nothing more than the using of women as sex objects for his individual and inverted sexual pleasure.
By logical consequence, he achieves sexual gratification at the expense of women who have been used and abused as commodified sex objects. He may imagine a sex act as he fulfills his physical pleasure, but he almost certainly does not imagine what it would mean to be responsible for this woman as husband and accountable to her as mate. He can sit in his soiled underwear, belching the remnants of last night’s pizza, and engage in a pattern of one-handed sexual satisfaction while he “surfs the net” and forfeits his soul.
These two pictures of male sexuality are deliberately intended to drive home the point that every man must decide who he will be, whom he will serve, and how he will love. In the end, a man’s decision about pornography is a decision about his soul, a decision about his marriage, a decision about his wife, and a decision about God.
Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given his creatures out of his own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.
We live in a world of constant distraction. Not only are we constantly being interrupted by cellphones, email, and text messages, but we're also distracted from thinking and contemplation in a culture of constant entertainment. Joining the panel to discuss this topic is media ecologist, T. David Gordon, author of Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped The Messengers, and more recently, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal.
Can we discover truth about God outside of the Bible, or is Scripture the only true source of heavenly knowledge? On this edition of the program the hosts will outline the distinction between general and special revelation. In the former, God reveals himself through creation, and in the latter he reveals himself in the pages Scripture and in the person of Christ. Though we can know many things about God by the things he has made, only Scripture reveals his good will toward us in the Gospel.
