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DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.9

December 13, 2019 by dan

Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 9 – Justice)

1. Justice = God is perfectly just.

2. What is justice? It “consists in giving to every one his due.”

3. Justice can be distinguished into ‘commutative’ and ‘distributive’. “Commutative Justice is fair dealing in the exchange of commodities, and belongs to commerce” whereas “Distributive Justice rewards or punishes men according to their actions, and appertains to government.”

4. When we are speaking of God’s justice, we are referring to distributive justice.

5. By nature “men claim enjoyments as a natural right, irrespective of their moral character and conduct. They reject the moral government of God, and seek happiness in their own way. This is rebellion, and in this justice of God opposes them.”

6. Though it is apparent now that there is a God of justice who judges the earth, with “conscience now, in God’s stead, often pronounces sentence, though its voice is unheeded” but “the grand exhibition is reserved for the judgment of the great day.”

7. A good grasp of God’s justice should “inspire the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom” and should encourage piety knowing “that a just God sits on the throne of the universe.”

(Photo: Ben White)

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Doctrine, J. L. Dagg, Manual of Theology

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.8

December 4, 2019 by dan

Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 8 – Truth)

1. Truth = God is a being of inviolable truth.

2. Two aspect of God’s truthfulness is His veracity and faithfulness. “Veracity in his declaration of things as they are, and faithfulness in the exact fulfilment of his promises and threatenings.”

3. Humans make errors. “In their testimony from mistakes of facts” and “fall through inability to fulfil promises which they have made with honest intentions.”

4. God does not make mistakes because He is omniscient. God does not fail to fulfil His intentions because He is omnipotent and unchangeable.

5. The truth of God denotes “the agreement of all the revelations or manifestations which he has made of himself, with his mind and character.”

6. “We can have no knowledge of God, except by the manifestations he has made of himself. When we receive these, however made, as expressing to us the mind and character of God, we exercise faith in God. But when we close our understandings and hearts against these manifestations, or, through disrelish of them, misinterpret them in any manner, we are guilty of the great sin of unbelief, which rejects the testimony of God, and makes him a liar.”

(Photo: Ben White)

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Doctrine, J. L. Dagg, Manual of Theology

LEADERSHIP LESSONS (6)

November 28, 2019 by dan

Ray Evans has written two excellent books – Ready Steady Grow and Church Leadership – he also has posted on the FIEC website over the last couple of years, some excellent articles on Growing as a Leader.

Here are some takeaways from 3 of them: Evangelistic Energy; Attendance, Migration, Community; and Church Membership.

1. It is tiring keeping evangelism at the top of the church’s agenda. Why? Ultimately, because of unseen forces of evil seeking to destroy God’s good purposes. But there are other factors to be aware of.
– Running a church takes a lot of time and effort, whatever stage and size you are. It is very easy for church leaders to spend all their time with Christians.
– You put on courses, and people who says they are keen to come, drop out.
– People show interest in the gospel, appear to understand it clearly, then say “It’s not for me”.

2. “Leaders of growing churches put themselves near the people coming towards faith. They get to know them and they make sure they invest their time and best efforts to win these people as converts before establishing them in their new faith, as the Lord works in them.”

3. A popular idea is for leaders to spend time investing in the most promising disciples to turn them into disciples who make other disciples. But often they can take up a huge amount of the leader’s resources and energy without becoming effective evangelists of outsiders.

4. Common today for there to be weak attendance at Sunday evening meetings. Around 1 in 4 FIEC churches don’t have an evening service at all.

5. “More people coming but less often.” As a church grows the regularity of attendance slips.  When 25% or more may be away on any one Sunday, church is challenging.  Why is this happening?  Consumerism.  Spiritual superficiality.  It is probably more complex than that.

6. The challenge of students going off to university never to return.

7. One Christian leader estimated that half of all Christians in Britain aged under 30 live in London.

8. Personal connection can be as significant to attendance as something that’s nearby.

9. An organisational pathway starts with ATTRACTION, moves on to RECOGNITION/IDENTIFICATION and leads to INTEGRATION.

10. Attraction is everything from your website and media presence, good signage, publicity, to the greeting from the welcome team.

11. Recognition is about spotting new people and warmly relating to those returning for a second, third, or fourth time. Vital at this stage are invites to hospitality, information, and introduction to others who can identify with them.

12. Integration is to help new people really feel part of the church. How does that happen? Suggestions include a ‘meet the pastors’ lunch and ‘induction shaped’ course that covers Family Values (why the church looks like it does today – history, mission, vision and values); Family Life (how the church is structured and run, and what individual’s responsibilities are commitments are); Your Role in the Family (contribution you can make). After these, the process of bringing someone into membership can begin for those who want to proceed.

(Photo: Brad Neathery)

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Leadership, Ray Evans

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.7

November 26, 2019 by dan

Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 7 – Goodness)

1. Goodness = God is infinitely benevolent.

2. When Scripture speaks of God’s goodness towards His creatures, it often uses the term ‘love’.

3. “Love is distinguished as benevolence, beneficence, or complacence. Benevolence is love in intention or disposition; beneficence is love in action, or conferring its benefits; and complacence is the approbation of good actions or dispositions.”

4. Goodness when it is exercised toward the unworthy is grace and toward the suffering is mercy or pity.

5. The pleasure which God’s creatures enjoy is a demonstration of His goodness. Humans are able to experience pleasure greater than that of animals because they can get it from “the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge”, “in the proper exercise of our moral powers” and because of our capability of “loving and enjoying God”.

