The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Here is a previous post in this series:  Here If one is going to write about three youngsters who are summoned from planet Earth to another planet in a galaxy not that far away (only 2.5 million light years), they have to have a way to get there. How far is 2.5 million light years, anyway? Matt, one of the three siblings of the novel, the youngest to be exact, was roused from his sleep their first night on the planet because Caleb, his older brother, left a desk lamp on. Matt was pretty dreary. After all they had had a longer than usual day (literally) and a late night of it. He would have called out to Caleb to take care of the little problem, but Caleb was snoring away, which apparently signaled there was nothing that would awaken him short of a not so gentle shake. Matt might have thought of throwing his pillow, but if that didn’t work, he’d have to get up for sure, just to get his pillow back. It might have been worth the try, but I su...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher I have always enjoyed science fiction, and more recently, fantasy. I read The Gods of Mars , by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young lad, and was pleased when Carl Sagan mentioned in Broca’s Brain that he also did at about the same age. He was more erudite than I, however. He later looked back upon it and his youthful fascination was dampened when he realized that it was far more fiction that it was science. His point was that the best science fiction has its roots in scientific fact. His novel, Contact , was written on that premise, and it was a good read. I tend to agree with him. There are deep wonders in the creation no matter which direction we look in. We can look outward and marvel at the billions of galaxies whose sizes alone are incomprehensible populating a volume of space that is billions of light-years across. Or we can look in the other direction until we encounter subatomic particles that take up only billionths of an inch. There are k...

The Doctrines of Grace – Elect According to Foreknowledge, Part 1 In his first letter, Peter wrote to certain exiles as those who were elect according to the foreknowledge of God, 1 Pet 1:1,2. These exiles are believers scattered in ancient Asia Minor (modern Turkey ). Precisely who these saints are is somewhat difficult to answer, that is, is Peter writing to Jewish believers who were interspersed among the Gentiles, or are they believers in general, Jewish and Gentile? Good arguments can be made for both interpretations. What is striking is that Peter uses language that is similar to Paul’s in his letters to Gentiles, e.g., Ephesians. Yet, generally speaking, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, while Peter went to the Jews (Gal 2:7). Regardless, whoever his readers were, what Peter declared to them is true for all of God’s people, and that declaration is this-- they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God.  Election refers not to a general choice by God to sav...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher This post first appeared here . In response to my article  On Fantasy Christ Figures , I was asked what I thought about Aslan, the great Lion in C S Lewis’s  The Chronicles of Narnia  series. It is a good question. In answer, let me begin by a statement from the original article, “Everything that Christ did was revelatory of the Father. His body language, facial expressions, speech, choice of words, etc. was all revelatory.” I believe that postulation to be true. Even as Christ walked amongst us before his resurrection and subsequent session at the right hand of the Father, Christ was  The Revelation of God  – the final revelation, as Hebrews 1:1,2 implies. His followers, in particular, the Twelve, not only witnessed what he  did , but they bore witness to  him . I may observe what one does from a distance, even on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. It could be a co-worker, a celebrity, my pastor, a teacher...

The Doctrines of Grace – Unconditional Election, Part 1 TULIP is a familiar acronym which serves to state succinctly the doctrines of grace. [1] Some theologians may reject one or more of them, but unless they reject them all simultaneously, they hold to an inconsistent theology. Each doctrine relates to the others in such a way that if you change or redefine any one of them, you violate their logical coherency, and they no longer fit together. This may be illustrated by considering the first two doctrines in TULIP, namely, Total Depravity and Unconditional Election . As we have seen, Total Depravity is the biblical teaching that men are conceived and born in sin (Ps 51:5), that is, man is ‘sinner’ before he is ever born and commits his first sin. Elsewhere the sinner is described as dead in his sins (Eph 2:1), without spiritual understanding and unable to seek God (Rom 3:11; 1 Cor 2:15; Eph 4:17, 18). There is nothing in natural man that God looks upon and finds pleasing...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Total Depravity is the biblical teaching that all men are born into this world with a nature that has no desire to please or glorify God, but only a desire to fulfill its own lusts. There is much in scripture that verifies this doctrine (formal teaching). When David was confronted by Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 12), he was stricken with grief and sorrow over his heinous acts of adultery and murder. Psalm 51 is David’s prayer in which he confessed his sin to God and sought forgiveness. In his confession, he reveals that his sin goes deeper than the acts he committed; it goes to the core of his nature, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me , Psalm 51:5. David, like all of us, was conceived and born a sinner. Paul cites the Old Testament to confirm that There is none righteous, no, not one...there is none who seeks after God...there is none who does good, no, not one , Romans 3:10-12. The apostl...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher The Protestant Reformation and the Doctrine of Justification Our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), has its theological roots in the Protestant Reformation of the 16 th century, which essentially began when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses (points of dispute) on the castle church door in Wittenberg , Germany on October 31, 1517. It was common to post such notices for public viewing. Luther’s theses were directed primarily against the Church’s practice to sell indulgences for the dead. An indulgence , it was said, satisfied the temporary punishment of purgatory [1] so that a departed loved one could be released and enter the glory of heaven. The sale of indulgences was actually a scheme to fill the coffers of the church to fund lavish building projects. Pope Leo X (1475-1521) needed money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome . The Pope made John Tetzel the commissioner of indulgences for Germany . Tetzel’s marketi...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Luther and the Epistle of Straw – Part 1 The rediscovery of justification by faith in Christ alone (without works) was so paramount in Luther’s experience that he began to look at the whole Bible from that single perspective. There was an advantage to that. The principle of justification by faith alone in Christ alone opened up the New Testament to reveal many things that were hidden before. In the very moment of his ‘Tower Experience’, Luther tells us how this insight into God’s justification of the sinner instantly affected his understanding of the rest of scripture. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. ...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher 2 Pet 1:3 A s His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue . Salvation is from sin. Since man fell, all of God’s work in relation to him has centered around the saving of the soul from sin. A. W. Pink may have been the one who popularized the tri-faceted nature of our salvation by describing it as deliverance from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. His observation serves to keep the whole matter of salvation in perspective. Often as a child, the preaching that I heard stressed only how God saves us from hell. Not from my pastor, Clayton Howard Gray, who was the greatest pulpit preacher I’ve ever heard. Such preaching did not come from him, but others. I remember one speaker at a youth camp located in Erie , Pennsylvania . He preached this way. Granted, there were several in our midst who were interns of George Junior Republic (we...