November 2010

(Lucas: This is the third in a series by David Wegener. Here's the first and the second.)

3. Substitution is a Scriptural idea. Some examples:

• Paul, Moses and David each desired to suffer in the place of another or others (Rom 9:3, Ex 32:32, 2 Sam 18:33). They desired to serve as substitutes.
• When hands were laid on the head of the sacrifice, it signified the imputation of the guilt of sin to the sacrifice. The sacrifice was the substitute.
• When Nabal’s foolishness provoked David to wrath, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, took the place of a substitute/mediator between David and her husband. She pled with David that he consider the sin of Nabal to be her sin. “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt” (1 Sam 25:24). She refers to Nabal’s sin as her sin. She desired that David reckon Nabal’s sin to her account...

(Tim) The past two weeks the Bloomington Baylys have had sorrow and joy. Sorrow in the death of my dear cousin, John DeWalt, who succumbed to a long illness connected with diabetes. He died two weeks ago this coming Monday and some of us were able to travel to Pittsburgh for the funeral. There we grieved, and yet celebrated his homegoing with his mother, Inis (Mrs. Curtis) DeWalt, his sister Beth DeWalt, and his brother Paul DeWalt (along with Paul's wife, Patti, and their three children--Zachary, Sarah, and Jacob).

A week ago today, we had the joy of joining brother David's family in the celebration of the marriage of David's eldest son, Nathan, and his lovely bride, Aleaha (pron. a leah). It was a joyful day.

Then the past three days we've had the joy of gathering here in Bloomington for our family Thanksgiving celebration and being joined by my mother-in-law, Margaret (Mrs. Ken) Taylor. That's the pic you see above. For the record, we now have ten grandchildren. (I apologize to my dear wife, Mary Lee, for the mysterious white-out on her forehead, but otherwise it's the best pic.)

Names? Well, let's do it by families...

(Jody Killingsworth) Each year, our worship band joins forces with our adult and children’s choirs and fifteen or so orchestral musicians from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music to lead the Bloomington community in celebrating the Incarnation of our promised Messiah. It’s exuberant, ecstatic, poignant, energetic, stirring, tremendous, resplendent; and best of all, participatory!

So come sing your Christmas hearts out with us. Then join us for Lord’s Day worship the next morning. We’d love to have you, especially if you’re from out of town. Let us know, and we'll do our best to find a home for you and your family while you're here.

When: Saturday, December 11 at 7pm 

Where: Church of the Good Shepherd          

Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite…

(Tim, w/thanks to Chris) Several have done yeoman's work putting together lists of the thousands of places Zondervan/Biblica's employees have changed the original Hebrew and Greek inspired by the Holy Spirit in order to produce their new line of Bible products (NIV 2010). Note the examples below showing how they've silenced the Word of God in order to keep postmoderns from accusing Scripture of being sexist, antisemitic, and homophobic. Gagging God is alive and well.

Ancestors. Acts 15. Jews. John 5. John 18. Word change stats. Homosexuality (1Corinthians 6:9).

This is a systematic attack on the words and Word of God.

[John the Baptist was preaching:] “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people.

But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison. (Luke 3:17-20)

(Tim, w/thanks to Kevin) Did you notice John the Baptist was "preaching the Gospel" when he rebuked Herod for "all the wicked things" done by his government? Too, did you notice why Reformed men today don't rebuke Herod?

"He locked John up in prison." Usually things are more simple than we make them--Reformed men, that is--and the avoidance of suffering and absence of faith is the key to understand our silence. Not doctrine. Never ever doctrine, but the absence of faith. Which reminds me...

About fifteen years ago, I drove an hour to take in a lecture given by the eminent historian, George Marsden, at a nearby liberal arts college. His presentation amounted to a very sophisticated wheedling and cajolling of fellow academics to give orthodox Christians a seat at the table, which plea had been the substance of a piece he'd recently published in First Things. We were coming off a bad decade or two during which political correctness had shut down rational discourse in public, private, and Christian higher educational institutions, alike, and Allan Bloom's jeremiad, The Closing of the American Mind, had accomplished little except to earn its author the scorn of the tenured and their administrative masters.

Following Marsden's lecture, one fellow asked him whether Buddhists should have a seat at the table, too?

"Yes--serious Buddhists that is," Marsden replied...