Walking in the Spirit: a pre-response

by Dan Phillips

I've more or less promised to write specifically on what it (actually) means to walk in/be led by the Spirit. Aaaand I've not done it. Aaaand I'm not doing it today.

But in the meanwhile, I just crammed two or three sermons about the Holy Spirit into one, which includes exposition of the Bible's teaching on His person and work, through both Old and New Testament, including His work in the Christian life.

The sermon and outline are here:

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Some Here, Some There — April 10, 2015

by Dan Phillips

Here's today's assortment. Come back for updates through to noon, Texas time.

• I gave each of our children their first driving experience. Thankfully, it never went like this.
• Pyro readers will want to note this review of two recent books on the "New Apostolic Reformation" — which is neither new, apostolic, nor a reformation.
  
• Some good advice for helping yowwens profit from the sermon, from Erik Raymond.
• Want to hear what a man sounds like who thinks he's serving Jesus by being smarter than the Bible, who literally recoils in horror at the suggestion of preaching what the Bible directly and actually says? Then you want to read this interview with the late Robert Schuller.
• Very, very fine article on The Dead End of Sexual Sin by Rosaria Butterfield.

#GospelCoalitionColoringBook 2015 Conference Extra! pic.twitter.com/x9XyXl9GTW
— Jesse L (@ReformedintheQT) April 7, 2015

• You may have heard about this:

Not satire: The __________ Coalition has non-Christians teaching about justice & reconciliation. #TGC15 pic.twitter.com/EkQjcCxvfb
— The Gospel™ Corp (@TheGospelCorp) April 7, 2015

• The issue has been discussed well by Pulpit and Pen and Justin Bullington.

Excited to announce the inclusion of an all-non-Christian panel for the What Does it Mean to Be a Christian? session! #2015conference
— The Gospel™ Corp (@TheGospelCorp) April 10, 2015

• Even a "Reformed Episcopalian" wonders, "Is an organization committed to unity around the Gospel in danger of losing the Gospel?"

• Bakers must be forced to create cakes with messages that violate their beliefs and consciences. Well, unless the customers are Christians. Duh.

• DBTS' Mark Snoeberger writes on Mosaic capital crimes in What Shall We Do with Moses?
• Aimee Byrd notes Kevin DeYoung noting that marriage and kids isn't all that.
• This is brutal and infuriating reading, but provides a perfect example of what happens when morality is defined in terms of what each individual feels and thinks and believes. Thanks once again, California.
• This presuppositionalist thinks that a bit of Lutheran satire on Richard Dawkins is actually pretty wonderful. I've watched it again and again; you will, too.
• Today's Yes...But Why?!! award goes to:

• Added to my BibleWorks notes: m'man Denny Burke has an article in JETS on whether homosexual attraction is sinful. Denny's one of those folks who I can recommend as worth reading even before reading the piece. Here's the post in which he announces it and a forthcoming book.
• David Murray, a living, breathing icon of productivity whose days must contain at least 147 hours, provides a list of book deals, and much else besides.
• Among the "much else"is this very powerful pro-life video, from Texas (you're welcome!) Alliance for Life. Watch it through. I teared up. God grant their goal.

They scream at us for using the slippery slope argument, as they speed by on their snowboards.
— Church Curmudgeon (@ChrchCurmudgeon) April 9, 2015

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The power of the word of God: oft-overlooked ramifications

by Dan Phillips

All Christians attribute power and authority to God's word, for the simple fact that it is God's word. In his Sufficient Fire talk, Phil Johnson mentioned that Brian Maclaren attempted to make mileage over the fact that 2 Timothy 3:16 said that Scripture was useful, not that it was authoritative. In my later talk I chuckled a bit over that, wondering how much more authoritative you could get than "God-breathed"!

I find John Frame's phrasing of Scripture's authority very helpful and memorable:

[Scripture] imposes on them an obligation to respond in an appropriate way. That is the proper definition of authority: an authoritative word is one that imposes obligations on those who hear. And the word of God imposes an absolute obligation.

[John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 529.]

There are obvious implications to this. It's easiest to see in the commandments. For instance, when God says not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14; Ephesians 5:3), I'm to obey by not committing adultery. When God commands that we love Him (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37), we know we are to love God.

But do the narratives obligate me, as well? The Bible begins with a narrative: God creates the universe in six days, and rests on the seventh. Does that narrative obligate me? Or does the narrative of the call of Abram, or the Exodus, or the Passover, or Balaam's loquacious donkey, or Jonah and the big big fish? Or the narratives of Jesus' casting out demons, of His resurrection, and of dead rising in conjunction with that resurrection?

Do these stories obligate me in some way? Is there something I must do, reading them?

One's first thought might be that no moral obligation arises from a story. If so, one's first thought would be mistaken. These aren't newspaper items or oddments in old books. These present themselves to me as God's Word. As such, I am obligated — morally obligated — to believe them. If I disbelieve them, I not only err, I sin.

How so? God tells me they are true, on His honor. Reject the stories, I reject His honor. If that doesn't plunge me into blasphemy, doesn't it bring me right up to the door and knock?

But wait, there's more.

