A Response To The Horror in Florida

FloridaVigilThe recent tragedy at the Florida high school has once again left Americans in agony to deal with the violence within our culture. Christians are often forced to deal with these headlines in a mix of their faith, the latest claims screaming for their attention on social media, their own cultural biases, and more.

I’ve found the following links helpful for thinking about the recent tragedy.

Nikolas Cruz And the Unmasking of Sin and Evil
Tom Ascol writes concisely:
“The reason that people carry out murderous rampages is not because of poverty, mental illness, guns, lack of education or any other social ill. At the root of such actions is the consistent outworking of sin—blatant rebellion against God.”
Founders Ministries Article Continue reading

Milne on the Puritans & Dreams

GMilne-WestminsterConfessionFaithCessationSpecialRevelationCareful studies that cut past stereotypes are incredibly useful today, and G.H. Milne’s The Westminster Confession of Faith and Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy Is Still Possible (Wipf & Stock: Eugene, OR, 2007) is of terrific use on the cessationist issue. As I’m preaching through the Jacob toledot on Joseph and the dreams God gives him, Milne’s points about how the Puritans saw dreams have been very useful. I might be able to post more on this topic in the future, but here is some raw data from the pages of Milne’s monograph for general use. Pick up his book! Tolle lege!

p. 93
More commonly, as [James] Usher highlighted, God divulged his mind through dreams and visions, such as those granted to Joseph and Daniel, which were instances of “Revelations whereby God signified his will”. Yet, just as with the Urim and Thummim, those divine revelatory dreams which were given to pagans or non-Israelites had a “temporal” salvific significance for the people of God. The dream given to the pagan soldier in the camp of Midian, for example, made Gideon confident of victory, inviting the comment from the Annotations, “Divine dreams are always either clear and evident of themselves, or else opportunity interprised for the benefit of God’s people.” Continue reading