• “If you don’t fear God, you’ll fear everything.” — Dan Horn

• “People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke

• “The cold water of persecution is often thrown on the church’s face to fetch her to herself when she is in a swoon of indolence or pride.” — C. H. Spurgeon

• “We should never do what we cannot pray God to bless.” — James Smith

• “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” — Sir Richard Steele

• “One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine.” — Richard Baxter

• “Heaven is eternity in the presence of God through a Mediator. Hell is eternity in the presence of God with no Mediator.” — Tony Reinke

• “The measure of a great teacher isn’t what he or she knows; it’s what the students know.” — John C. Maxwell

• “Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.” — George Washington

• “Luther once said, ‘The devil hates goose quills,’ and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit’s blessing, have done his kingdom much damage.” — C. H. Spurgeon

• “I began my education at a very early age—in fact, right after I left college.” — Winston Churchill

• “Even if you are on the right track, but just sit there, you will still get run over.” — Will Rogers

• “[N]ot one particle remains to man as a ground of boasting. The whole is of God.” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.3.6)

• “I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” — Jackie Mason

• “Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your own living room by people you wouldn’t have in your house.” — David Frost

• “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
 — Edmund Burke

• “A ship in the harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.” — John Shedd

• “I’m not lost.” — Frank Churchill

• “Non-Christian investigators of nature are as successful as they are because they work with stolen capital.” — Cornelius Van Til

• "When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy." — Corrie ten Boom

• “A lot of men have a wishbone where they ought to have a backbone.” — Unknown

• “Paul’s life was a prophetic book for Jews to read and see how to be saved, so our lives should be an easy to read book for the lost on how they can easily be saved.” — Ken Ham

• “I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx

• “Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.” — Martin Luther

• “TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.” — Unknown

• “The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.” — La Rochefoucauld

• “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.” — St. Augustine

• “Some people get an education without going to college; the rest get it after they get out.” — Mark Twain

• “[T]he ministry of Satan is employed to instigate the reprobate, whenever the Lord, in the course of his providence, has any purpose to accomplish in them...” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.4.5)

• “People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.” — J. C. Ryle

• “True education is not giving in the answer, it’s in showing them how to find it.” — Kelly Crawford

• “Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.” — Paxton Hood

• “Drag and Drop for Windows users: DRAG your peecee off your desk, and DROP it in the trash.” — some forum member’s tagline

• “Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.” — Elias Boudinot

• “Self-righteousness is being more aware of and irritated by the sins of others than you are conscious of and grieved by your own.” — Paul Tripp

• “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” 
— Martin Luther

• “Dreams don’t work unless you do.” — John C. Maxwell

• “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they simply make the best of everything they have.” — Unknown

• “Thanks, modest girls. Appreciated by a male whose time studying the ground is proportional to each degree of rising temperature.” — Unknown

• “The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value."— J. C. Ryle

• “Question everything but Scripture.” — Geoff Botkin

• “When she married you, she gave you her life to spend. Are you spending your life wisely?” — Dan Horn

• “What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.” — J. C. Ryle

• “I will keep the ground that God has given me and perhaps in his grace, he will ignite me again. But ignite me or not, in his grace, in his power, I will hold the ground.” — John Knox

• “People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.” — Thomas Sowell

• “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” — C. S. Lewis

• “Man does not need to know exhaustively in order to know truly and certainly.” — Cornelius Van Til

• “My dear friend, when grief presses you to the dust, worship there.” — C. H. Spurgeon

— October 19th, 2012 —

Book Review: “By This Standard,” by Greg Bahnsen

“God’s Law or Chaos. God’s Law or Tyranny. God’s Law or God’s Judgment. For over a century, most conservative Christian social thinkers have denied all three of these assertions. Some of them have even gone so far as to argue that God’s law is inherently tyrannical. But God’s law is not only just and sufficient, it is obtainable and ideal for civilization. Christianity has the opportunity to overcome all evil with good, and the basis for all good is in the richness of God’s law.
 
God’s law is Christianity’s tool of dominion. This is where any discussion of God’s law ultimately arrives: the issue of dominion. Ask yourself: Who is to rule on earth, Christ or Satan? Whose followers have the ethically acceptable tool of dominion, Christ’s or Satan’s? What is this tool of dominion, the biblically revealed law of God, or the law of self-proclaimed autonomous man? Whose word is sovereign, God’s or man’s?
 
