2nd (next) Ephesians study, Wednesday November 7 6:30 PM

Location: Mira Mesa Branch Library, 8405 New Salem ST, San Diego, California

If you missed the first study and would like the Lesson 1 handout, please send me a message.

more info: http://www.reformationmiramesa.com

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A New Bible study starts next week in San Diego!

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is not only supremely elegant.  It is foundational to Christian doctrine.  If you are in San Diego next Wednesday, stop by and take part!

I have written a study guide organized in 13 lessons that we will use as a basis for a weekly Bible study.  It is entitled, Chosen To Be Holy: Ephesians. I will have copies to give away at the Bible study.

We will go through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians together.

starts: Wednesday, October 24, 6:30 PM

Mira Mesa Branch Public Library, San Diego

8405 New Salem ST

summary of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

God has chosen you in Christ to be holy, to the praise of his glory, raised you with Christ from your former state of spiritual death, saved you by grace, and united you together into one body of Christ. Therefore, live accordingly.

http://www.reformationmiramesa.com

New on the Aquila Report: Book Review: How to Defend the Faith A helpful summary of the ideas behind Reformed (or presuppositional) apologetics. Written by Wes Bredenhof

http://www.theaquilareport.com/book-review-how-to-defend-the-faith/

Book Review: How to Defend the Faith — YINKAHDINAY

Pastor and author Wes Bredenhof reviews my book:

How to Defend the Faith: A Presuppositional Approach, Riley Fraas. Thaddeus Publications, 2018. Softcover, 133 pages, $8.99 USD. I first became interested in apologetics as a university student some 25 years ago. Back then, we didn’t have a lot of books written about the theory or practice of Reformed apologetics. I should qualify that: we […]

via Book Review: How to Defend the Faith — YINKAHDINAY

“How to Defend the Faith: A Presuppositional Approach” is released in paperback and e-book

Description: “You know that Christianity is the truth, but can you prove it in conversation with an unbeliever? How to Defend the Faith takes the apologetical theory of Cornelius Van Til, known as the presuppositional apologetic, and makes a practical guide for how to use it in real conversation with real people. This book equips the Christian with confidence that he or she will be able to soundly refute every non-Christian worldview that comes along, and logically prove the truth of biblical Christianity. It is intended for the Christian who desires to engage unbelievers with rational proof for Christianity, and would like to be more confident in knowing how to approach the debate and the words to say. With this book in your arsenal, you will never enter the intellectual fight unarmed again.”  Paperback: $8.99.  Kindle E-book: $6.99.

Rendering to Caesar: Civil Religion in Transition — TheEcclesialCalvinist

Issues with some of the historical analysis, but overall there are some helpful thoughts.

 

I presented an earlier version of this material at Erskine College and Seminary three weeks after 9/11. In the wake of that horrifying event we Americans struggled to make sense of it all, to recover our national sense of equilibrium. One of the more visible ways that Americans sought to make sense of it […]

via Rendering to Caesar: Civil Religion in Transition — TheEcclesialCalvinist

Sinless Concupiscence?

Richard D. Phillips states in his interesting update following the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly: “At the heart of our division on this subject is whether or not to define same-sex attraction (SSA) as a morally neutral status that does not require repentance. PCA progressives seem to have asserted such a sub-category beneath sinful desire (essentially adopting the pre-Reformation concept of concupiscence).”

I’m trying really hard, but I can’t for the life of me think of a definition of concupiscence that anyone in the Reformed or Presbyterian tradition would not consider to be sin.  According to Reformed (and even Catholic) doctrine, Original Sin is sin.  (Concupiscence, too.)  Any Presbyterian should understand that given the clarity of our confessional standards on the subject:

Westminster confession of Faith (1646), IV. Of the Fall of Man, Sin, and the Punishment Thereof

v. This corruption of nature, during this life, does remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.

But maybe those Westminster divines were suffering from Puritan Brain Syndrome.  Lest we think a contrary view that original sin and/or concupiscence are not in themselves sin, has a place in Reformed doctrine, let us see how soundly other Reformed Confessions proclaim that original sin is sin:

French Confession of Faith (1559)

XI. We believe, also, that this evil [original sin] is truly sin, sufficient for the condemnation of the whole human race, even of little children in the mother’s womb, and that God considers it as such; even after baptism it is still of the nature of sin,

39 Articles (1572), Article IX, Of Original or Birth Sin

And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized: yet the Apostle doth confess that con­cupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.

