There's a blog out there called "SBC Voices" run by Tony Kummer (link is below), and he's running this contest which I will describe in a second, called "Blogger Madness".The analogy I want to draw here is the obvious "March Madness" analogy. If Duke is in the Final Four, you root against Duke. Likewise with Georgetown or Syracuse. This is axiomatic; this is self-evident. It's nothing personal or spiteful: it just is. You pray against the schemes of the devil, and you root against Duke. Next.
Now that said, this contest has been a poll-off between nominated SBC blogs (I did not get nominated; Kummer says he didn't know I was SBC, which, you know, whatever), and the winner gets a gift card to the Westminster Bookstore.
Now, the haters are saying, "oh snap -- cent's gonna tell people to vote against iMonk to spoil the man's chances of winning!" But you haters have such small minds. See: I am taking a certain amount of perverse joy in the idea that if my blog cannot win this SBC contest, iMonk probably will. The idea that the most popular SBC blog is somehow iMonk really makes sense to me in an Old Testament justice kind of way.
So no, I am not saying, "vote against iMonk." He could certainly use $300 worth of books from the Westminster Bookstore. Besides, why vote for the 9Marks site? What are they going to do with a gift card?
So here's what I'm thinking: if you share my perverse joy in iMonk being voted up as the most popular SBC blog, go over there and vote for him.
But if you have some objection to that, go over there and vote for Hershael York, who is a professor at SBTS and a pastor.
Here's The Link.
hough no doubt the motives which led both Peter and John into the high priest's house were commendable, Peter's position among the soldiers and hangers-on around the fire was extremely full of peril, and offered no corresponding advantages. Did he not know that 
"evil communications corrupt good manners"? Did he not know that the men who had taken his Lord prisoner were not fit associates for him? Should he not have felt that, though he might have his hands warmed, he would be likely to get his heart blackened by mixing with such company?
You know why? Because apologetics doesn't win people into Catholicism, and it doesn't win people out of Catholicism. I could give you 1000 reason why I think people join Catholicism -- but there is only one reason to leave -- and it's not because of an argument. The reason to leave Catholicism is actually foolishness when viewed by people seeking a reason: it's that Jesus Christ was crucified, and because death had no power to hold him, He was raised on the third day.
Paul doesn’t give Titus the authority to “draw fresh energy” into what was taught to him, nor does he really advise that the elders do such a thing, either. Paul thinks that elders have a duty not to innovate the word, but to remain faithful to it. That’s a far cry from what actually happens in the Catholic Magisterium – and you have to admit that if the bishops and priests of Catholicism are the true children of the common faith between Paul and Titus, they ought to be doing at least the basics of what Paul here instructed Titus to make sure that they do.
he message I gave at the Shepherds' conference three weeks ago on the pornification of evangelical pulpits continues to generate e-mail and questions. (The message was on Titus 2:7-8 and was titled 
So my problem is not that I am naïve when it comes to filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking. On the contrary, I have had far too much exposure to such things to be fooled by the claim that they can be harnessed and employed as tools for contextualizing the gospel.
3. Can I justify calling someone a "pompous ass"? In most instances, probably not. But that's not because it's a profane expression. It is not. In that context (as well as all 90 times the word ass appears in the KJV), the term is a reference to a braying donkey.
Every culture has words that are considered taboo, or in biblical terms, "filthy." It's not merely their meaning that has caused them to be deemed inappropriate. I could give you a dozen or more synonyms for ordure that occupy varying levels of social acceptability, ranging from baby-talk expressions that are not really banned by our culture (but I wouldn't normally use them in the context of Bible teaching)—to words like guano, bear scat, manure, or feces. These would include several more or less clinical terms for specific kinds of excreta.
ne intriguing fact stands out in all the criticisms of that message: not a single critic has challenged my interpretation of Titus 2:7-8; Ephesians 4:29; 5:3-4; or the third commandment (Exodus 20:7). My detractors' disagreements fall into two categories: 1) some complain that I don't understand the importance of contextualization; and 2) some complain that I've exaggerated the problem.
oo many in the church of God regard unbelief as if it were a calamity commanding sympathy, rather than a fault demanding censure as well. . . . Doubts are among the worst enemies of your souls. Do not entertain them. Do not treat them as though they were poor forlorn travelers to be hospitably entertained, but as rogues and vagabonds to be chased from thy door. Fight them, slay them, and pray God to help thee to kill them, and bury them, and not even to leave a bone or a piece of a bone of a doubt above ground. Doubting and unbelief are to be abhorred, and to be confessed with tears as sins before God. We need pardon for doubting as much as for blasphemy. We ought no more to excuse doubting than lying, for doubting slanders God and makes him a liar."
