Pastor Ray McCauley to divorce... again!

I reported back in January 2008 that Ray McCauley and his trophy wife headed for a divorce. Although it did not happen then, it certainly seems like it is going to happen now. Before continuing this post, it would be good to read my January 2008 post first. I still stand by what I said there, so I am not going to say it again.

In my previous post on this issue with McCauley I dealt with the divorce issue. This time I would like to deal with the qualifications of an elder and how they apply to McCauley. I will probably get flack for this, but it needs to be said. It is time for Ray McCauley to resign as pastor!

1 Tim 3:1-7 spell out the qualifications of an elder (pastor) in the church. Verse 2 says: "Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach." Zelda McCauley is Ray's second wife, having sent his first wife, Lyndie, packing through divorce. Ray McCauley is clearly in violation of the qualifications for a pastor spelt out in 1 Tim 3.

In my previous post on the matter I dealt with divorce and what I believe is a Biblical divorce. Which means..., having divorced from Lyndie and marrying Zelda he was no longer a "one-woman man!" He therefore is in violation of Biblical principles on divorce and pastor's qualifications, and if he is a man of integrity, he should resign as pastor of Rhema Biblie Church in Randburg.

Is this what Jesus meant when He said to love one another?

This little stick drawing was drawn by my niece, Talisa, on her grandmother's kitchen notice board.

Liberal theology: the lie

Phil Johnson has written a short series on The Lie of "Liberal" Theology. There is nothing new about liberal theology. It was around in Jesus' time and so is it now.

Read Phil's posts here:
Part 1
Part 2

Latest books I acquired

It isn't always that easy to keep up the reading pace, in fact, my reading  pace is really taking a knock! At the moment I am reading Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" and "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson.

Then I have 5 books listed below that are lined up, in order that they were purchased, not necessarily the order in which I will read them, that I got as recent as today (last 2):

• God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Rodney Stark (the crusades interest me somewhat)
• Busted: Exposing Popular Myths about Christianity by Fred von Kamecke (I won this book via a competition from Zondervan)
• Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social & Cultural History edited and compiled by Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport (my church history lecturer from Bible school in the mid-80's, Allan Anderson, recommended this book on South African church history. Should perhaps read this one in conjunction with one of my other books, A History of South Africa by Frank Welsh)
• Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent & Barbara Hughes (got this book at 30% off today)
• A Visual History of the English Bible by Donald L. Brake (picked this one up today at 50% off)

I just hope I can get to them soon enough. One of the reasons I take so long to read these days is because I am studying at night, and that takes up a lot of time.

Anyway, if you have actually read any of these books, feel free to leave a short review in the comments section.

"Preach the gospel, when necessary use words." Odd isn't it?

J.D. Greear: Gospel is announcement OF WORDS. "Preach Gospel; when necessary use words" like saying "Tell me your phone #; if necessary, use digits."

HT: Justin Taylor

The New Year and its Resolutions

Every year millions of people make New Year's Resolutions in the hope of improving themselves.

Intentions are good, hopes are high and off they go. They plan to follow a daily Bible reading programme, or promise to do less of this and be better at that. Yet, by the time the second month, or in some cases even the second week comes around, those resolutions are all but forgotten!

Diet programmes normally fall by the wayside first. Others follow soon.

However, have you ever thought about those pesky resolutions? Many or perhaps most of those resolutions can be classified under "The Idiots Guide to Self-Help Programs." Many resolutions are selfish resolutions. Resolutions that merely work as self-help programs. Those are perhaps good, since we get an improvement to ourselves, and I am not saying that we should not make those resolutions at all!

How many times do we make resolutions that will make an impact for the kingdom of God? How many resolutions will bring glory to God? Many of the self-help resolutions tend to make us look good thereby heaping praise on ourselves! "Wow! You have lost so much weight! You must have a will of steel!" "You're going to read how many books this year! I wish I could read as fast as you do!"

