Golden Rule Epistemology

Posted on April 18, 2024 by RC

It was an easy argument. As a graduate student in English at Ole Miss I had developed something of a reputation as a contrarian, a gadfly. Which led one colleague to ask me words to this effect- “RC, you always make challenging comments in class. It’s like you think you have the right answer, and everyone else’s answer is wrong. Don’t you think that’s arrogant?”

I replied, “I believe that truth exists apart from me, outside of me. I can know it, just like everyone else. In fact, I have a duty to know it and to submit to it. You, and most of our classmates believe there is no truth outside of each of us, but that we construct our own truth. You have no duty to submit to anything, since you are the Creator of your own reality. Which position is the arrogant one?”

I recount this story not to pummel poor post-modernism once again. Instead I do so to commend applying the Golden Rule to our epistemology. Because we are sinners we all desire to privilege our own understanding, and we look askance at all who disagree with us. We have one set of standards by which we approve of our own convictions, another by which we disapprove of those with other views.

Recently an otherwise thoughtful fellow on twitter opined that complementarianism was a joint project of various theological ne’er-do-wells, right wing strategists, Confederate sympathizers, theonomists. He reached this conclusion because most right-wing strategists, Confederate sympathizers and theonomists are complementarians.

I pointed out, using the same standard, that if such a standard were workable, then egalitarianism was a joint project of feminists, progressive “evangelicals” and cultural Marxists. Oddly, he found my reasoning less than compelling. Because, you know, it’s not compelling, just like his.

Guilt by association for thee, but not for me, he seemed to believe. Well, we’re all guilty by association with this kind of sloppy reasoning. That is, his failure is common among us all. The Golden Rule isn’t just about what we do to others, but how we reason with them.

Before we make an argument we should first look at the structure of it, quite apart from its content. We can do this simply by applying the structure to our own view. Such may not demonstrate that our view is false. It will, however, demonstrate if our argument is flawed, fallacious.

It is something of an irony that the hard laws of logic intersect with the soft call to walk a mile in our brothers’ crocs. Steering clear of various formal and informal fallacies is not only a good way to love the Lord with all our minds, but a good way to love our brother, and to love our enemies.

Arguing unfairly is not only a bad way to win an argument, but a bad way to win a friend. May God give us the grace to love well enough to argue with precision and care, for the sake of the truth and the sake of all of us when we’re missing it.

Posted in 10 Commandments, apologetics, ethics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, logic, philosophy, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Grace Again; Internet Discourse; Laughter; Sin, in Heaven?

Posted on April 17, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in 10 Commandments, Biblical Doctrines, church, cyberspace, Devil's Arsenal, ethics, Good News, grace, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Brotherhood of Grace

Posted on April 16, 2024 by RC

Grace is a virtue that is not only far more powerful than nice, but, not coincidently, is far more difficult to cultivate. All it takes to adopt a nice attitude toward others is to simply not care. Nice, in fact, is close kin to apathy. Grace, on the other hand, requires a right balance and right application of indifference, and passion.

Consider the indifference. Have you ever noticed that confusing phenomenon wherein you find it far easier to be angry with those with whom you have the most in common? The people closest to us, whether emotionally or ideologically, have the greatest capacity to test our patience. We expect little to nothing from our ideological enemies.

The truth is, however, that the greater issue is over what is under our jurisdiction. It is not my duty to make sure that in all issues everyone else be as sound as I think I am. I won’t answer to God for these things, and so can maintain peace because it’s outside of my control. All this is just a drawn out version of the punch line in the serenity prayer. As a big mouthed boor I usually do okay having the courage to try to change the things I can change. But it takes grace to be at peace about the things that I can’t. Understand that I’m not suggesting that I don’t care. I care deeply, but I don’t feel responsible.

Where does the passion come in? Often we destroy our peace with our brother because we lack a passionate commitment to the gospel. We miss three central truths, all of which are grounded in grace. First, we forget that we are sinners. One of the reasons we are so easily put out by others is we operate under the assumption that we are God. This, of course, is false. Nevertheless, we often lose patience with our brothers because they aren’t bowing and scraping before us. If we remember that perhaps they’re not throwing roses in our path might be because something we have done wrong, we will go a long way in keeping the peace.

