Early Meeting Time

Gentlemen of the hopefully flexible table, I bring you Friday greetings. I hope you have all had a splendid week at school. Tomorrow brings us to one of the most important passages in all of the Bible. We're looking at Romans 3:21- the end of the chapter. Be sure to read up. In light of the upcoming Camp and a rehearsal for the band, we'll be meeting at 8:30 at the Mission's house until about 9:45ish. Afterwards, those of you participating in the band for camp are welcome to come over to the church for rehearsal. We'll be having lunch together after practice which you are all invited to come to. That'll be around 11:45 am. If you have questions, feel free to call. See you tomorrow at 8:30.

Early to Rise

Gentlemen, due to the sledding time at 10am tomorrow morning, we will be meeting a half hour early tomorrow morning (8:30 am) at the Mission's House. I hope all of you are ready to discuss after your week off. We'll be looking at Romans 2:17-29. Read up, pray up, and be ready to fill up on God's word. If you are planning on sledding, bring your stuff and we can leave right from Bible Study to get over to the hill by 10. See you tomorrow.

Away from Home Again

Gentlemen of the Alaskan Waffle, we are out and about again. Due to a sleep-over at my house, we will have to meet abroad. Here is the plan. We will be meeting at the Pancake House in South Elgin at 8:30 am tomorrow morning. I will plan on getting there at around 8:15ish to put our name down. Please get there on time so we can get a table ASAP. I know we just went out last week and money is short for some of you, so if you could just bring $5 to cover your meal, I'll take care of the rest. Consider it a late Christmas present. We'll be covering the Romans 2:1-16, so come ready to discuss. Call me if you have any questions. See you tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow is Here

Gentlemen, we meet at last. Tomorrow we will be continuing our study through the book of Romans. We'll be covering 2:1-16. Don't forget to read the surrounding context and come with questions, comments, and insights from your commentators/ pastors. I look forward to hearing what you come up with. See you tomorrow morning (1/5/2008) at 9am at the house.

Next week we're back to Romans

Gentlemen of the desolate and forgotten table, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And to our diverse friends, Merry Chrismaquanzadonukkah. Anyhoo, just thought I'd remind you all that we won't be meeting tomorrow morning (12-29), and that our study will resume next Saturday morning. As of now, we will be meeting at our regular time, but keep posted for a potential change to an indoor BBQ in the afternoon. Keep reading regularly. Remember, we're cover the first section of chapter 2. See you at the Lord's house.

CANCELLED!!!

Due to a probable late night for everyone at the Christmas Banquet tonight, I am cancelling Bible Study tomorrow morning. If you have questions, give me a call. Keep checking to see when we'll be meeting next. Have a great night and I'll see you all at the banquet.

The Heart of Romans

Gentlemen of the fallen, yet redeemed table, greetings. We will continue our study through Romans tomorrow morning at 9am at the Mission's House. Remember to read through Romans, especially 1:16-17, and listen or read your commentators on that passage. Our question is whether or not these verses are a call for evangelism or an encouragement to believers about future salvation in heaven. I look forward to hearing what you come up with. See you on the morrow.

Let Us Begin Right Merrily

Gentlemen of the vacant, but prepared table, we begin again. As requested by some of you, we will be out at the Pancake House for our inagural meeting through the book of Romans. I would like to meet at 8am instead of 9am so we miss the rush of people. I'll try to speak to each of you about that before Saturday. This week we'll be reading through Romans 1:1-15. Hopefully each of you have chosen a commentator/ pastor to guide you through your study. I will expect each of you to be very familiar with the passage as well as familiar with what your commentator has to say about it. I'm looking forward greatly to this study. If you haven't chosen a commentator, I've posted several new links in the links side of things to help you out. Just click on a name and it will take you to their material on Romans. Happy studying and see you on Saturday morning.

Preemptive Strike

Gentlemen of the completed table, we will continue our study through the good Book this Saturday morning at 9 am at the Randall St. Pancake House behind the Outback in S. Elgin. Please read through the Cambridge Declaration on the 5 Solas for our discussion. Think through why these 5 issues are so important to the church today and how they have impacted your view of salvation and the scriptures. Here is the full text in case you don't have a copy:

THE CAMBRIDGE DECLARATION

of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

April 20, 1996

Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian faith.

In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to the word "evangelical." In the past it served as a bond of unity between Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the "solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the word "evangelical" has become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of their role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion Of Authority

Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church's life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction.

Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable to the church's understanding, nurture and discipline.

Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, cliche's, promises. and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God's truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God's provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preachers opinions or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.

The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God's grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura

We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian's conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

Solus Christus: The Erosion Of Christ-Centered Faith

As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

Thesis Two: Solus Christus

We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

Sola Gratia: The Erosion Of The Gospel

Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.

God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Fide: The Erosion Of The Chief Article

Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ's imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.

Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.

While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of Christ's substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide

We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect justice.

We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion Of God-Centered Worship

Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God's and we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in the life of today's church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.

God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria

We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's glory and that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone. We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self- fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

Call To Repentance And Reformation

The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ's kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.

We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the "gospels" of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure adequately to tell others about God's saving work in Jesus Christ.

We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God's Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church's worship, ministry, policies, life and evangelism. For Christ's sake. Amen.

---

ACE Council Members:
Dr. John Armstrong
Rev. Alistair Begg
Dr. James M. Boice
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. John D. Hannah
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Mrs. Rosemary Jensen
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Dr. Robert M. Norris
Dr. R. C. Sproul
Dr. G. Edward Veith
Dr. David Wells
Dr. Luder Whitlock
Dr. J. A. O. Preus, II

http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/cambridge.html

I hope you find the read instructive and informative. See you on Saturday.