I am sure many of you have heard of The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards! Here was a man that wanted to bring glory to God and wanted to further the kingdom of God! Consider his resolutions and see if there aren't any that you would perhaps like to follow. I have to warn you, many of them aren't easy! On paper it may look easy, but in practice it isn't! Don't try to follow all his resolutions in one year. Edwards built this list over his life span.

So, may this be a challenge to make God-honouring resolutions. Resolutions that point to God and not to self!

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,
a worker who has no need to be ashamed,
rightly handling the word of truth.
2 Tim 2:15 ESV

Thinking about what you preach and teach, and believe, can you honestly say that you are doing "your best to present yourself to God as one approved… , rightly handling the word of truth?" Or, are you are "a worker who [is] ashamed?"

This verse is not just a suggestion! "Do your best" is in the imperative mood, hence a command. Therefore, you must do your utmost to "present yourself to God as one approved" by "rightly handling the word of truth?" Of course, the lazy at heart will not take this to heart since it is hard work to comply with the command contained in this verse.

To start your road to recovery, if you haven't treated this command with the respect it deserves, visit:

Hermeneutics I: Need, tools and principles
Hermeneutics II: Different Genres

Musings on the life and death of Oral Roberts

See what was written by Al Mohler and Fred Butler.

How can we eulogize heresy? How can we eulogize the one that preaches heresy?

Updates: (here are some more)
David A. Porter.
John MacArthur
Ted Olsen

Kigndom People Christmas Giveaway

Christmas is that time of the year when we are supposed to be more concerned with giving than receiving, that is why I would like to give you an opportunity to receive. Of course I said that in jest!

Trevin Wax from the Kingdom People blog has a Christmas giveaway running from today (15 Dec) until Christmas day 2009. You can win Trevin's 10 favourite books of 2009, and also an ESV Study Bible and a copy of Trevin's own upcoming book, Holy Subversion.

To win all of this, hurry over to Trevin's blog by clicking here!

Commentary on R. Scott Clark's Covenantalism

R. K. McGregor Wright, at Christ My Covenant, has been writing a series of blog posts as a commentary on the covenantalism of R. Scott Clark. He has written 26 posts in the series so far.

Note that these posts are in PDF format. Here are the links to each of those 26 posts:

Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Part 4	Part 5
Part 6	Part 7	Part 8	Part 9	Part 10
Part 11	Part 12	Part 13	Part 14	Part 15
Part 16	Part 17	Part 18	Part 19	Part 20
Part 21	Part 22	Part 23	Part 24	Part 25
Part 26

Fraudulent gospel of the prosperity preachers – new series by John MacArthur

I have now for years decried the false gospel of the prosperity preachers. People like Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, Jerry Savelle, Paul & Jan Crouch, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Hagin, Joyce Meyer, Fred Price, Creflo Dollar and many more. To find out about the heresy taught by these people, read my blog series written in 2005, Heresies in the church.

John MacArthur has started a new series of blog posts, with the first post on 6 Dec 2009, highlighting the fraud of these heresy preachers. This series may just become a new call to Reformation in the church.

Read the first two blog posts:
A Colossal Fraud
Unholy Trinity

Churches, by being quiet about the wolves in sheep clothing in our midst, are doing a great disservice to the body of Christ.

Stand up and be part of the New Reformation!
Back to the true gospel!

Has Facebook lost meaning? Carl Trueman abusive?

Update:
It seems that tr.im has been flagged as abusive. I tried to submit another link that I made using tr.im, and got the same message. I have been using tr.im for some time now and never had problems with it!

I wanted to update my Facebook status this morning, and this is what Facebook told me:

As you can see, all the status is saying is: "Carl Trueman: Celebrating the Death of Meaning - http://tr.im/Hd6x - Very thought provoking!" Now follow the link in my proposed update and tell me if there is anything abusive in the article. Perhaps diehard fans of the paedophile Michael Jackson could find it abusive, which would really stretch the meaning of "abusive."