Lesson two is like unto the first. If we are going to have peace with our brother, if we are going to be gracious instead of merely nice, we need to remember that like us, he is a sinner saved by grace. How can that help? We exhibit grace when we remember that we need grace, and when we remember that our brother needs it. The gospel, as it relates to our interpersonal relations, is in large part the call to forgive as we have been forgiven. If we remember that so and so is a sinner, we won’t be so put out when he actually sins. We will show grace, because we can understand how a sinner could end up doing such a thing.

The passion we are called to, however, is not simply a passionate remembrance of the condition in which Christ found us. It is not enough to say, “Well, I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner, so let’s just be friends.” We’re too sinful to be able to pull that off. We need, if we are to have peace with our brother, to have a passion for the ongoing grace of God.

This third thing though has two parts. “Oh Lord,” we pray, “indwell me, change me, make me more like You, so that I might love, show grace toward my brother that has this incredibly grating habit.” We have to rejoice in and live in the reality of our union with Christ. It is because we are in Him that we become more like Him. And no one knows more about showing grace than Jesus. In short, we need a passion to be more like our Savior and King.

We are called, however, not only to remember our union with Christ, but to remember our brother’s union with Christ. We have to have the passionate faith that says of sinful and annoying Brother Aggravatus, “Jesus Christ, my Lord and King, dwells therein. God our Father, when He gazes upon this brother, sees Jesus His Son. My duty and joy is to do the same.”

We must, if we would show grace to the Brotherhood of Grace, remember that, while we are called to encourage one another unto great works, and to be prophetic to each other, we are not responsible for the sanctification of those over whom we have not been placed in authority. That is, to have peace with our brother, we must have a peace about his incomplete sanctification. And then we must remember the gospel of grace, both in remembering what we were, and in remembering what we are, and in remembering what we will be. And then we will enjoy the peace that awaits the end of all war.

Posted in assurance, Biblical Doctrines, church, communion, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul JR, repentance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Romans Study Tonight, Romans 12

Posted on April 15, 2024 by RC

Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.

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Is God’s grace wide enough for homosexuals?

Posted on April 15, 2024 by RC

Of course, depending on how we define the term. We recently witnessed yet another erstwhile evangelical reject biblical sexual ethics. Richard Hays, professor at Duke Divinity School, whose work on ethics has been much appreciated among evangelicals, began arguing that God’s grace is “widening” to include unrepentant homosexuals.

No. God’s grace doesn’t widen, and it doesn’t encompass unrepentant homosexuals. Why then would I say “of course God’s grace is wide enough for homosexuals?” Because God’s grace is wide enough for any sin which by His grace is repented of, and too narrow to include any sin that is not repented of.

Which brings us back to the actual crux of the matter among professing Christians. The trope that Christians are mean-spirited, suicide-causing Pharisees with respect to the sexually confused is propaganda of the worst sort. Christians don’t condemn those who reject sexual perversity despite a temptation toward it. We don’t turn away from those in the midst of the battle. It is the quislings, the traitors that surrender that will suffer God’s wrath should they die in the midst of that rebellion.

In so doing we are right in line with God’s Word. Paul wrote:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (I Cor. 6: 9-11).

The sins listed here are not, of themselves, that which makes one miss out on eternal life. Were that the case, “such were some of you” makes no sense. Some of the Corinthians had been caught up in some or all of these sins before coming to faith. As with the rest of us, likely the temptation followed with them as they entered the kingdom. And so the battle raged on.

It is when the battle ceases, when repentance stops, that these sins become evidence that this person is not in the kingdom. No believer may identify as a “fornicating Christian,” a “thieving Christian,” a “drunkard Christian” and be an actual Christian. Which is precisely what progressive “Christians” are demanding of us, that we embrace the oxymoronic notion of the “gay Christian.”

No one can be in submission to this text and claim that fornication, idolatry, adultery and extortion are not evil and wicked sins. Which is precisely what progressive “Christians” are demanding of us, that we deny sexual perversion is wicked and evil.

While not all sins are equally egregious (despite the evangelical truism to the contrary), every one of them is rebellion against the living God. Every one of them is due the full wrath and fury of God. All those, however, who by the power of the Holy Spirit, turn and repent, resting in Christ, inherit eternal life. His grace is sufficient even for my own sins, to His everlasting praise.

