“It’s Not Fair!”

“It is unspeakably dreadful to find the great majority of those who profess to receive the Scriptures as divinely inspired, gnashing their teeth against its author when informed that He has sovereignly elected a people to be His peculiar treasure, and to hear them charging Him with being a hateful tyrant, a monster of cruelty. Yet such blasphemies only go to show that “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” AW Pink, The Doctrine of Election

“Be Perfect Even as Your Father is Perfect”

One of the greatest controversies that has been a part of the church since its inception is the role that the law plays in the life of a Christian. On the one hand, you have those who believe that the law is everything. In other words, you can do what you need to in order to attain perfection and be “right” with God. This idea found perhaps its greatest proponent in America in the person of Charles Finney. On the other hand, you have the folks who, like the non-lordship salvation proponents, will tell us that the law matters not one wit. As long as you say a prayer and “accept” Jesus you’re golden. Thus, you have people such as Sam Gipp, a King James only proponent, telling us that an individual who rejected his faith and now does his best to destroy the faith of others, is still saved (whatever that means!)

Imitating the Godly

“I think my mind has been too intent on things which I look upon as services for the Church. But God will have us know that he has no need of me nor them, and is therefore calling me off them. Help me with your prayers that I may, through the riches of his grace in Christ, be in some measure ready for my account.” John Owen, Letter to Charles Fleetwood

One of the defining differences between the Bible and the purported holy books of other religions, is the fact that the Bible does not seek to paper over the faults of its main characters. From beginning to end, the Bible shows the lives of the protagonists in its narratives with their many virtues, but also with their many warts. Although it calls Abraham the “friend of God” (James 2:23), it also tells of the unbelief that led him to seek to have a child with Hagar (Genesis 16) and to lie about Sarah (Genesis 20). Although it says that David was a “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), it also tells of his adultery, murder and unbelief (2 Samuel 11). (As an aside, the Qur'an, and Islam in general, considers all its prophets sinless).