The American revision of WCF 23.3, which prohibits the civil magistrate from "giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner...," may be read as an application consistent with WCF 25.2's acknowledgement of the universal *visible* church. IOW, both versions of WCF 23 are consistent in acknowledging the duty of the civil magistrate vis-a-vis the universal visible church; they just offer different (not necessarily contradictory on all points) applications of that duty.

Ten must-reads on biblical theology that will make you a better reader of the Bible (in no particular order):

1. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (the modern classic.)

banneroftruth.org/us/store/theol… 2. Meredith Kline, By Oath Consigned (deal with it.)

amazon.com/oath-consigned…

Folks who agree *that* general revelation teaches things about the natures of God and the world, including human beings, and about what human beings owe God and one another sometimes disagree *whether* general revelation is an ongoing resource for theology and philosophy. This disagreement is not necessarily a disagreement regarding the noetic effects of sin. It may instead reflect disagreement about *how* special revelation illumines general revelation.

General revelation is the *principle* or source of the natural knowledge of God.

Natural theology is the *conclusion* drawn from that principle.

While general revelation cannot err or mislead, the conclusions drawn from general revelation can and indeed have. In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul says that the world through wisdom did not know God.

Different views of natural theology may be seen as debates, not about *whether* Paul’s claim is true, but rather about *why* Paul’s statement is true.

There are many wonderful ministries you can support over and above what you give to your local congregation.

Since today is #GivingTuesday, might I suggest two reasons for considering a gift to @ReformTheoSem?

rts.edu/givingtuesday22 (1) The marks of an RTS education: Students at RTS receive ministerial training marked by biblical fidelity, confessional integrity, and academic excellence. As much as it ever has, the church today needs well-formed, well-prepared leaders.

A handful of thoughts for talking about the Trinity and love:

1. Remember that the Trinity is the standard for what love is, not the creature. Too often we define love by a creaturely measure then transfer that definition to God. 2. Be careful with terminology. Too many today are squeamish about saying “the Father loves the Son.” Don’t be. But do (per point 1) be careful about saying God is “self-giving love,” “other-centered love,” etc w/out defining terms: e.g., self, other, giving. Flee kenoticism!

In the Christian doctrine of God, God is both doctor and doctrine, the subject matter expert and the subject matter. God, the divine teacher, has given us two books in this field of study: the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.

We need to recover the concept of “attunement”—the divinely designed “fit” between God, world, and self—in our evangelism and catechesis. Along with: reason as the faculty for perceiving this attunement and virtue as the mode of habituating ourselves to it. Lack of such a category is one reason a Christian understanding of the human body and sexuality doesn’t *make sense*. There’s no underlying sense of divinely established harmony between God, world, and self. It’s a pagan battle of the gods all the way down.

What does it mean for a person to "identify as" x?

This question is central to ongoing debates about how best to apply the views affirmed in the PCA's ad interim committee report on human sexuality. The following is an attempt to offer some analytic clarity for the benefit of these ongoing debates.

........

When someone "identifies as" x, they are performing at least one of two kinds of judgments: (1) a classificatory judgment, (2) an evaluative judgment.

There's an argument to be made that the 2 titles in John 5, "Son of God" (5:25) and "Son of Man" (Jn 5:27), reflect a pattern (observed by @bobby_jamieson in Hebrews) of identifying the Second Person of the Trinity as Son (of God) by nature and Son (of Man) by divine appointment. John 5:27 seems to be a further specification re Jesus' authority to exercise judgment, i.e., "because he is Son of Man," beyond the already established more general point that, as the Father's own (natural-born) Son, he has authority to perform the self-same works of his Father.

Augustine interprets John’s references to the Son “seeing” or “hearing” the Father as ways of describing what theologians call the Son’s “passive generation” (i.e., his being eternally begotten of the Father).

I used to regard that interpretation as clever, but probably wrong. I am now inclined to think that this is a very attentive and probably correct interpretation.

