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How Did Paul Handle Shelter-in-Place?

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Philippians 1 is an interesting passage to look at while we are all under the yoke of a pandemic.   How can any of this be for good?   We just need to get back to normal.   Right?   Enough dying.   Enough job loss.   Enough home incarceration.   Certainly, Paul’s circumstances were pretty dire.  His real imprisonment is unjust, and is impeding his ministry and the progress of the gospel.  Some say he was handcuffed to a guard.  He had the probability of execution hanging over his head.  If I were Paul, I would be desperate to get out of there, and get back to normal.  Albeit, a dynamic, world-saving, death-defying sort of normal. What is Paul’s actual attitude? “… my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.”   There doesn’t even appear to be any hint of disappointment.   It’s as if being in prison is to be expected, as if nothing is out of order.   Would I write the letter in this way?   I think not.   When something unjust happens to me I
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Are There Two Types of Elders?

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I'm reading through Witmer's "The Shepherd Leader."  This is an excellent and challenging book for any church elder. In the third chapter Witmer recalls first how the church strayed from the leading of a plurality and parity of elders.  This shift began in the second century but was greatly accelerated by Cyprian in the third century.  Cyprian tied church leadership to the Levitical model, with elders becoming priests.  “Bishop” became a title that vested a single man with immense authority over the church and its leadership. The biblical idea of elders and deacons began to be restored in the reformation, beginning with Wycliff, advancing greatly with Calvin and his student Knox, the latter two of which split the role of elder into a teaching pastor and a ruling elder.  The former was to teach the word, the latter was to “seek the fruit of the same in the people” (Knox.)  According to Witmer, these elders were to be men of good character, but they need not poss
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Why Study How To Study?

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Recently I found myself ready for a new book and thought I'd try a different approach to selecting it.  I am an elder at my church and, with that in mind, asked our Senior Pastor what he would recommend for me.  I was mildly disappointed when he recommended I read something on hermeneutics - how to interpret the Bible.  Not sure what I was hoping for, but this wasn't it.  Felt like I was asking for an exciting adventure, and got told to go sit in a boring lecture hall for 6 months.  Fighting for my freedom I explained that I had already read, "Knowing Scripture" by RC Sproul, and have been happily and properly studying the Bible for many years now.  Didn't work.  He responded by saying that we can never stop learning in this area; that the interpretation of Scripture is so fundamental that, for the rest of our lives, we should be refreshing ourselves on the principles and practices of correct study.  So, with no small feeling of guilt, I humbly purchased: "
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Why Do We Have Genesis?

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A few months back I decided to get on a read-your-Bible-in-a-year plan. Frankly, I feel a little sheepish about the fact that I haven't ever read the Bible cover-to-cover. I was able to digest Tom Clancy's latest 800+ page offering in about a week over Christmas, yet I've left pages of God-written content untouched. (BTW, I'd say that Clancy did a better job with this year's novel than the last.) I searched for, and found, a website that offered a chronological reading plan - this makes sense to me: let Biblically-recorded history unfold itself in its proper sequence. For example, after finishing Genesis 10 you jump over to Job before continuing through the rest of Genesis. When reading about the kings of Israel you read related chunks from Kings, Chronicles, Psalms and the prophets all at the same time. As I said, makes sense to me that way. Progress has been slow so far, mostly because I find it impossible to speed read anything in the Bible. This isn't fictio
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Where is C.S. Lewis?

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I came across an article that takes a concise, fascinating look at the theology of C.S. Lewis. I appreciated the brief biography at the beginning: it is easy to see how the mish-mash of his pre-Christian philosophies certainly left their mark on his Christian thinking. The article ends with the author making a compelling comparison between Lewis and the Church at Corinth. http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2000i/townsend2000e.htm The article is obviously aimed at the old question of whether Lewis was an evangelical Christian, but this inevitably draws us into the greater question of what constitutes an evangelical in the first place. For that I recommend a life-long study of and obedience to the Scriptures, and perhaps listening to Don Carson’s lectures on the subject at http://pjtibayan.wordpress.com/2006/10/17/d-a-carson-audio-sermonslectures/ .
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Are You Trusting God?

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I recently heard a friend use the phrase, "I am trusting God for a matter." The matter involved expense, and I was immediately interested to find out what "trusting God" meant in this context. I was raised in an abberant movement which considered faith as being something God could not resist. If I prayed for something and believed strongly enough that God would provide it, God would have little choice but to do so. Too many times we hear folks presuming upon God’s provision, as though they somehow had Him over a barrel. While we have boldness to approach God’s throne in times of need, our confidence is not in getting the thing we want as much as it is in getting the audience itself. This is supreme privilege, and the extent of it is the ability to make known our needs, to cast upon Him our cares. How God responds is for God to decide, and He keeps His own counsel. However, we can rejoice that He hears our prayers and always has our long term good in mind as He lov
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Are you a son of God?

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(Romans 8:12-39) Who are God’s Children? It is often said that all of us are God’s children. President Obama recently said as much at a prayer breakfast , and many people say the same: all humanity are children of God. Is this true? Well, in a sense yes: in the sense that God created us in His likeness. Paul says this in Acts 17:28-29 when talking to the Greeks on Mars Hill – he was trying to explain that the true God could not possibly be like their gold, silver and stone idols, if we are in any way like Him. However, the Bible is clear that the only people that can call God Father are those that believe in His Son, Jesus. "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name," (John 1:12) The fact is that there is only one natural-born son of God: Jesus. God was His Father in every sense of the Word: remember that God, not Joseph, was Jesus’ biological Father. "The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit w
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