Beginning with the Triune God

I ditched the books I was reading and started a new one. I decided the reason I was having such trouble reading—I’ve been reading (or supposedly reading) the same two books since June—was that I wasn’t very interested in either of the books I was trying to read.

I needed a book I would enjoy reading, so I began Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant.

Here is Oliphant’s first tenet in a list of “ten crucial theological tenets for a covenantal, Christian apologetic”:

1. The faith that we are defending must begin with, and necessarily include, the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who, as God, condescends to create and to redeem.

Generic theism is no part of the Christian faith.  … [A]ny defense that does not include the triune God is a defense of a false theism. And theism of this sort is not a step toward Christianity, but an idolatrous reaction to (suppression of) the truth. Thus, a belief in theism that is not Christian theism is a sinful suppression of the truth. It masks, rather than moves toward, true knowledge of the triune God.

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Linked Together: Ephesians 5:21

Phil Johnson
“Ephesians 5:21 poses a conundrum: Paul commends Spirit-filled Christians for ‘submitting to one another.’ Isolate the verse from its context, and it almost sounds as if the Apostle teaches a kind of mutual, universal submission, without regard to any structured leadership, hierarchy, or chain of command—as if he means to declare all authority void.” Read more of Love by Submission at Ligonier Ministries.

Piper and Grudem
“Egalitarians have taken [Ephesians 5:21] to mean that husbands and wives must submit one to another in a way that denies gender distinctions. Yet, is that what Paul meant to say?” Read more of Ephesians 5:21 and ‘Mutual Submission’ at The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

The Heidelberg Catechism

Question 5. Can you keep all this1 perfectly?

Answer: No, (a) for I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour.(b)

1What God’s law requires (Question 4).

(Click through to see scriptural proofs.)

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