28 September 2008
Theologians love to speculate. The problem arises when they begin to think of their speculations as fact — and especially when they begin to convince laymen that their speculations are fact. Then the bare fact that the speculation comes attached to the name of a famous theologian or pastor makes it authoritative — until somebody starts asking for biblical backing.
Sadly, many people don’t bother to ask.
When that happens, the speculation takes on a life of its own, and before you know it, it’s one of those things that “everybody knows,” and questioning it becomes literally unthinkable. That way lies ruin; it is exactly in that way that tradition becomes more authoritative than God’s Word.
Case in point: there’s a particular bit of speculation going around that God created man in order to prove to Satan that His judgment of Satan Read the rest of this entry »
28 Comments | 
Meditations | Tagged: Christianity, doctrinal movement, fall of satan, religion, satan, sola scriptura, speculation, theological science fiction, theological speculation, theology, thieme, tradition | 
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Posted by Tim Nichols
21 September 2008
The second in a series of papers on liturgical matters, Unity and Music: Five Hills to Die On addresses five specific areas of concern as our church tries to find its way, musically speaking. It starts out like this…
One of the worst things about Christians is our tendency to feel that because everything is a matter of principle, everything is equally important. Consequently, we often waste time and resources fighting over trivial things when there are really serious issues in play. Nowhere is this more true than in church music. I have, to my considerable shame, been a combatant in some really stupid arguments over Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Liturgy, Part 2: Unity and Music | liturgy, Meditations, music | Tagged: Christianity, church, church music, congregational music, culture, honesty, liturgy, music, psalm-singing, psalms, relationships, religion, theology, unity, Worship | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
14 September 2008
In the pagan world, when one person wrongs another, the first step is often to involve third parties: friends, a coworker, the boss, a lawyer, etc. In serious cases, the first step may be to take the offender to court. If either party is unsatisfied with the outcome of the court case, then the unsatisfied party can appeal to a higher court, and so on, until the Supreme Court gives a final ruling. In that system at its best, the goal is justice. For offenses among believers, however, Jesus instructs us in a different procedure and a different goal. In Matthew 18, Jesus establishes the pattern for a believer to follow when one of his Christian brothers has sinned against him. He says,
Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.
The procedure seems clear enough. When some brother Christian offends you, there are four steps. We might think of these as a lower court, an appeals court, the (earthly) supreme court for Christian conflict resolution, and a final judgment. Read the rest here.
1 Comment | How To, Meditations | Tagged: Bible, Christianity, conflict, conflict resolution, Deuteronomy, excommunication, Matthew, Matthew 18, practical theology, reconciliation, relationships, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
24 August 2008
The first of several planned papers on liturgical matters, “Against Liturgy-Bashing” attempts to clear away the nonsense that plagues our thinking in many American churches. To bring it closer to home: our local church is in desperate need of liturgical reform, and we cannot even begin to build a God-honoring liturgy until we have cleared away the underbrush of the pagan ideas that harden our necks and soften our heads. To that end, this paper addresses several common objections to liturgical worship. Two excerpts:
Does the leading of the Spirit require spontaneity rather than planning? Again, we can return to the commands to sing in order to see the fallacy here. Imagine if we all just got together, and on the count of three, all began to sing whatever words happened to pop into our heads, set to Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Liturgy, Part 1: Against Liturgy-Bashing | liturgy, Meditations, News | Tagged: Christianity, church, liturgy, liturgy-bashing, religion, theology, Worship | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
17 August 2008
If you had to be stuck on a desert island for [life, ten years, or some other long period of time], what books would you want with you?”
It’s a common thought experiment, and usually the occasion of much consideration and discussion. If you hang out with the more passionate readers, as I often do, it will also be the occasion of heated debate. Yesterday, I happened upon an interesting twist on it, and I’d like to share it.
So get out your pen and paper, and here we go.
No, seriously, get out a pen and paper. (Or open a Word document, or whatever). You’ll thank me later.
The challenge is to answer the standard question, as stated above, but with two additional conditions. First, all your physical needs are taken care of, so assume you have no pragmatic need for medical texts, homesteading reference books, etc. This is strictly life-of-the-mind stuff. (Of course, if you enjoy reading medical texts, that’s another thing…) Second, you have only two minutes to answer, starting right now.
Go. Tick tock.
Done? Good. I’d love to hear your list. This was mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Desert Island Reading | Classics, Meditations | Tagged: Christianity, church history, Classics, great books, philosophy, theology, western canon | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
10 August 2008
The opening chapters of How to Read Genesis by Tremper Longman III are pretty good. So when I got to chapter four, titled “Myth or History? Genesis and the Enuma Elish” I was excited. I had just recently engaged an unbeliever on the question of whether the biblical stories — or at least the supernatural ones — were myth or history, and I have also long been intrigued by the contrasts between Genesis and Enuma Elish. I was looking forward to seeing Longman’s take on it.
