CADRE Comments

With the recent school shooting in Connecticut, I wouldn't be surprised if Christmas sermons leaned a little more than usual this year on the incident of Herod slaughtering the baby boys in Bethlehem. I would however be surprised if many Christian sermons bothered to talk about the Old Testament verses being referenced by Matthew (or whoever authored/compiled/redacted/whatever the Greek text of The Gospel According to Matthew --but for ease of reference I'll go with Matthean authorship hereafter). That's because many Christian preachers would have good reason to be nervous about looking into why Matthew cites this incident as fulfilling a prophecy from Jeremiah. I on the other hand think Matthew's reference is hugely important and relevant, not only in regard to Christian hope for innocent victims, but also in regard to Christian hope for those who slaughter the innocent! ...what? Hope in Christ, and in the grace of God, for Herod and for his murderous thugs?! ...

[Note: The contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, Chapter 52, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes Chapter 53.] I could follow Abram through his story--history or legend or both as we have it. But I would rather show, if I can, the intrinsic harmony underlying this odd and disturbing story--a harmony I could expect the general principles of, if I know enough of God beforehand to have some clue how He will work. So, I will go back instead to our nameless chosen ancestor of the knowledge of God, as if I did not already know to suspect his name. He may not get along very quickly with his knowledge--or more precisely with his learning. But it would be important to teach him that God works slowly, sometimes through channels seeming at first to be unprofitable. The lesson might be almost anything, so long as it is linked to the filling of a promise, in a fashion that this man, and people like him throughout the world in later history, could easily appr...

A few weeks ago, Layman began a discussion concerning some difficult claims, disputed to some degree among various schools of Christian theology. The record of this discussion so far can be found here and here and here. In the second round of discussion, I was asked by Puritan Lad (one of the other regular contributors to that discussion), to explain if I could the case of Absalom, son of David. PL’s contention was that Absalom counts as an example of someone pre-determined by God to do things for which God would then hopelessly damn him. (At least, if this was not PL’s intention, then bringing up Absalom’s case would be kind of useless, since this is the topic we were discussing at the time. {s}) Specifically, PL asked me to explain (tacitly meaning explain in another way, if I could), the prediction testified to in 2 Samuel 12:11-12. At the time, I opted to answer as well as I could according to principle, rather than according to story context, seeing as how principle would be of ...