Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Sunday, July 01, 2007 9:04:00 PM
All men, whether conservative or liberal and all flavors in between have the same issue of defining their authority for truth.
Liberals make no pretense of rejecting the first principles of the Founders. Their world-view is the best that can be expected from autonomous man.
Conservatives must return to first principles to have a foundation for their beliefs other than that they have been proven to work best.
We identify the false religion of naturalism as our greatest threat. Consistent with Romans 1, the ongoing cultural collapse is the outworking of the wrath of God revealed from heaven against those who suppress the knowledge of God. The wrath of God is not coming. It is already here. Radical sodomites exhibit what it is to be ‘given over to a debased mine.’
The modern church has mixed the Biblical revelation with autonomous reason. As a result it has lost its influence on the culture. ‘You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.’
Genesis provides the foundation for our knowledge of man, marriage, sin and redemption. Having rejected Genesis the new culture has a perverted view of these things.
The clear meaning of the text is what we mean by ‘the Bible says’. The Reformers called this the perspicuity of the Scriptures. They rejected the extra-Biblical doctrine of papal authority in favor of the New Covenant doctrine of the priesthood of every believer. ‘They all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest…’ The New Covenant promise is applied to the church in Hebrews 8 and 10.
The world uses a false caricature of Christianity in support of their rejection of Christ. The most common is to project OT laws into the NT church. Bad church experiences turn many against Christianity.
Ignorance of church history is a major contributor to today’s false doctrine in the church. The doctrines that plague the church are not from Reformed Theology as claimed by some churchmen. Rather, it is the new orthodoxy of dispensationalism and semi-plagiarism that are the enemies of the cross.
The deepest wounds have come from professing Christians. We expect the unbelievers to mock and ridicule because we know what it is to be an unbeliever, but the wounds of a brother pierce to the heart.