A note to TheoForum fellas…

First, to those of you who completed Kostenberger’s modern classic, God, Marriage and Family – well done! I hope you found it to be a profitable study and a book that you will return to many times over the years to refresh your vision for these foundational truths. I’D LIKE TO KNOW WHO FINISHED THE BOOK, so please email me if you did or didn’t. At the end of the year, we’ll probably do some sort of fanfare or reward for guys who pressed through the year’s worth of studies.

Also, I’d like to commend the Preachers! Todd, Jesse, and Nick stepped up, did their homework and came prepared to serve us with truth-laden messages on marriage, family, and singleness. The preparation was demanding since life, in other categories, didn’t stop or play the gentleman. You guys did us proud. The pastors were delighted to see your enthusiasm and the uniqueness of how each of you presented the topics – whether it was Todd’s tender, word-picture laden, pastoral handling of the beauty of marriage, Jesse’s line upon line argument contending against the ‘contraceptive mentality’ in favor of a robustly biblical valuation of children, or Nick’s whimsical but roundly didactic and pastoral treatment of issues related to singleness. You men worked hard and served us well. Thank you for volunteering.

Our latest ascent into the Grudemian Everest begins tomorrow at 6am. Bring your Systematic Theology textbooks. This section (3) is very brief – not even 100 pages. That said, I already have the next book lined up and will announce it soon so that we have time to order them. As we’ve said before, our approach to this book has been to read more together (we don’t have to wade through Kosternberger’s endless – albeit informative and helpful – footnotes!), talk some, and take an exam(s). And so it will be with section three. In this case, we’ll probably just have one big test on the entire section. Get your Tibetan game face on. We start early.

Hey, start to think if you want to put your name in the hat to speak from this book. No guarantee that we’ll get a blocked-off School of the Word hour, and with a section this short we may only do one teaching.

Here’s the tentative schedule for this study:

• July 11 – Start reading ch 21. (H.W.: read 22)
• July 25 – Start reading ch 23. (H.W.: read 24)

*Announce and prepare to order new book around this time

• Aug 8 – Postpone one week
• Aug 15 – Start reading ch 25 (H.W.: Study for exam)
• Aug 22 – Exam
• Aug 23 or 29 – Preach It
• Sept 5 – Start new book (hint: diving into the dead guys)

Hope to see a bunch of you in the morning!

Tomorrow morning starts our new study from Kostenberger’s modern classic, God, Marriage and Family.  If you don’t have the book show up tomorrow and buy one of our extra copies for $15 (first come first serve).  If we run out before you get there, you’ll need to go get your own and start reading.

I hope to see several men there with us as we start our new study.

The place is Steve Roberts’ house on Smith Dr.  You can call the church office for any other details (504-488-1024).  We start at 6am and finish just a bit after 7am.

See you guys there.  I believe this will be a study that could lead to a tremendous season of fruit-bearing in issues that touch closely at the center of our calling as young men.

[Click picture to see the slideshow!]

Well, the TheoForum fellows not only survived the final exam for our study through Grudem’s Systematic Theology, section 2: The Doctrine of God, they sailed through it.

One of the things that impressed me most was how much time the guys took to study back through chapter 14 through 20 to be prepared for test day. Most of them were up the night before, one was up earlier that morning (a ridiculous notion to night owl’s like myself), and one had a few pages of handwritten review notes. And this was obvious. Toward the end of the test I told them that if I hadn’t watched them through the test and if so much of it wasn’t oral essay in nature, I would’ve thought they were taking this open book!

Anyway, for those of you who are wanting an eye in on the more challenging academic aspects of TheoForum, let me again invite you into a bit of a post-game.

We split into groups of only two this time, which is significantly more difficult. And we began with two essay questions from the chapter on the Trinity.

What are the essential components of a biblical understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity?

Name and briefly describe one error as it relates to this doctrine.

The teams were given a few minutes to discuss amongst themselves and write down key phrases they would use in their answers. All three teams nailed the first and did a good job describing the error of modalism. Usually with our tests we don’t have as much ground to cover so we have several questions for each chapter, but we needed to move on so, onto the Doctrine of Creation.

I drew Grudem’s diagrams for pantheism, deism, dualism, materialism, and biblical doctrine of creation and the teams had to match the diagrams to the terms.

[extra credit question] Talk about some of the non-negotiables for a biblical understanding of creation.

Again, they handily dealt with both of these, nailing the diagram exercise and discussing everything from the necessity of holding to creation ex nihilo ["out of nothing"] (they always get extra points for Scripture refs, knowing original Greek/Hebrew words, using historically significant technical terms), talking about the truth that God is distinct from creation and that creation is depending on God and not vice versa, the essential truth that creation exists for the glory of God and was created ‘very good’, affirming that there is no final conflict between Scripture and science and that secular theories denying God as Creator are incompatible with Christian faith. Now, on to the Doctrine of Providence.

Define concurrence in your own words.

Respond to the question, “Are we free, do we have free will?”

[Extra credit question] What are some of the faulty foundations of Arminian theology in connection with providence?

Did a very good job unpacking the problems of a libertarian definition of free will and the repercussions of that for the rest of one’s theology. Ably handled weighty theological terms like primary and secondary cause. Here, we moved to the easier part of the exam – questions on Miracles, Prayer, Anges, Satan and Demons. We had a several true/false questions and the following essays.

