New Era SBC President: a Mix of Reformed Baptist, Charismaticism

While I am a young-earth guy, all sides must be aware that the Bible does not present itself as a scientific textbook. While I agree that the loss of creationism is a problem, we must be very careful to stick to the most important things. A literal Adam and Eve are the most important aspect of Genesis' creation account. If there is no Adam and Eve, the theology of the New Testament simply does not work.

So, rather than "witch hunt" people who might not follow what we think, ask about Adam and Eve. If agreement is reached on a literal Adam and Eve, I can live with that and work for the other items.

Modern gifts and modern revelation are two separate issues. I lean towards cessation, it just can't be proven from the text of scripture. As for modern revelation, there is no such thing; the canon is closed.

Modern-day prophets do exist--they are called preachers. Modern-day Apostles are simply not possible since there is no one alive today who has been with Jesus since the beginning of His earthly ministry and saw Him after His resurrection. Prophets, biblicaly speaking, are not primarily telling future events. Prophets in the Bible hold the people of God to the Word of God. So, today, those people are preachers.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Love of nation is not a bad thing in and of itself. Blind love of nation runs the risk of ruining the soul. Misplaced nationalism plagued Israel for the entire Old Testament and it was never stated "Whatever Israel does is right simply because they are Israel."

Also, the language dis-confusion at Pentecost is an un-doing of sorts of Babel. Remember, the end of the story (Revelation) has one people of God from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That is globalization. The problem with Satan's idea of One-world whatever, is that it is nothing more than a counterfeit--A one-world idea not centered on the Lamb Himself.

So, again, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The Archangel

 

While a literal Adam and Eve are important, the death/sin timeline is even more important. The age of the earth is directly related to the cause of death and suffering. If you hold to an old earth, the relationship of sin and death is confusing at best. Death is no longer the result of sin, but existed millions of years before Adam sinned. That directly affects the gospel, and thus is a witch that should be hunted.

The issue here is sola scriptura. The sign gifts were given to authenticate the biblical writers and to authenticate the birth of the Church and its apostles. They were great signs and wonders and they set apart Scripture from every other source of revelation. The modern gift movement is a counterfeit that doesn't even claim to do the type of miracles that occurred at Pentecost. It's a claim of a continuation of revelation directly from God, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and undermines Scripture. That is definitely a baby that needs to be thrown out.

That would be like arguing for honoring only good parents. But that's not the commandment. Honor your parents, the good, the bad, the ugly. Paul tells us we owe our nation taxes, customers, fear and honor. Paul was a Roman citizen at the time, and Rome was no angel. The nations are from God. They protect the innocent and punish the guilty. Paul even calls them ministers. They have their problems, but they solve many more problems. We honor our nation out of gratitude to God, and we hurt our testimony when we don't.

The globalization you speak of is the one God will bring about. But the more recent one is of the devil, and we should be very wary of it. From Got Questions:

The Bible, therefore, shows that any time man attempts “globalization” it is ruled by wicked, ungodly empires. We should oppose globalization to the extent that we understand that it is implemented by Satan, currently the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4). It is interesting to note that man’s (and Satan’s) final attempt at globalization will include a resurgence of “Babylon,” which started the globalization effort so long ago (see Revelation 18).​

If God separated the nations to slow the progress of evil, we would be fools to try undo it. The world is evil enough divided. Imagine what it could do united. "nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them." We defiantly wanna throw out that baby, also.

 

And it seems both of these are fallout from the rejection of the origins account which clearly speaks of the creation of the genders, and the myth of separate races.

 

And just an additional point, I hate this nonsensical argument. The origins debate is not about science, it's about history. We either accept the history God revealed or we don't. But don't blame science. Science is a method of inferring recurring patterns in nature and making predictions based on those inferences. Science cannot directly investigate the origins of those patterns. Origins is almost exclusively learned from testimony, written or otherwise. If you're looking to science to discover your origins, you've completely missed the point.

 

Jhn 18:36
Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

 

His Kingdom is not yet here in full, but shall be "of this world" at His Second Coming!

 

Indeed. But he also said he was a Roman citizen and commanded us to put our countries first in regard to taxes, duties, fear and honor. That's why I like the American pledge, "one nation under God."

 

Here is where several have a problem... the "death before sin" argument. Of course human death is what Paul is referring to in Romans 5. And, if he's not, what do you do with digestion? It isn't as if animals and man grew butts for the purposes of defecation only after the Fall. The natural God-given biological and digestive processes that are at work in the gut of man and beast require what we would call "death." You would have to argue that not even bacteria died before the Fall and that human cellular replication began only after the Fall, which would be quite problematic.

I don't think I've ever heard this particular take on this argument. The sign gifts in Acts are largely misunderstood. Firstly, tongues refers to known languages (for that is plain meaning of the Greek). The manifestation of that particular gift happens in Acts only to signify the inclusion of a different group in the Kingdom of God and it served as a sign to the Apostles themselves. Secondly, the gifts (like casting out demons, raising people from the dead, healing, etc.) were to validate the Apostles in the eyes of the people, not Scripture. The Apostles would have no need for any signs and wonders to validate Scripture since they already held Scripture in highest regard and they had seen the risen Christ. So, that line of reasoning is quite poor, and goes outside of the text of Acts.

