Tag: Virgin

Book Plunge: Conceived by the Holy Spirit

What do I think of Rhyne Putman’s book on the virgin birth (Which I do affirm)? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Rhyne Putman is a good friend of mine and he was fine with sending me a review copy of his book on the virgin birth (Which I do affirm). If you want to read it, you will be waiting awhile as it comes out next year. Still, I wanted to write on it while it was fresh in my mind.

This book covers most every area of the Gospel narratives on the virgin birth (Which I do affirm) and not just defending the doctrine, which needs to be done, but even more important after that, showing what difference it makes. Is it just a nice add-on to the story but if we lose it, no big deal? Not at all, says Putman. We need to look at the difference it makes to know that Jesus was virgin born. (Which I do affirm.)

Also, if you’re reading this and you’re a layman thinking “Great. Another academic work that will go over my head” then you are also mistaken. This is written for you. This is easily approachable and Putman explains his terms well. Not only that, but it’s perfect Christmas reading seeing as there are 25 chapters in this. Gather the family around and read one chapter a day and you can go through December 1-25 celebrating the virgin birth. (Which I do affirm.)

The first section of the book deals with the birth of the virgin-born king (Which I do affirm) in the narratives. Each part is looked at in detail and also specifies which objections are being answered. Want to look at something on the Lucan census? Go straight there! Want to see if the incarnation goes against pre-existence? You can find it! Want to just look at one particular part of the narratives, say if you’re a minister preparing a sermon? Not a problem! Go to it!

Part two then goes beyond this looking at the practice of the doctrine. Putman will take you through the church fathers to see what they say. (Also, Protestants like myself really do need to read the church fathers. The Reformers pointed to them regularly and it’s a shame that many in our churches don’t even know who they were.) He then goes through church history seeing what so many people said about how the doctrine applies to them. There is definitely a heavy Christmas theme here as many of the chapter headings refer to Christmas carols. Again, you can also go through and see objections that need to be answered, even the one that says Mary should have aborted.

Finally, he does have an appendix for those who are interested, on the Marian dogmas, particularly perpetual virginity. Putman walks a fine line here as he wants to make sure he is charitable to scholars who are of a different persuasion than he is whom he has learned much from. I hope that those who read through such a section, like Roman Catholics and Orthodox, will walk away saying that their position was treated fairly and even though they don’t agree with Putman, that he made his case and respected theirs.

Putman’s book is a delightful tour through the Gospels and through church history. If you want to bless your Christmas celebrations, get this book. Go through it. If children are old enough to understand the terms about virginity and other such ideas, have them join in. If you want to establish a new Christmas tradition, then let it be this one.

And on a side note, Putman is also definitely right about one other thing. Die Hard is indeed a Christmas movie.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Can You Try Before You Buy?

Could you take her for a test run? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We live in a world that tends to worship at the altar of sexuality. We often think we know so much in this area, when really we know so little. It’s one reason there’s so much confusion such that people are having perfectly fine body parts removed from them because they feel like they’re the opposite gender. (As if to say there’s any set way a man or a woman is meant to feel.)

Sex is certainly not sacred to most people anymore and is pretty much a recreational activity. You are attracted to someone, you date, you sleep together, you move in, you could get married. Normally, it’s the woman who wants to get married to have that security, but the man isn’t as motivated. Why would he be? He’s getting what he wants already.

In the ancient world, a woman was to be protected while she was in the house of her parents, and that included her sexuality. In this case, if a man seduces her, assuming she is not pledged to someone else, then he doesn’t get to try before he buys. He has to marry her at that point.

Suppose the father absolutely refuses? The man is still in the loser’s position. He has to pay the bride-price for her. He has damaged the family. In the world of ancient Israel, men wanted to marry women who were virgins. This woman would be less likely to marry as a result of what this man had done.

Now we can be sure if a woman seduced a man, which could happen as we saw earlier with the wife of Potiphar who attempted this, that the law would be understood to apply in an opposite sense, though a man certainly doesn’t have a bride-price. However, most of us realize it makes sense to address the man because usually, the men are the pursuers in sexual relationships.

