September 19, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton Here is the final portion of my interview with Justin Taylor on John Owen:
Stay tuned- in a few weeks, I'll be posting my interview with Justin on the forthcoming ESV Study Bible.
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September 19, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton That be right mateys, today be that day of the year when we talk like pirates. Why? All I know is the last scurvy dog who asked that question now lives in Davy Jones locker. So ye best be talkin' like a pirate!
Here be a song to put ye in the mood. So grab some rum and sing along!
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September 18, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton Here's the second part of the interview on John Owen:
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September 16, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton A few weeks ago I stopped by Crossway and had the opportunity to spend some time with Justin Taylor. We first discussed John Owen, and in a few weeks, I'll post our conversation about the ESV Study Bible. Here's part one of three on John Owen:
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September 15, 2008 Posted by David N Adam Graham at Culture11 has posted a short but insightful article explaining why the Left just can't stop talking about Sarah Palin…no matter how hard they try:
The statement was not theocracy (as she put the challenge of reaching people on the students and not the state), but of the limits of government's power. This is the ultimate heresy to the far left. If the power to solve society's ills is not found in the government, if man is more than a carefully balanced hierarchy of needs and wants than liberalism is bankrupt.
Read on at culture11.com.
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September 11, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton
Let's hope they do invite Voddie
Baucham back- he's a breath of fresh air!
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September 10, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton Everyone loves free stuff- so how about a free copy of The New Media Frontier, edited by John
Mark Reynolds and Roger Overton. Crossway will be sending a free copy of the
book to the first 30 people who agree to review on their blog or Facebook page.
Here are the details:
1) Send
an email to marketing@crossway.org
with the subject “New Media Frontier Giveaway” with your name, mailing address, and blog address.
2) Crossway
will send you a shiny new copy of The New
Media Frontier.
3) Read
the book and post a review on either a blog or your Facebook profile so all
your friends can see it by October 31st, 2008.
4) Cross-post
your review on Amazon.com
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September 2, 2008 Posted by David N 
During the recent civil forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, Senator Obama was asked point blank when he believed an embryo became a human life worthy of the same rights as any other American citizen. Obama responded that the answer to that question was “above his pay grade.”
Fair enough. We can't expect the President to be an expert on everything. That's why he has expert advisers. In this case, that's why he has an expert in bioethics.
I'd be fine with Obama's response if it weren't for his promise to support the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). According to Family Research Council, “FOCA would obliterate hundreds of state laws that
protect women, parents, children, and health care workers, while
forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for millions of abortions. It would
overturn
commonsense laws like parental notification, conscience protections,
abortion waiting periods, informed consent, and regulations for women's
health. In essence, FOCA would tilt the table for abortion.”
Now, it seems to me that if the answer to the question of when a baby's life is worth protecting is above Senator Obama's pay grade, then a decision such as whether or not to sign FOCA into law should be even further above it.
This isn't even a simple question of whether or not I think one should vote for a pro-choice candidate. Should one vote for a candidate who strongly supports a position that he admits to not fully understanding? Should one vote for a candidate who does not think deeply about his decisions, and who will enact policies without truly understanding the important issues?
Can you imagine if one of the candidates had said that they could not answer the question of whether or not the current war in Iraq was a just war, and then went on to promise that he would stay committed to the war and increase the number of troops??? Obama's answer makes no more sense.
Posted in Culture, David's Posts, Ethics, Main Page, Politics 2 Comments »
August 29, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton
How Can We Glorify
God as His Creation?
Now that we have considered that God created for his own
glory, and how his creation glorifies him, we come to our application. How does
God’s glorify manifest in creation affect our lives?
I’ll focus in on one area here: What
does God’s image in us mean for how we live?
Because all humans are made in God’s image, people of every
race and nationality have equal value and dignity and deserve equal rights. It
means we should not be careless with people’s lives, whether by letting
abortion continue or by speaking harshly toward others. God’s image affects how
we care for the elderly and disabled as well as our view of dating and
marriage. In essence, it affects how we interact with, relate to and behold
other human beings.
After explaining that the greatest commandment is that we
love God with all of our hear, soul, and mind, Jesus said, “The second is like
it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments
depends the whole Law and the Prophets.” How is the second commandment like the
first? Our love for others depends on our love for God because we are made in
his image. You cannot love God and fail to love other people.