What of the passages that tell me I should fear God (Proverbs 1:7; 1 Peter 2:17), that I should rejoice in the Lord (Philippians 3:3-4), that I should hope (1 Peter 1:13)? Do those obligate me as well? Surely they do.

But wait, there's still more!

This all brings us to the Charismatic issue.

The great achievement of modern Charismaticism is to dupe so many otherwise-fine people into letting Charismatics carve a niche for themselves where they can both promote themselves and avoid all meaningful accountability. Or, put another way, both to canonize and sanctify their personal experiences and claims and to avoid testing of any sort.

One of these ways is that they will ostensibly quote God, some "word from the Lord" — but then, when challenged, hurry to say "That's just for me!"

But is that option open? They have dared to claim to quote God. They have had the breath-taking, astonishing hubris to position themselves as mediators of revelation — claiming that God said words directly to them and them alone, words they now convey to you and to me.

Can that be a private affair? If so, too late now: they've spoken. They've claimed to speak God's words!

So now I am indeed obligated. Their word obligates me. I cannot escape. (Nor can they, though they try.)

You see, if what they speak is a word of God, I am morally obligated to believe it. It doesn't matter what the content is: a word from God has God's authority, and "an authoritative word is one that imposes obligations on those who hear." Well, I hear. What is my obligation?

If it is God's word, I am obligated to believe it. And if it is not, I am obligated to rebuke and expose them as false prophets.

I want to be sure you get this. Even if what they say is "God told me personally, 'Hey, buck up, my precious darling cuddly lambie-dear, I just want to cuddle you close in sweet saccharine waves of My unconditional love and approval, and have great plans for you'" — now that they've told me, I'm obliged.

If that's God speaking and I do not believe it, I am sinning.

But if it isn't, and I do? Same result — or, at the very least, I am complicit in enabling another's sin (cf. Ezekiel 3:18).

And so, an open-but-clueless sort is obligated to search out every claim to revelation, and decide whether to embrace and submit to it, or reject and expose it. That means that such poor souls are morally obligated to be constantly directing their attention from inspired, inerrant, sufficient Scripture, to vet and test and decide on every modern claim to quote God. Because if those are words of God, I am obligated to receive and believe them, myself.

Those are our choices. Either reject the movement as a whole and stand on the sufficient Word of God, or devote yourself to constant, daily distraction.

My, that sounds like a clever way to keep Christians off-focus, doesn't it? Devilishly clever!

Claiming to speak for God is a big, big deal, as I argued at length. They want us to forget it, so they can keep the charade going.

But we mustn't forget it. And we mustn't lose focus on God's real, abiding Word.

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Don't use "the Holy Spirit" as a rug

by Dan Phillips

Ironically though oft-noted, one of the most wretched crimes of Charismaticism is the shabby treatment they give to the Holy Spirit.

"I don't see how you can say that," a reader might respond. "No movement talks more about the Spirit than Charismatics and their spinoffs."

"Talks," yep. True enough. But what do they say about Him? That's the issue.

We understand that there is a great deal of mystery about the Holy Spirit, in Scripture. Assembling a true and coherent doctrine of the Spirit from the Word is a challenge for anyone. This is true, first, because of His name. He doesn't precisely have a personal name like "Jesus," or a title with a personal connotation like "Father." Given that the Greek and Hebrew texts don't provide capital letters, it isn't always easy to tell when the Hebrew or Greek words for "spirit" are referring to the Third Person, or whether they're referring to wind or breath or the human spirit.

A second factor contributing to the Spirit's mystery is that He is not the focus of the text. He may come to the fore of a narrative, but as Jesus Himself says, the focus of the Spirit is not the Spirit. The focus of the Spirit is Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not a failed master of ceremonies.

As it is with the Spirit, so it is with some of the gifts of the Spirit. Revelatory gifts were designed to have limited shelf-life. So there can be little wonder that to us who live long after their expiration-date, some of them are mysterious — "mysterious" as in "we have no idea what they were" (1 Cor. 12:8). As Chrysostom noted just three centuries after the apostles —

This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?

[John Chrysostom, “Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians,” in Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Hubert Kestell Cornish, John Medley, and Talbot B. Chambers, vol. 12, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 168.]

What was true a scant 300+ years after the New Testament events is, to say the least, no less true 1900+ years afterward.

Faced with impenetrable obscurity, there are fundamentally two options: accept the obscurity, or make something up to "clarify" it. Enter the Charismatics. Like the government, they're "here to help."

Here is what I've observed for decades. Never content to stay within the lines Scripture draws, nor content to focus on what God has revealed (contra Deut. 29:29), Charismatics use these mysteries, these obscurities, to load in and thus canonize their own peculiarities and alien-conflagration inventions.

It works like this. Do you get flashes of insight that feel significant to you? But you don't want to call them that, do you? Put that way, they have little meaning beyond the personal. No, you feel the need to imbue them with some sort of holy, divine mantle. You feel they deserve more attention and authority. Well, lookie here: nobody knows what a "word of wisdom" or a "word of knowledge" was. So just call it one of them. Nobody can prove you wrong!

Or: Do you feel like barking like a dog? or giving up all bodily control and dignity? or acting like a drunk or a druggie? Do you find that normal behavior isn't drawing enough attention, or satisfying your itch, but you have some bizarre capacity to shake your head, or something? Well, lookie here: nobody's sure he knows everything the Holy Spirit does. Even saying "Holy Spirit" is mysterious. So just say He made it happen. This is some work of the Holy Spirit. Who can prove you wrong?

