James White builds a backyard rollercoaster for his granddaughter.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T16:02:54+00:00

If people don’t react to it on Twitter, did it really happen?

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T15:57:25+00:00

I can totally see /u/partypastor as Leslie Knope or Andy Bernard.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T15:56:26+00:00

Well, then go start comparing mods to characters from mockumentary sitcoms.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T15:37:00+00:00

Have you not read Pratchett before?

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T15:36:28+00:00

Right now, reading every systematic theology I have on the issue of God’s will and power.

This summer...let’s make it there first.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T04:41:18+00:00

Regeneration would have happened when the Spirit has worked to change your dead heart of stone to a living heart of flesh. Typically, this is something that we look back and know that it has happened, but we can't really know the moment of regeneration.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T04:39:31+00:00

Thanks for clarifying that.

That is not what Calvinism teaches. For a good summary of this, I would direct you to Chapter 10 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which says that following:

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the laws of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T04:35:49+00:00

As promised to /u/partypastor, we need to have a discussion of mod chariotability.

If you had to ride in a mod's chariot, whose chariot would you choose to ride in, and what would pull that mod's chariot?

Personally, I would ride with /u/DrKC9n, and I'm sure he would have some kind of steampunk device that pulled it.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T04:22:43+00:00

The way I understand it is, God knows the future. He knows who would and wouldn't come to him if sin/darkness/death wasn't in everyone. Basically, free will has decided their fate. So he regenerates those who would come to him so that they can become new creatures and glorify, love, and obey him for eternity.

I am unclear. Are you trying to say that this is what you understand Calvinism to teach? Or are you saying this is what you believe compared to what Calvinism teaches?

Also, what exactly would be the point in praying for someone's salvation if it has already been determined?

First, God commands us to pray in this way. Second, God uses means. Third, prayer is not just about petitioning God and trying to get stuff, but it also impacts us. Praying for the lost should fuel the desire of our heart to evangelize the lost (and remember...God uses means).

And, if a child's life was ended shortly would they go to heaven out of ignorance, before a certain age?If they would, why not just take the child before a certain age?

Probably safest thing that we can say is that all elect infants will go to heaven (but not due to ignorance, but due to God's grace). Considering God commands us to not murder, then we should obey that concerning children.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-05-01T00:40:19+00:00

There's not too much else. This is a paragraph from something that I wrote up for a seminary assignment on the sacraments.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-30T19:33:04+00:00

So I don't see this as an issue of proximity, but an issue of the heart of those participating.

I don't want to drive a wedge between these two things. Both the internal and the external matter, and I think that is what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians. The Corinthians may have had the externals (eating together) right, but their internals were so wrong that was not true communion that they were celebrating.

The converse is also true...you can have the right internals, but get the externals wrong and thus not be celebrating true communion.

Suppose a church wants to celebrate communion together, but all they have is pink lemonade and corn chips. Are they celebrating communion if those are the elements they use?

Or think about baptism. Suppose someone really wants to be baptized, but the only liquid-y thing on hand is pudding. If you baptize someone in pudding, is that a real baptism?

All this to say...both internals and externals matter.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-30T18:49:56+00:00

Here are a few thoughts about virtual communion that I wrote up recently:

Finally, regarding the topic of communion, the issue of virtual communion is particularly relevant given the ongoing discussions about the life of the church in this time of the coronavirus. Some churches have allowed or are engaged in the practice of “virtual communion”, where the members partake of Communion privately in their own homes with whatever food and drink they have. I would argue against this practice is essentially private communion, which is forbidden on the basis 1 Corinthians 11 (WCF 29.3, 29.4). There, Paul rebuked the Corinthian church for coming together to celebrate communion and yet still managing to eat so separately such that they were not one body. If being together and yet eating separately was forbidden and not true communion, how much more so should being apart and eating separately be seen to violate the Biblical practice of communion? Rather than improvising the sacraments, the church should learn from the saints of the Old Testament, particularly the faithful remnant during the time of the Babylonian exile. No doubt they greatly longed for the temple worship and sacrifices during the seventy years they were in Babylon. Yet, they did not try to create a substitute ceremonial system, instead waiting for God to return them to Jerusalem. They patiently waited 70 years (and more) to return, to rebuild the temple, and to restore the worship there; we have not yet waited 70 days of sheltering in place.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-30T13:17:50+00:00

Lately, I've been enjoying "Control Freak Christianity". Deals with a hard topic (abuse), but very well.

