Plantinga, A. (1977). God, freedom, and evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Plantinga, A. (1982). The nature of necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hasker, W. (1989). God, time, and knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Pinnock, C. H. (1994). The openness of God: A biblical challenge to the traditional understanding of God. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press.

Craig, W. L. (2000). The only wise God: The compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Craig, W. L. (2000). The tensed theory of time: A critical examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Craig, W. L. (2000). The tenseless theory of time: A critical examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Craig, W. L. (2001). Time and eternity: Exploring God’s relationship to time. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books.

Beilby, J. K., Eddy, P. R., & Boyd, G. A. (2001). Divine foreknowledge: Four views. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press.

Lewis, D. K. (2001). Counterfactuals. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers.

Lewis, D. K. (2001). On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers.

Ganssle, G. E., & Woodruff, D. M. (2002). God and time: Essays on the divine nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Molina, L. ., & Freddoso, A. J. (2004). On divine foreknowledge: (part IV of the Concordia). Ithaca, N.Y. ;London: Cornell University Press.

Flint, T. P., Flint, Thomas P., Taji, Acram, Ph. D., & Reganold, John. (2006). Divine providence: The Molinist account. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.

MacGregor, K. R. (2007). A Molinist-Anabaptist systematic theology. Lanham, Md: University Press of America.

Ware, B. A., Helm, P., Olson, R. E., & Sanders, J. (2008). Perspectives on the doctrine of God: 4 Views. Nashville, Tenn: B & H Academic.

Keathley, K. (2010). Salvation and sovereignty: A Molinist approach. Nashville, Tenn: B&H Academic.

Allen, D. L., & Lemke, S. (2010). Whosoever will: A biblical-theological critique of five-point Calvinism. Nashville, Tenn: B & H Academic.

Salza, J. (2010). Mystery of predestination: According to scripture, the church, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Charlotte, North Carolina: TAN Books.

Helseth, P. K., & Jowers, D. W. (2011). Four views on divine providence. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan.

Kvanvig, J. L. (2011). The Blackwell companion to natural theology. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell.

Technorati Tags: acquinas, arminianism, calvinism, middle knowledge, molina, molinism, omniscience, open theism, predestination, providence, thomism

I keep finding churches that have small group ministries (called SGMs going forward). This isn’t unusual. Plenty of churches have been into this idea of small groups for a while now—more so in the mega-churches. Thousands of people going through the door winds up creating an atmosphere of anonymity; SGMs winds up being a pragmatic approach for creating community.

But I’ve seen SGMs in churches with as little as seventy-five people.

By SGMs I don’t mean Sunday School where people think that Kids need to have a targeted message. I don’t even mean a ministry like a few of the people in the assembly working in a Homeless Shelter. I mean the small groups where the local church has small groups (sometimes in this article called SGs) that meet regularly in a home for something other than a Bible study but it might include a Bible study. Perhaps working through some book (say on marriage) together. Perhaps praying together or learning to pray together (Luke 11:1). The goal, they say, is essentially a fellowship group that gets to know each other and function together while leaning on one another: a pathway to fellowship and discipleship.

What I’ve also seen is that this is then promoted as the Biblical model for discipleship and fellowship. If this is the Biblical model for fellowship, discipleship and outreach then it’s not really a optional.

I need to examine this position since I’ve never considered it.

First, I’ll restate what layperson Small Group Ministry Proponents (called SGMPs going forward) seem to repeatedly use in their presentation; then I’ll examine the grounds for those positions; then, if possible, I’ll come to a conclusion.

I make no promises that this will actually conclude in this post. It may be the case that some SGMP will come along with another argument that I may have to examine. Or someone might recommend a book on the issue and I’ll have to deal with a scholarly argument. Who knows.

Also, this post will be extremely long. Breaking it into smaller posts might help traffic or general readability, but the point here isn’t really to aid either but for me to examine a position. That being said, I will break up the post into pages so that you, person who is reading over my shoulder, don’t feel overwhelmed by the length of the post on one page.

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Every now and then I like posting something incisive that was written in the past because it speaks so well into the present. The sweet thing about this is that these guys, who are often waved away today, have dealt with a lot of the same issues while remaining simultaneously (by the modern mind) ignored.