So you see, we end up with a kind of backwards exegesis which is just a subspecies of eisegesis. We start with a phenomenon we like, we're sure it's got to be in the Bible somewhere, so we just find what we see as a bit of rug loose enough for us to sweep it under. Given the mysteries associated with the Spirit and His gifts, that's an oft-used recourse. Find even the appearance of ambiguity, and Robert is our mother's brother.

After all, Scripture says He "leads," right? Well, maybe this is that. Scripture says we're to "walk in" the Spirit, right? Well, maybe this is that. Just fill those words with your content. That's the first step.

Next step: subtract the "maybe." Say it again with confidence instead of tenuousness.

And voila! Another Charismatic crowd-pleasing distraction is born.

How?

Because rather than revering the Holy Spirit as God, and cleaving as closely to the Word He inspired as they can in grateful, faithful contentment, they use "the Holy Spirit" as a sort of rug. They sweep all their unsightly made-up embarrassments of irresponsibility and indulgence and carnality under that phrase. Then it doesn't look so ugly anymore.

It's covered up, by a phrase you use as a rug: "the Holy Spirit."

NEXT WEEK (Lord willing): what it actually means to be led by the Spirit.

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Some Here, Some There — January 9, 2015

by Dan Phillips

Here we go. Remember, this is likely to receive updates through noon, TX time.

• Here's a thoughtful dad's-eye review of the recent Disney musical Into the Woods. Unfortunately it's a Roman Catholic rather than Christian perspective, but still instructive.
• I just saw, and loved, Through The Eyes of Spurgeon. Great film, joy to watch. I recommend it heartily.
• Only two nits would I pick. One is, I didn't love the suggestion that Spurgeon was bipolar. It struck me as anachronistic and, as one who knew well someone afflicted with that disorder, not a good fit.
• The other: I didn't love the suggestion that "Bishop" Vinter had lied to Spurgeon to get him to preach the first time. So I've put up the story in Spugeon's own words.
• So here's another step in America's march towards an Are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-a-Bible-believing-Christian? society: Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran fired (no pun) for being a known Christian.
• Kevin Bauder has been doing a series on The Gospel Coalition, noting the oddities in its actual alliances and shunnings. Most recently, he notes its embrace of charismaticism. Bauder notes that "charismatic theology leads to some truly vicious extremes, a tendency that produces two other problems. The first is that even the more moderate charismatics (who may personally repudiate those extremes) seem unable to apply any sort of theological brake to charismatic thought as a whole. The second is that charismatics tend to embrace extreme figures on the basis of their shared charismatic experience." I do believe he's playing our song...or we, his. Either way, same song.

If Paul had said "forbid not to babble gibberish" or "despise not irresponsible hit-and-miss pop-offecies," Charismatics wld have a point
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) January 5, 2015

• Fred Butler attempts to bring logic, facts and consistency to some LGBT advocates. Hilarity ensues. Fred is as nuanced, careful, helpful and sensitive as ever.
• And as a Freddie Double-header, a wonderful little piece on scientific atheist scientist Sam "Science" Harris.
• N. T. Wright, always helpful. Blogger Rachel Miller notes that Wright has considerately wrapped up the essence of everything that's wrong with his theology and approach in one chapter-heading.
• Everyone knows I love DBTS and their blog, and respect and enjoy the writings of Mark Snoeberger. Not so much his recent defense of functionalism, as you will see by my pushback commentary and the good doctor's response.
• Apostate Church is apostate. (h-t reader Robert Sakovich)

• If you think you'll never hear a professed Christian trying to weekend-at-Bernie's the concept of shacking up... well, enjoy your stay in Neverland. Meanwhile here on Earth, Lyndon Unger begins a series on the subject with a robust affirmation of the sufficiency of Scripture.
• On that topic, seriously, openings for the Sufficient Fire Conference are dwindling and unlikely to last too long: so register, and come.
• Remember how the PCUSA jumped the sharked decades ago when it defrocked faithful witness J. Gresham Machen? And you know how relatively Biblically faithful people still choose to stay-in, you know, to be "witnesses"? You know what the PCUSA does to folks like that when they get too noticeable? Well... it defrocks them.
• Duh!
• Think of all the things the PCUSA doesn't care whether its ministers do. And it doesn't care if you disagree... as long as you keep the money coming in. But wait... shouldn't the Machen matter have taught us that?
• So: are you not feeling enough of a cowardly, rutted failure at personal witnessing? No? Here, let me help:

• You're welcome. (H-T David Murray)
• Thom Rainer offers a post with a looong meta on the topic of church announcements. Years ago a pastor-friend's announcements seemed to go on forever, and I commended shortening them since he was simply restating what was already in the bulletin. He did shorten them, and said the result was that nobody knew what was happening, because they were used to not reading their bulletins.
• One's tempted sometimes to say "We have a variety of meetings through the week. But you already know that. So let's pray and take the offering."
• As long as we're dealing with things-that-are-bring-reconsidered, here are Bob Hayton's thoughts on the Sunday Evening Service. Hayton leans against, but links to arguments of the opposing view.