of varying types and uses. To me, soap was soap, to a certain extent. I'm a guy—but I'm not a Neanderthal; I know the difference between dish-cleaning soap and people-cleaning soap. Obviously a bar of Irish Spring thrown hastily into the dishwasher would not get the job done. I even knew that the girly, body-wash soap that had just recently made its way into my bathroom was also not an option for the dishwasher. However, while surveying the vast collection of dish-cleaning soap found under my sink, a thought occurred to me: how different can all these soaps be? Sure, none of these soaps say that they are meant for the dishwasher, but they're basically all the same thing, right?
As I rummaged through the cleaning products under my sink, I eventually settled on a bottle of Dawn PlusTM, Odor Eraser Dishwashing Liquid Detergent. This particular bottle boasted a "splash of lime" scent that I was thoroughly and eagerly anticipating. I had it all planned out, the lovely Mrs. Pecadillo would return home from a long day's work in about an hour. At the door, she would be greeted with a strong and pleasing scent of pure, old fashioned cleanliness with just a hint of lime. The kitchen would be clean, the sink would be empty, and perhaps our stacks and stacks of wedding gifts would be organized. And who knows, the carpet might even get vacuumed while I was at it. I was apparently too busy thinking of more things around the house to clean that I failed to read a few other words written on the bottle of soap. These words, printed in a much smaller font than the rest, were "Ultra" and "Concentrated." These two, tiny little words proved to be the most significant and important words on the whole bottle. Why they were printed in such tiny letters and hidden behind a sunbeam graphic, I'll never understand. As I later discovered, these words indicated that this particular bottle of soap contains 30% more cleaning ingredients per drop than the leading, non-concentrated brand, and thus, much less of this soap is required to get the job done. This is something they should teach men in premarital classes.
Finding it hard to regain the motivation I had briefly experienced moments before my most recent nap, I sauntered into the kitchen to get a better view of the living room. Upon entering the kitchen, my bare feet encountered a terrain they did not immediately recognize. A delayed reaction, possibly related to the day's over-napping, allowed me to walk into the center of the kitchen before noticing the eerie ground on which I tread. I looked down and observed that my feet had totally disappeared. The floor was gone, my feet were gone, everything below the middle of my calves. . . gone. Again, the sleep-educed delayed reaction was playing a significant factor in my psyche. Staring down, I was suddenly jolted wide awake with the discovery that I was standing shin-deep in a blanket of little white bubbles covering the entire kitchen floor like a mound of freshly fallen snow. This unwelcome mass of cleaning product seemed to be flooding out of the dishwasher door. I quickly theorized that there was indeed a big difference between the soaps I had found under my sink. The apparent over-dispensing of soap proved too much for the little dishwasher to handle. The growing buildup of soap suds on the other side of the dishwasher door must have been so powerful and relentless that it literally forced itself to seep out of the water-tight seal between the dishwasher's door and frame. Smaller wads of the soapy lather poured out of the ventilation panel located on the lower portion of the dishwasher door. These less intimidating, mini-masses of suds quickly joined forces with the mighty foaming beast, increasing it's size while taunting me as it consumed my lower half. This dubious monster of white bubbles where the floor used to be was growing before my very eyes, multiplying in size and frothing around my bare ankles like a boa constrictor or a villainous blob from a bad SciFi movie. I was literally sinking into an abyss of my own foolishness and I did not know what to do.
Like a flash I forced the electrical cord into the wall socket. Having not read the instructions, I began vigorously pressing the many buttons on the vacuum at random, hoping one of them would activate machine. After a few moments of looking like Helen Keller with a 
It’s because soteriology comes before ecclesiology – I know you reformed eggheads know this in theory, but when I look at you (that is, at us – at me first and then at all of you) it’s like looking at somebody who gets dressed without ever checking the full-length mirror. I think you didn’t really mean to leave the house dressed like that.
There are more examples, of course, but I wanted to use these as {A} we will cover each of them in more depth as we go through this letter, and {B} to show that Paul wasn't giving Titus narrow instruction. What Paul taught Titus, dear pastor, he is teaching to you.