6. My reader must bear in mind that I am silent about the current objections through no forgetfulness, and no distrust of my cause. For that constantly cited text, The Father is greater than I, and its cognate passages are perfectly familiar to me, and I have my interpretation of them ready, which makes them witness to the true Divine nature of the Son. But it serves my purpose best to adhere in reply to the order of attack, that our pious effort may follow close upon the progress of their impious scheme, and when we see them diverge into godless heresy we may at once obliterate the track of error. To this end we postpone to the end of our work the testimony of the Evangelists and Apostles, and join battle with the blasphemers for the present on the ground of the Law and the Prophets, silencing their crooked argument, based on misinterpretation and deceit, by the very texts with which they strive to delude us. The sound method of demonstrating a truth is to expose the fallacy of the objections raised against it; and the disgrace of the deceiver is complete if his own lie be converted into an evidence for the truth. And, indeed, the universal experience of mankind has learned that falsehood and truth are incompatible, and cannot be reconciled or made coherent; that by their very nature they are among those opposites which are eternally repugnant, and can never combine or agree.

7. This being the case, I ask how a distinction can be made in the words, Let Us make man after Our own image and likeness, between a true God and a false. The words express a meaning, the meaning is the outcome of thought; the thought is set in motion by truth. Let us follow the words back to their meaning, and learn from the meaning the thought, and from the thought attain to the underlying truth. Thy enquiry is, whether He to Whom the words Let Us make man after Our own image and likeness were spoken, was not thought of as true by Him Who spoke; for they undoubtedly express the feeling and thought of the Speaker. In saying Let Us make, He clearly indicates One in no discord with Himself, no alien or powerless Being, but One endowed with power to do the thing of which He speaks. His own words assure us that this is the sense in which we must understand that they were spoken.

9. But now let us continue our reading of this Scripture, to shew how the consistency of truth is unaffected by these dishonest objections. The next words are, And God made man; after the image of God made He him. The image is in common; God made man after the image of God. I would ask him who denies that God’s Son is true God, in what God’s image he supposes that God made man? He must bear constantly in mind that all things are through the Son; heretical ingenuity must not, for its own purposes, twist this passage into action on the part of the Father. If, therefore, man is created through God the Son after the image of God the Father, he is created also after the image of the Son; for all admit that the words After Our image and likeness were spoken to the Son. Thus His true Godhead is as explicitly asserted by the Divine words as manifested in the Divine action; so that it is God Who moulds man into the image of God, Who reveals Himself as God, and, moreover, as true God. For His joint possession of the Divine image proves Him true God, while His creative action displays Him as God the Son.

10. What wild insanity of abandoned souls! What blind audacity of reckless blasphemy! You hear of God and God; you hear of Our image. Why suggest that One is, and One is not, true God? Why distinguish between God by nature and God in name? Why, under pretext of defending the faith, do you destroy the faith? Why struggle to pervert the revelation of One God, One true God, into a denial that God is One and true? Not yet will I stifle your insane efforts with the clear words of Evangelists and Prophets, in which Father and Son appear not as one Person, but as One in nature, and Each as true God. For the present the Law, unaided, annihilates you. Does the Law ever speak of One true God, and One not true? Does it ever speak of Either, except by the name of God, which is the true expression of Their nature? It speaks of God and God; it speaks also of God as One. Nay, it does more than so describe Them. It manifests Them as true God and true God, by the sure evidence of Their joint image. It begins by speaking of Them first by their strict name of God; then it attributes true Godhead to Both in common. For when man, Their creature, is ceated after the image of Both, sound reason forces the conclusion that Each of Them is true God.

15. But perhaps it will be argued that, when the Angel of God is called God, He receives the name as a favour, through adoption, and has in consequence a nominal, not a true, Godhead. If He gave us an inadequate revelation of His Divine nature at the time when He was styled the Angel of God, judge whether He has not fully manifested His true Godhead under the name of a nature lower than the angelic. For a Man spoke to Abraham, and Abraham worshipped Him as God. Pestilent heretic! Abraham confessed Him, you deny Him, to be God. What hope is there for you, in your blasphemy, of the blessings promised to Abraham? He is Father of the Gentiles, but not for you; you cannot go forth from your regeneration to join the household of his seed, through the blessings given to his faith. You are no son, raised up to Abraham from the stones; you are a generation of vipers, an adversary of his belief. You are not the Israel of God, the heir of Abraham, justified by faith; for you have disbelieved God, while Abraham was justified and appointed to be the Father of the Gentiles through that faith wherein he worshipped the God Whose word he trusted. God it was Whom that blessed and faithful Patriarch worshipped then; and mark how truly He was God, to Whom, in His own words, all things are possible. Is there any, but God alone, to Whom nothing is impossible? And He, to Whom all things are possible, does He fall short of true Divinity?

