The Tulip Driven Life

"But you have carefully followed my  DOCTRINE , manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love perseverance....But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the HOLY SCRIPTURES, WHICH ARE ABLE TO MAKE YOU WISE FOR SALVATION through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ALL SCRIPTURE is given by inspiration of God, and is PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE , for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be COMPLETE , thoroughly EQUIPPED for every GOOD WORK . I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will no longer endure SOUND DOCTRINE, but according to their own desires, because they have itching...

R.C. Sproul is one of the best reformed instructors of our generation. He is known for his many teaching series, which comes out of Ligonier Ministries, where he takes deep, difficult doctrines and makes them understandable for the average person in the pew who has never been to Bible college or seminary. The link below is one of his most popular teaching series entitled "What Is Reformed Theology?" It is broken up into 12 segments, each one around 25 minutes. If you watch these, I am certain you will have a solid grasp of Reformed Theology and a greater appreciation for it. http://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/what_is_reformed_theology/introduction/

I can remember enjoying LAN parties in high school. About six or eight of us would get together, drink 8 Red Bulls, eat 15 slices of pizza, 20 cookies, and stay up all night blowing each other to smithereens while shouting not so nice things. The game was usually HALO. I had a good time, but I could never quite enjoy it like many of the others because they owned the game, and I did not. They understood the intricacies and nuances of the game that I was unaware of. So when Jonathan Lee or Adam Perrell no-scoped me from the other side of the map and flipped out in celebration, I couldn't fully appreciate the talent and skill that was involved. I couldn't understand the magnitude of the moment. This was because I didn't understand HALO very well. However, I do know baseball pretty well, and I can tell you, I get goosebumps every time I see a short stop making a diving stop in the hole, scamper to his feet in an instant, and fire a bullet over to the first baseman, who scoo...

Okay, I am taking this in a different direction than what I had originally planned, but bear with me- if you stick through this post, you might be moved to action in a powerful way. In order to fully understand what I am going to be talking about for part 2 of this series, you really, really need to go and watch this speech by Al Mohler, talking about  the disappearance of God.  By that, he means that in America, especially in Europe, and around the globe, the Christian worldview is being and in some cases has been lost. New wave atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens are working not merely to make atheism a viable option, but to make belief in a god as well as catechism of any kind illegal! They want to take away all religious freedom!  They see religion as the great disease, the sickness of mankind. It has been said that mankind is incurably religious- now Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, and others belie...

I've believed in the TULIP, the doctrines of grace, the five points, the biblical way in which God saves man, for a little over three years now. And I've been reforming everything ever since. Understanding rightly how God saves you for the first time, changes everything. It changes your view of God, of Christ, of man. That's an all-encompassing, paradigm shifting, truth, and all one's theology and all one's life must be conformed to it. Unfortunately, we seem to have something of a melting pot of Calvinism- we take a little charismatic teaching and attach it to a Calvinistic soteriology, or a seeker-oriented church preaches Calvinistic soteriology (which, on all accounts, makes zero sense whatsoever). But I believe that even those who do not add these more extreme admixtures can still fall into the trap of thinking that the five points are enough, that Calvinism is enough, that Calvinism speaks to salvation and nothing else. On the contrary, because Calvinism ...

Passion 2012 has just wrapped up. It really is an interesting conference because it manages to draw all stripes of Christians from a broad theological spectrum. Notice, I did not say multiple religions or those with differing views on the essential nature of Christ and God. I believe all the speakers, musicians, and most of the students were genuine beleivers who were genuinely passionate for the things of God, to some degree or another. And people of various theological persuasions, which were represented at Passion, will be together in heaven worshiping God as well. To gather with other believers who don't share all the same convictions as I do yet are still genuinely passionate for Christ and living for Him was refreshing and encouraging, and on the other hand reminded me how important good theology actually is. Having said all that, much of Passion this year felt a bit like a pep rally, more so than last year. There is a place for that- I am not saying it is wrong- but I was ...

            The Smintons of Old Daggerly Lane mindlessly sipped their coffee from their glass mugs, which they purchased from the local store. Wal-Mart brand cups were too common-everyone had those. These, while just as cheap, could perhaps be mistaken for finer quality. Besides, the blue lines that formed the little flowers near the brim made them unique. They had bought them seven years ago, not long after they were married. It was supposed to just be temporary you see- a year or two and then they would be dining with fine china, and in much nicer lodging than their small single story home that they had rented from the elderly couple, whose names had long been forgotten. But alas, there they sat, with their cheap cups placed atop their cheap wooden table in the same old, dilapidated house. The only difference from seven years ago to now was the three children, who also huddled around the table that was only meant to seat four. Wel...