Josh Parker

1689 Reformed Baptist. | Living for the Glory of God

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@postnuance @Darbyfan2472 That would be very interesting to read!

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@Literal_Word @ColtonYarbro That's amazing!!! I recommend your app to every Christian brother I know but I use NKJV the most, so that would be amazing :)

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@GreyReformer @Brian_Sauve @noahdaneburnett Good to hear! They've likewise been a good encouragement to me as well. I'm in Sydney

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@thespearing Hey brother, praise God! What are some examples of business I can start to leave to my kids (and involve them)? I work as a physiotherapist which isn't really transferable to my family

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@SteveMeisterVDM Thanks for your explanation brother, would you then say love or mercy are manifestations of God's goodness in the same way wrath is of His justice?

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@buildchristian Go brother! What are the best resources you've found on how to do this?

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@RealDavidReece Thanks

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@Eric_Conn Looks good! Question: what's the best equivalent book for men?

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@nocoradio Robert Reymond

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@nocoradio Van Til and CS Lewis

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@D_B_Harrison @ChrisHohnholz God is the ultimate cause of all things - He has ordained all things – including sin. But he is not the "author" i.e. the immediate cause of sin. Understanding levels of causation help us to distinguish this rightly.

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@pastoraldoleon Hey brother, how would you state what R2K is and what is the biggest problem(s) with it? Thanks God bless

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@TomHicks2LCF I'm skimming through Colquhoun's book – particularly where it talks about obedience and faith and I can't find anywhere in that faith is defined as obedience. Rather the opposite – faith is contrasted with obedience i.e. works of the law. Was there a section you had in mind?

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@TomHicks2LCF The content of what our faith receives distinguishes it from other non-Christian faiths

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@TomHicks2LCF Yes, thanks it's on my reading list. I've done Lectures by Fred Malone and read books he's recommended (through Seminary). And that's why I'm questioning the distinction you're making in your post

The fact faith receives distinguishes it from "other" obedience

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@TomHicks2LCF What separates a "Christian" faith from another kind of faith e.g. Muslim, agnostic etc. is the content of what it receives. Faith of any kind is receiving, believing, trusting etc. To change the content of it distinguishes it from other faiths, not from obedience. Thoughts?

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@TomHicks2LCF Thanks for your post brother, but I would hesitate to say it "is" obedience. Would it not be better to say "faith obeys" the Gospel call? And that it is different from other the obedience which is "works of the law" because (1) it receives rather than does (2) it is in the mind

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

My post on biblical authority and Genesis Part 1 ended with:

I suggest that most people, even in our churches, have the wrong glasses on.

Biblical Authority and Genesis Part 2

We’re wearing evolutionized glasses, and we’re trying to add God to our evolutionized understanding, and we wonder why we have all sorts of problems. Let me give a practical example. One of the questions I have been asked many times is this: “How do you fit dinosaurs with the Bible?” Are you ready for a shock? I answer, “You don’t fit dinosaurs with the Bible!”
Now why did I say that?

Well, you don’t take man’s interpretation of the evidence and try to fit dinosaurs into the Bible. Here’s the point: you use the Bible to explain dinosaurs. You use the Bible as history, and put on your biblical glasses. Does the Bible tell us when God made land animals? Absolutely. Does He tell us what they ate before sin? Definitely! Does the Bible tell us anything about their history? Yes, they sailed on an Ark. Where did they end up? In the Middle East. And then what? They came out of the Ark. What happened to the dinosaurs that didn’t get on the Ark? They drowned. What would you expect to find? Dead ones. What do you find today in the fossil record? Dead ones.

So, what happened to the world’s dinosaur population? Well, because of sin and the Curse and the effects of the Flood, things are dying out; extinction is the rule (a number of species of animals become extinct every day). There is a very long list of animals that have become extinct, including dinosaurs. What, then, is the mystery? It’s only a mystery if you take man’s fallible interpretation of the evidence in the present and somehow try to fit it in to the Bible. It is not a mystery if you accept the Bible as history—you already have the right way of thinking with which to understand the evidence.