"Elected because I selected" remains one of the most appalling, horrifying things I've seen a professed Christian say, ever.
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) January 5, 2015

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Pop-offecy versus preaching as from a full Canon

by Dan Phillips

It's so much fun to be a Charismatic these days. You can say anything you want, and not only will no one in your movement call you on it, they'll give you buckets of money and the opportunity to do it over and over and over again!

Take Pat Robertson, famous for The 700 Club and much besides. Every year, Pat literally goes up in the mountains to get a word from God. Now, in case you are not familiar with Charismaticism, this isn't a Bible study. This isn't a word like the word every last child of God has been given by Him for millennia. This is a special word, a private word, just from God to just Pat.

Then Pat tells us.

Of course, like all of the distinctive doctrines and practices of modern Charismaticism, this bears no resemblance to the Biblical phenomena. (That's why some solicitous enablers have fabricated the whole "analogy" camouflage.) Unlike Biblical revelatory phenomena, these are largely unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and unremarkable.

"Largely," I say, but not always. In Pat's case, he has made some specific predictions in God's name. In those instances, how's Pat's record as a prophet? In short, not so great. For instance, in 1996 "God" murmured to Pat that Clinton would lose in his bid for the White House. Yeah, if only. Also, a nuke was going to hit the US. Then in 2005, "God" hinted that Bush would pass Social Security reform and tax reform, and would load the Supreme Court with conservatives. Again, if only. Then in 2006, the US would be hit with tsunamis, and in 2007 a mass killing would possibly leave millions dead in the US.

So you see? If Pat were held to the standards of Biblical prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:20-22), he'd be thirty years dead.

More recently, then, how did Pat do for 2014? Well, the walking, talking unpaid Charismatic bill said he thinks maybe God kinda told him that the world is going to be in chaos; some kind of credit crisis. (Wow, now, that's going out on a limb, isn't it?) Also, Iranians will have a nuclear device by end of year. President Obama will be severely hampered and will take a lot of vacations, surfing and stuff — again, hardly Isaiah 40.

But Pat also said “There’s going to be a great move of God.” Like what? Oh, the usual Charismatic stuff — so, nothing. But also this:

“There will be a move of God, and it will be the greatest year in the history of the church. It’ll be unbelievable all around the world. And I think Islam is going to be on the retreat; instead of advancing, it’s going to be retreating, uh, and, you know, onward Christian soldiers”

Apparently God didn't tell Pat what impact it has on Islamists to hear a Christian saying "onward Christian soldiers."

At this writing, that promised revival of Christianity (which, ironically, would mean the end of Charismaticism), as well as the retreat of Islam, hasn't happened either.

So as I say, if this were Israel, Pat would be thirty years dead. As it is, he can't even get himself excommunicated, or disowned, or even effectively shushed.

For our church and as a sort of foretaste for the Sufficient Fire conference, I preached a sermon titled 2015 – Predictions and Prescriptions, from the perspective of hearty affirmation of a full Canon and a sufficient Scripture.

Compare and contrast, at your leisure.

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Some here, some there — October 31, 2014

by Dan Phillips

Happy Reformation Day! I hope your family and/or church have something planned to lift up the glorious Biblical truths that were recovered and held high by this movement. It's my family's ~25th year, and our church's 3rd annual.

Feel free to share what you're doing to celebrate the Reformation's accomplishments in the comments. (Not you, Frank.) One of the traditional dishes the saints at CBC will be enjoying is the traditional Diet of Worms cake. Yum.

• Steve Lawson offers one of his marvellous little bio's on England's prime reformer, William Tyndale.

Haters. They Gonna Hate. Shake It Off. ~Martin Luther #ReformationDay pic.twitter.com/BJogE5iRWL
— Todd Adkins (@ToddAdkins) October 31, 2014

• Appropriate to the occasion, a Kindle reader named KevinR highlighted this from The World-Tilting Gospel:

• Over at Cripplegate, Eric Davis' list of ways in which the Roman Catholic Church would have to change for Christians to join hands with it had two effects on me: first, appreciation. It's a very good list, well-explained and well-documented. Second, discouragement. Even after reading the list, I still think of so many ways in which Rome deviates fatally from Biblical Christianity — the scapular, worshiping dead people, adding books to the Bible...
• So in place of Eric's list, I'd be tempted to say Rome needs to change in one way: it must affirm and apply the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, limited to the previously-accepted 66-book Christian canon. That done, we'd be rid of everything Eric specifies, everything I mentioned, and much else besides.
  
• That is why a robust understanding, affirmation, proclamation, and embrace of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture should be our central concern today.
• On that last note, let me point out: today is the last day to pre-register at a discounted price. You should come to the conference. It will be fun, encouraging, instructive, and a great time of worship, followship, preparation and strategizing. Giveaways are planned. Don't miss it!
• If you go to The Aquila Report and David Murray's site (often sources for some of my finds), you get a good tour of some of the best items on the intarwebz. I commend them to you yet again. They've got a good eye for what matters to us, like [insert RPB name here] used to.
• For instance, David Murray notes and discusses Ligonier/Lifeway's extensive survey of the state of theology in America. No Pyro reader will be surprised, though all will be saddened and renewed in our conviction to do something about it.
• Erik Parker gives a healthy reminder in 7 reasons church isn't for you. And almost as a companion-piee, Nicholas Batzig offers 7 wrong reasons to join a church.
• I may have to write a post: 14 reasons I like lists.