List three purposes for miracles in the New Testament.

Is it true that prayer changes the way God acts? Explain.

List some ways to recognize demonic influence.

Here the men talked through the ways in which miracles 1) authenticate the gospel message 2) at times lead to conversion 3) bear witness to inbreaking of God’s kingdom 4) serve as expressions of compassion 5) enable ministry and 6) glorify God. They also did a nice job preserving the sovereignty of God while leaving prayer as a meaningful part of the way God governs and works in history. Lastly, they covered a good bit of biblical landscape in talking about how violent and self-destructive behavior, physical issues/sickness, false doctrinal statements are sometimes signals of demonic activity in Scripture.

We had a handful of guys out that morning, but here are the team players and their respective test scores.

Todd/Erik – 97

Evan/Jose – 99

Nick/Chris – 102

We’ve grown not only in our knowledge of God, but I think, commensurately our wonder at Him. The study has repaid richly and I just can’t say enough how excited it makes me to ask some of these very important questions on very important issues and have a group of men who step up, articulate their faith in a biblically balanced way, and do the hard work of keeping up with reading and getting together every other week at 6am to study God again together.

I’m genuinely feeling that this year is going to be a substantive time of growth for, I hope, many of our young men in the church. It’s not too late to register for TheoForum 2008. Call the office and order your book now. See previous posts under TheoForum category for more info.

It’s about that time fellas. If you haven’t heard about the new book, this should get you caught up. If you’re brand new to the TheoForum concept, here’s where it all began.
This year, we’re doing something different – it’s the forum on steroids.

New features include:

Book completion certificates

We’ll give certificates to every man who finishes the book with us. If work prevents you from attending our Friday morning meetings, but you still keep up with the reading, you will be given credit for participation.

Diplomas for 2008 TheoForum classmates

Though we will give certificates to the men who complete a given study, we want to commit to this Forum as a legitimate context for discipleship, and as such endeavor to commit not simply to study a resource that seems particularly attractive to my spiritual appetite. In other words, commit to the Forum and not just a book you might think interesting. The core of men who have committed over the past year have grown stronger together as a result of walking through book after book and test after test. We want to foster a greater commitment level by awarding diplomas to the TheoForum class of 2008 – the men who stuck it out, read them all, and attended the meetings regularly (there will be an actual policy – did I use that word? – for excused absences). Oh yeah, we’re going further in this year.

Preach it, brother!

For those interested in taking it up another notch, we’ll throw your name into a hat and give you an opportunity to show us what you’re learning by presenting a message relating to the doctrines under consideration in the book we’re going through. We’re even thinking about inviting SheoForum ladies to attend that morning (it’ll be an off week) and perhaps even inviting other Pivoters to get in on it.

Men, we’re serious about what we talked about at this year’s Men’s Retreat. We want to answer the call to be mathetes – learners/disciples.

Now is the time to register for TheoForum 2008. You’ve seen the book that will start the new year. Either order it yourself or bring us $16 by Friday and we’ll get one for you. The new study begins on February 8th. We’ll have a sign up sheet for everyone wanting to commit to the course for this year. Sign up at Pivot or after our main LCC services. Call the office or email me (matt@lakeviewchristiancenter.com) with any further questions.

Final note about the current TheoForum study in section 2 of Grudem’s Systematic – The Doctrine of God: The final test will be one week from tomorrow. Since the section we’re testing is so large, I’ve posted a study guide to narrow your focus for preparation.  Spread the word to your potential testing-teammates.

The final test for TheoForum V, our study through section 2 of Grudem’s Systematic Theology will be one week from tomorrow at 6am. I trust you’ve found this study to be immensely rewarding. I certainly have. Now, it’s time to get prepped for the exam.

Don’t expect me to do this for every test in the future. The problem is that we haven’t had a test since chapter 14, and chapters 14-16 are the longest chapters in the entire Systematic volume. This test will be on the big ideas and salient points of chapters 14-20, thus covering the doctrines of:

• Trinity
• Creation
• Providence
• Miracles
• Prayer
• Angels
• Satan and Demons

The primary chapters from which we’ll derive oral essay questions will be 14-16.

Trinity

• Acquaint yourself with the material on pp.231-241 (i.e., section B)

Creation

• Be able to identify the diagrams on pp. 268-27, right and wrong views of God’s relationship to creation.
• Review Grudem’s list of primary issues in the discussion of the age of the earth on p. 289, under point number three.
• Review (p. 309) the practical applications of a biblical understanding of creation.

Providence

• Be able to define concurrence (317, also parag 3 on 319) in your own words.
• Review matters related to the term “free will”. (330-331 point 9, 344 and following)
• Be prepared to talk briefly about the faulty foundations of Arminian theology as it relates to the doctrine of providence. (344, 348-351)

Miracles

• Get generally acquainted with Grudem’s argument for the present day relevance of miracles. This section will likely be true/false and multiple choice.

Prayer

• Be able to list and briefly discuss three of the headings under “C. Some Important Considerations” (382-392).

Angels

• Be generally acquainted with the chapter. May have a few (not difficult) multiple choice questions.

Satan and Demons

• Be generally acquainted with the chapter. May have a few (not difficult) multiple choice questions.

Alright, well there you have it. Hit the books and I’ll see you guys next Friday.