I like to read Roger Olson. He is one of those thinkers who helps provide balance for my normal diet of Reformed Biblical and Systematic Theology. Sometimes I disagree with him strongly. But I always appreciate his erudition and personable style of communicating it. I linked to this on FB the other day, but I post it here now because I really think it’s an important (and disturbingly accurate) evaluation of many of today’s breed of evangelicals: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/05/a-shocking-conclusion-about-american-christianity/ …
Category: Theology
Part One Biblical Covenantalism tracks the covenants through Scripture for the sake of putting together a composite picture of God’s plan. The covenants are the backbone of Scripture. If we pay careful attention to these covenants as they arise, we will not be able to bypass the everlasting “covenant of peace” which God made with Phinehas and his descendents in Numbers 25. The fact that a covenant of this kind is casually passed over with barely a mention and not …
Question: Which plainly stated Covenant in the Bible is most often neglected? The answer is the covenant which the LORD made with Phinehas in the Book of Numbers. The circumstances surrounding this covenant centers around the doctrine of Balaam as it was realized at Baal Peor (Cf. Num.31:16; Rev. 2:14). Amid the idolatry and fornication a Simeonite by the name of Zimri openly brought a Midianite woman into the camp of Israel and took her into his tent to have …
This is a slightly revised version of what I wrote as a response to a question from progressive dispensationalist Darrell Bock about the inauguration of the Davidic Covenant at the first coming of Christ. Darrell Bock: How can a dispensationalist see the current application of the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant (see the Last Supper in procuring forgiveness we now experience) and not see the Davidic covenant being initially realized by what Jesus has done, as Luke 3:16 …
Faith and Reason in Christian Perspective – Pt. 1 Faith and Reason in Christian Perspective – Pt. 2 In this third and final article on the roles of faith and reason I want to turn to examine some biblical passages, which, I think, really help us to understand why reason must be driven by faith. The first of these comes from the Garden of Eden. Autonomy: Our Default Position in the Use of Reason Although we do not have a …
Recently K. Scott Oliphint of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia has published a book which he has called Covenantal Apologetics. I reviewed the book here and recommend it. But I expressed reservations about the writer’s agenda of rebranding Van Til’s apologetic teaching in line with the book’s title. Coming as it does from one of the foremost representatives of Van Til’s presuppositional approach around the thesis deserves attention. As I said in my review, by “Covenantal” Oliphint means the ‘covenants’ of covenant …
Part One A Case Study: Harold Netland and the Demand for Neutrality As we further consider whether reason should be categorized separately to faith as properly functioning independent of it, I cite the example of an article by Harold Netland entitled, “Apologetics, Worldviews, and the Problem of Neutral Criteria.”[1] In Netland’s 1991 article we see an able but, I believe, misguided critique of presuppositionalist John M. Frame’s epistemology as set forth in his book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of …
This and the following piece are old posts to which I am giving more daylight. I hope to append a Part Three! It appears to me that one of the first things a faithful theologian needs to do is to straighten out the confusion brought about by the world’s separation of faith and reason. This relationship is so vital to a biblically fastened worldview that to neglect it will involve the believer in a host of conflicting beliefs and …
PART ONE This completes the thoughts offered previously. 4. Systematic Theology Coming now to Systematic Theology the first thing that must be said is that the pretended stand for a partial system must be summarily dropped. Dispensational Theology cannot be switched out for the term Dispensational Premillennialism. In point of fact, I make bold to say that the notion of Dispensational Premillennialism is a bit of an odd bird without a full-orbed system to back it up. Most Dispensationalists have …
What is a Dispensationalist Theology? For one reason or another traditional Dispensationalism has been abandoned by all but a relatively few Bible students. The wild success of the Left Behind novels is no sound indicator to the contrary. Two much better indicators which point decisively the other way are the degree of serious attention given to this point of view in most Biblical and Systematic theologies, which is nugatory; and the stunning lack of scholarly works in these areas by …
