I’ll be co-guest-blogging for Justin Taylor through August 9, so my light and sporadic blogging activity will occur over there for the next ten days.
Justin Taylor
A Teachable Spirit: A Short Article and Interview
Here’s an NPR-like 7.5-minute interview with Justin Taylor re his two-page article “A Teachable Spirit.”
- The article was published in the June 2009 issue of Tabletalk.
- The interview aired on Moody radio’s Prime Time America earlier today at 4:08 CST.
Abortion
I just listened to Justin Taylor’s Sunday morning sermon on abortion that he preached at his church on January 18, 2009. Three words come to mind:
- Sobering
- Convicting
- Motivating
After listening to Justin’s sermon, I have the kind of feeling that I might have felt if I could have watched Schindler’s List while living near Nazi concentration camps while WWII was still in progress. How can this unspeakably horrific evil legally be happening all around me? What am I doing about it?
Cf. these posts on abortion by Justin Taylor and John Piper this month:
Justin Taylor’s Recent Posts on Abortion
- Number of Abortions Since 1973
- How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma
- Conversation on the Gospel, Abortion, and Politics
- World Magazine on Abortion
- On Abortion and Gay Rights, Evangelicals and Liberals Join to Advise Obama
- Why I Hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
- An Open Letter to Barack Obama
- Life
- A Sermon on Abortion
- Roe No More
- One Simple, Practical Way You Can Make a Difference for Women and the Unborn
- The Case for Life, Around the Web
- Four Reasons You Might Be Aborted
- Abortion and the Early Church
- Moral Accountability
- Abortion and Obama’s First Few Days
- Amusing or Sad?
- Piper Responds to Obama on Abortion
- Being Pro-Life in a Culture of Death
John Piper’s Recent Posts on Abortion
- Being Pro-Life Christians Under a Pro-Choice President
- Lincoln’s Logic on Slavery Applied to Abortion
- Holding A Miracle
- Fifteen Pro-Life Truths to Speak
- The Baby in My Womb Leaped for Joy
See also John Piper’s resources on abortion.
Do Calvinists really believe in human responsibility?
Justin Taylor’s gentle, respectful response to John Piper notes this:
(1) The fact that God ordains all things (i.e., his secret will) has a limited effect on our decision making. It can’t prescribe how we act, but it can prevent us from having the wrong perspective (e.g., anxiety, fear, despair, misplaced trust, etc.). But in terms of interpreting events, the main way to read providence is backwards (as John Flavel wrote: “Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backward”).
(2) The fact that God ordains means ensures that our actions have significance. The ordained outcome can never be seen as an excuse for complacency or fatalism.
Calvinists believe in God-ordained means. This is not merely a platitude. John M. Frame says it well in Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1994):
The relation of divine sovereignty to human responsibility is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. It is plain from Scripture in any case that both are real and that both are important. Calvinistic theology is known for its emphasis on divine sovereignty—for its view that God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:11). But in Calvinism there is at least an equal emphasis upon human responsibility.
An equal emphasis? Many would not be willing to say that about Calvinism. . . . God’s sovereignty does not exclude, but engages, human responsibility. Indeed, it is God’s sovereignty that grants human responsibility, that gives freedom and significance to human choices and actions, that ordains an important human role within God’s plan for history (pp. 14-15, emphasis added).
Justin Taylor: A Theology of Vocation
On Sunday evening, October 12, Justin Taylor served my church by speaking on two subjects:
- a brief overview of the ESV Study Bible followed by Q&A (21:22 min.)
- “A Theology of Vocation” followed by Q&A (59:01 min.)
JT on the Temple
Boundless Webzine just published Justin Taylor’s “Behold the Temple,” complete with five beautiful illustrations from the ESV Study Bible.
The article has three headings:
- Looking Inside the Temple
- Walking around the Temple Courts
- Beholding the Real Temple
Interview with Justin Taylor on the ESV Study Bible
Justin Taylor on Genocide
Attendees of the recent New Attitude conference voted on some tough Bible questions, and NA just published Justin Taylor’s answer to this one: “How Could God Command Genocide?“