19. Be with me now in thy faithful spirit, holy and blessed Patriarch Jacob, to combat the poisonous hissings of the serpent of unbelief. Prevail once more in thy wrestling with the Man, and, being the stronger, once more entreat His blessing. Why pray for what thou mightest demand from thy weaker Opponent? Thy strong arm has vanquished Him Whose blessing thou prayest. Thy bodily victory is in broad contrast to thy soul’s humility, thy deeds to thy thoughts. It is a Man whom thou holdest powerless in thy strong grasp; but in thine eye this Man is true God, and God not in name only, but in nature. It is not the blessing of a God by adoption that thou dost claim, but the true God’s blessing. With Man thou strivest; but face to face thou seest God. What thou seest with the bodily eye is different far from what thou beholdest with the vision of faith. Thou hast felt Him to be weak Man; but thy soul has been saved because it saw God in Him. When thou wast wrestling thou wast Jacob; thou art Israel now, through faith in the blessing which thou didst claim. According to the flesh, the Man is thy inferior, for a type of His passion in the flesh; but thou canst recognise God in that weak flesh, for a sign of His blessing in the Spirit. The witness of the eye does not disturb thy faith; His feebleness does not mislead thee into neglect of His blessing. Though He is Man, His humanity is no bar to His being God, His Godhead no bar to His being true God; for, being God, He must indeed be true.

21. Human judgment must not pass its sentence upon God. Our nature is not such that it can lift itself by its own forces to the contemplation of heavenly things. We must learn from God what we are to think of God; we have no source of knowledge but Himself. You may be as carefully trained as you will in secular philosophy; you may have lived a life of righteousness. All this will contribute to your mental satisfaction, but it will not help you to know God. Moses was adopted as the son of the queen, and instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; he had, moreover, out of loyalty to his race avenged the wrong of the Hebrew by slaying the Egyptian, and yet he knew not the God Who had blessed his fathers. For when he left Egypt through fear of the discovery of his deed, and was living as a shepherd in the land of Midian, he saw a fire in the bush, and the bush unconsumed. Then it was that he heard the voice of God, and asked His name, and learned His nature. Of all this he could have known nothing except through God Himself. And we, in like manner, must confine ourselves, in whatever we say of God, to the terms in which He has spoken to our understanding concerning Himself.

33. But it may be argued that the Apostle was not inspired by the Spirit of prophecy when he borrowed these prophetic words; that he was only interpreting at random the words of another man, and though, no doubt, everything the Apostle says of himself comes to him by revelation from Christ, yet his knowledge of the words of Isaiah is only derived from the book. I answer that in the beginning of that utterance in which it is said that the servants of the true God shall bless Him and swear by Him, we read this adoration by the prophet:—From everlasting we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen God, except Thee, and Thy works which Thou will do for them that await Thy mercy. Isaiah says that he has seen no God but Him. For he did actually see the glory of God, the mystery of Whose taking flesh from the Virgin he foretold. And if you, in your heresy, do not know that it was God the Only-begotten Whom the prophet saw in that glory, listen to the Evangelist:—These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him3. The Apostle, the Evangelist, the Prophet combine to silence your objections. Isaiah did see God; even though it is written, No one hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father; He hath declared Him, it was God Whom the prophet saw. He gazed upon the Divine glory, and men were filled with envy at such honour vouchsafed to his prophetic greatness. For this was the reason why the Jews passed sentence of death upon him.

34. Thus the Only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, has told us of God, Whom no man has seen. Either disprove the fact that the Son has thus informed us, or else believe Him Who has been seen, Who appeared to them who knew Him not, and became the God of the Gentiles who called not upon Him and spread out His hands before a gainsaying people. And believe this also concerning Him, that they who serve Him are called by a new name, and that on earth men bless Him and swear by Him as true God. Prophecy tells, the Gospel confirms, the Apostle explains, the Church confesses, that He Who was seen is true God; but none venture to say that God the Father was seen. And yet the madness of heresy has run to such lengths that, while they profess to recognise this truth, they really deny it. They deny it by means of the new-fangled and godless device of evading the truth, while making a studied pretence of adhesion to it. For when they confess one God, alone true and alone righteous, alone wise, alone unchangeable, alone immortal, alone mighty, they attach to Him a Son different in substance, not born from God to be God, but adopted through creation to be a Son, having the name of God not by nature, but as a title received by adoption; and thus they inevitably deprive the Son of all those attributes which they accumulate upon the Father in His lonely majesty.

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If a person is proficient in original languages I’d probably suggest starting there since they can see the breaks in the passage (that is, if you’re reading any Greek text post-minuscule) but the average student probably doesn’t need to go there.

Many versions have a ton of scholarship backing the translation; the ones I’ve recommended (except the MSG) will probably give you the best footing. But, if you’re committed to the go-to-Greek-text: Nestle-Aland27/UBS4.