Posted in 10 Commandments, apologetics, Ask RC, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, ethics, grace, RC Sproul JR, repentance, scandal, sexual confusion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Whole New World

Posted on April 12, 2024 by RC

My father may well have been the hardest man in the world to shop for. One year, however, I did well. I got my dad a nice plaque with a photo of Three Rivers Stadium, home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers for more than thirty years. The plaque also had a photo of the statue outside the stadium of the Great One, Roberto Clemente, one of the Pirates’ all-time greats. Plaques and photos, however, are pretty easy to come by. What was unusual about the plaque was this— it included a three-inch by three-inch strip of the actual artificial turf from Three Rivers Stadium, the very ground Roberto Clemente and the Steelers’ Franco Harris once trod.

I found this amazing gift through something even more amazing: the Internet. I’m still getting used to all that it can do, harnessing it to solve sundry shopping challenges. My computer and now even my phone have become magic boxes, opening up virtual vistas I couldn’t have dreamed of as a child. With the Internet, we do not have the old world plus the Internet, but rather a whole new world. I labor to make sense of the pre-Internet world to my children because this world is all they’ve ever known.

The Internet, however, is not the first new world to change the world. In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Now, a strong case can be made that earlier European explorers landed on our shores. Indeed, I find such rather likely. But the successes of Leif Erikson and St. Brendan, however great they may have been, didn’t affect the world in the same way that Columbus’success did. He not only found a new world, but he came back to report on it (even if he wasn’t clear on what he had found). That is, it was Columbus’ discovery of the New World that actually changed both the New World and the Old.

Just as the Reformation a quarter of a century later would soon challenge the settled convictions of millions and would reshape the institutions that shape us, so the New World did the same for those who lived at that time. Imagine reading the newspaper (or for you younger readers, imagine logging on to your favorite news site) after word returned from the Americas. Not only was there an undiscovered, untamed land, virtually as large as the Old World, but there were people there. Thousands upon thousands living in multiple cultures, people about whom we had heretofore known nothing. Imagine the wonder of it all.

Soon, however, would you not be called out of your revelry to ask— and answer— this simple question: Given this earth-shattering news, what ought you to do? How do you respond to this development, which, to put it in modern terms, is not that far removed from finding not just sentient life but human life on the moon?

One of the great temptations that comes with the discovery of new worlds, whether they be the Internet or two massive continents, is to believe that new worlds call for new rules, that new worlds demand new ends. Such a temptation, however, is to be fought rather than succumbed to. What must we do in or about this strange new world? Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

The discovery of the New World did not bring a discovery of a new purpose. It did, however, provide a new opportunity to be about the business of the old purpose. Christians were called to bring the good news of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ to the New World. They were called to exercise faithful stewardship in the New World. They were commanded to make manifest the glory and beauty of the reign of Christ over all things.

How did we do? To be certain, we believers have much for which to repent in how we have responded to this amazing new world. And one would hardly confuse the New World today with a city shining on a hill. But some perspective would be more helpful. At the close of the fifteenth century, how many saints occupied the New World? If there were any, they likely could be counted just on your fingers and toes. Now, despite all our weakness and worldliness, despite the decline and retreat of the people of God, there are millions of the children of God laboring for the kingdom on these two continents.

The story, however, is not yet over. If God has been pleased to call in millions from this corner of His world where for centuries not one soul was redeemed, what might we hope for, what ought we to work for in the future? The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, beginning as the smallest of seeds but growing until the birds of the air make their nests therein. There are old worlds and new ones. There are earthy worlds and cyber worlds. But one truth remains the same now and forever, that Jesus rules them all.

Posted in 10 Commandments, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, creation, cyberspace, eschatology, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, politics, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, sovereignty | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Death and Taxes

Posted on April 11, 2024 by RC

You have heard it say, “Taxation is theft.” You have also heard it said, “Jesus approves of taxes.” I say to you that both of these are partly true and partly false, and it is important that we get it right. Neither point undoes the other.

First, taxation is theft. How is that true? Well, if theft is taking the property of another by force than all taxation is theft because it is all taking the property of another by force. How is it not true? In the same way that not all homicides are murder. That is, while murder is taking the life of another, and while capital punishment is taking the life of another, capital punishment is not murder. Taxation is just under certain limitations, just as taking the life of another is just in under certain limitations.