It seems to me that Facebook is losing its own sense of meaning too! An article like Carl Trueman's gets flagged as abusive, but Facebook groups such as "F*** Jesus Christ" gets to exist without even a slap on the wrist! I searched for the phrase "F*** Jesus Christ" on Facebook, and got 496 hits. There have been many requests to Facebook to close down these outright abusive Facebook groups, but all Facebook can say is that they have a right to their opinion. Don't tell me that groups with such names are only voicing their opinions, because if I say that to someone "F*** you!, it is not just an opinion, it is outright ABUSIVE! There is even a Facebook group with over 243,000 members which is called "DELETE THE GROUP ''F*** Jesus Christ'' IMMEDIATELY!!!!!"

Yet, Carl Trueman's article is abusive to NO ONE, and is flagged as abusive. My question is this: Is there anyone remotely qualified at Facebook to even quantify abusive usage on Facebook? Apparently not!

Of course, Facebook's message does not give me an opportunity to directly request a lift on the ban of this status update. All you see is a hopeless "OK!"

Maybe it is not Carl Trueman's article that is the problem, but the wording of my status update. Ha! Don't be fooled! I decided to remove the link in my status update and I submitted "Carl Trueman: Celebrating the Death of Meaning – test - Very thought provoking!" This time it was accepted, proving that the problem is Carl's article.

So, read Carl's article and tell me if it is abusive. If you do, you are probably a baby like the Facebook users that flagged the article as abusive!

Sorry for that, but flagging Carl Trueman's as abusive is like saying Barack Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize! Absolutely ridiculous!

It seems to me like Facebook is truly against free speech, especially from Christians! Isn't it amazing that an entity such as Facebook can infringe on one person's free speech rights while claiming free speech rights?

Does this scenario at Facebook prove its clear bias? You be the judge!

Greg Koukl says "Never Read a Bible Verse"

Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason is doing a video series called "Never Read a Bible Verse series" (which can be found under the STR video tag) in which he is looking at common verses that have been taken out of context and misinterpreted. So far he has done 8 videos in the series.

Part 1 (Jn 8:32)
Part 2 (Mt 7:1)
Part 3 (Col 2:8)
Part 4 (Rom 8:28)
Part 5 (Prov 23:7)
Part 6 (Ps 121:1)
Part 7 (Lk 2:14)
Part 8 (2 Chr 7:14)

To watch the videos, simply click on the different "Part" links above.

Christmas is all about the cross!

Christmas is all about the cross! It is not about Santa, or the buying of gifts, or parties, etc. It is not even for that matter, about the birth of Christ alone! Christmas, or the celebration and commemoration of the birth of Christ, has much greater meaning than all of that!

The fact is that Jesus was born "to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mk 10:45; Mt 20:28) Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." (Ac 2:23). That plan was for Jesus to come in the flesh, to live a sinless life and finally to pay a ransom for many!

The very reason for the coming of Jesus to this earth was to die on that cross almost 2000 years ago! Do not waste your Christmas with trivialities this year, but rather think of the real reason for Christmas!

Purveyors of the "new" gospel shun the old gospel

Many times when we listen to what is being preached in churches today, one wonders which Bible Lite they are reading. It just seems that they cut out so much from the Bible that they end up preaching very little of the gospel. They, in fact, preach the "new" gospel! They have emasculated the gospel so much simply to make it less offensive to a world that has gone bonkers with being offended! What is the net effect of this? They are filling their churches with pagans that think they are saved/Christians/going to heaven!

Kevin DeYoung wrote an interesting short analysis (The Gospel Old and New) of this "new" gospel. He spells out this new gospel:

1. It starts with an apology;
2. God is seen as only love, like a fictional Santa. Oh, yes! Santa is fictional!
3. An invitation to join God on His earthly mission;
4. Eternity simply does not seem all that important.

Kevin gives a couple reason why this "new"  half-baked gospel is so hot:

1. It is partially true;
2. It deals with straw men, e.g. street preachers, crusades;
3. It leads people to believe wrong things;
4. It is manageable;
5. It is inspirational;
6. It is inoffensive.

Read Kevin's blog post to see the detail. It is a sad indictment of the modern church.