One funny thing. After I posted my last post, I noticed one of my google adds displayed the text, “FREE WILL, The early church clearly taught free will, not predestination.” I went to the site, and I immediately went to my google adsense console and put that site on my block list. It is supposed to take effect within a couple of hours so hang tight.

Funny

Distinctive Marks of Reformed Theology
Rev. Marcus J. Serven, Th.M
(part 5 of 14)
The Doctrine of Predestination::
By God’s sovereign decree he predestines the Elect to everlasting life and he damns the Reprobate to everlasting judgement (i.e. Douple Predestination or Supralapsarian). Some within the Reformed community believe that God predestines the Elect to life, but passes by the others leaving them in their fallen condition (i.e. the doctrine of Preterition or the Infroalapsarian view of the decrees of God). In either case, the Reprobate ultimately follow their wicked and sinful nature to its destructive end (John 6:37-40, 17:9-11; Romans 9:6-13, 22-24; I Peter 2:7-8). Thus, Reformed theologians emphasize the sovereign grace of God in salvation and reject the notion that God chooses the Elect on the basis of their good works or their personal decision through the means of Divine Foreknowledge. The Reformed steadfastly assert that God alone determines who will be the recipients of the gift of salvation (Divine Monergism). Salvation is not determined by fallen man’s autonomous decision apart from God (Evangelical Arminian theology).

Part 5

As you may notice, I’ve made a few changes to this blog. For one, I’ve added an email subscription, which means that if you enter your email address and click the submit button, you will be notified of new posts via email. The email should contain the first 100 letters of the post and then provide a link so you can come straight to that post.
The second is the addition of a counter. The counter is just for the fun of it. I thought it would be interesting anyway.

Changes

I forgot, I have also added google search. Please feel free to use this to search the web.

Also

Distinctive Marks of Reformed Theology
Rev. Marcus J. Serven, Th.M
(part 4 of 14)
The Doctrine of the Law of God::
The Reformed generally believe that the Law of God breaks into three categories: the Moral Law (Ten Commandments) which is eternal, the Ceremonial Law which was completely fulfilled through the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Civil Law which passed away with the end of the nation of Israel. The Law of God both convicts as individual of sin and is a tutor in leading the sinner to Christ (Galatians 3:24). The Moral Law has not been abolished by Christ (Matthew 5:17-20). Instead, it is an eternal standard of righteousness for holy living (Romans 3:31), and a way unto life for every Believer (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 19). There are some Reformed theologians who favor a Theonomist view of the Law. Essentially, a Theonomist would argue that the Law must be seen as a single document and cannot be broken into three categories. Hence, every aspect of the Law (except that which has been fulfilled by Christ) is relevant and applicable for today. This theological position has also been known as Christian Reconstruction (Bahnsen, Chilton, DeMar, North, Rushdoony). A moderating position in regards to the Civil Law extends the principles into the present day, but not the exact particulars.

Part 4

Distinctive Marks of Reformed Theology
Rev. Marcus J. Serven, Th.M
(part 3 of 14)
The Doctrine of Man &#x26; Sin:
All mankind is totally depraved and completely unable to save himself from God’s wrath (Total Inability). Adam’s sin is immediately imputed to all humanity, so that all are born in original sin. Most Reformed theologians believe that man was created by God on the sixth day and did not evolve from lower life forms. Thus, the evolutionary process is rejected as completely spurious. Each human being is created in the image of God, the Imago Dei, and although this is tarnished at the Fall its distinguishing marks are not removed altogether (Genesis 1:27; Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12, 6:23).

Part 3

I have been working on setting up my website with an RSS feed lately and as such have not had a lot of time to post unfortunately. I am pleased to say however, that TJDraper.com now has an RSS feed for whatever it’s worth. It’s actually not as hard to set up as I had feared.
I hope to return to posting about the distinctive marks of reformed theology soon (Haven’t I said that before?).