What are those limitations? Let me posit three. First, any taxation that is progressive is unjust. When God established a kind of “tax” for His kingdom, the tithe, He made certain that the more prosperous would pay more than the less. Ten percent of lots is more than ten percent of less. But the rate is the same. Second, any tax beyond ten percent is unjust. To demand more than God is to place oneself above God. Third, and perhaps most important, any tax taken to finance illegitimate functions is itself illegitimate.

When God established civil government He commissioned them to punish evildoers, giving them the power of the sword. He did not call them to be in the business of building empires, of educating citizens, of redistributing wealth. The cost of punishing evildoers is minimal compared to policing the world and providing cradle to grave security. Taxes taken to finance governmental interference where it does not belong are indeed theft.

Jesus commands that we render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and Paul commands us to give taxes to whom they are due. Amen. This does not mean, however, that all taxes are legitimate. Jesus also commands us, when someone strikes us on the face that we turn the other cheek. Would anyone honestly argue that such means that it is okay to slap someone’s cheek or that it would be wrong to object to cheek slapping?

Jesus approves of legitimate taxes, and commands that we pay even illegitimate taxes. But He no more approves of illegitimate taxes than He approves of theft. So we ought to pay our taxes, knowing some of it is theft and some of it not, while maintaining our liberty to object to those taxes that are theft. In turn, there is not a thing in the world wrong with minimizing one’s taxes, so long as one does so within the constraints of the law. Using legal “loopholes” or deductions is not only not sinful but is simple good stewardship.

Another tax day is nigh upon us. It’s frustrating and objectionable. I get that. But let us pay and object from a posture of obedience and of peace. Let us remember that the living God provides our daily bread, even when His rivals seek to take it from us.

Posted in 10 Commandments, Economics in This Lesson, ethics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, persecution, politics, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Grace; National Debt; Abimelech; 1934 and God’s Glory

Posted on April 10, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in 10 Commandments, Economics in This Lesson, ethics, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, Month of Sundays, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage, scandal, That 70s Kid, theology, wonder, worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Micah Mandate

Posted on April 9, 2024 by RC

Extraordinary times call for ordinary measures. When things go as we expect them to go we generally know what we are called to do. When, however, the world outside our control gets out of control we often find ourselves in a panic, unsure of how to respond. The ordinary things we know how to do, but they not longer bring the results we desire.

For decades now I have been laying out theses, affirmations open for debate on how to bring about another Reformation in the church. I have been arguing that things need to change, laying out what some of those things are, and the way they need to change. As I write the church is drowning in a sea of controversy, inanity, worldliness, fearfulness. The world, not surprisingly, is in the same condition.

What do we do now? Now we remember that the most calamitous of times call for the most plain of responses. What we need to do is what we always need to do, the right thing.
The prophet Micah provides for us a concise summary of just what the right thing is:
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“He has shown you O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

That we live in unjust times, in a land of unjust rulers does not change our duty to do justice, but intensifies it. That we live in merciless times, in a land of merciless rulers, does not change our duty to love mercy, but intensifies it. That we live in an age of arrogance, in a land of haughty rulers does not change our duty to walk humbly with our God, but intensifies it.

We don’t have to figure out what is going to happen next. We don’t have to discern who is telling us the truth and who is lying to us. We don’t have to guess the results if we embrace this strategy or that. For He has already told us what He requires of us. When we fail to do so, when we fear that obedience to the Lord will lead to bad consequences for us we call God a liar. We demonstrate that we do not live in fear of Him, but in fear of the world. We demonstrate that we worship the same idols of the world around us.

To do justice we must study justice, which is revealed to us in His Word. The Judge of all the world has given us His law. It, and it alone, defines what is just. To love mercy we must grasp the scope and horror of our own sin, to cherish the great cost that was paid that we might be redeemed. To walk humbly with God, all that takes is submitting to what He says. All three are built from one thing- faith. We believe God when He tells us what is right. We believe God when He tells us we have failed to measure up. We believe God when He shows us His mercy and invites us, as His adopted children, to walk with Him. We believe God, who is true.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, Devil's Arsenal, ethics, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, persecution, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, repentance, sexual confusion, sovereignty, Theses, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

No Study Tonight

Posted on April 8, 2024 by RC

Sorry friends, but our Romans Study will not meet tonight. God willing, we’ll see you next week.

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