Certainly, as Francis Schaeffer said, all men “have value,
not because they are redeemed, but because they are God’s creation in God’s
image.” But there is something even more deeply profound between believers. “If
Jesus commanded us so strongly that we love all mean as our neighbors, then how
important it is especially to love our fellow Christians.”
Jesus said in John 13: “A new commandment I
give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are
to love one another. By this all people will know that
you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He essentially said,
“You may judge whether or not an individual is a Christian on the basis of the
love he shows to all Christians.”
Similarly, when Jesus prayed for his So whether or not people believe that Jesus was
disciples he said, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will
believe in me through their word, that they may all be
one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,
so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The
glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as
we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may
become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved
them even as you loved me.”
sent by God to some degree depends on how we love one another and live in
unity. Such love and unity among believers is the greatest way we can glorify
God before we are perfected in Christ.
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August 28, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton How is God Glorified
in Creation? (Continued)
Imago Dei
Human beings are unique in God’s creation because we are the
only beings he created that were made in his image. We learn this in the very
beginning. Genesis recounts that, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over
the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps
on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them.”
Being made in God’s image means that we are like God and
represent him. Being like God entails a limitation: though we bear some
similarities to God, we are not God. It also communications an amplification:
we are more like God than anything else.
The Fall distorted the image of God in man. We have lost our
moral purity and due to sin, no long reflect God’s holiness. We easily believe
falsehoods, slander each other in our speech, and strive against each other in
our relationships. Every aspect of our lives has been adversely affected by the
Fall.
However, though God’s image has been distorted, it is not
lost. A few chapters later, in Genesis 9:6, God told Moses, “Whoever sheds the
blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own
image.” If murder is wrong because we were made in God’s image, then we still
maintain God’s image, despite its distortion.
As Christians, we are called a “new creation.” Colossians
tells us that we are being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator.
We are essentially being restored to God’s image through our sanctification.
And part of our blessed hope at the consummation of all time
is that we will be fully restored to God’s image. 1 Corinthians 15:19 says
that, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
God’s image in man is manifested in number of ways, I would
just like to look at four of them here:
1) We
reflect God’s image in that we are moral creatures. We are morally accountable
before God for our thoughts and actions. We have an inner sense of right and
wrong that distinguishes us from other creations.
2) We
reflect God’s image spiritually. The very essence of who we are isn’t defined
physically but by spiritual, immaterial means. Our souls are immortal and will
live forever whether they worship God or curse him. Our spirituality means we
can relate to God and other people on a level no other creature can.
3) We
reflect God’s image mentally. Man has a unique capability for critical
reasoning and improvement. Among other things, this allows us to use abstract
language. We therefore have a matchless capacity for creativity through arts,
music, literature, scientific and technological advancements.
4) We
reflect God’s image in how we relate to one another. Humans have the means by
which to have deep and meaningful relationships in community, friendship,
family and marriage. And marriage itself is a unique reflection of how God
relates to his people.
The Incarnation
There is still a greater example of God’s glory in creation,
however. The greatest manifestation of God’s glory in creation took place when
the Creator became part of his creation. When Jesus took on human flesh his
glory as God was not diminished. Rather, God provided a focal point for his
glory in creation, such that to truly see his glory we must look to his Son.
We were made in the image of God, meaning we are like him in
some ways. However, Colossians describes Jesus as “the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation.” While we are necessarily less than God,
Christ is only less in how he emptied himself to take on human flesh, and this
he did voluntarily.
Throughout scripture, we saw that glory has to do with a
shining radiance. This description of light culminates in Jesus. Hebrews 1:3
tells us, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his
nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Only Jesus, in
all of creation, can be the “exact imprint of God’s nature” since he is both
God and man.
It was impossible for men to behold the glory of God due to
our sinfulness. Isaiah worried that he would be destroyed because he beheld
God’s glory in a vision. But now that Jesus as come, we can behold God’s glory
in the Christ. In his account of the gospel, John explains that, “the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
There are two occasions where the disciples recorded God’s
glory in the Christ in very visible details. One is in the transfiguration in
Matthew 17: “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John
his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes
became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah,
talking with him.”
The other is at the beginning of Revelation: “Then I turned
to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden
lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed
with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head
were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his
feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like
the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth
came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full
strength.”
The imagery in these verses abound with such radiance
so that there is no room for missing the point: God’s glory is manifest in
Jesus Christ.
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