As far as the modern movement is concerned... Again, there does not need to be a conflation with the continuation of gifts and the continuation of revelation. These are separate issues, and not ever continuationist would argue for or accept "new revelation." In fact, most of us would flatly reject as heresy the idea of "new revelation."

And, to add, your understanding of the sign gifts is quite Anglo-centric. It may be possible, however unlikely, that groups which do not have the Bible in their language and only a preacher of the Bible might see some of those same gifts--new revelation NOT being one of them.

Again we have the conflation of issues. First, your reading of the Bible is in error. In Romans 13, Paul does not say what you are saying. Government (as a whole, as opposed to anarchy) is from God. Government is a tool in God's hand against the evildoer, etc. To argue that "Nations" and "Government" here are the same thing is to do violence to the biblical text and Paul's argument as a whole.

Secondly, the nations being separated is, as you say, a demonstration of God's grace. Having a "critical" nationalism is not the same as having the desire for a one-world government. To argue that one has to have a strong nationalism (which, in evangelical/fundamentalist-speak, usually means being a republican) or you support a one-world government is absolutely ridiculous.

The argument isn't nonsensical; the Bible never presents itself as a scientific manual. And, your comments here support the argument you say you hate.

No one is blaming science, whatever that means. No one in saying "the Bible isn't a scientific manual" is directly denying the history. What you're doing here, again, is conflating two things--science and history. It is possible to affirm the biblical history (which I and many others do) and point out the obvious: The Bible gives no scientific details when it gives the history of creation. As far as science goes, insofaras the biblical issues are concerned, it's not "predictions" we're after, but observation. We observe what God has done. The creationists (such as myself) and the evolutionists will look at the exact same set of data and reach different conclusions based on their presuppositions. Therefore, it is possible that the data is wrong or incomplete; it is possible that the right data is misread; or it's possible the right data is applied wrongly because of the presuppositions of the scientist.

The Archangel

 

There's a simple way out of this dilemma: Imago Dei. Those who were created in the Image of God were never intended to die; those who were not always were. In our core beings, we are not animals, and never were. It is more likely that (some of) the animals can be promoted to be as we are than that we could ever become as they are.

Actually, I'm very open to the possibility of new revelation and believe that I will see such within my lifetime. However, it will be attested by signs even more emphatic and specific than that which attended the apostles and even Moses. Some third-rate preacher in a second-rate church with a first-rate hustle? Forget it.

 

The classic, what about the plants? argument. You've made a very simple equivocation fallacy. You're mixing biblical terms with modern english terms, and getting yourself into a world of trouble.

Life, nephesh, is a only an attribute of beings with the breath of life. Plants do not live and die in the same way we or the animals do. They are biological machines as are insects, but are not considered by God to be alive in the same sense we are. There is so much written on this subject, as it's a common objection put out there by Hugh Ross and other compromisers. But it's easily refuted. You could read this short article get up to speed very quickly.

Nephesh chayyāh
A matter of life … and non-life

You misunderstood the point, and didn't actually think through the point you were making. The Apostles were authenticated by the gifts they were given, and many of them penned authoritative Scriptures themselves. And your point that they already regarded the Scriptures missed the mark because those also were authenticated by gifts given to their authors. You've argued yourself into a circle, unless you're going to try to argue that some Scriptures were not authenticated at all.

My concern is not with the gifts. I love miracles. Would love to see one. But what i see being put forth are pathetic counterfeits, and man claiming false authority by them.

LOL! Reading this, I thought you were going to actually support your point. I was bracing for a critical point I may have missed. But then you abandoned it and went to another subject. Please expand on how conflating nations and governments does violence to the text. This ought to be interesting, and may have an interesting perspective. But I would maintain, that while they certainly are different terms, they are often interchangeable, so I'm very curious what your concern actually is. So we honor the governments of nations, but not the actual nations? Is that your point? That's the violence?

You're still missing the point. Origins is not a scientific issue. The question you need to ask yourself is, is the Bible an accurate source of history? Remember, the only one stressing science so far, is you.

 

ANY new revelation that ever comes forth will be false revelation, as God has spoken to us in Jesus and the scriptures, and he will remain silent apart from the scriptures until the Second Coming!

 

Science has no workable reason to explain how the Universe got here, and just how life originated!

 

Exactly. For sure the 144 thousand are going to exercise some serious gifts. I have no problem with gifts. I'm just disturbed about what, today, is passing for gifts. Even those exercising them are admitting they are not on par with the gifts given at Pentecost. I could agree and add, they're not even demonstratively miraculous. And good stage hypnotist could duplicate anything going on in charismatic churches, today.

 

Apostolic gifts, if they were still in operation today, would have had the majority of the Fake charismatics dried up, as God would have shown to all what the real deal shoudl liik like!

 

Actually the kingdom of God is here now but imperfect.

 

True, and it well be made perfect, once the perfect comes!

 

Jesus was not a Roman citizen. He lived in a country that was under their control much like France was with respect to germany during WW2.

 

Paul I meant, so point taken. Paul commanded taxes, customs, fear and honor and Paul affirmed his Roman citizenship, and even used it to his advantage many times. And Paul certainly believed his citizenship was also in heaven, and also in Rome (in but not of).

 

Exactly and it makes me wonder if charismatics have a low view of miracles and gifts. Or perhaps they just believe they possess a lower class of gifts.

 

They are being taught in many churches a defective view on God and the Gospel, and a really elevated view of Man!