Today, he'd be posting on the Twittenberg door and hoping for 95 Retweets.
— Church Curmudgeon (@ChrchCurmudgeon) October 31, 2014

• Religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey seems to be on a minor tear lately. First, this on Monday:

Standing ovation for the owner of Washington florist who declined to sell flowers to a gay couple. #erlc2014 https://t.co/0pJP561gqb
— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) October 27, 2014

• Of course, they did no such thing — unless it's accurate to report that a flag company "declined to sell flags with right-angles" when what they're refusing to sell is flags with swastikas. The couple in question refused to sell flowers for a "gay" "wedding." So Ryan T. Anderson rightly took her to task for it, as did yr obdt svt. (Brian Mattson has as well.) Bailey did not particularly express appreciation.
• Then Bailey tweeted this Tuesday:

Evangelical leader Russell Moore denounces ex-gay / reparative therapy http://t.co/Ym0foHOQDN #ERLC2014 pic.twitter.com/D0sUMHorHQ
— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) October 28, 2014

• I asked Dr. Moore what he thought of this characterization, and regrettably he answered me the way he usually does these days.
• Then Bailey reported this:

Rosaria Butterfield who just spoke at #ERLC2014 is trending nationwide. She was a lesbian, denounces ex-gay ministry http://t.co/Ym0foHOQDN
— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) October 28, 2014

• So; wow, it's a rough time to be trying to help homosexuals. Everyone's "denouncing" you! Well, Bailey did report one different viewpoint:

"Those who meet Jesus change." -@JackieHillPerry, a former lesbian now married to @Preston_n_Perry #ERLC2014 pic.twitter.com/X57SoaCsyW
— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) October 28, 2014

• What do I think? I think if you're going to speak publicly about these matters, you have to know how you'll be spun. I think you have to know that anyone trying to help homosexuals find freedom from their destructive passions — or even suggesting that it can be done — becomes Public Enemy #1. I think you have to know that "denouncing" such groups will be misunderstood and misused. So I think you have to load your statements in some such way that can't be disentangled by the enemies of God.
• Like this: "Much as I appreciate all goodhearted attempts to help folks who are in the grips of destructive and degrading perversions, mere therapy both mis-identifies goals and does not go far enough. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ transforms hearts, natures, complexes of attraction. Only Christ gives hope, life and freedom to sinners — of any variety."
• Of course in my case, it probably would be reported like this: "Asked whether he believed that homosexuality was a sin, Phillips looked at the reporter as if he had sprouted a third eye, and said, enunciating with painstaking clarity, 'I'm a Christian. Look it up.'"
  
• And now, a meta-item aimed at fellow-bloggers. The post I'm about to link to may be a good article. I don't know. But when you look at it, do you want to read it, aesthetically? My large work monitor fills with text, text, text. Whole screens without paragraph-breaks. So: do you want to be read? Don't overwhelm the not-already-sold with giant text filling a screen without the possibility of a scan or a breather.
• Carl Trueman offers broad-ranging thoughts and historical perspective on the current fad of discovering that the Bible means the opposite of what it says about homosexuality. It's a worthy read both for substance, and for the introduction of "chattocracy" and an allusion to "finding dark thrills through collecting old pieces of string." That one was new to me. I'm sure the mayor of Houston is preparing a law to protect it.
• I'm also sure you all heard that a "leading Evangelical ethicist" whom none of us has ever heard of ("David Gushee"; see, I told you) decided that he's all pro-LGBT and the rest of it. One of the leading thinkers from a more Biblical perspective, Robert Gagnon, has responded. It's a brutal takedown. I like it.
• Interesting: apparently Gushee "TGC"-ed Dr. Gagnon from his Facebook page. Well, isn't that nuanced and scholarly?
• There's good Bibley sanity in Matt Moore's I Love Jesus Too Much To Call Myself A Gay Christian.
• Todd Pruitt lets us know he plans a series of sermons on Gender Confusion, Sexuality, and the Image of God, and he gives some book recommendations. To Todd's list, I would heartily add Rick Phillips' (no relation) Masculine Mandate, a book I used to great profit for this series.

• Not our usual, but... a woman did a video walking through the streets of NY, and mostly seemed to be horrified that men said appalling things like "Hi" and "Good morning" and "God bless you." So Funny or Die sent a pale white guy through the streets, and...well, I pick "funny."
• Biblical Christians are constantly frustrated in our attempts to reach out to Charismatics, frustrated both by them and by the cloud of open-but-clueless defender/enablers. I think I've figured out one reason for the disconnect: Critics deal with Charismaticism-that-is, while enablers defend an idealized dream that doesn't exist.
• That's it. Write it down.
• Let's try it this way. Show of hands: how many of you think that being near a heretic's corpse is a good way to seek an experience of the Holy Spirit? (Hands go up.) Besides Charismatics, I mean. (All hands go down.) Here's what I'm referring to:
• Charismaticism-that-is is on constant display, on the TV, at YouTube... and at Charisma Magazine. You know Charisma: that's where you can read a person named Dutch Sheets who has a spiritual experience he attributes to God at the grave of an Gospel-perverting false teacher named Charles Finney. This is an article in which you can actually read the line "I reminded the Holy Spirit..." Seriously. Whether "the Holy Spirit" replied "Hunh, good point, thanks for that," is not recorded. (The article is worth accessing, if only for Lyndon Unger's comment, as well as a wonderful word from someone called OAM.)
• Without the slightest nod to the irony, this same magazine which extols an experience at the graveside of a heretic also solemnly warns against letting demons into one's house.