First, identify sentences. This is usually easy since, with the verse numbers turned off, you’ll probably just identify them with punctuation.

Next, identify paragraphs. A paragraph is a collection of sentences based on a common idea. This is usually pretty easy too since a lot of modern versions already come with paragraph breaks.

You might notice in your parallel reading that versions break them down differently. This is why you’ll want to also identify when the author changes what he’s talking about.

This sounds similar to a paragraph in that it’s dealing with an idea. But an idea might go through several paragraphs and still be about that one subject. What’s nice about identifying the Big Idea first, you can more easily identify the movement within the block.

For example John 9. The entire chapter has one idea/story: the man who was born blind is healed. Within that section there are several paragraphs comprise the entire unit: the discussion, the healing, the man alone, the man meeting Jesus again. But in all cases, it’s one unit of thought. This is called a pericope.

Usually modern versions divide periscopes by headings but we’ve turned them off. Sometimes you’ll read the text and realize that the pericope seems to continue. In other cases you’ll find that maybe there should be more pericopes than the translation suggests. By studying the text without the headers, we get to try to discover the unit of thought for ourselves, or at the very least come up with a heading which is more understandable for our personal notes.

• Online: Sentence diagramming tools might be helpful. The good thing is that you can do a variation of this with just about any word processor or email program.

The Word <-subject

——-|In the Beginning <–time marker

—————-|was with God  <–modifies subject

—————-|was God <–modifies subject

• Downloadables: BibleArc is a tool that’s available for a suggested yearly donation of $10 but they’ll work with you if you can’t afford that. Basically they have a method for you to breakdown sentences (or even collections of sentences) visually portray connecting thoughts. You can also check Sendraw, an opensource program by UCF’s Department of English that lets you diagram sentences. If you don’t know (or don’t remember) how to do that, check this easy walkthrough.
• Paid: I personally haven’t seen anything like BibleArc in the expensive paid for suites though they do have many other interesting tools. For example, logos has a compare pericope tool which lets you compare what each version has decided was a unit of thought. It also has a very handy Word tree, which lets diagrams a word in relation to other thoughts within specific passages. Also for the iPad, you might want to check out some mind mapping apps.

When you’re done with this, you’ll be able to apply your own headings to the sections.

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Personally, I’ve found that the standard office calendars (be it desk or wall) are pretty annoying. The best ones take time to set up on the dry erase board and then they are subject to information loss.

That’s why I created my own calendar.  More after the jump.

It splits the year in half, throws weekends to the side, and lets the work week be a viewable block with continuous days. Some people might not like the idea of having a calendar that flows from one month to the next (finding comfort in the satisfying rip that occurs as they remove a month from the docket) but I like being able to see what needs to be done in one shot.

That being the case, I’ve attached it for you here in 300dpi, 1000dpi and a pdf. You can get it printed at your UPS Store or FedEx (starting at $22) or even Wal-Mart (starting at $6). Just make sure to disable the automatic resizing options when you upload to any service. I have the thing set up to fit a 20×30 piece of paper and it’s just grayscale on white.

Enjoy. Preview followed by box.net

300dpi

1000dpi

pdf

But why not use something zany like “Multifaceted Designer”? Well, it’s a mouthful for one. And secondly, it doesn’t really represent the totality of what I’m about. Sure I design for print, web, interior and exteriors—but it ignores other things like illustration and writing. And though it is very true that a company building a brand wants a focus on what a brand entails (for example, you hear Pepsi you think soda and not shirts), an individual trying to create a worldwide accessible identity shouldn’t be one dimensional.

I bought the main url name (reyreynoso.com) so that I can have a catchall for all my interests—which immediately opened up some things I want the site to accomplish. I don’t only want it to be a business card slash resume. I want it to be an online repository of the official me.

The thinking behind this is simple. I’m the same person offline and on even if I don’t always talk about everything I talk about online. I only mention Star Wars a few times on my sites, but you’re more likely to hear me talk about the intricacies of a well-executed light saber battle than anything else. That being the case, I want an online hub of my e-me so that people wanting to know me can easily find out what I’m about without too much work.

Of course, that needs to be set to the proper exposure. You have plenty of people who use their names as their brand (Hillman Curtis, Chermayeff and Geismer), but they consistently ensure that things their bran isn’t flying all over the place.

I’ll need the content to be clearly delineated and I’ll need it all compiled and highlighted the right way. As Jeffrey Zeldman said “Content informs design; design without content is decoration.”

I have the content, I just need a way to present it.

I’ve always held to the belief that the practice of creating compelling graphic design occurs not by employing the principals of a democracy, but rather, that of a monarchy.

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