The Laymens Lounge

The Rule of Faith for Reading the Bible

Today we sit down with Todd Hains, author of “Martin Luther and the Rule of Faith” (IVP), and we learn there is more to Luther than his emphasis on salvation by faith alone. How should we read the Bible? What lens should we have when reading the law? What guide for the Psalms? Indeed, Luther and Hains have much to offer. Happy Reformation Week!

Jacob & the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship

“I have entitled this book, "Limping with God" instead of Walking with God or Running with God, not because there would be anything wrong with those metaphors, but because, as Jacob limped away from his famous wrestling match with God, so we all get by on bum hips and bad knees. Following Jesus, we gimp our way down the dark and slippery paths of life. “

- Chad Bird

In this interview we sit down with Richard Gaffin, author of “An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul - In the Fullness of Time” (Crossway) where I pepper Dr Gaffin with every question under the sun in regards to neo-Calvinisim (and its drift to liberalism), Kuyper & Bavinck (and translations), Geerhardus Vos (was he a neo-Calvinist?), Ridderbos (did he cave to liberalism?), Romans 7 (is it a Christian speaking or pre-Christian?), the fact that Pentecost is more than just a blip in the history of redemption (but one of the most important scenes), what the Christian life is made of (“Christ is both the means and the end”), and much more. Pro Rege!

The Baptist shift from Calvin’s “Feeding” to Bunyan’s “Memorial”

When it comes to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, many Baptists reject the language of sacrament. As a people of the book, the logic goes, Baptists must not let tradition supersede the Bible. So Baptists tend to view baptism and Communion as ordinances and symbols, not sacraments. But the history of Baptists and the sacraments is complicated. In “Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands,” Michael A. G. Haykin argues that earlier Baptists, such as Charles Spurgeon, stood closer to Reformed sacramental thought than most Baptists today do. More than mere memorials, baptism and Communion have spiritual implications that were celebrated by Baptists of the past. Haykin calls for a renewal of sacramental life in churches today—Baptists can and should be sacramental. All this and more as we sit down with Dr Haykin.

Do you know you would have done otherwise?

Jonathan Edwards owned a slave. George Whitfield owned slaves and was a pro-slavery activist. Thomas Jefferson, who said “all men are created equal part,” was a slave owner. Should we cancel Whitfield, burn our “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” shirts, and take some dynamite to Jefferson’s face on Mount Rushmore? But should we ask a few questions first? Hypocrisy of the highest order to be sure - yet baked into the culture was slavery. What was the silver bullet verse that prohibits slavery? Surely these people turned a blind eye, right? Surely there is no excuse, right? Surely YOU would have done different… Right? Right?...? We ask all these questions and more on this episode with Thomas S. Kidd (author of Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution, George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding). Here is frustrating and horrifying subject, but one that we do well to have.

Translating Kuyper, the rise of liberalism amongst the ICS and Neo-Calvinists, and reformation not revolution.

In this episode with Harry van Dyke, we talk about translating Kuyper and Groen van Prinsterer, the liberal shift of many Neo-Calvinists and the ICS, sitting under H. Evan Runner, gun control, "Gay Christians", a new Neo-Calvinist research center, and growing up and playing on the same streets as Geerhardus Vos.

Steve Bishop

Ruben Alvarado

Francis Schaeffer

Hans Rookmaaker

H. Evan Runner

C.S. Lewis

Gordon Spykman

Henry van Til

Albert Wolters

Abraham Kuyper

Dutch immigration to USA and Canada

Redeemer University

Henry De Bolster

The Groen Club

Bernard Zylstra

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer

S.G. De Graaf

The Anti-Revolutionary Party

Growing up and playing on the same Dutch street as Geerhardus Vos,

Reading 20,000 letters written into Kuyper (as well as BB Warfield)

Kuyper's visit to Canada

Herman Kuyper (Who was Abraham's son and was out beyond curfew)

Herman Bavinck

Herman Dooyeweerd

The unfolding of the liberal drift Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) liberal drift and Bernard Zylstra's and Calvin Seerveld's fight to remain in the "first love" as it was slipping... "We had a hard time because that institute was the love of our heart"

The CRC course-correcting on the LGBT+ issue

Why have the bulk of the Neo-Calvinists the last 20 years focused chiefly on philosophy and politics rather than Theology

LGBT+

French Revolution and the program of liberalism 

Reformation not revolution

The overturning of the christian worldview and christian arrangement of society...