• ...and tweeted this:

When pursuing an encounter with God, don't forget to watch out for other supernatural forces. #witchcraft #occult http://t.co/XKtI6MM2F4
— CharismaMag (@charismamag) October 31, 2014

• Oh well, I'm sure there's a perfectly rational, Biblical response. Like, "Martin Luther hated Jews!" Or "Servetus!" Something like that.
• Oh, and there's this gem from a year ago: open letter (from beyond the grave!) by Tozer to MacArthur. Once again, most valuable for Lyndon Unger's comment, but no less for Kofi Adu-Boahen's poignant question: "Why would Dr MacArthur not agree with this again?"
• And now, just an interesting thought: while The Gospel Coalition has blocked me in Twitter, Charisma Magazine has not. Mull that one over.

Find some way of lifting the glorious Biblical truths of the Solas high today!

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The real problem with Pat Robertson

by Dan Phillips

I'll just admit it up front: from their articles, I have a hard time understanding what the RAANetwork is about. They have a statement of purpose, but, as I say, I'm focusing on the articles. Where are we going, I wonder, when I see pieces like this, and this, and this? Does that all bring us together in an Ephesians 2 and 4 way, lifting up what unites us in Christ through His work on the Cross?

But I follow them in Twitter, in part because I dearly want to see Biblical truths spread all over, including those areas where historically it has not been well-presented and well-known. For that reason, Monday my eye was caught by their tweets about Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson has been making ridiculous statements on global television for decades. http://t.co/wBqyhyiKun
— RAANetwork (@RAANetwork) October 20, 2014

Well, yeah, yes he has. Absolutely. Welcome aboard. And:

Pat Robertson is what happens when we rely on the wisdom of man rather than God. http://t.co/TqsrJWmVMP
— RAANetwork (@RAANetwork) October 20, 2014

Really? Now, that's not what I would have said. I don't think it really gets to the heart of it. But I went to read the article by Cornell Ngare, to see how he developed his thought. The more Christians who put the Bible to Robertson, the better. So I read.

For one thing, I — are you sitting down? — was a bit taken aback at how bare-knuckled it was. Deserved, appropriate... but just a bit surprising to me.

"Pat Robertson has been making ridiculous statements on global television for decades." OK, well yes; again, amen. Ngare points at Robertson's "record and reputation for being flippant, bigoted, and all other words that describe a serious lack of wisdom or discretion," and asks whether we really should "be wasting our breath and time reacting to his latest episode of verbal diarrhea?"

"Latest episode of verbal diarrhea"? Ouch; absolutely true, and needs to be said. You go, bro!

Then Ngare (again truly) observes that one would hope a 84-year old would be mellowing and maturing — more "nuanced"! — and yet Robertson "only seems to be getting worse." Indeed.

Then Ngare goes on about Robertson's regular practice of popping off answers and rants and musings on an array of topics without even an attempt at deriving them from Scripture.

So: true, true, true... but what does Pat Robertson's follies in this regard have to do with Reformed folks, or the RAANetwork's statement of purpose? Robertson isn't Reformed, makes no claim to being Reformed. I'm still puzzling that out.

However, that said, I must quickly add once again that I'm always glad to see a Christian brother warning about Robertson. I myself have a long, long record of doing just that, and far less gently than Cornell Ngare (to his credit, no doubt). Just see this, and this, and this, and this, for starters.

In the first of those, I get at what I am suggesting Ngare is missing, and where I think he's just a bit wide of the mark.

I think Pat Robertson would categorically reject Ngare's accusation. Robertson would say that he seeks God's wisdom constantly—and he gets it, directly, by God's personal revelations to him.

You see, Pat Robertson is a Charismatic. He is a man who has written generously that "Probably 95 per cent of all the guidance we need as Christians is found in the clearly understood principles of the Holy Bible." The other 5 per cent? Well, that's where you need Pat and the other Charismatic leaders who have a hot line to God.

Paul's question in Romans 4:3a seldom seems to be Robertson's first question, 2 Timothy 3:15-17 doesn't inform him much, and Deuteronomy 18:20 doesn't seem to sober him up to any measurable degree. The hard fact of a completed Canon is just a "and-then-that-happened" thing in the landscape of his thinking.

So why is Robertson's ranting reported? Why does he have an audience? Why is he a problem?

It's this progression which is as unpopular as it is irrefutable: without (A) Pentecostalism, (B) Charismaticism (however you shade those two), and most crucially (C) the Open-But-Clueless crowd of Reformed-and-other enablers, Robertson would be without a platform. He'd have no one to listen to him. Once he started popping off and saying things that can't be warranted by Scripture, Christians would turn away en masse, and he'd be talking to the mirror.

