What’s your first thought when you read that God bids Abraham to slaughter his son Isaac in Genesis 22:2? Notwithstanding our natural abhorrence to child sacrifice, we have just read that God himself outlawed murder (Gen 9:6). We could think that God criminalizes himself by this order but wry readers know that something is amiss.

Until this point, God has only had humanity’s good in mind (cf. Genesis 1–2’s repetition of “good”) and this story is no different, for God’s command works for Abraham’s good. What we might miss is that the story has already taken us, as readers, by the hand to tell us the end from the beginning. Genesis 22:1 says, “God tested Abraham.” As insiders, we know that this is a test.   Continue Reading…

A few months ago, I ran a series of posts that argued that infants who die are rescued by God, and are now in eternal glory (part one, two and three; and a sermon combining them is here). I listed 26 verses that say as much, and I obviously think the weight of the argument is insurmountable.

What surprised me the most from this study is that historically this topic was viewed as a debate between Calvinists and Arminians. Shockingly, through history it has been the Calvinists who have argued for infant salvation, while it was the Arminians who were forced to deny that the scriptures taught such a thing.

Today, it seems like the sides have switched. In the past it was the Calvinist who would say, “salvation does not depend on man who wills or runs, so it completely fits within God’s saving nature to rescue infants.” Meanwhile, it was the Arminians who would stammer, “I know it sounds unfair, unjust, and unloving, but salvation depends on a person making a decision for Jesus, and an infant simply wasn’t old enough to be able to make that kind of decision…”    Continue Reading…

Watchman Nee was a Chinese pastor, theologian, and author. He was born in 1903, and was martyred for his faith at the age of 69. Communists arrested Nee in 1952, and he spent the next twenty years imprisoned in a Chinese Labor Camp. Although offered release if he promised to leave the country, Nee refused and died in prison in 1972. Some accounts say he died after authorities had cut out his tongue in an attempt to stop his preaching.

Watchman was not his birth name, but was what he called himself after his ordination to pastoral ministry. His grandfather was a pastor, and Nee saw himself as a guardian of the truth of the Chinese church, which he primarily did through his teaching and writing.

Nee’s name is attached to at least forty different books. Ranging from daily devotionals to complex theology, he was certainly a prolific writer. Yet it is very difficult to know with confidence what he actually penned. One can read his works and legitimately conclude that they were penned by different authors—not only did Nee rarely have an unexpressed thought, but it is said that many of his books were actually pieced together by his disciples from his oral teaching.

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Oscar Pistorius is a legend in South Africa. We call him the Blade Runner due to his unique blade-like prosthetics. Pistorius lost both his legs before his first birthday, but that didn’t slow him down for a second. Not only is he a gold medalist and world record holder in the 400m Paralympic event, but he has competed as a world-class sprinter alongside able-bodied athletes in World Championships and the Olympics. That will put a spring in anyone’s step. But then tragedy tripped him up in a mystifying, allegedly split-second, decision.

On Valentines Day he shot and killed his girlfriend in the early hours of the morning by shooting through a locked bathroom door.

In a country that enjoys most of its legal drama vicariously (thanks OJ, President Clinton, and the cast of The Practice), this bizarre story of supposed self-defense has set off the South African media in a spectacular steeple-chase for the truth, through the obfuscation of cockamamie testimony and a badly blundered Police investigation (we are handicapped by the absence of a “CSI Pretoria” unit).

The drama will no doubt soon be a film with sub-titles. But in the meantime no one can make out they what, why, and how of this debacle.

Currently, the case centers around whether this was pre-meditated murder, or self-defense. That’s quite a gap to traverse, even for the most dexterous attorney. For the defense to have any leg to stand on, it needs to prove that it is reasonable for a person to shoot multiple times through the locked bathroom door of their own home, convinced they are under attack.

To most foreign spectators, this seems as utterly implausible. But in South Africa a domestic bump in the night usually means an armed intruder. This beleaguered country holds the dubious records for violent crimes, armed robbery, burglary, and car-jackings. Our besieged citizenry lives ensconced in the fortifications of their efforts at self-preservations. Many people have taken to living in a gated communities, with guards, electric fencing, motion-detectors, burglar alarms, and panic buttons linked to armed response units. My neighbor, in eye-watering desperation, has an alarm that triggers a gas emission that floods the house with pepper spray. (Seriously).

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In light of Eric’s excellent series over the past few days, I imagine there are many questions that are generated in the minds of our readers regarding the nature of spiritual gifts. Those of us at The Cripplegate have actually dedicated quite a bit of time to clearing up misconceptions of cessationism and responding to popular continuationist arguments. I thought it would be beneficial, then, to highlight those posts and present them in a sort of indexed fashion so as to make them as accessible as possible. While we make absolutely no claim of being exhaustive, we hope this provides some answers to the more popular questions and arguments.

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In parts one and two of this series, we examined some of the popular (but incorrect) assumptions continuationists often make on cessationism, particularly as they were preached in the recent Desiring God conference session, “Sovereign Grace, Spiritual Gifts, and the Pastor: How Should a Reformed Pastor Be Charismatic?”

In that sermon, Pastor Tope Koleoso gave a hearty exhortation for pastors to go charismatic, equating it to pastoral faithfulness. The grounds for why Reformed pastors “should” and “must” go charismatic were unhelpful, and, upon examination, actually give more credence to cessationism and reaffirm the necessity of separating “charismatic” from “Reformed.”

Beyond the misconceptions discussed in parts one and two, there are deeper problems with the call to go charismatic. Today’s concluding post will briefly look at them.

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