6. “Pain is often experienced, but it never appears to result from an arrangement specially made for receiving it.” No organ of our body was specially designed to give us pain.

7. How do we reconcile the goodness of God with the presence of animals which have organs designed to inflict pain (fangs of serpents, stings of insects, talons and tusks and beaks of carnivorous animals) and the innumerable miseries which human society is filled? This question should not be overlooked.

8. How should we respond to the presence of pain and suffering which threaten God’s goodness?
a) Acknowledge the presence of pain and suffering.
b) Acknowledge that happiness and misery are “entwined with each other, and form parts of the same system.”
c) Acknowledge that our experience is of blessings “poured upon us incessantly; and when suffering comes, we are often conscious that is arises from our abuse of God’s goodness, and is, therefore no argument against it.”
d) Acknowledge that present suffering dos not compare to future good.
e) Acknowledge that the sufferings we experience “become an occasion for the trial of our faith.”
We should “believe in the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, and believe that his ways are full of goodness, even when they are inscrutable.”

9. “It is perfectly conceivable that pain itself may, in some cases, enhance our pleasure, as relief from suffering renders subsequent enjoyment more exquisite; and, in other ways, which we are unable to comprehend, pain may produce a beneficial result.”

10. Sin is the clearly the cause of much of the suffering present in the world. Dagg speculates at this point that the pain which animals experience isn’t only caused by man’s sin. “Unless the order of things was greatly changed at the fall of man, hawks had their claws and beaks from the day they were created, and used them before man sinned, in taking and devouring other birds for food; and therefore, pain and death, in brute animals, did not enter the world by the sin of man.” I’m yet to be convinced by this view.

11. Is happiness the chief good? “When pleasure and duty conflict with each other, we are required to choose the latter… if a whole life of duty and a whole life of enjoyment were set before us, that we might choose between them, we should be required to prefer holiness to happiness.”

12. The miseries of sin are means “used by the great Father of all, in the discipline of his great family, to deter from the greatest of all evils.” Judgments and threatenings are means of sanctification and are a manifestation of God’s goodness.

13. “The goodness of God is the attribute of his nature, which, above all others, draws forth the affection of our hearts. We are filled with awe at his eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence; but we can imagine all these attributes connected with moral qualities which would render them repulsive. But the goodness of God, while it is awful and grand, is at the same time powerfully attractive.”

(Photo: Ben White)

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Doctrine, J. L. Dagg, Manual of Theology

10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL (FEB 1866)

November 21, 2019 by dan

Here are 10 things I noted down from the February 1866 edition of The Sword and the Trowel, the monthly magazine edited by Spurgeon.

1. “It is the desire of every right-minded believer in the Lord Jesus, not only to be useful, but to be more useful than ever.” Could there be spare moments for little extra efforts?

2. “A breakdown in a cab, or a railway accident, may bring you into contact with somebody you never saw or dreamed of before, and so afford you an unusual opportunity which may never occur again either to you or the person thrown in your way.”

3. “No Christian work should be too menial for the follower of the Lamb.”

4. Giving away gospel tracts. “Have you ever thought how many you might give away in the course of the year? Supposing you left only one each time you went to and fro your labour, that would be two a day, which would make over seven hundred during the year!”

5. How can you start a gospel conversation. “Our minister said a very odd thing the other day.” Begin with the next person you see.

6. “Do not fall into a spiritual Don Quixotism, and neglect usefulness within your reach in order to dream, over imaginary wonders of heroism.”

7. “We would unite with you [parents] in importunate prayer that all our little ones may be the Lord’s.”  A key part of church life must be prayer for the salvation of the children of church members.

8. “We have need of renewed intercessions. It is by mighty prayer that the cause of God has been maintained in its rigour among us so long, and only by the same vehement pleading will the Divine blessing be retained.”

9. A list of meetings taking place at the Met Tab is given, which was published as a request for the prayers of believers everywhere.

A couple of things stood out:

Lord’s Day, February 4th
“The Pastor will endeavour to preach upon some subject, having a direct tendency, ‘by God’s grace, to arouse the slumbering, whether saints or sinners. Come up to worship with much prayer for a blessing.’”

Monday, February 5th
“At seven, we shall hold a prayer-meeting, at which we trust you will make a point of being present yourself, and it will greatly cheer us if you will bring a party of friends with you… As perhaps your friends will be more willing to come if assured of getting in, we shall issue tickets, which you can obtain on application at the close of the usual services.”

I long for the day when the prayer meeting is so popular that tickets need to be issued!

10. This issue contains a notice for a new publication from Spurgeon: “Morning by Morning or Daily Readings for the Family or the Closet.” This would eventually become, after Evening Reading was produced, the classic devotional “Morning and Evening”.

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.6

November 19, 2019 by dan

Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 6 – Omnipotence)

1. Omnipotence = God is able to do whatever He pleases.

2. Our power is limited. “Many things which we attempt we fail to accomplish.”

3. “It derogates nothing from the omnipotence of God, that He does not accomplish what He has no desire or will to accomplish.”

For example:
– It is impossible for God to lie.
– It is impossible for God to deny Himself.

4. “God cannot do things which imply contradictions in themselves.”

For example:
– To make a thing to be, and not to be, at the same time.
– To make a circle to be at the same time a square.

5. To contemplate the omnipotence of God should fill us with awe and it should cause us to fear. “Let us look back to the power which brought creation into being, and forward to that display of power which we are to witness on the last day.”

(Photo: Ben White)

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Filed Under: Study Tagged With: Doctrine, J. L. Dagg, Manual of Theology

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