James's Weblog

It is a joy to discover Sam Allberry has a blog. He has a particularly excellent post on there with some very important reminders for those of us who lead public prayer in church. Check them out at: http://allberry.blogspot.com/2009/09/public-prayer.html

Doug Wilson says some very helpful things about getting major issues and minor issues the right way around in theology.

Specifically, how sad – and how serious – when people take a minor issue (one on which we may quite respectably agree to disagree) and turn it into a major issue (one on which we do not have the latitude to disagree). As Wilson argues, at that point the issue has to become a major one on both sides. It is a major issue to mis-classify a minor issue as major.

Wayne Grudem is very helpful in his Systematic Theology on what we mean when we refer to "the word of God".

He points out on pages 47-48 that "the word of God" can refer, in Scripture, to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It can also refer to God's speech in 4 forms: 1. His decrees; 2. His words of personal address; 3. His speech through human lips, and 4. His words in written form, for us the Bible.

Peter Leithart makes a wonderful observation about Jacob, Esau and Joseph.

He says this:

Esau is a “hairy man” (sa’iyr), something we learn only when Jacob dresses himself in goat hair to approach his father (Genesis 27:11, 23). Jacob becomes a hairy one, subbing in for his brother. The only other use of the word in Genesis is in 37:31, where it describes the “kid” killed to fool into thinking that Joseph has died. Both passages involve substitution, and both involve deception of a father.