Here are a few reasons why.

Many culturally adjacent reasons for John to call Jesus “the Word.” Platonism. Hellenistic Judaism. Etc.

Without discounting those, best suggestion remains Isaiah 55:11: the Word goes out from God, returns to God, after having accomplished the purpose for which God sent him. “Isaiah … saw his glory and spoke of him” (Jn 12:41)

The Word eternally turned toward the Father in loving contemplation (Jn 1:1-2) returns to the Father with us in tow as redeemed siblings: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17).

First and last uses of *pros ton theon* in John’s Gospel. True neighbor love is doing whatever it takes to share with them the thing you love the most. What does the Son love the most? The Father, being the Son of the Father (see Jn 17:24).

True neighbor love is motivated by something higher than neighbor love.

An outline of moral theology based on Titus 2:11-14

1. The grace that *saves* also *trains*. But the order here matters: God trains those he saves; he doesn’t save those he trains. 2. Grace trains us to deny vice and to cultivate virtue. This is the form that the Christian life takes between its inauguration by grace and its consummation in glory.

That God is impassible means at least three things.

1. God is the uncaused cause of all that exists, the unmoved mover of all that happens. From him and through him and to him are all things. 2. God has no appetite to acquire anything (Maximus the Confessor). He is all-sufficient in and of himself, the blessed and only Sovereign. God does not receive gifts from his creatures; he is not enriched by his creatures. He is the absolute giver of every good and perfect gift.

Good question! Folks in my Presby neck of the woods sometimes worry about Wesley's hymn for two reasons. Thread.

https://twitter.com/iamcalmorrison/status/1402722513487122432

(1) Their first (legitimate) worry is that the hymn might imply the idea, popularized in 19th century Kenoticism, that the Son of God "emptied" himself of certain divine attributes when he became incarnate.

In addition to a good night’s rest, one benefit of going to bed early is that you miss late night Twitter.

But let me tell you a little story. I am a Florida man, born and bred, but I went to seminary in NC. In my last year in seminary, I married a girl from NC. One day, while my wife was at work teaching second graders and I was at home working on my thesis, I decided to send her some flowers. I called the florist. She took my information. Then she asked me a question: “Is this fornication?”

Always attentive to the *ways* the Bible teaches the Trinity. Here's another:

1. Ask *who* knows/does divine thing x (Isa 40:13-14; Rev 5:2).

2. Rule out *all* creaturely candidates (Isa 40:15ff; 1 Cor 2:11; Rev 5:3-4). 3. Answer with a *person* of the Trinity, e.g.,: the Lamb of God, the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11; Rev 5:5).

Notes on the externally directed works of the Trinity (opera trinitatis ad extra):

1. Because the divine nature is one, there is one divine agency.

2. However, only persons, not natures, act. (This is missing in some post-2016 discussions.) 3. In order to appreciate how divine persons act, we must distinguish agency and mode of agency.

4. There is a mental but not a real distinction between agency and mode of agency, due to divine simplicity.

5. There is however a real distinction between various modes of agency.

We sometimes miss significant aspects of biblical teaching on the Trinity because we are unfamiliar with ancient philosophical terms and concepts.

Here's an attempt to show how attention to the meaning of ἴδιος illumines two NT texts: scottrswain.com/2021/04/23/idi… I didn't note it in the post, but patristic, medieval, and Protestant orthodox exegetes *rarely* missed the above-noted point. This is partly due, no doubt, to the fact (observed somewhere by Moises Silva) that some of them (e.g., Cyril of Alexandria) were native Greek speakers.

Seven "axioms" on the Trinity, the Bible, and theological interpretation. cc: @hains_todd

1. Certain material and social conditions are vital to, but not ultimately sufficient for, theological interpretation of Scripture. 2. The Trinity’s knowledge of the Trinity is the ontological foundation of our knowledge of the Trinity.

3. The Trinity reveals the Trinity by the Trinity; this is the epistemological foundation of our knowledge of the Trinity.