Millions of Christians, sadly, have not recognized the continuing authority of God’s law or its many applications to modern society. They have thereby reaped the whirlwind—cultural and intellectual impotence. They implicitly have surrendered this world to the devil. They have implicitly denied the power of the death and resurrection of Christ. They have served as footstools for the enemies of God. But humanism’s free ride is coming to an end. This book serves as an introduction to this woefully neglected topic.” — from the back cover

 
This is a fantastic book. Using the words of Jesus Himself, the God-breathed words of the Apostles and others, and the general attitude of Scripture regarding the law, Dr. Bahnsen clearly and cogently shows from Scripture that the New Testament supports the continuing validity of certain aspects of the Mosaic Law.
 
He describes the tripartite classification of the Law—moral, judicial, and ceremonial—and shows how the first two categories are still valid. Moral laws—those laws regarding our personal behavior, such as “Thou shalt not covet”—are still binding on all men. No man in his right mind will say otherwise. Judicial laws—those laws which, while also moral, have civil implications, such as tax laws and penal sentences—are likewise binding on all men, but in principle. That is to say: many of these laws had cultural aspects to them which obviously are not quite the same now; so while a man should still receive the death sentence for homosexuality, it is not necessary for stones to be employed. But it is necessary that his death be a public example, as a warning for other would-be malefactors.Ceremonial laws—those laws which relate to the sacrificial system—are no longer binding, because of Christ’s atonement. To continue keeping these laws would be sin. Another division, arguably part of the ceremonial laws (as opposed to its own category) is that of the cultural separation laws—such tassel laws, beard-cutting laws, blended-fabric laws, dietary laws, etc. These no longer apply, either.
 
Here is an excellent quote taken from the book, pages 16–17:

…There is no word from God which fails to tell us in some way what we are to believe about Him and what He requires of us. Paul put it in this way: “Every scripture is inspired by God and PROFITABLE for doctrine, for reproof, for correction for INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, in order that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). If we disregard any portion of the Bible we will—to that extent—fail to be thoroughly furnished for every good work. If we ignore certain requirements laid down by the Lord in the Bible our instruction in righteousness will be incomplete. Paul says that every single scripture is profitable for ethical living; every verse gives us direction for how we should live.
 
The ENTIRE Bible is our ethical yardstick for every part of it is the word of the eternal, unchanging God; none of the Bible offers fallible or mistaken direction to us today. Not one of God’s stipulations is unjust, being too lenient or too harsh. And God does not unjustly have a double-standard of morality, one standard of justice for some and another standard of justice for others. Every single dictate of God’s word, then, is intended to provide moral instruction for us today, so that we can demonstrate justice, holiness, and truth in our lives.
 
It is important to not here that when Paul said that “every scripture is inspired by God and profitable” for holy living, the New Testament was not as yet completed, gathered together, and existing as a published collection of books. Paul’s direct reference was to the well known OLD TESTAMENT scriptures, and indirectly to the soon-to-be-completed New Testament. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul taught New Testament believers that every single Old Testament writing was profitable for their present instruction in righteousness, if they were to be completely furnished for every good work required of them by God.
 
Not one bit of the Old Testament has become ethically irrelevant, according to Paul. That is why we, as Christians, should speak of our moral viewpoint, not merely as “New Testament Ethics,” but as “Biblical Ethics.” The New Testament (2 Tim. 3:16–17) requires that we take the Old Testament as ethically normative for us today. Not just selected portions of the Old Testament, mind you, but “every scripture.” Failure to honor the whole duty of man as revealed in the Old Testament is nothing short of a failure to be COMPLETELY equipped for righteous living. It is to measure one’s ethical duty by a broken and incomplete yardstick.

But what are we to make of the dismissals of the law in the New Testament? Dr. Bahnsen deals with these alleged dismissals as well.
 
Truly the conclusions Dr. Bahnsen reaches in this book are logically inescapable.
 
A must-read.
 
 
 
INDECENCY: None.
BAD LANGUAGE: None.
AGE RANGE: Starting with as young men and women as can understand it.

Posted on October 19th, 2012 by Kyle Shepherd | Tags: ;culture, dominion, ethics, nonfiction, orthopraxy, theology, theonomy | Permalink |

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