Phil Gons

Bible & Tech

Economic Trinitarian Relations

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Pastor Timothy Mills recently submitted a review of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology to our PastorBookshelf Reviews website. His comments were generally positive, but not as positive as I would have hoped for such a fine introduction to biblical doctrine.

One area where he disagreed with Grudem was in his handling of the Trinity.

His choice, however, of the model of the Trinity as a hierarchy setting the pattern for the marriage relationship (454) is problematic. The Trinity is a tri-unity, while a marriage is merely dual-mutual. Yes, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church (Eph. 5:23), but that is a relationship between the husband and wife, as between Christ and the church; but not as between the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. No where does the New Testament make that comparison.

I suggested to Pastor Mills that that is precisely the connection Paul makes in 1 Cor 11:3: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Just as a husband is the head of his wife, so the Father is the head of the Son.

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Update on the Pronunciation of “Propitiation”

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I recently wrote about the various pronunciations of “propitiation” that are in use by pastors, theologians, and scholars, making particular reference to D. A. Carson’s peculiar pronunciation: prō-pĭs-ē-ā-shŭn.

According to the poll, the majority of the readers of this blog follow the pronunciation that I use: prō-pĭsh-ē-ā-shŭn. A couple prefer prō-pĭt–chē-ā-shŭn or prō-pĭch-ē-ā-shŭn. But no one—at least from my limited readership—follows Carson’s prō-pĭs-ē-ā-shŭn.

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“Faith Reviving” | Augustus Toplady

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I recently enjoyed reflecting on this encouraging hymn text with solid theology penned by Augustus Toplady (ERF | ODCC):

Augustus TopladyFrom whence this fear and unbelief?
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin
Which, Lord, was charged on thee?

Complete atonement thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with thy blood?

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Bahnsen on the Extent of the Atonement

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Death of Death in the Death of ChristI recently stumbled across a brief defense of limited atonement written by Greg Bahnsen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) in 1972 (at the age of 23 or 24). His fervency reminded me of Owen’s in Death of Death in the Death of Christ (WTSBooks) and Packer’s in his introductory essay in the same (which is also the eighth chapter in his A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life).

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More Bahnsen Debates

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Greg BahnsenNote: The site hosting the MP3 files below no longer has them up, but Archive.org has them cached. I’ve updated the links. Make sure to right-click and select “Save link as” to download them.

I recently stumbled across and listened to two other free Bahnsen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) debates:

They aren’t quite as good as the debate against Gordon Stein (Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 | transcript), but they are still worth listening to.

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Dave Wike’s New CD: “Still Waters”

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Still WatersDave Wike. Still Waters. LightTouch Records, 2007. 47:30.

[rate 4.5]

My friend and coworker Dave Wike just recently released his second fingerstyle guitar CD entitled Still Waters (CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes). You might recall my blogging about his first CD, Waiting (CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes), back in January.

Still Waters is all instrumental and makes great study music. Here are my reviews of Dave’s two CDs:

I’ve listened to Waiting hundreds of times and love it. It makes great background music for reading or studying. I highly recommend it.

I’ve listened to Dave’s first CD, Waiting, hundreds of times and love it, but Still Waters is even better. I just got a copy today and have been listening to it for hours straight. It’s great background music for when I’m reading and studying. I love it and highly recommend it.

Visit DaveWike.com (also CDBaby | Amazon | iTunes) to hear samples.

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The Proper Pronunciation of “Propitiation”

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While traveling to OH for my sister’s wedding last weekend, I had the opportunity to listen to D. A. Carson’s (Wikipedia | Theopedia)1 three-part series on the New Perspective on Paul (Theopedia): “The So-Called New Perspective on Paul Critiqued” (Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 also here: Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3).2 He delivered it at Reformed Theological Seminary in 2005. It’s a helpful overview and introduction to the issues.3 If you don’t have a good grasp on the New Perspective, this is a good place to start.

PropitiationBut the New Perspective is not the subject of this post. During the course of the third lecture, Dr. Carson repeatedly referred to propitiation (Theopedia) when working through Romans 3. What struck me as odd was his pronunciation of the term. He consistently said prō-pĭs-ē-ā-shŭn (e.g., 48:54). Perhaps as intriguing was that he pronounced the verb form, “propitiate,” (correctly, in my view) as prō-pĭsh-ē-āte rather than the expected prō-pĭs-ē-āte.

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  1. See also Andreas Kostenberger’s ten-page biography of Carson. [↩]
  2. See Andy Naselli’s nice collection of Carson audio. [↩]
  3. See Adrian Warnock’s summary. [↩]

Update on Life

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted with any regularity. Life has been extra busy, or at least busy with out-of-the-ordinary stuff. It’s hard to believe that the summer (speaking in terms of school rather than the season) is more than half over!

This is a bit of an unusual post, but I thought it would be a good transition back into my normal blogging routine, which amounts to roughly one post per week.

Here’s what’s been going on:

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