Individualism and the state

Christians schools being recognized by the state

Principal against principal

Tim Keller, Masks and Mandates, Kuyper on forced vaccinations and sphere sovereignty

Christian Union (Netherlands)

The Joustras

David Beldman

Craig Bartholomew

A Neo-Calvinist research center to launch at Redeemer in September. 4 seminaries - Edinburgh, Kampen, Vrije, Redeemer 

The Dooyeweerd center

Gun control, where do we draw the line, and the fact the Russians wouldn't last a month if they invaded America

If we give up guns to stop shootings then men should also give up their penis cut off to stop rape

Roger Henderson

"It’s no secret that the Bible has a lot of stories; at Covenant [they] are concerned to show how it all fits with the Big Story. But what are we to do with the littler stories? We warn you about an overly simplistic approach, “be like David.” But still; might there not be more? I am sure that there is; but how do we get that “more”? This class will straddle hermeneutics, Biblical theology, and apologetics; in it we will work together to develop an approach that does justice to redemptive history, story, and worldview, as well as to the place of these stories in the moral formation of faithful communities, shaping their likes and dislikes for virtues and vices. We will consider narratives from both the Old Testament and the New."

The above is a description from C. John Collins forthcoming fall class, OT505 APPLYING BIBLICAL NARRATIVES, at Covenant Theological Seminary - join us as we discuss what a faithful reading of Biblical narratives might look like. If you would like to jump in on the class (in person or via zoom) email [email protected]

To silence the silent screams of a desperate conscience that longs to be free and forgiven

Help! I keep sinning!!! 

Join us as we sit down with Sam Storms, author of "A Dozen Things God Did with Your Sin (And Three Things He'll Never Do): And Three Things He'll Never Do" (Crossway), and discuss assurance, doubt and rest.

“It’s called a defiled conscience... everyone knows exactly what I’m talking about when I refer to those occasions when your conscience feels dirty. I’m talking about what you feel and sense deep within as you lie on your bed at night and reflect on the events of the day: the harsh words you spoke to your kids, the lie that you told your boss hoping to gain advancement, the pride you felt in your heart when someone praised your efforts. I’m talking about what you feel and sense deep within when you wake up in the morning and lustful thoughts and sinful fantasies race through your mind. 'Where did that come from,' you wonder aloud? 'What will God think of me now?'... The fact that we could treat God with such indifference is profoundly unsettling.”

“The single overriding and most debilitating factor that threatens to undermine everything in our Christian lives and in our relationship with God is the failure to understand, embrace, and enjoy the full and final forgiveness of our sins. The reason you and I struggle to enjoy God is because we live in constant fear that he doesn’t enjoy us."

“Let me tell you why we think this way. Let me tell you why you aren’t living in the fullness of the joy and peace and satisfaction in your relationship with God that you so desperately desire. It comes down to one thing and one thing only: you and I have failed to believe what God himself says he has done with our sins. What consumes us is what we have done by sinning. What ought to consume us is grateful meditation on what God has done with our sinning.”

“This is what I mean when I speak of your eternal union with God. It is your position as a saved, redeemed, forgiven, justified, adopted child of God. It is eternal in the sense that it lasts forever. Nothing can change it, undo it, or reverse it. But these are also nonexperiential realities. In other words, you don’t “feel” justification when it happens. You may feel an emotion of joy and gratitude because you are justified, but justification is not something that you experience in your body or your hormones or even in your emotions or affections. Nothing that happens in this life can affect your eternal union. Your obedience doesn’t add to it and your disobedience doesn’t detract from it. It is perfect and complete and final. But that doesn’t mean your disobedience has no effect whatsoever on your relationship with God.”

“David had committed adultery. He had stolen from another man. He had defiled a woman who wasn’t his wife. He had defiled himself. He schemed to have her husband killed. But worst of all, he had violated the honor, glory, and goodness of his God. Is forgiveness still possible for someone like that?”

“Whereas God is now and always will be my Father, my experience of that truth can go up and down. One day, I might enjoy his fatherly affection, but on another day, I may have lived in such a way that this enjoyment diminishes. My sonship didn’t diminish. My status as God’s child is unchanged. But my capacity to enjoy and feel the glory of being a child of God can be undermined by unrepentant sin. Many have failed to properly differentiate between these two realities. They don’t fully grasp the distinction between what is eternal and what is experiential, and they don’t carefully differentiate between what is true of my union with God and my communion with him.”

Getting at the Fundamentals via a Survey of History

Today we are joined with Greg Parker Jr., editor and translator of the recently released book from Herman Bavinck called “What is Christianity?”

No mere theories. No lofty principles to form society... Just get to Church

"The Cultural Mandate" - who said it first? Of course the idea was there in both Kuyper and Bavinck, but who coined, and helped further nuance, it? Indeed you know and love/hate, Kuyper, you are familiar with Bavinck, and you glean from Vos and Berkouwer... but who is Klaas Schilder (1890 - 1952)? Listen in as we are joined with Marinus De Jong, co-editor (along with Richard Mouw and George Harinck) of  "The Klaas Schilder Reader: The Essential Theological Writings", as we discuss this oft-forgotten, yet monumental, second generation Neo-Calvinist.