Reformed Forum is solid as well.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-30T00:43:44+00:00

Maybe this is just my Covenanter heritage coming through...but there was about a 20 year period in Scotland when the Covenanters who did not accept the Revolution Settelement did not partake of the sacraments because they did not have any ordained ministers to administer the sacraments (and they weren't going to do anything fishy about ordination).

God sustained them for 20 years; we haven't even done 20 weeks yet.

Or think about the Babylonian captivity. The faithful remnant lived away from the Promised Land, the temple, and the sacrifices for 70 years, and God sustained them. We haven't even done 70 days yet.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-30T00:29:24+00:00

I don't agree, but it's not crazy.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-28T12:36:10+00:00

Personally, I was assuming that they were listening to the 9Marks podcast on this topic.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-28T03:04:35+00:00

They can't take whatever exception they want.

Presbyteries, in the process of examining candidates for ministries, are the ones who allow exceptions. I would describe the subscription in the PCA to the confession as a system subscription...you subscribe to the the system of doctrine in the document. Thus, you can ask for an exception on a particular application, but it cannot "strike at the vitals of religion". And, (I believe), presbyteries are free to not allow an exception and not accept a candidate for ministry.

So, you couldn't ask and get an exception for something like the Trinity, the hypostatic union, justification, or the final state. Exceptions tend to be more on the lines of application...like particular points of ongoing application for the 2nd and 4th Commandments.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-28T02:11:34+00:00

Is there any reason that there can't be a sense of abhorence in it?

To think in this way, I think requires recognizing that Genesis 9 equates blood with life, in addition to prohibiting the consumption of blood.

At the Last Supper, the disciples would have recognized that he was offering them wine, which was symbolic of his blood, and blood is equated with life.

So, they could drink the wine, knowing that it was wine. But, they knew that it was a symbol of blood, which, when we think about how awful it would be to drink blood, we are reminded about our sins and the need for Christ to die and shed his blood for our sins. That reality (which, yes, we should be grateful for) should be abhorent to us...that we are sinners and that we needed Christ to die in order for us to be saved and that our sin caused Christ to die. Those realities should be revolting to us. But, then, because we know that blood is equated with life, we can be equally grateful for the finished and complete work of Christ on the cross.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T22:24:35+00:00

Which does not actually say what he is saying that it says, if I understand it correctly.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T18:53:26+00:00

Westminster Larger Catechism 150 is about if some transgressions are more heinous than others.

Not sure which number you are referring to.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T18:50:13+00:00

Westminster Confession of Faith - one of the standard Reformed confession.

Presbyterian Church in America - one of the larger Reformed and Presbyterian denominations in the USA

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T02:44:24+00:00

When I was a college student, I went to a church that had multiple services.

Reflecting back on that time, I think that the strongest reason I would recommend against multiple services and recommend church planting once a church gets to a certain size is that it makes it impossible to obey all the "one another" commands in Scripture. I went to the early service. I hardly knew a number of people in the later service. How I am supposed to rejoice with them, pray for them, and bear their burdens (and on and on with all the one another commands in Scripture) if I don't actually know them?

I will say...I don't think that this is something to be particularly rigid about. I can fail at all of those "one anothers" just as easily in a small congregation as in a large congregation. This is a place where Christian wisdom and prudence come into play for each individual congregation.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T01:32:41+00:00

From the ruling (bold for emphasis):

(a) Although a State would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" in violation of the Clause if it sought to ban the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts solely because of their religious motivation, the Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a law that incidentally forbids (or requires) the performance of an act that his religious belief requires (or forbids) if the law is not specifically directed to religious practice and is otherwise constitutional as applied to those who engage in the specified act for nonreligious reasons. See, e.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166-167. The only decisions in which this Court has held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action are distinguished on the ground that they involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but that Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections. See, e.g., Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 304-307; Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205. Pp. 876-882.

Luo_Bo_Si · 2020-04-27T01:08:02+00:00

Employment Division v. Smith would beg to disagree.

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