Bully's Blog

Notes on Douglas Wilson’s
21 Theses On Assurance and Apostasy

“Paedofaith is like the New Testament, but with midichlorians.”

Doug Wilson likes to quote the Proverb that says God draws straight with crooked lines, so my post title is a little cheeky. Anyhow, I thought it would be helpful, for myself at least, to work through his thoughtful list with a red marker. A red, permanent marker. Continue reading

There is a proverb which states that the best place to hide a tree is in a forest. In the case of “relevant” Christianity, the hidden tree is a poisonous one which has to be identified, cut down and incinerated before it bears its bitter fruit.

The sad fact is that so many Christians today, who lack biblical discernment, react with horror at such a cutting response. They stand and stare and ask “Why did you pick that tree to cut down? It looked pretty much like all the others? And it was such a well-meaning tree.”

Well, firstly, we picked this one because there’s a serpent wrapped around it. Secondly, if you wait till the breeze dies down, you may notice a faint smell of rotting flesh. Thirdly, young church member Fotherington-Thomas just took a bite from its fruit and his body is being dragged into the bushes just over there.

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Biblical Images in Interstellar

“The end of earth will not be the end of us.”

“Man was never meant to be a god, but he is forever trying to deify himself.”
— Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.”
(Psalm 2:4)

As much as the dusty old Bible
makes moderns cough and choke,
it is still the air we take with us
to breathe between the stars.

Introduction

Few novels or movies manage to successfully capture the imagination of our entire culture. When they do, it is often because they not only present us with engaging characters and a gripping plot, but also a coherent worldview. And in most of these, if not all, to varying degrees that worldview is the biblical one. A culture founded upon the Bible is forever bound to tell the old story. Once we are exposed to the truth, there is no going back. Once we reject the truth, there is no going forwards, either. Continue reading

Merry Christmas from Bully’s Blog

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him… (Matthew 2:1-2)

The arrival of the wise men from the East signalled the beginning of the end for Old Covenant Israel. These men were influenced by the prophet Daniel, one of the Jewish captives who was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar half a millennium earlier.

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The Folks of Nazareth: Bi-Polar or Nah?

by Daniel Hoffmann

Jesus’ first recorded public engagement in the Gospel of Luke comes in 4:16-29, where he speaks in the synagogue of Nazareth, his hometown. Go ahead and read it; I’ll wait. If you read the account in the English Standard Version, it sounds as the though the people of the synagogue do a complete 180° in their attitude toward Jesus: from hearing him enthusiastically, to wanting to kill him. Is that what really happened?

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Jesus would be gathered first to the true fathers, then, once enthroned, He would gather the true sons.

In English, the word manger is archaic, preserved for us by the Christmas tradition. In French, the word is still in use, being the infinitive “to eat.” As with every detail in the Scriptures, the fact that the One who would give Himself to us in the elements of a meal was placed in a food trough invites contemplation.
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Secularism and Inquisition

“If I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptise terrorists” – Sarah Palin, April 2014

Despite its Messianic pretensions, the secular state has no authority over the spiritual realm, and militant Islam exposes this incompetence to us again and again. The “War on Terror” banner illustrates perfectly the failure of statists to comprehend, or perhaps to admit publicly, the true nature of our enemy.

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or Keeping Jesus Together

Christ at the centre of history is the entire Creation in one Man: Forming, Filling and Future.

“…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
(Revelation 19:10)

The Creation Week, although sevenfold, consisted of three days of Forming, three days of Filling, and then a Future, the dominion of the world promised to Adam. But before Adam could be considered qualified to rule the world as the representative of God, Adam himself would have to be a new creation.

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or Sacramental Sorcery and the Seed of Abraham

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?”

Having written a (basically word-by-word) commentary on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, one which demonstrates his use of the biblical pattern of maturity at every point and every level, it amazes me how sacramentalists are not aware that their doctrine makes them the modern targets of Paul’s ire.

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My friend Burke Shade recently outlined the structure of Matthew 15:32-29: Continue reading