Category: Evangelical Calvinist

Charlie Kirk was just a guy, a highly motivated and gifted brother. He was constrained by the love of Christ. He saw himself as an emissary for Jesus Christ. And it was because of all of this that he died a Christian martyr’s death. He was too young, some would say (I would). And yet, the Lord has a story, has a ministry, a service for each one of us who are His own. Sometimes that story entails living a long life on this earth, eighty or ninety years, maybe. And other times, like my little brother, it only lasts…

How does God’s sovereignty work, in a God-world relation? First, to speak of God’s sovereignty can never be done so in abstraction from God’s cruciform life for the world in Jesus Christ. It is from within this unio mystica (‘mystical union’) of God and humanity, in the particularity of the man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ, wherein God’s actions, where His power, His sovereignty and everything else must be thought. When we ponder the end for which God humiliated Himself in the Son for the world, we recognize that this ponderance goes back even before the foundations of the world; indeed,…

Charlie, died in Christ. Christ in Charlie was an aroma of life leading to life, for some, and for others, an aroma of death leading to death. It was the aroma of Christ perfusing through Charlie’s witness for his Lord that brought connection for all, through the Holy Spirit. People are longing deeply for the peace of Christ, the speech of Grace that perfumed Charlie’s interactions with others, and we collectively saw that taken away in a violent way. Charlie, was just living the Christian life in public, which is a uniting not a fracturing life. Rest in the peace…

God’s “Constancy,” as Barth refers to his preferred term for Immutability, is a key doctrine in regard to God’s constant steadiness of ousia (being), as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (hypostases). But when a notion of immutability is derived from the classical Greek philosophers rather than what is Self-revealed in God in Christ, we end up with a notion of godness that ends up having no correlation between the living God and a god of phantasm. Below, Barth is driving this point home as he relates it to a theology of prayer. The objection that God cannot hear man’s prayer…

A word on my (double) alma mater’s closure, Multnomah University (Bible College) and Multnomah Biblical Seminary. It was announced almost two years ago that Multnomah University would be “merging” with another Christian University (albeit a genuinely Christian liberal arts university), Jessup University, located in Rocklin, CA (a suburb of Roseville and Sacramento, CA, respectively). It was sold to the alumni, and students, and faculty and staff, as if Multnomah would continue on as an institution; albeit, under the aegis and funding of Jessup University. Or at least this is one way it left itself open to be interpreted (and it…

The examples given to us in Holy Scripture for living the Christian existence, particularly in the New Testament, are people like the Godman, Jesus Christ, the Apostles, like, Peter, John, Paul et al. Their lives, respectively, embodied the message, the Kerygma, the Gospel itself; indeed, as Christ in Himself is the Gospel by the Holy Spirit. So, when I look out at the Christian existences in the 21st century I scratch my head. The Christian existence is in fact a deeply theological existence. Theological existence is simply living participatio Christi (participant with Christ), it is thus, inhabitatio Dei (inhabiting God’s triune…

Just finished again, by God’s grace and mercy. The way I do it is to just start at the beginning and read straight through. While I’m in the OT I am concurrently reading whatever NT books I feel led to read at any given time. Once I make it into the NT I just read the NT through until the read through is complete. At points, on this viatorum, I have read the OT in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) order. I read various translations (and I have read through the NT in the original Koine Greek), but my go to has…

The following is from an X/Twitter account that identifies herself as THE Based Trinity. She is clearly a Roman Catholic, of the Latin Mass proclivity. And she was recently, or at some point, invited to a Protestant church service. Below I will provide her response to that experience, and then below that I will respectively present my response to her as I offered that on X. I got invited to a Protestant “service.” Here’s how it all went down. The intro alone was 40 minutes of the “worship” band finding the resonant frequency of all my internal organs, making me…

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the…

I just finished Book 4 of 4 of Peter Lombard’s Sentences. This signifies my elevation to a Cardinal (I have taken the name: Cardinal Benedict Leo Francisgrow) in the Holy Church LOL . If you need any Te Absolvo my doors are always open. Athanasian Reformed