I love to watch other people argue.  I’m sure that says several things about me, and most of them are probably not good.  I’ve come to this realization over the last several weeks, and God codified it with me today.  It’s something I’ve largely come to realize by my blog reading habits.  Let’s start with James White.  White is a brilliant guy, and as an apologetics resource his blog is second-to-none.  However, I’ve always thought him to be a bit uncharitable at times in how he interacts with others.  And to me, that hard edge has always made him more fun to read.  I’ve summarized the book he did with Dave Hunt, Debating Calvinism, by telling people, ”Hunt’s an idiot and White’s a jerk, which makes it a lot of fun to read.”  That’s an exaggeration, but it conveys the basic truth about why I enjoyed the book. 

Recently, White’s been front and center in the dust-up over Ergun Caner’s biographical exaggerations.  This has made him one bad dude in some corners of the SBC, and he’s traded barbs lately with Peter Lumpkins in particular over that and other issues.  So, I started reading Lumpkins’ blog to follow the arguments.  I’ve found Lumpkins to be even more uncharitable than White, with the unfortunate problem of also usually being wrong.  It’s led to some reading that’s been a lot of fun in a Jerry Springer sort of way. 

Then there’s the Pyromanicas blog.  I tend to look at those guys in the same way I look at White – uber-admire them intellectually, but just get rubbed the wrong way by the smug tone of a lot of their posts.  If one of them showed up here, they’d have a great argument about how my tone accusations were vague and unsubstantiated and they’d likely make a very impressive case, but my concern remains.  Anyhow, I check their blog pretty frequently, but here’s what I’ve noticed.  I always skip the uncontroversial posts.  A Spurgeon quote?  An exegetical breakdown of a chapter from an epistle?  Uninterested.  Let’s just fast-forward to one of them throwing down the verbal gauntlet on someone.  Anyone.  Atheist, Emergent, Arminian, doesn’t much matter.  I just want to see them be right in spectacular fashion and send the other guy home.

Those things have bothered me for a couple weeks now, but I’ve kept them pushed to the back of my brain.  After all, I just love truth and debate, right?  While that’s true (and not inherently bad), it’s not the whole story.  Two things today have shown me that.  First up, I listened to a clip of White’s call-in internet radio show after seeing that he took a caller from Liberty about the Caner flap.  My interest waned, however, when I realized that the student wasn’t calling in to argue with White but to commend him, and I quickly turned the program off.  Then, just a while ago, Justin Taylor re-activated comments over at his blog, which had been disabled for a couple weeks following a nasty thread on WarrenPiperGate.  I had really missed reading comments and was really excited.  Then, I read this post about a pop musician who was interviewed by Christianity Today about his faith.  There was already a 20-comment thread about how this was a dangerous slide into seeker-sensitivity.  Reading the bizarre back-and-forth was fun, but by the end of the thread I found myself getting upset.  Why must we bicker over petty crap like this? I wondered.  And why do I like it?

All that brings me back to where I started.  I love watching other people argue.  I love watching those who are wrong be put in their place.  And worst of all, the very air of arrogance that I say bothers me about people like White and the Pyro guys, I really actually like.  I just like to watch other people do it, so then I get the double play of the amusement that comes from it and the pious feeling of complaining about it.  It’s really quite disgusting.  It’s also a good example of just how sinister sin is.  It can take something good (a love of truth and a desire to see it advanced and defended) and turn it into something evil by the simple twist of a motive.  It’s done it in me.  I can complain all I want about how Christians are too petty and uncharitable, especially with each other, but it’s all Pharisaical posturing until I repent of the fact that as much as I call that magazine smut, I’ve got a paid subscription. 

I still want to love truth.  I still want to cleverly, passionately, gently and humbly defend and advance it.  But I don’t want to love arguments anymore.  I want to untangle the vine from the weeds in that area of my heart.  That sounds like a really tall order.  Thankfully, Jesus in in charge of my heart, and he does a pretty good job of cleaning things up.

“Quite a few years ago our younger son Andrew and I went to investigate a fire that someone had started in a park near where we live.  We were feeling very responsible and decided that we should try and put the fire out, but it kept moving towards us and the smoke was getting into our eyes.  I lifted Andrew over the flames into the burnt area and jumped over beside him.  Once we were on the burnt ground on the other side of the flames, we were able to put the fire out without any trouble at all.  We were safe there because once the fire has burned the ground, it cannot burn it again.

Because Jesus has already endured the judgement of God, anyone who puts their trust in Jesus is standing on the burnt ground of Calvary.  The judgement has passed; there is no fear of judgment anymore.  That’s why Christians can say, ‘No condemnation now I dread,’ because the work has been done by Jesus on the cross.  Those who trust in Christ can never come into condemnation again.”

