Sanam Doctrinam

We’re shutting down. Once our domain runs out, there will be no more SanamDoctrinam.org. If you would like to visit the archives, you may at sanamdoctrinam.wordpress.com

All the archived posts there are attributed to jballigood, but you know that Todd and Jeff contributed over the years. It can be a fun game of guess the authors.

If you’d like to follow Jason still you can check out his semi-blog over at jason.doogilla.com

Thanks for the memories…

While hopefully not being dogged by my audience of three for not ever blogging anymore, I would like to update you on the Shepherds’ Conference this year.  I will give a few synopsis of what we’ve heard so far…

Day 1
MacArthur started things off with a message entitled “Why every self respecting Calvinist, Evangelical, Christian should believe in a Six Day Creation.” And he said we can hang it on three words. I will summarize:

1. Fidelity
Basically, if you don’t take the first chapter of the Bible literally, where do you begin? Where does fidelity to the Scripture begin? (Gen 1 and 2)

2. Simplicity
Simply put, God’s Worship is tied to Him as creator. He created man in the beginning to worship Him, he creates the new man now to worship Him. If man was an evolutionary process, at which point did he become “created” as a worshiper of God? (Job 38-41)

3. Priority
God has a designed end. God designs from the end to the beginning. God is doing something and if He knows how it ends He has designed the beginning, with that end in sight and it will be accomplished. It is all about redemption (Eph. 3; 1 Cor 15; 2 Cor 4:6)

Day 2
Rick Holland preached on 2 Corinthians 11:3 and spoke about how there are three implications of Pastoral Theology in this one verse!

1. A Fearful Ecclesiology (But I am afraid…)
This is that pastors would get a healthy fear that people can be led astray…

2. A Functional Bibliology (Eve was deceived…)
Satan uses our language, but his dictionary, so we must be on the look out for deception.

3. A Jealous Christology (Devotion to Christ…)
We must have a singular devotion to Christ…

Very, very good. Especially since Mohler followed up tonight with Matt 7:28-29 admonishing us that as preachers we must preach with authority, because it is the Word of God and for God’s glory!

That’s it for now.  I’ll try to update more later…

Many of our Charismatic friends might throw the accusation that we discount the Holy Spirit and His role in the life of a Christian, because we do not focus in on Him that often in our preaching or in our prayers or in our “experiences.”

While I do believe, as a reaction to the Charismatic movement, we do tend to shy away from the topic; we also are attempting to approach the matter Scripturally and in displaying Him in this way, we see that He tends to take a more subtle and definitely a more inward (inside us) role.  In light of this, I believe our friends who are Charismatic have given an undue and unscriptural emphasis to Him and attributed roles to Him that are not His.

(Side note: There is a wide variety of “theological flavor” within the umbrella of Charismatic so I am tending to think of those who are true believers, yet have been distracted by experience, sometimes in an extreme way.  I am not trying to fight against a particular group or specific experience [i.e. Holy Spirit laughter], I am just using the term generally to speak of a wrong emphasis on the role of the Third Person of the Trinity.)

In short, Jesus promised us in John 16 that the Spirit would:  be our Helper; convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment; guide us (believers) in all truth; He will disclose what is from the the Son and the Father (this is submissive, is it not?)  Now certainly these are all vital and vibrant duties and we praise God for them!  But they are also “behind-the-scene” roles.

One of the most striking roles of the Holy Spirit is that of Our Deposit.  Ephesians 1:13-14 says,

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (NASB 95)

It says He is given as a pledge for our inheritance.  “Pledge” here means a deposit which guarantees.  We are given a “first installment” of what is to come and we have assurance because of it!  God has not left us without a hope and as a guarantee as a deposit, we have the Holy Spirit residing within us convicting us, enlightening us and comforting us!

Oh for that day when our faith shall be sight!  I do long for it and I long to worship the Triune God in all His majesty!  And I am grateful that while I’m here on earth awaiting my full redemption, our Lord has sent His Holy Spirit to reside within those whoa re truly His!

I would like to pick up with a series I started last year which I ended up coining “everyday man’s theology.” The point of this was to show that THEOLOGY is not relegated to the ivory towers of seminary, etc, but that all people who claim to love God should love Theology, because Theology is the study of God. (simplistic yes, but you get the point!)

This obviously is not theology for the sake of knowledge alone, but also for the sake of loving more the One we say we love.

So with your permission (all three of you who actually read this,) I will start afresh tomorrow.

Please join in prayer for the Aaron Southwick family this morning. Aaron (a faithful reader and commenter on this site) and his wife Kristi are “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” because they are “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in them.” See links here and here.