RSS Feeds

Hello all,
I really wanted to get back to posting the wonderful distinctive marks of Reformed Theology, but I just haven’t had the time to get back to it.
I have decided to re-record some of my songs since I now have better recording software and equipment, and more experience. I just finished Great Shepherd and would like to start on another one soon. I have really been inspired lately that I should get an album together and make it available somehow. I don’t know how I would do that exactly though.
Anyway, the new version of Great Shepherd is available to listen to by going to the <a href="http://www.tjdraper.com/music.html">Music Page</a> of <a href="http://www.tjdraper.com/">My Website</a>. Please send me any feedback, or use the comment link below <img src="grin.gif" alt="grin">.

Great Shepherd

I am going to interrupt my current postings because of an event that has just popped up. For those of you who don’t know what is going on this will be quite a bore, and I don’t intend to clarify the happenings for you.
Recently, I added my comment to a posting (which already had 30 some comments) on another blog I visit at times. For reasons of my own, I am not going to link to it here, but those of you who know what I’m talking about will of course know what I am talking about (and everybody says, “ooookkkkkaaaayyyy.”).
Some of the layout goes like this:
An anonymous commenter posted a comment to a blog, and he posted only scripture references. It was of course obvious what his implications were. But still he posted only scripture, knowing it would provoke a response (I wish the response would have been something like, thank you for the wonderful scripture, but it wasn’t). So when the response came, as it was sure to in this case, he said as much as, “See, I only posted scripture and you reacted. It is the spirit convicting you, your beef is with God.” Many other unkind things were said, and it should be noted that I had my disagreements with all who posted. And then of course I had to add to it my own unkind words to the anonymous poster. While I didn’t always agree with what the original poster of the blog, and some of the regular commenters said, I can’t stand anonymous critics and accusations. And I also didn’t agree with anything he said after he posted his scripture. In my opinion, this anonymous poster was a troublemaker and coming forth in the wrong spirit.
However, my own unkind words were not necessarily justifiable, and I probably should have avoided posting on the matter because there are much bigger battles to face. However, in the issue that arose, if the anonymous poster had any ideas of convincing the blogger and regular commenters that they were wrong, he was going about it in the entirely wrong way. All he managed to do is convince them, myself, and most likely anyone else, that he was a troublemaker looking for a fight. But then, I probably looked like I was looking for a fight also because of my ungracious attitude. I apologize to all for that.
I still do not, however, agree with anonymous mainly because if he had anything to say, he should identify himself and say it like a real human being and not as someone who skulks in the shadows. Skulking in the shadows certainly gives him an advantage. I mean, what if this person were holding a personal grudge against the poster and just wanted to stir something up?
He also made many false assumptions and accusations.
However, it was still unwise of me to post there and I hope I can stay out of these small skirmishes in the future. Again, to those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, I apologize. I hope we can now move on to other subjects.

Current Events

Distinctive Marks of Reformed Theology
Rev. Marcus J. Serven, Th.M
(part 2 of 14)
The Doctrine of Holy Scripture:
Historically, the Reformed have always held to a high view of Holy Scripture – the full verbal plenary inspiration, total infallibility, and complete inerrancy of the Bible, Scripure alone, or Sola Scriptura, is the Reformation’s affirmation that the Bible is man’s sole source of authority (John 10:35; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21). There are some in the Reformed world who have sought to avoid a Reformed Scholasticism by adopting a view of inspiration called limited inerrancy (Bloesch, McKim, Rogers). This effort has failed and has led, instead, to advancing the views of Neo-Orthodoxy and a truncated view of inspiration (Barth, Brunner, Jewett).

Part 2

I am sorry I haven’t posted more from the Distinctives Marks of Reformed Theology yet. I’m hoping to do that soon (maybe tomorrow, but we’ll see).

Will post more soon

Continuing my posting of the refreshing things we heard at our Church Last Thursday…
Distinctive Marks of Reformed Theology 
Rev. Marcus J. Serven, Th.M. 
(part 1 of 14)
The Doctrine of God &#x26; the Trinity: 
Reformed theologians place a resolute emphasis on the holy, sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, eternal attributes of God. The Lord has Chosen to reveal Himself in the Bible as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not a portrayal of three individual gods (Tri-theism), but of three persons by whom God is fully revealed (Monotheism). The make-up of the Trinity is such that each of the persons is equal in in substance, glory, and power—-yet different in function, role, and activity. Each divine person seeks to serve the wishes of the others.

Posts from the blog