06 September 2013

Rom 8:28 wins again

Anyone who follows the online discernment sphere is likely to have heard about the recent blow-ups involving Chris Pinto, Brannon Howse, Christine Blackerby Pack, James White, and a few other people.

I'm not going to comment on the bulk of it yet; I have a strong opinion, but I want to think through what might be a better way to comment first (though I have a question on one of the central arguments involved). Instead, I want to talk a bit about Rom 8:28 and what I hope proves to be an example of God's Word proving true once more.

All of the hurtful accusations, false or misleading implications, and flat-out bad behavior has definitely put a strain on a lot of Christians involved in what's going on (or on those who just care about those being dealt with poorly). It's not always been unexpected, but it's been very sad to see.

However, on 3 Sept, Chris Rosebrough opened his show with a discussion about reconciliation, and described how he and Ingrid Schlueter had reconciled. It was a good announcement full of good content. Without putting too fine a point on it, I would say that the horrible situation currently swirling around is at least part of the impetus for reconciliation; truly God can cause all things to work together for good.

I pray that Chris and Ingrid will continue to heal their relationship, and I hope others would be able to do the same.

05 September 2013

A Question for Chris Pinto

Anyone familiar with Mr. Pinto is likely aware of the recent controversy involving him, Alan Kurschner, and Dr. James White, so I'm not going to go into it. If you don't know the details, Google is your friend; I'd only recommend you set aside a bunch of time to catch up and consider all sides before making a judgement.

I posted the following on FaceBook, but I wanted to put an excerpt of it here too, in case I actually see a substantive response that I can record.
Mr. Pinto points to the Roman Catholic involvement in the Greek source text used in producing the ESV as one reason to distrust it. From what I've heard, he prefers the Textus Receptus (I haven't looked into it enough to call him TR-only). But the bulk of the TR is based on the work of Erasmus, a Roman Catholic scholar, which actually includes verses in Revelation which were back-translated from the Latin Vulgate, which was a translation commissioned by the Pope and produced by the Roman Catholic Jerome.

So my question is simple:

Why is the TR immune from question, when its connection to the Roman Catholic church is significantly stronger than anything related to the ESV?