This guy is good! I wish we had a bunch of politicians like this in the US.

Here’s one of those gems that is so good I had to post it. You may find the original here on Iron Ink.

“While the Anabaptists argued against infant baptism, that children could not experience faith and repentance, the Reformed replied that although children did not possess the acts of faith, they still could possess the disposition (habitus) of faith. Since absolute certainty about the internal state of the recipient is never certain in the case of either adults or children, the question is whether we have the same certainty in either case…. Just as with adults, the hearts of infants should be judged with charity….

Since as a poorer dispensation of grace circumcision was administered to children, it follows that as a richer dispensation of grace baptism ought to be administered to children as well. Also, the entire idea of the covenant as the historical and organic realization of election points toward the inclusion of infants through their connection with their parents in grace and blessing.”

Herman Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. IV – pg. 498

1.) Those who hold to anabaptist ecclesiology while trying to embrace Reformed soteriology at the same time are seriously confused. Anabaptist ecclesiology suggests that membership of the church is characterized by those who themselves choose to be part of the church. The emphasis falls on the individual. This is advocated in keeping with anabaptist “pure church” theology. (A “pure church” is one that has no tares. Classical Baptist theology holds that all that are members of the Church are saved.) This emphasis on the individuals choosing has an Arminian flavor.

2.) As faith is received passively and is a consequence of regeneration before it becomes active in conversion it was fitting for the Reformed to speak of infants having the habitus of faith. The idea is that in having this disposition of faith infants will display that faith actively as they age to the point of being able to display that faith.

3.) The judgment of charity should be extended to infants of believers in Christ since as being the child of at least one believer infants are already members of the covenant. Throughout scripture God promises to be God to His people and their children. God reckons and counts His people covenantally. This differs from Baptists who reckon God’s people individually and who count them one by one in conversion. The difference here is the difference between God counting His people as one with individuals seen as extensions of that one community. On the other hand Baptists count God’s people as individuals who when totaled together count as the whole.

4.) In the old covenant the children were clearly part of the covenant. Baptists would have us believe that in the new and better covenant the children are only part of the covenant upon their “asking Jesus into their hearts.” The new and better covenant leaves children out of the covenant.

5.) In the end Baptist theological notions of covenant should be seen as a ongoing social compact that each generation has to ratify for themselves with their vote for Jesus in order to be part of the compact. On the other hand Reformed notions of the covenant should be seen as a social compact decreed, organized, and populated by God.

Source

Personally, 1 trillion dollars is such a large figure it is hard for me to grasp just how big it is. I mean I deal with money in terms of tens, twenties, hundreds and thousands. You get past that and start throwing numbers around like billions, and now trillions and it’s sort of lost on me. In principle I am opposed to government bail outs of any scale and I’m opposed to any and all national debt. But I was still having a hard time with the numbers involved in the latest fiasco. I therefore found this illustration most helpful in putting things in their proper context. I suggest you take a good long and hard look at it as well. This is the amount of our great, great grandchildren’s money we have spent:

What does one TRILLION dollars look like?

Beginning Tuesday, March 3rd, Pastor Lovett will begin a 6 week teaching series. It will be an informal but very deliberate time of teaching.

Pastor Lovett will begin this series by going through the Apostles Creed, line-by-line and considering both the theological and practical implications of this historic creed. The Apostles Creed contains the essentials of the Christian faith and is the oldest existing creed we have (dating back to the 2nd century), and churches of different stripes use it regularly to profess the faith of Christendom.

We will be investigating what different phrases in the creed mean, and will spend some time discussing what is perhaps the Creed’s most controversial line, “He (Christ) descended in to hell.”

This study is open to all and we hope you will join us. We will be meeting at Studio D on the Centerville Square.

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