- Liam Goligher, The Jesus Gospel

“The devil or the serpent can now build on her distortion. ‘You will not surely die,’ he says.  What he’s implying is ‘God is being selfish, threatening your potential.  God knows that if you eat of that tree you will be equal with him.  Your eyes will be open, you will acquire the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like God.’  He is flatly denying the idea that God would ever judge sin with death.  It’s interesting that it’s the doctrine of judgment that is the very first to be denied.  It frequently still is.”

- Liam Goligher, The Jesus Gospel

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” – Luke 11:24-26

In the process of sanctification, our lives are marked by a series of battles against sin.  Some things seem to blow up in our faces overnight, while other battles are long, hard, daily grinds to beat out sins that we fall into far too easily.  In either case, one of the most dangerous things we can do is to follow a moment of spiritual victory with the notion that we’ve got that one taken care of.  Complacency is the enemy of every Christian.  We need to remember that the process of growing in holiness is akin to driving a car up a steep mountain.  Taking your foot off the gas and shifting into neutral only guarantees that you’ll roll quickly backward.  It may not seem so at first as momentum carries you briefly forward, but it won’t be long before you inevitably come crashing back to the bottom of the hill.  With that in mind, and to use a twist on Jesus’ analogy referenced above, the next time you decide to do a little spring cleaning in your spiritual house, don’t just clean the house.  Remember to lock the door when you’re done.

Counselor Ed Welch has written a great article about the guilt that nags at some people over whether or not they’ve committed the unpardonable sin Jesus mentioned in Matthew 12:32.  The old cliche answer you hear from people is some variation on “if you’re worried you’ve committed the unpardonable sin, you probably haven’t.”  Welch does an excellent job of going into textual and contextual detail to show why that trite assertion actually isn’t too far off base.  Here’s one of his conclusions…

“God forgives those who come to him. Whenever there is turning to Christ in repentance, there is always forgiveness. There is no account in Scripture of someone who felt godly sorrow and repented, but was not forgiven. None. Not one.”

If you’ve ever wondered about this passage (and who hasn’t?) or want to be ready to counsel others about it well, the whole article is definitely worth a read.

HT: Justin Taylor

Brush Strokes by Doug Wilson – Caverns and Monsters from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.

That question seems to be a hot topic in the blogosphere this week.  First, Phil Johnson recounted an exchange he had with a college student a few years back and examined the morality of gambling (first post here, second here, with more to come).  Then, Kevin DeYoung examined the question, prompted by a paragraph from theologian John Frame.  Both bloggers end up saying (Johnson explicitly, DeYoung by implication) that gambling is indeed sinful.  I don’t think I can agree. 

First up, read the other posts before continuing on.  The student Johnson talks about in his first post presents a case that I think is pretty strong, so I won’t elaborate on those points here.  I’ve never been to a casino, but I’m hard-pressed to see a difference between spending a hard limit, say $100, on an evening of entertainment playing poker and spending that same $100 on tickets to a sporting event, for which you receive nothing but the experience in return.  You might say that gambling easily leads to addiction, but one look at the credit card debt numbers in our country seems to say that iPhones, Xboxes, and flat screen TVs do too - and I don’t see anyone calling us to boycott Best Buy for their exploitation of the masses.   

I don’t find the essay quoted by DeYoung to be particularly compelling, namely because each of the arguments it raises could also be made about alcohol (can destroy lives, is pushed hard for profit by a large and sophisticated industry, etc.), which is clearly not inherently sinful from a biblical standpoint.  More worthy of careful consideration are the issues raised by Johnson in his second post – especially the point that when someone wins while gambling, someone else must necessarily lose (and lose something of value, unlike an athletic competition where the loser really doesn’t lose anything tangible).  Thus, he says, gambling is inherently sinful because it takes from others – it breaks the biblical prohibition against stealing.  Does it, though?  In fact, isn’t our entire economic system built on this principle – for one to gain, another must lose?  If I open a business that makes a really cool gadget that everyone decides they must have, and my bank account gets padded by people who are racking up their credit card debt, isn’t that essentially the same thing here?  You might raise the objection that my business is different because I offer something in return (the gadget).  But what of businesses whose product is entertainment, such as Universal Studios or the NFL?  They offer nothing tangible, just an entertaining experience for your dollar, which is the same thing a casino does. 

I believe that inconsistency is one of the best indicators there is of poor moral reasoning.  If you can’t apply a moral principle across the spectrum of life with consistency, it’s a good sign your moral reasoning is faulty.  Because of that, I cannot say that gambling is a sin.  Unwise?  Perhaps, but not a sin in and of itself.   Agree?  Disagree?  See a problem with my own consistency here?  Let me know in the comments, and let’s seek to think carefully about this issue.