This is the consequence of not truly affirming and embracing and heralding a robust doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. This is the consequence of winking at the Charismatic movement. This is the consequence of Reformed folks like Wayne Grudem and Vern Poythress and the others coming up with rationales to save face for Charismaticism's 100 years of straying and of failure-to-deliver.

Just take one example, only one: Robertson's internationally-famous record for false prophecies. Just take this one: here we see Pat Robertson and Michael Brown's BFF Benny Hinn, where Robertson says in so many words that God told him that Mitt Romney would win the Presidency.

Don't rush past that. There's no way to soften this. Sniggering, giggling Pat claims a word from God. Michael Brown's good buddy Hinn says "I trust God's voice." So both equate Pat's private revelation with the august voice of God, that voice which brought the universe into existence out of nothing.

Yet note again, Hinn says "I trust God's voice," and Robertson chuckles "Well, we'll see."

Words fail me. Almost.

Now, this clearly was a false prophecy. Can't we agree on that?  That, or (I speak as a fool) God was wrong. So, remind me: what are the consequences for delivering a false prophecy?

1. In Israel, it would be death (Deuteronomy 18:20).
2. In the church, surely it would be excommunication.
3. In this day of Grudem and Poythress and other enablers of modern pop-offecy... nothing. No consequences.

I totally agree with Cornell Ngare that Robertson's a huge problem. But I don't think his wording of his analysis hits the ten-ring. Robertson's problem is the reason why he even has a platform: failure to give God's Word the place God gives it.

What Christ's church really needs is a revival-level, massive embrace, and living and systematic proclamation of the sufficiency of Scripture.

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Charismatics degrading revelation? Must be a day ending in a "y"

by Dan Phillips

The speaker here is Jennifer LeClaire. She's not some obscure figure off on the fringe; she is news editor at Charisma magazine — which I guess is the leaky-Canoneers' organ of record? At any rate, she's written books, she's got an internet presence, and on and on and on.

Plus, she's a preacher. Plus, she receives direct, verbal, extra-Scriptural revelation from God. And we're not talking feelings, impressions, hunches. We're talking about words from God that she can quote for us. And we need her to, right? Because they're not in our Bibles.

They're just Jennifer.

Well, not anymore, because she's thoughtfully passed on to us what God bypassed His Bible and His body of believers to speak to her only. And here it is. These are, according to Jennifer LeClaire, the words of God:

There is a great awakening coming to this nation. For I have heard your cries and I long to heal your land. I am a covenant God and I will not forget the covenant I made with your Founding Forefathers. Yes, there will be a shaking, but the foundations will not crack and they will not crumble. Only those things which can be shaken will be shaken that the sin in the land may be laid bare.

Well, it's all there, isn't it? It is a direct quotation of God. "I have heard your cries." Read the article: there is no "I might have gotten this exactly right," or "You have to understand, I'm about to impersonate God, but I don't mean you to think that I'm, you know, impersonating God," or "Remember how Grudem made it okay for me to redefine prophecy? There's my get-out-of-responsibility card!"

But wait, there's more.

This isn't the mere rehashing of Biblical generalities that many Charismatic pop-offecies feature. It actually imparts newly-revealed information, information that changes everything. "God" here tells us that "He" made a covenant with America's Founding Forefathers. Those Deists and Romanists and all-over-the-mappers were "His" covenant partners. Covenant with Abram, with Isaac, with Jacob... and with America's founders. The texts are Genesis 12, Exodus 2:24... and Jennifer.

And where is this covenant? What was the ceremony? When did it happen? What is the exact wording? Is it unilateral, bilateral, or what? Are there promises? What are they? Sanctions?

This is heavy, immense stuff. It changes history and our view of it. It changes the way we see America, and the way we need to demand that everyone sees America — you know, demand, in "God's" name, right? Because this is the Word of God. Like the Bible is.

And surely all the rest of us should put this in our preaching rotation, right? Because it's important. So: Proverbs, Ephesians, Gospel of John, prophecy of Isaiah, prophecy of Daniel, prophecy of Jennifer.

Plus, shouldn't living theologians schedule revisions of their texts? Especially Grudem? They weren't working with the full dataset.

There's a lot more in this prophecy. Interestingly, "God" calls the nation to repent — but "He" doesn't call this female preacher to repent of the obvious.

Are the high-traffic leaky-Canon-friendly reformed blogs all over this, either tearing it to shreds or preaching it up?

All right now, some of you are chuckling, some are groaning, some are gritting your teeth. Why am I doing this? (And this is nothing; we could go on, and on, and on.)

Because all of this is a perfect exhibition as to why the Strange Fire conference was necessary, and why conferences like Sufficient Fire are absolutely essential. The church has become inoculated and numbed to the outrageous audacity and distraction that is Charismaticism, and it has allowed its wonder and marvel and reverence over the Word of God to be adulterated down to the vaguest shadow of what it should be.

It's not a little thing. It's just treated like a little thing.

