Koukl, G, 2009, 'Tactics', Zondervan

Some notes from this book which I found helpful/interesting - though there is definitely a 'culture gap' between US & UK!

• "Tactics are not manipulative tricks or slick ruses. They are not clever ploys to embarrass other people and force them to submit to your point of view. They are not meant to belittle or humiliate those who disagree so you can gain notches in your spiritual belt;" p.27
• "All I want to do is put a stone in someone's shoe. I want to give him something worth thinking about, something he can't ignore ..."" p.38
•  "There are three basic ways to use Columbo. ... Sometimes ... to gather information. Other times, I ask a question to reverse the burden of proof, that is, to encourage the other person to give the reasons for her own views. Finally, I use questions to lead the conversation in a specific direction." p.49
• 
  

[To be continued ....]

Postscript: I do NOT share the Koukl's views on Evolution and several other 'peripheral' beliefs.

Do you have 'Saving Faith'?

A recent post by C Michael Patton, Why I Don’t Like “Once-Saved-Aways-Saved” , made me think about the marks of 'Saving Faith'. I'm not sure it's all that complicated, though I'm also sure I'm missing something - can it really be this simple I wonder? Of course 'easy to say' doesn't mean 'easy to do', nevertheless I think that discerning whether someone has 'saving faith' can be broken down into three simple points:

1. Do they believe in God and in Jesus his son, our Saviour?
2. Do they do 'good works'?
3. Do they show fruit in their life?

No ONE element is sufficient, ALL are necessary. Thus:

1. Belief is necessary:

• Romans 3:22 '... God's righteousness in Jesus Christ by faith to all who believe ... ' (my paraphrase).

BUT belief on it's own without the other two won't help. 

• James 2:19 'You believe in one God, great, so do demons and shiver.' (my paraphrase).

2. Good works ARE necessary:

• Matthew 25:31-46: The 'parable' of the Sheep vs the Goats
• James 2:17: Faith and no works is 'dead' (Gk: necra)

But works on their own are simply 'dead (Gk: necron) works' Heb 6:1 & 9:14

3. Fruit or Christian character.

• Galatians 5:22-23 '... the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, slow temper, kindness (Gk:chrestotes), goodness, faith, meekness, self-control ...'

Do we see the Christ-like character in ourselves, or in others?
Not perfection clearly but do these fruits become more evident in the way we behave towards our fellows? If not, I venture to suggest that you need to seek God earnestly.

So there it is - my handy checklist. It's not deep theology (so needs to be treated carefully) and, I hope, nothing new but if we don't have ALL three elements in our lives I tentatively suggest that we have NOT got 'saving faith'.

In all this I must conclude by reminding everyone that above all else

• 'God is love' (1 John 4:8 and again, in case you missed it the first time, in v16) and
•  that God 'is unwilling that any should perish' (2 Peter 3:9).

 God really wants you in heaven.

Prayer - listening AND talking

Many people quote Soren Kierkegaard "A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realised that prayer is listening." Christian Discourses (source not verified)

I know that Kierkegaard had a much broader view of prayer, see all the prayers he writes as an example. While I feel that Kierkegaard's quote is a vital reminder to us, nevertheless I like Leithart's way of putting it: "Prayer is a dialogue, a matter of mutual speaking and mutual learning. Prayer is inherently an act of trust, evoked by confidence in the word of God and by hope that God can and will do something in response to our prayers. Anyone with the boldness to ask God to listen to his or her words and petitions should do God the courtesy of first listening to his."

Leithart, Peter (2006), 1 & 2 Kings, SCM Press, p.130.

Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose

"... rulers ... when they honour opinion before truth, can do as much [harm] as brigands in the wilderness." Justin Martyr, First Apology, 12:66 trans. Minns & Parvis, 2009, p.105, OUP

Ryle on science and the Bible

'The Bible was not written to teach a system of geology, botany, or astronomy, or a history of birds, insects, and animals, and on matters touching these subjects it wisely uses popular language, such as common people can understand. No one thinks of saying that the Astronomer Royal contradicts science because he speaks of the sun's "rising and setting".' Ryle,JC, 1878, Old Paths, 2005 ed, Banner of Truth, p25

Ryle goes on to quote (p.26) from Whewell's Philosophy of Inductive Science, Vol.i, p.686:
'The language of Scripture is necessarily adapted to the common state of man's intellectual development, in which he is not supposed to be possessed of the sciences. Hence the phrases used by Scripture are precisely those which science soon teaches man to consider inaccurate. Yet they are not on that account the less fitted for their purpose, for if any terms had been used adapted to a more advanced state of knowledge, they must have been unintelligible to those to whom the Scripture was first addressed.'

This is very prescient given that Ryle was writing BEFORE the advent of either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity and we're still struggling with getting those 'right' - maybe String Theory, maybe MOND, ...? If God really wrote 'scientifically' about the creation or about miracles no one alive today would understand what He was saying to us.

As Cardinal Baronius (1598) said "The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

JC Ryle's Old Paths - Incomplete

There follows a brief description of Ryle's book 'Old Paths' and an outline of it's contents. I have found Ryle to be a very systematic thinker and his tracts (see below) are arranged in a very systematic way. I could easily imagine him using PowerPoint were he alive today.

Ryle describes this book as '... a series of papers, systematically arranged, on the leading truths of Christianity which are "necessary to salvation".' (p.v). First published in 1878 this is a collection of tracts most of which '... were written separately, and at long intervals of time, in some cases of as much as twenty years. On clam reflection, I have thought it better to republish them, pretty much as they originally appeared.' (p.x).

Contents
Preface
1. Inspiration

1.1.The Bible is given by inspiration of God.

1.2. The extent to which the Bible is inspired.

'I abhor the “mechanical” theory of inspiration. I dislike the idea that men … were no better than organ pipes … or ignorant secretaries … who wrote by dictation what they did not understand. … I believe that in some marvellous manner the Holy Ghost made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style of thought, and the peculiar mental temperament of each writer of the Scriptures. But how and in what manner this was done I can no more explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. I only know that there is both a Divine and a human element in the Bible … [which] is really and truly the Word of God. I know the result, but I do not understand the process. … I can no more explain the process than I can explain how the water became wine at Cana, … or how a word raised Lazarus from the dead.' (p.18).

1.3. A “few words of plain application”

'… it is not want of time, but waste of time that ruins souls!' (p.32)

2. Our souls

3. Few saved
4. Our hope
5. Alive or dead
6. Our sins
7. Forgiveness
8. Justification
9. The Cross of Christ
....
19. Perseverance [of the Saints]
 

All quotes etc from Old Paths, 2005 ed, Banner of Truth.