Guarding Your Heart in the Pulpit - by H.B. Charles, Jr.

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This is an excerpt from a pretty good article. However, one of the points caught our attention.

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The Taxonomy of Student Debt Arguments - by Sparky Abraham

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This loquacious author expends 5410 words in an effort to explain why student debt should be cancelled. We will attempt to wade through this, editing it down where appropriate.

The author wants full cancellation of student debt, framing it in terms of a moral justice. This morality never gets explained. Nor does he explain why college should be free.

Given this perspective, we would wonder why home mortgages shouldn't be cancelled. Or car loans. Credit card debt. If someone owes someone else and was forced to take out a loan to make the purchase, that seems rather unjust to us.

And what about the taxes we owe? Shouldn't that be completely forgiven as well? It seems unjust to us to fork over money to an oppressor government so that it can continue oppressing.

On the other side of the coin, it seems that our system of paying people should cease. After all, doesn't your employer owe you your pay? If we're forgiving debt, then the employer's debt to his employees ought to be forgiven.

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Does Trickle-Down Economics Actually Work? - By Robert Reich

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Dr. Reich is unable to articulate the situation accurately, relying on tired leftist talking points and socialist agitprop. Interestingly, his three myths really are myths because Republicans don't assert them. Republicans don't believe in cutting taxes for the rich, they believe in cutting taxes. They don't believe cutting regulations spur economic growth, they believe in cutting regulations.

Further, Dr. Reich is unable to correctly describe "trickle down economics." This concept has nothing to do with tax cuts for the wealthy, aside from the fact that people who pay taxes definitionally get tax cuts. Trickle-down simply acknowledges that people get hired because others who have work for them to do. To hire someone requires the ability to pay them. The easier it is to hire and pay people, the easier it is to do business. 

This means that every dollar received by a worker has trickled down from someone else, and every impediment levied against employers means that less trickles down.

As an aside we note that myth one and myth two are the same myth phrased differently.

We will have no comment on myth #3, that deregulation is bad, other than to say that if Dr. Reich is correct the converse must also be true. More laws and restrictions ought to be a boon for the economy.

Last, we would ask Dr. Reich, has trickle-down government ever worked?

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The Corridor of Time - by Keith Mathison (the doctrine of election)

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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How is it possible to discuss theology and important doctrines without quoting or even referencing Scripture? Astonishingly, the author manages to do it.

He thinks he's caught Arminians in a conundrum regarding the foreknowledge of God, all based on arcane speculations about how God might know something about the future. It seems the author believes God cannot conceive of a future moment in time without decreeing its existence. That is, every moment in history somehow must be real for God, and the circumstances and events of that moment must exist.

This suggests that God is at the mercy of what would constitute reality, i.e., God cannot know something without it actually becoming real. The author writes, For the events of history to exist in the mind of God prior to their existence in external reality would require something like the divine decree... This is a bare assertion, pulled out of thin air. There is no biblical principle which would suggest that God cannot know things without decreeing their existences. 

It is a nonsense statement, created by the thinking of a man who feels he must systematize the nature of the mind of God.  God spoke prophetically to Isaiah in answer to such vain ramblings:

Is. 40:13 Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor?

Is. 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

God is completely other. There is no reason to believe He is subject to the constraints of time in any fashion. He is not subject to logic or beholden to anything He has created, including time. His nature is inscrutable.

We think such speculations are unedifying. They may be interesting on some level, or an intellectual curiosity, but there is nothing of eternal worth at stake here. Resolving the issue of God's foreknowledge does not speak to any obligation of the Christian to live a holy life, be a worshiper, grow in faith and maturity, or minister to the poor and dispossessed. The topic is completely irrelevant.

Lastly, the author closes with an assertion, that his way is correct and any other option is blasphemy. This is an astounding statement, made without documentation or context. Somehow he knows exactly how God thinks, and any other opinion about it consigns a person to perdition. 

Incredible.

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Is Jeremiah 29:11 a Promise for Us Today? - by Wyatt Graham

Found here. A good article.

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For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jer 29:11).

The words Jeremiah 29:11 often encourages believers who experience difficulty, and they in turn share the verse with others to give hope when much in this world seems hopeless. While almost everyone recognizes the good desire here to share a promise from God’s word, some criticize Christians for doing so.

The argument goes something like this. Jeremiah 29 is a letter from Jerusalem to exiles, and the promise relates to God’s plan to return the exiles back to Judea after 70 years (Jer 29:10). So, as the argument goes, Christians should not share this as a promise for them. It is for Israel, not us. We may learn some principal lesson here about God fulfilling his promises, but we should not claim for ourselves.

I disagree.

Pastors, Train Future Pastors - by Garrett Kell

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This is so wrong, so misguided. It almost seems the author is intentionally deceiving us. There isn't a single truth in the entire article regarding the idea of pastor. Astonishing.

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“Part of my responsibility is to send younger pastors into the land that I cannot go—the future.”

I heard these words roughly ten years ago while serving as a pastoral intern under Mark Dever. Prior to that I’d been a pastor for seven years, but I had never even considered that faithfulness in gospel ministry meant investing in other pastors. I had struggled enough to be a pastor, let alone help other pastors.

Yet the more I studied Scripture and watched pastors I respected, I became convinced that pastors have the opportunity and responsibility to train other pastors. (The author will not demonstrate this biblically.)

Not all pastors will do this work the same way, but every pastor should be devoted to the work.

Pastor training isn’t just another item on our to-do-list; in one sense, it’s central to our task. We want to protect and proclaim the gospel not only in our generation but also in the generations to come. We must train younger pastors to take the gospel to the land we cannot go.

I also think Karen Swallow Prior is a Witch – But a Real One - by Protestia

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The Doctrinal Police just can't seem to restrict their comments to critiquing statements or evaluating doctrines. No, they want to make it personal. It's never about simple disagreement for them, it is always slash and burn rhetoric that both dishonors their target as well as stripping themselves of credibility.

This woman, Karen Swallow Prior, may indeed have beliefs that are problematic. She has probably said and done things Protestia disagrees with. Fine. But look at the unchristian rhetoric Protestia uses:

• hideously ugly
• post-menopausal woman 
• bizarre wardrobe choices
• a penchant for cackling
• no personal charisma
• a face that scares children
• a voice that sounds like nails down a chalkboard
• pugnacious
• unladylike
• uglier on the inside than she is on the outside
• the personality of a Roomba 
•  the personal charisma of fetid corpse
• unpleasant and evil woman

This is despicable conduct. Remember, the author is A Christian. Supposedly. 

His ostensible purpose is to demonstrate that Ms. Prior is a witch. While we would agree with the author that people can really be witches, and it is possible that Ms. Prior might be a witch, he never bothers to provide evidence. He never quotes her. He provides no links to her writings. He simply speculates.

There are 2,949 words in this article. The author has ample opportunity to make his case, but he doesn't bother.

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A Better Way Of Knowing That He Lives -by DEBBIELYNNE KESPERT

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Ms. Kespert doesn't seem to understand objective evidence.