However, it is as if Christians who have a robust doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture have an unspoken agreement about our Charismatic siblings. When they start claiming direct revelation, or semi-hemi-demi revelation, we just smile with fond indulgence and wait until they're done. It's like Crazy Uncle Rufus. We all love him, so when he starts up about how President Bush ordered the bombing of the World Trade Center, or alien bovine probing, we just smile and wink at each other. It's just Crazy Uncle Rufus being Crazy Uncle Rufus. We love him. No harm done, right?

Not right.

Not right, and not to God's glory. Nor does it adorn our witness to the lost. Nor is it to the good of Christ's church...nor of Jennifer LeClaire, for that matter.

That someone should speak up is a given. That all who affirm Scripture's self-revelation should speak up, sound the alarm — also a given.

That so few do... that's the mystery, and that's the shame.

But one just has to do what one can.

ADDENDUM: this poor lady only blames a 360-word rant on God. Francis Chan now tells us God "asked" him to write a whole book. This isn't Chan's first irresponsible statement of the kind. What if these thoughts from 2010 had been echoed and made more of a focus among those with a robust doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture four years ago?

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Why no "killer" verses against charismaticism?

by Dan Phillips

A lazy resting-place for the would-be propper-up of continusmaticism is to demand a single verse that states,  in so many words, "When John dies, the following gifts cease:..." Absent such a verse, the theological sluggard claims victory and goes back to his careening sleepwalk.

Like most (all?) questions, this one has been answered often from various angles. I wanted to have a specific post with this particular answer, so I reached back over seven years to this post, then this one, for the following excerpts slightly edited.

First:

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Adrian [Warnock, who's tried for years to iron-lung Charismaticism] then says,

I have also not seen [cessationists] give good explanations regarding the experiences so many of us describe or the benefits that those who speak in tongues receive from them. If the cessationist is correct, then the charismatic is, by definition, either deluded or demonised!

My first, honest, non-sarcastic response to this confession was to wonder how many cessationist books Adrian has read, and which ones; and how many cessationists he's talked with. But never mind that for now.

The question is simply answered.

Suppose you say, "Oh, look! A cat!" And you point to a snake. So I go fetch a textbook that we both respect, and I read, "Cat: mammal, possessed of four legs, a tail, a head, lots of fur, and an insatiable appetite. Purrs when petted." Then I say, "That thing you're pointing at doesn't look anything like a cat. At. All."

What do you say? "Yeah, but maybe it's a furless, legless, reptilian cat who never purrs! Or maybe it's just warming up, and one day it will be a cat! You have to give me a good explanation of what it is, or I'll pick it up and call it a cat!"?

No, actually, see: I really don't have to. I've demonstrated that it isn't a cat. In so demonstrating, I have demonstrated that, if you do pick it up, you won't be picking up a cat. My work is done.

You meanwhile, might call yourself a "Cat-ist," and run about, waving the viper over your head. You might persuade 100, 10000, even 1000000 or more people to do the same. "Cat-ism" might become the fastest-growing movement in the world, all of you waving slender, wriggling, scaled, cold-blooded, fork-tongued, lidless "cats" over your heads. You might "prove" your case by producing academic "Cat-ists" who produce literary passages describing cats as slinking ("Aha!"), and curling up ("Oho!"), and wrapping themselves around their owners' legs ("QED!").

You can call the thing in your hand whatever you like. You can get millions to call it the same. It still won't be a cat, and any decent description of a real cat will be a "killer verse" to your movement.

And what of identifying the actual thing you're holding? If I keep looking through my nature guide, I'll find several things that are long and thin and wiggly. It might be a worm. It might be an eel. It might be a snake. Ah, that's it: a snake. What kind of snake, though? Maybe I can't identify the exact species of snake you're pointing at. But I know that there are various venomous vipers about, and that's reason enough to worry. I advise you that it's best not to pick it up until we're sure what it is.

Doesn't that make good sense?

But at any rate, even if you pick it up, and suffer no immediate harm, and report that it gives you warm emotions to hold it, I'm still going to insist that you not call it a cat. And particularly, if you are going to take a job as a veterinarian, and tell others how to acquire and care for animals, I'm going to urge you in the strongest terms to get your head straight about the differences between cats and snakes. You really could hurt somebody with your wretched advice.

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Second:

Why no "killer verses"?

Finally [of the challenges from Charismatic Adrian Warnock]: 

Most importantly of all, if the Bible never intended that we get the impression that gifts are for today, why are there not any real "killer verses" to make it clear to us that this is not the case?

There aren't? I believe I've given and/or linked to several such verses, already.

Every description of tongues and prophecy in the Bible is a "killer" verse . Allow me to allude to our "standard of proof" discussion from the previous post.

Every description of a real cat is a "killer verse" to anyone who wants to wave a snake around and call it a cat.

Similarly, anyone who wants to babble and burble, and call it tongues; or pop off gauzy generalities or inaccurate predictions and call it prophecy, is condemned and rejected by every Biblical description of the real, legitimate phenomena. No such widespread, well-documented phenomena as described in the Bible has ever characterized post-apostolic Biblical Christianity, from the second century to the present day. The charismatic movement has tried with increasing desperation for one hundred years, and so far the best it has come up with is an attempt to redefine everything, covering up its consistent failure by trying to define-down the Biblical exemplars.

And there is no Biblical explanation why this should be so—unless what Paul announced as future to him, in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, is past to us.

Which, I submit, it is.

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