Overall, this was to be a deterrent to the man. Do you want to sleep with this woman? Really consider how much it’s going to cost you. Can you afford a bride-price? Later on in the Torah, we will get to the case of a man who seduces a woman who is pledged to be married and the stakes are different.

This is one reason also in our society, abortion is not an ally to women, but it is much more an ally to the man. After all, most men don’t really like the thought of paying child support, but if he can get a woman pregnant and she can make the problem go away, then the man gets off free and can do what he wants at that point. Abortion has really been helping women to be used by men as long as it has been around.

Perhaps our society should also learn to not take sex so casually. Maybe we’re really missing out on the joy that we’re meant to have in this area of life. While Christians are not under the Law, we are foolish if we don’t think we can learn something from it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

MacArthur and the Principle of Charity

How do we read even our opponents? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There’s a rule in debates of any kind that if there are at least two possible readings of a text and you have no good reason to prefer one to the other, you go with the one that puts your opponent in the best light. You would want him to do the same to you if he thought your statements were ambiguous. If you don’t understand a concept also, you should not put it in a way that is absolutely ludicrous.

So let’s look at something John MacArthur is claimed to have said. My friend who shared it is a Catholic and I have not known him to post false information so if this was never said, I will gladly rescind any comments about MacArthur, but the concept will still be the same because this is a common mistake. Anyway, it all begins with this picture.

I understand a lot of my fellow Protestants get antsy when they hear the phrase “Mother of God” and I will be discussing that concern later on, but no matter how much you might think Catholicism is false whether you just disagree with it or whether you think it’s the biggest cult on Earth, and I am indeed the former, let’s state something about what is meant by Mother of God. The fact is that no Catholic takes it to mean something along the lines of, “God did not exist and then Mary came along and Mary gave birth to God and God came into existence at that point.” Every Catholic knows that God in His divine essence was not born. God is eternal. They do know that a man named Jesus who is both God and man was born. That is what is meant.

Now that doesn’t mean you have to accept every bit of Mariology that comes from Catholics and Orthodox, but it does mean that you can accept this term when it is understood. If by Mother of God, one means that Mary gave birth to a person who is fully God and fully man and brought the incarnation into the world through her body, there is not a problem. Protestants agree that Mary was the one to do this and to this degree, she should indeed be honored even in Protestant circles. While I think Catholics and Orthodox have gone too far with Mary, I think the Protestant reaction has gone too far in the other direction.

Now let’s address something a Protestant friend said in the discussion. Catholics should say what they mean. When people hear Mother of God, they do tend to think something along the lines of God came into being through Mary. Why not let them just say what they mean then?

The problem here is that everyone does theological shorthand. Were you to go up to Protestant Evangelicals and ask “Is Jesus God?”, they would say yes. Now you go to someone like Greg Stafford, who is a Jehovah’s Witness who wrote a book defending them. He will take that and go this way.

Jesus is God.
God is a Trinity.
Jesus is a Trinity.

Obviously, no one accepts this, but Stafford will use it to show the Trinity is nonsense if you think Jesus is God. Some will look at this and say, “I know it’s wrong, but I don’t see where.” The problem is the first premise is theological shorthand. Evangelicals don’t go around stating the doctrine as “Jesus is the man in whom the fullness of the divine nature, the second person of the Trinity, dwells in bodily form.” No. We just speak of the deity of Christ and say Jesus is God hoping people will understand rather than use a long and clunky phrase every time.

Getting back to the picture itself, the reality is MacArthur should know enough about Catholicism to know this. I could grant some grace to Joe Protestant who doesn’t walk in highly theological circles and hears this phrase and reacts that way. On the other hand, how much better would our discussions be if we would go to our opponents over ideas like this and say “Do you really believe this? Explain this to me please.”

And again, if the citation is wrong and MacArthur never said this, fair enough. This can be changed. What is still the same is the point. We ought to read our opponents in the best possible light and if we don’t know something, try to understand before critiquing. How much better could our dialogues be if we did that?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)