The Quest is Completed

Gentlemen of the treasurious table, congratulations on finishing the quest. This Saturday will be our last study through our book. We'll read the last 3 chapters (12-15) for our discussion Saturday morning. We'll be taking the next three weeks off for various reasons, and we'll begin our study through the book of Romans on November 17 with perhaps another breakfast at the Randall St. Pancake house (yes, the King Kong may strike again). I look forward to our next meeting.

The BBQ Is Here

Gentlemen of the round, meaty table, the BBQ is finally upon us. Make sure to bring your own beef, chicken, lamb, venison, boar, pork, fish, or meat substitute for the grill. We'll be meeting at high noon at the Mission's House to discuss the next two chapters (11-12) as well as discuss where we are going with our study through Romans. I hope you all can make it. It's going to be a tasty time.

I Can Almost Smell the BBQ

Gentlemen of the questing table, where is everyone? I have to say that I miss you guys. It seems like forever since we've all met together. I hope more than three of you can make it this week, but if not, I trust that those who come have been directed there by God and that the rest of you have a good reason for missing. I hope Matt and Joe do great in their tourney tomorrow.

We will be meeting tomorrow morning at 9am to discuss chapters 9-10 in our book. The following week I would like to have our BBQ so we avoid having it when it is too cold. We'll discuss that tomorrow. Also, is there a better time for you all to meet? Just wondering. I hope you are all doing well. Talk at you tomorrow. Later...

Whazzup!?

Gentlemen of the vacant table, it is good to be back. How's it hangin' wich yu? The vaca was nice, and it was good to see Cali again and enjoy some nice In-n-Out, but there's nothing like sweet home Chicago.

I am curious about who will be coming this week to Bible Study. I've heard from Nick and Dwayne that they won't be able to make it. Depending on our number, we might have to cancel or meet at Caribou. Either way I'm planning on meeting the week after and having a little BBQ if you can make it. So, let me know your plans. I would really like to get back into a regular schedule of us meeting, especially since we took that past two weeks off. We'll be discussing the next two chapters (ch. 7-8), so be ready to discuss. Later...

Whazzup, Jewish Style

A Break in the Quest

Gentlemen, I will be traveling to and from California these next two Saturdays. We will not be meeting, but continue to work on your treasure maps. Plan on discussing the next two chapters when we come together again (maybe for a BBQ) on September 29. I'll talk with you all when I get back.

A Sleepless Night on the Hunt

Gentlemen of the hyper-active pumped up on caffeine table, the Lock-in is here at last. I hope you all have thought about our discussion from last week about leading by serving and are taking advantage of this Lock-in to serve your leading ladies.

On Saturday morning, after everything is finished, we will be heading north to the Randall St. Pancake House in S. Elgin. We'll be discussing chapters 5-6 about taking the lead and the first risk in the relationship. I hope to see you all there.

Gentlemen of the Quest

Hello knights of the quest. I hope the week has treated each of you well. We are continuing our study tomorrow morning concerning matters of the heart. We'll be discussion chapter 3 and reviewing our "treasure maps". I look forward to hearing from you all.

On a side note, I am wondering of a different time would be better for us to meet now that school has started. Just something to think about. Also, if some of you can stick around afterwards to help set up for the auction, I would really appreciate it. It should only take 15 minutes or so. Until tomorrow @ 9 @ my house.

The List

Gentlemen of the strangely vacant table, what's up? Last week was a very enjoyable discussion. It was Jonah, M. Stern, and myself at Caribou, enjoying caffeine and building each other up. I was saddened to see so few, even though it was a great time. I have to say that I was wondering where everyone was, and it occured to me that Sat. morning might not be the best time to meet anymore. If that is the case, please leave a comment or give me a call. I don't want the majority of our group to miss this book simply because they couldn't come to our meetings.

With that said, I enjoyed seeing the first two lists of what to look for in a bride and I hope the rest of you are thinking and praying about what you are looking for. We will be meeting again this Sat. morning at 9am, and I hope more of you can make it. If you are going to be gone, just leave a comment or give me a ring. See you guys later.

The Quest

Gentlemen of the Questing table, we move on. I hope you have enjoyed the read so far. We will be continuing our study of the Quest tomorrow morning here at the Mission's House. Make sure to have chapter two read as well as the beginnings of a list of what you are looking for in a spouse. See you soon.

Can you taste the Pancakes Yet?

Gentlemen of the soon to be IHOPed table, I hope you are ready for another great book. As I've been reading through the first chapter of Matters of the Heart, I have been challenged to think more seriously, even about my marriage relationship. It should be a great time of discussion. I hope to see you all at IHOP at 9am on Saturday morning. Make sure to bring $$ for your meal. Let me know if you have any questions. See you tomorrow morning.

Done with Doctrine, on to Dating

Gentlemen of the Indoctrinated table, I salute you all for a job well done. Tomorrow is our wrap up of Wayne Grudem's book, Bible Doctrine. I hope you all are prepared and ready for our discussion. In case you forgot, you were supposed to come up with at least one question for discussion, as well as one thing you learned from the study that has changed your life or your view of God. I look forward to our time together.

Next week, we'll be at IHOP to begin our discussion of Matter of the Heart. Bring your appetite and your $$ and your book. I'll see you tomorrow morning, 9am, at my house.