This past weekend my pastor preached on Abraham and Isaac. Yesterday I again heard a preacher speak on it - this time Paige Patterson at the Real Evangelism Conference at Southeastern. This has got me thinking about that story.

This passage in Genesis 22 is quite obviously a christophany. Isaac represents all of humanity / the elect (depending on your Calvinistic persuasion), Abraham represents the wrath of God, and the voice from heaven is Jesus (often refered to in the New Testament as the angel of the Lord), who offers a substitute for us.

Something interesting that Dr. Patterson pointed out was the ram. His horns were tangled in the ticket, just as Jesus later had a crown of thorns. I found that quite interesting. Comments? Questions? Bueller?

Mark Driscoll is quickly becoming one of my favorite preachers. Recently he’s done something really interesting by creating http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/ and giving anyone in the world the ability to get a whole sermon from Mark Driscoll to answer the question. The trick is, your question then had to be voted for and be in the top nine. There were 893 questions asked, 5,524 comments made, 343,203 votes cast in the end. And now Driscoll’s preaching on this. Sort of reminiscent of Paul’s letters when he addresses concerns that were raised to him. In case you were wondering, here are the final nine questions.

1. Do you believe that the Scripture not only regulates our theology but also our methodology? In other words, do you believe in the regulative principle? If so, to what degree? If not, why not? ( 310 comments and 25,181 votes)
2. What can traditional/established churches learn from “emerging” churches? (168 comments and 24,642 votes)
3. How does a Christian date righteously; and what are the physical, emotional, and mentally connecting boundaries a Christian must set while developing an intimate relationship prior to marriage? (222 comments and 21,373 votes)
4. If salvation is by faith alone (Romans 3:28), then why are there so many verses that say or imply the opposite, namely that salvation is by works (James 2:24, Matthew 6:15 & Matthew 7:21, Galatians 5:19-21) (105 comments and 21,337 votes)
5. How should Christian men and women go about breaking free from the bondage of sexual sin? (100 comments and 21,311 votes)
6. Of all the things you teach, what parts of Christianity do you still wrestle with? What’s hardest for you to believe? (38 comments and 21,285 votes)
7. Why does an all loving, all knowing, and all sovereign God will into creation people He foreknows will suffer eternal condemnation? Why does Romans 9:20 feel like a cop-out answer? (98 comments and 21,218 votes)
8. Why do you make jokes about mormon missionaries, homosexuals, trenchcoats wearers, single men, vegans, emo kids and then expect these groups to come to know God in the same sermon? (346 comments and 21,101 votes)
9. There’s no doubt the Bible says children are a blessing, but the Bible doesn’t seem to address the specific topic of birth control. Is this a black and white topic, or does it fall under liberties? (120 comments and 21,008 votes)

To listen or watch these messages online (or download podcasts), check out on Mars Hill Church’s website for the sermon series.

This is an article Tim Challies posted over at his site, Challies.com.

Yesterday I began a short series on the inerrancy of Scripture, looking at whether there are errors and contradictions in the Bible. You can read the first article and the response to it here: Are There Errors in the Bible?. When I first began to develop and understanding of this doctrine, I found that the doctrines of Scripture cannot be neatly separated, one from the other, for they are intertwined and interrelated. So in the first article I wrote about inspiration, canon, transmission and authority. Today I will turn to inerrancy, first explaining what it is not (often a good place to begin, I find) and then providing a working definition.

Read the rest of the article.

I’m briefly going to write about the life of Rev. Bob Green, a pastor from my home town. I was going to call this post “A Tribute to Bob Green,” but that would not correctly speak to what his life was about.

I first moved to Dahlonega in 1987 as a five year old. Since my grandmother attended Dahlonega Baptist Church, as did my mom when she was a child, we began attending there. Reverend Green was the pastor. I listened to him week after week from 1987 until 1993, when he retired. The entire time he was my pastor, he lived out the fruit of the Spirit. His life was love, which led to joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He was always digging into God’s Word and looking at the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek.

Very recently, he passed away from a serious medical problem. My wife and I decided to drive to Georgia to attend his funeral. We arrived there thirty minutes early to make sure we had parking, since we were bringing my grandmother. She’s in her eighties and has trouble walking. There were only one or two spots left in the entire parking lot of the biggest church in town - his former pastorate and current church. We barely got seats in the sanctuary. They also had overflow with video and audio all through the hallway and into the fellowship hall downstairs.

The fruits of his life include an amazing testimony in his children and grandchildren. His son Mark, currently a minister (of music, I believe), spoke of his amazing ministry to his family and how he never let his family fall by the wayside. He also read to us what was Bob’s last writing - a list of things he would like to do before he went to be with Jesus. At the end of this list, he said basically what Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane - “not my will, but yours be done.” Also, a hospice chaplain whom he had worked with spoke of his great humility. Finally, the pastor who came in after he retired, Bill Hutcheson, spoke of how Bob never got in the way when he released the pastorate. He also told of how, up to the end, he was asking how others were, what was going on in their lives, and how much he loved them all. Both Mark and Bill picked Galatians 5 - the fruit of the Spirit - as a focal passage. That was unplanned, but really showed how true it was in Bob Green’s life. One just automatically equated those aspects to his life.

Another aspect of the funeral that glorified God was his grandchildren. They all got up and read various Scripture. Of those grandchildren that I knew, each verse he or she read exemplified either where they were or were going in life. For example, one of those that is currently overseas working with a church plant, Andy, had the Great Commission read for him and his wife, by his little brother.

Obviously, his life touched many people. He officiated so many weddings and funerals and baptized and counseled so many people and touched so many lives - his life was a legacy. Now don’t get me wrong, this was not a legacy to him; it was a legacy to God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23