I’m sorry to say that I was sorely disappointed. Longman writes:
Read the rest of this entry »
9 Comments | Meditations, Reviews | Tagged: Bible, Christianity, creation, Enuma Elish, Genesis, gnosticism, James Jordan, theology, Tremper Longman, worldview | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
15 July 2008
It seemed appropriate to add a little more about the nature of my approach to apologetics, since what we’ll be doing is a little uncommon.
My basic orientation on apologetics is that it’s all of a piece with theology, evangelism, and culture. Having a gleefully Christian take on everything from anchovy migration patterns to Zulu cooking is an integral part of defending the faith, not to mention a very persuasive witness in itself. Of course, no one person can know about everything, so learning how to construct a Christian approach to the subject at hand is terribly important.
Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Further News on the Apologetics Seminar | Apologetics, News | Tagged: Apologetics, christian worldview, Christianity, presuppositional apologetics, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
6 July 2008
Commentary and translation choices are always tricky. The Bible has inspired a lot of comment and translation over the years, and a surprising amount has been poorly done. Nowhere is this more true than with the Song of Solomon.
The first and most blatant problem is the number of interpreters whose starting point is a red-faced “It can’t possibly be saying that!!! So they gin up a flimsy excuse and explain how the Song is really about Christ’s love for the church.
Apparently the church has captivating hair, an intoxicating navel, and really nice breasts (Song 7:1-5). Of course, the real problem with this view is not the patent absurdity of it — and it is absurd — but the starting premise. Why shouldn’t the Song be exactly what it sounds like — a frank celebration of married love in all its complexity, delicacy, and lush sensual splendor?
Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Anti-Gnostic Song of Solomon Translations and Commentaries | Reviews | Tagged: Canticles, Christianity, commentary, love, marriage, Old Testament, poetry, sex, sexuality, Song of Solomon, Song of Songs, theology, translation | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
22 June 2008
For those of you who last checked in with biblical counseling when Jay Adams was in his psychology-skewering heyday, you need to come have another look. The present generation of spokesmen for biblical counseling offers a more well-rounded, richer grasp of Scripture and a much more sober-minded tone. While there certainly was some justification for Adams’ jeremiads, the present generation seems to have rediscovered the value and utility of brotherly kindness, a mode of interaction sadly lacking in the early writings of the movement.
Of the present voices, one of the clearest and most articulate is David Powlison.
Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture is not a “counseling model” as such. It is to a counseling model what a list of mountaintop elevations is to a topographic map of the entire mountain range: it touches on the high points, and leaves the rest alone. But this seemingly incomplete way of teaching turns out to be surprisingly instructive.
Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Seeing with New Eyes | Reviews | Tagged: biblical counseling, CCEF, Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, Christian life, Christianity, counseling, David Powlison, practical theology, psychology, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
21 May 2008
If you don’t wrestle with pacifism at some point in your Christian life, you’re probably just not thinking. The martyrdom of the prophets and apostles, to say nothing of the martyr witness of countless saints, demands attention. In considering the testimony of these amazing believers past and present, the question is bound to arise: “Is it really okay to defend yourself? Is it really okay to kill rather than be killed?”
It is a good question, and it calls for a biblically grounded, carefully articulated answer. This post is not about the answer to that question.
This post is about what happens next if the answer is “Yes.”
The debate with the pacifists has utterly dominated discussions of the ethics of self-defense. From the perspective of the pacifists, this makes perfect sense. There’s no point in discussing the details of “ethical self-defense” if it turns out to be an oxymoron. However, from the opposite perspective, spending all the time arguing with pacifists makes no sense whatsoever.
Like the poor, the pacifists will always be with us. At some point we have to give up trying to convince them and turn our attention to other aspects of the topic. Granted that there’s such a thing as godly self-defense, what does it actually look like? What would it mean to prepare for godly self-defense? How do we think about self-defense in a godly way? To read more on these and other salient questions, see Buy a Sword: Toward a Theology of Civilian Self-Defense.
10 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: ethics, martial arts, pacifism, self defense, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
Full Contact Christianity 
Anti-Gnostic Song of Solomon Translations and Commentaries
6 July 2008Commentary and translation choices are always tricky. The Bible has inspired a lot of comment and translation over the years, and a surprising amount has been poorly done. Nowhere is this more true than with the Song of Solomon.
The first and most blatant problem is the number of interpreters whose starting point is a red-faced “It can’t possibly be saying that!!! So they gin up a flimsy excuse and explain how the Song is really about Christ’s love for the church.
Apparently the church has captivating hair, an intoxicating navel, and really nice breasts (Song 7:1-5). Of course, the real problem with this view is not the patent absurdity of it — and it is absurd — but the starting premise. Why shouldn’t the Song be exactly what it sounds like — a frank celebration of married love in all its complexity, delicacy, and lush sensual splendor?
Read the rest of this entry »