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January 15, 2018 David Murray 0 comments

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12 Ideas You Must Embrace to Affirm Theistic Evolution
“Theistic evolution is a viewpoint that God created matter and after that, God didn’t guide, intervene, or act directly to cause any empirically detectable change in the natural behavior of matter until all living things had evolved by purely natural processes. But, what that belief implies is that there are actually twelve details in Genesis 1-3 that simply didn’t happen. If you hold to theistic evolution (in the most common form in which it is held today), you would say: ”

Sage Advice: The Teacher as Pastor
“I have long felt that if all I was in the classroom was a disseminator of information, I would fail. The problem today is that the seminary (or college, or graduate school) classroom is often too academic, and too few students fall in love with the process of exegesis and feeding their flock—even looking upon the act of “feeding” in terms of delivering simple topical messages. We must show students the relevance of the biblical text for their lives, stimulating them spiritually as well as intellectually. The truth is that they can find everything we are going to say in commentaries and other sources. What we need to do is show them how practical and refreshing deep exegesis can be.”

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others?
“Contrary to the current narrative, the Scriptures, the Reformed Confessions and principles of nature teach us that some sins are more reprehensible than others.”

Registered Sex Offender: A Sample Church Membership and Attendance Policy
“In this post, I have drafted a policy for how a church would think through the attendance and membership stipulations for someone who is under Registered Sex Offender (RSO) status. The enactment of this policy assumes that both (a) the sexual abuse episode has been reported and (b) that the legal process has concluded resulting in RSO status as the verdict; meaning the individual under RSO status has paid, or is currently paying their debt to society.”

The Year I Saw Billions of Dollars in Art
“As I think back to all I’ve seen in 2017, I marvel at what human artists can do with stone, canvas, and bronze. But it makes me consider: If a human artist can do so much and gain such acclaim through his use of the most mundane materials, think what the Divine Artist can do with a human canvas. Think how much acclaim he can gain from the likes of you and me—creatures who are created in his very image.”

Forgive, but don’t return repentant pastors to the pulpit
“To “forgive” a pastor means we don’t personally hold his sin against him and that we restore him to his office of church member. If he is repentant, he meets the qualification of membership. That doesn’t mean we should restore him to the office of pastor. Our forgiveness does not mean he magically meets those qualifications. His life, quite simply, is not above reproach.”