Blog

Here is the now completed series of B.R.I.D.G.E. Ministries (Laredo, Texas) podcasts covering the doctrines of grace (the so called TULIP acrostic):

Teachers include Dr. John Frame, Pastor Jeff Durbin, Pastor John Samson, Dr. James White, Dr. Tim Trumper  & Dr. Joel Beeke.

1. The Sovereignty of God - Dr. John Frame:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

1. Repentance is a gift from God. We mustn’t assume that repentance has its origin within us. God gives repentance as a gift of grace through the work of the Spirit in His people and as such ought to be treated as a gift with an awareness of an undeserved mercy. (2 Tim. 2:25)

2. Repentance is recognizing that our offense is primarily a transgression against God, His holy character, and His Law, and secondarily a transgression against our neighbor as His image bearer. Therefore real repentance is to be offered for real sins and real transgressions and not for illusory or made-up offenses. (Matt.

by J. Gresham Machen

The following is a short excerpt from Machen’s essay, “The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age.” This remarkably relevant work originally appeared in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1933. You can hear a reading of the full essay from this recent episide of Theology Simply Profound here (MP3). Here's the excerpt:

In the first place, a true Christian church, now as always, will be radically doctrinal. It will never use the shibboleths of a pragmatist skepticism. It will never say that doctrine is the expression of experience; it will never confuse the useful with the true, but will place truth at the basis of all its striving and all its life. Into the welter of changing human opinion, into the modern despair with regard to any knowledge of the meaning of life, it will come with a clear and imperious message. That message it will find in the Bible, which it will hold to contain not a record of man’s religious experience but a record of a revelation from God.

The following post is a response to this comment found on social media:

"Being GAY is not a CRIME. And it is not a SIN.: Stop using God to justify your prejudice. Religion is about Loving one another, You're just looking for an excuse to hate."

If someone were to simply take a few hours out of their life to carefully examine what other people believe before misrepresenting it, it may go a long way toward solving needless conflicts in our world, even before they arise. Instead of claiming the moral high ground by dictating what others' beliefs are all about, it might be worth reading about what others actually believe. Christianity is starkly different than what you assume it to be.

Let's consider some of the presuppositions of the author of this meme.

1) The author presupposes that Christians believe they deserve heaven, while sinners like these gay people over here, deserve hell. How do I know that the author holds this presupposition? Because the entire meme is an attempt to paint Christian's as prejudice and hateful, believing themselves to be morally superior to gay people ... an attempt to paint Christians as a people who God accepts because they are morally decent but a God who rejects gay people because they are not.