Belgic Confession, (1619), Article 15, Of the Doctrine of Original Sin

[Original Sin] is therefore so vile and enormous in God’s sight that it is enough to condemn the human race

Phillips mentions pre-reformation sources.  What would Aquinas say on the subject of whether concupiscence toward sodomy is sin?

Aquinas, Summa Theologica, “Whether Original sin is concupiscence?”

Augustine says (Retract. i, 15): “Concupiscence is the guilt of original sin.” (Aquinas, Objection)

Aquinas: Reply to Objection 1, …so far as it trespasses beyond the bounds of reason, it is, for a man, contrary to reason. Such is the concupiscence of original sin.

Reply to Objection 2 …Therefore original sin is ascribed to concupiscence, as being the chief passion, and as including all the others, in a fashion.

Reply to Objection 3 …for [concupiscence] clouds and draws the reason, as stated above. Hence original sin is called concupiscence

Some appetite (Aquinas), inclination or proclivity toward sin, lying below the level of desire, must be characterized as sin.  On first reaction, one wonders if PCA progressives are raising Pelagius from the grave. But on second thought, even Pelagius would have considered an inclination or proclivity to desire to commit sodomy to be sin (by imitation not by nature.)  Does anyone in the PCA believe in sin?

CanRC Proposal to Approve Trinity Psalter Hymnal

YINKAHDINAY

For several years, the Canadian Reformed Churches were working with the United Reformed Churches to produce a joint song book.  Progress was slow, but steady.  However, eventually the URC abandoned the joint venture with the CanRC and later decided to work with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church instead.  The OPC and URC are now on the verge of releasing the Trinity Psalter Hymnal.  Apparently it’s supposed to be available around the beginning of May.

The CanRC have been watching these developments closely.  At Classis Pacific East of February 22, 2018, the Aldergrove church presented a proposal to adopt the psalms and hymns of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal.  It was presented as a proposal for synod, with the hopes that classis would adopt it and forward it on via the next Regional Synod West.  According to the press release, Classis Pacific East did what Aldergrove asked.  So the proposal is going…

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Samuel Rutherford on the two kingdoms

And I see not, but those who doe confound them, may also say, that the Christian State and Christian Church be all one state, and that the government of the one must be the government of the other; which were a confusion of the two kingdoms. It is true, God hath not prescribed judicials to the Christian State, as he did to the Jewish State, because shadows are now gone, when the body Christ is come; but Gods determination of what is morally lawful in civill laws, is as particular to us as to them; Samuel Rutherford, Due Right of Presbyteries, 70.

On this day in 1837, the plan of Union ended

On this day in church history, 1837, the Plan of Union was abrogated by the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, meeting at the Central Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.  The Plan of Union was made in 1801 as an agreement between the Presbyterian Church and Congregational Churches to work together for planting churches in the west.  The Baptists and Methodists were outrunning both, establishing churches among formerly Presbyterian or Congregational settlers at a wildfire pace.  For them, it was enough to find a man with gifts, give him a Bible and one or two other books, put him on a horse, and smack the horse’s rear, sending him forth to preach and plant churches!  With their emphasis on an educated ministry, the Presbyterians and Congregationalists just could not compete.  It took them years to churn out a minister.  But they felt that there could be synergistic gains by working together.  After all, both denominations were Reformed, Calvinist, and Paedo-baptizers, with an emphasis on simple and reverent worship.  It seemed like a good idea.  And the Presbyterians were badly in need of ministers.  The majority of Presbyterian pulpits in the west were vacant.  They did not have the institutional strength of the Congregational churches such as the seminaries Harvard and Yale, (to which many Presbyterian students already went), nor the amount of giving to home missions and pool of young candidates that New England had.  The Presbyterians needed Congregational money and young men!  Men licensed to preach would go out and establish congregations, whether Congregational or Presbyterian, and the church plants could decide later upon being duly constituted, whether they were going to be Presbyterian or Congregational.  Presbyterian ruling elders or Congregational committeemen could join together in the regional presbytery/association in the mission regions.

A few decades later, the agreement was ended.  The Presbyterians to this day lament the New Haven Theology that came into the western presbyteries through men educated at Yale, and the Congregationalists lament that so much of their own members’ treasure and sons, in the end, had planted in the west, not so many Congregational as Presbyterian churches.  As the Rev. Mr. Lawrence proclaimed (to laughter) at the General Convention of Congregational Churches in Albany, New York, 1852, “They have often come from the West to our New England, and ranged over our fat pastures, and borne away the fleeces from our flocks; they have milked our Congregational cows, but they have made nothing but Presbyterian butter and cheese.”