Bush Hogggin'

May 24, 2014 - Today we headed south to help a family member prepare for a Memorial Day get together and camp out.

Clearing the trails with a brush hog

Benjamin tilling an area for a food plot

Brush-hogging the field with a four wheeler

The Rapture!

May 13, 2014
Our church has a monthly men’s bible study and we’re working through Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology.  We’re ending the study with eschatology.  This month’s topic was dispensational premillennialism, so my brothers and the Thomas brothers arrived early and “staged” a rapture:

Left Behind books, clothes, watches, eye glasses.

Just in case you're curious:
While studying the different eschatological views, I've adopted an Amillennial position. Here's a great, 4-minute overview from Shai:

 

FCM Conference 2014 - Speakers I

Speakers

Chief Justice Roy Moore

"The United States Constitution and God's Law"

The Constitution was founded upon principles of Biblical law and is under attack in our day:

“I would not look to the US Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.”

- Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
- John Adams

Dr. Jordan Ruben (from Beyond Organic)

"The Joseph Mandate"

"The average grocery store in America only has 4 days of food."

Dr. Joe Morecraft

"Natural Law and Biblical Law"

The decline of America began in the early Puritanism of the colonies with intermittent revivals.

Their Thomism began to crowd out their Augustinianism. 

Deism lead to 

Transcendentalism to 

Romanticism to 

Anti-Christian Humanism to

Postmodernism.

If the Bible doesn't speak to some areas of life, then the Renaissance went on to say that it doesn't on any area of life.

“Be careful how you use the word, “classical” in the education of your children.”

-Morecraft

Natural Law

1 Theories on Natural Law are Flawed

-They have a faulty epistomological foundation

-Founded in classical thinking

-Faulty assumption that we are able to "reason out" what the law is.

-Reason was not created by God to be the determiner between right and wrong and to make law.

-Reason was created by God to help him, but cannot come to conclusions about God - apart from the divine

2 Mans' Mind is Not Neutral

-Presuppositions are those convictions in the heart and mind about ourselves, the world, and God that impact our decisions.

3 Christian Theories of Natural Law

-Only see God’s law as vague, abstract and increasingly removed.

4 Hume’s Gap

-"The unbridgeable difference between what is and what ought to be."

-Separation between propositions and imperatives.

-This gap has never been bridged by a secular philosophy.

-Propositions have truth, but the imperatives do not.

CONCLUSION

Because of the enlightenment in modern times, the natural law cut ties from Biblical law. It now holds autonomy under the power of the civil state.

Belief in Natural Law

leads to Human Reason

which leads to belief in Primacy of Intellect.

The Bible doesn't teach the primacy of intellect, but instead teaches the primacy of faith.

 "Medieval Scholasticism" 

Three Phases of Scholasticism

11th - 13th centuries - Rise

mid 13th - late 13th century - Flourishing

late 13th - early 16th centuries - Gradual decrease

Defects of Scholasticism

1: They Didn't Adopt Sola Scriptura

2. Synthesization with Greek Philosophy

The reformation was a revival of Augustinianism - as opposed to Aquinas' views.

If the Bible wasn’t needed (Thomism) for some areas of life, it wasn’t needed for any area of life and human reason could be relied upon.

The Reformers All Agreed on One Point….

The moral inability of fallen human beings to incline their hearts to the things of God. Men are 100% dependent upon God in the work of regeneration….and is of God, not of our own, lest any man should boast.

Over 70% of Americans believe that there is some good in everybody.

Over 80% believe that “God helps those who help themselves.”

The Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul go back to this medieval scholasticism.

Speaking with Bill Potter after his talk:

"A Man For His Time: Winston Churchill"

Mr. Potter shared the story of Churchill's upbringing and his early military career.

When Churchill was in Pakistan, he remarked that in the Pashtun tribe:

"Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian."

Bill Potter then quipped - "Not unlike many homeschoolers!"

“No man did more to preserve freedom and democracy and the values we hold dear in the West. None provided more public entertainment with his dramatic ups and downs, his noble oratory, his powerful writings and sayings, his flashes of rage, and his sunbeams of wit. He took a prominent place on the public stage of his country and the world for over 60 years, and it seemed empty with his departure. Nor has anyone since combined so felicitously such a variety of roles.” - Paul Johnson

Sentimental Journey Dance Band (Video) #FCM14

May 7th, 2014 – On the last night of the conference, there was a “Patriotic Tribute” to those who served in WWII and the rest of our veterans.  As part of the celebration, the Sentimental Journey Dance Band came in and performed several patriotic and WWII numbers.
I’m a huge fan of big band swing and I also love live music, so I was pretty much on cloud nine throughout the evening!

WWII Ball (FCM 2014)

May 5th, 2014

I love how his tie is flying in the wind!

WWII Officers Ball (Video) - FCM14

May 5th, 2014 – I didn’t get too much footage from the WWII Officer’s Ball at last month’s conference, but I compiled a few of the clips into the video below.  (Coupled with Glenn Miller’s “American Patrol.”)