By the way, the same approach works with the Grand Canyon. How do you fit the Grand Canyon into the Bible? You don’t, but you use the Bible to explain the Grand Canyon. And that is a totally different way of thinking. Consider this: creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians, humanists and Christians—do we all study the same world? Of course! Do we have the same animals? Do we have the same fossils? Do we have the same Grand Canyon? The same universe? Do we have the same facts? Yes! The facts are all the same. What is the difference?

In other words, the fight is not about facts—not about the evidence. The battle is about how you interpret evidence, which depends upon the history you believe to begin with. The real battle between Christianity and humanism, between creation and evolution, between Christian and non-Christian, is a battle between two different accounts of history—man’s fallible view of history or God’s infallible revelation of history. That’s the real battle. We’ve got to recognize that the origins issue is really one concerning authority—God’s Word versus man’s word.

I was brought up in the secular education system and it took me years to try to “de-evolutionize” myself. But all of us are evolutionized in some way. People come to me and say, “Look, I’m trying to witness to a non-Christian and he says, ‘Don’t give me that Bible stuff, I don’t believe the Bible. I want evidence; give me some evidence.’” When folks come to me with this dilemma, I say, “Don’t let them set the terms of the debate.”

Again, the evidence is all the same. If you go out there and try to give them “evidence,” what you’re actually doing is giving them an interpretation of the evidence, and all they’re going to do is reinterpret the facts. They are wearing a different set of glasses. You need to set out to fit them with a new pair of glasses (biblical glasses) so that they will understand.

A girl came to me at a conference and said, “What you’re saying makes sense. I go to Penn State University. We talk about ethics concerning using human embryos for research, and I have been telling my professors that it’s wrong. However, I don’t get anywhere with them.” She paused, then continued, “I suddenly realized this morning that it’s the glasses aspect I’m missing.”

By and large, academics have a different foundation, a different set of glasses. We need to explain this to them by saying something like, “I can understand why you think the way you do. If you don’t believe there’s a God and you believe that we’re a result of evolution, you’re looking at the evidence and thinking, What’s wrong with using human embryos? We’re just animals anyway. But I want you to understand my position. I believe the Bible is the Word of God; you might not, but I do. And because of that, I have a particular way of thinking. That’s why I interpret the evidence the way I do.”

Thus, you simply explain where your thinking is coming from. Also, consider Romans 10:17: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” and thus:

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14–15)

It’s the Word of God that convicts, that is sharper than a two-edged sword. I’m not going to divorce my presuppositions from the way I interpret the evidence.

Thus, I can say, “You might not believe the Bible; but I do. And what I want to show you is that, when I build my thinking on the Bible, I can make sense of the world. I can logically defend the Christian faith. I can show you that the statement “in the beginning, God created” is confirmed by science. I can show you that God created distinct kinds of animals and plants, and that this is what we observe in the world. I can show you that a global Flood makes sense of a worldwide fossil record.” I tell them that I can’t prove this explanation to them, because “without faith it’s impossible”—but the more I argue this way, the more I’m showing that the Bible is the best and correct explanation. I then go on to explain that they also need to listen to the rest of the Bible, including the gospel.

Sadly, though, most Christian adults and young people don’t think like this. Let me give you a simple (but often-overlooked) reason why so many believers fail to see the world through biblical glasses.

The church has separated the Bible from the real world. They have been disconnected, if you will. As we’ll see, the church has accepted the world’s teaching, and by doing so it has undermined the authority of the Word.

Do Churches Really Believe the Bible Is the Ultimate Authority? The statement of faith at most churches reads something like this: The Bible is the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and practice. Is there anything wrong with that statement? No, not in itself; I agree with the statement. But there is a problem with it that we’re not seeing. Let’s look at it this way: Where the Bible touches on geology, can we trust it? What about biology, astronomy, and chemistry?

Of course we can trust the Bible because it is the Word of God. The Bible is not just the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and practice. The Bible is the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and practice and everything it touches upon (which includes geology, biology, and so on). That’s what I think much of the Church has missed.

[Josh Parker @josh928]

@CrisisofMission Hey, when will this film be released? It looks great :)