1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 1 Part 9-10: Interpretation and Authority
OUTLINE Interpretation Authority
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Chapter 1 Part 6 The Sufficiency of Scripture
OUTLINE Completeness of scripture Cessation of scripture Illumination of scripture Principles of scripture INTRODUCTION A challenge that every Christian faces is the question whether the bible is enough. In every age there is a challenge to the sufficiency of scripture. The Bible and … was a challenge that was faced at the time of the Reformation. On the one hand you had the Roman Catholic Church saying that the Bible and Tradition was necessary for the Christian; from another side you had the Anabaptist accusing the Reformers of having a dead letter, they were encouraging mystical experiences, prophecies, visions...
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Do We Need Confessions?
INTRODUCTION You have likely heard the statements, ‘No Creed but Christ’ or ‘No Creed but the Bible.’ Firstly, let us consider the good in these statements. I as a younger Christian would have been heard to say such things, and there would have been a good intention in saying them. For many being Protestant and not being Roman Catholic, this means that Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone is our authority. The Roman Catholic Church admits tradition as binding in a way that only scripture should bind us. So many in a Protestant sense, denying the authoritative role of tradition...
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2 Timothy 3:14-17: Continuing in the Truth
For our new year’s meditation I want to direct you to 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Firstly appreciate the context: Paul warns Timothy about a massive turning away from the truth, v1-7, But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among...
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Big Bang or Creation?
Introduction: In my last talk on apologetics we dealt with the objection to miracles, that was the first of three talks on the scientific objections to Christianity. Today we want to consider the objection to the Christians view of the beginning of the universe, and next week we will look at the objection to the Bible’s teachings on the origins of life. Today many people believe that the Bible’s view of Creation is incorrect and that a Big Bang cosmology has done away with the problem of a Creator and makes them satisfied atheists. Big bang cosmology has a...
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Romans 11:28-32: God’s gifts: Part Two
Outline Christ and the priesthood Introduction We are talking about what many people think will happen to Israel in the future. There are many who think that there will be a literal temple with literal priests and literal sacrifices. We have begun to show that this is impossible. Using our key for interpretation that all the promises are yes in Christ, and a view of God’s promises that sees their fulfilment as larger than anticipated we have shown that the church is the foretold temple of Ezekiel. Today we continue to address these matters and will be looking at...
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Ephesians 6:14a: The Belt of Truth
Outline Worldview Doctrine Introduction The belt of truth that the Christian is to employ in order to stand against the devil and his schemes is under attack. In particular it is under attack from two fronts, both from within the church and from without. The two main attacks against the truth we are up against are the experience based approach to truth within the church, and the postmodern scepticism of 21st century Western culture. The experiential approach to truth has an interesting history as it has been influenced by Liberalism and Pentecostalism. Since the time of the Enlightenment many...
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Covenant Grace Baptist Church: What’s in a name?
Outline Covenant Grace Introduction These are the words of Juliet to Romeo in Shakespeare’s famous play: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The original play was about two lovers from warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets, the point of the line is to show how names are irrelevant when the substance remains the same. If that is the case why did we change the name from Marchwiel Reformed Baptist Church to Covenant Grace Baptist Church? Let’s make a few things clear. We are not renaming ourselves...
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