Time to Reveal Yourself O Lurker!

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I used to do these more frequently; especially back in the good ole’ days of blogging, when the blogosphere was actually alive. If you’re a reader of the blog who just lurks here, and even if you don’t just lurk (Richard πŸ˜‰ ) this is your chance to reveal yourself. I always like to know who is reading here. According to my stats many still are, but you don’t let me know by saying hi. How rude πŸ˜‰ ! As a heads up I have my comments set to moderate, which means I have to manually approve each comment (which is easy). When you reveal yourself don’t be surprised if you don’t see your comment immediately. Anyway, I look forward to seeing who some of my readers/lurkers are. I’ll see you in the comments. Just say hi, or whatever.

36 thoughts on “Time to Reveal Yourself O Lurker!”

  1. Hi Bobby,
    May the grace and peace of the Triune God keep you and yours today and always.
    I enjoy your insights which you post here and on twitter; I don’t always get them read, but I sure appreciate the thoughts and studies you share.
    -Reuben Huffman, Ohio

  2. Hi, my name is Christy Brown, and I’ve been a regular lurker of your writings since 2014.

  3. Hi Bobby!

    I read every post and have gained a great deal from it all. Thanks.

    Fitz Neal

  4. Hi Reuben,

    Thanks brother, glad to know you read here! I never know if those I have contact with on FB and Twitter ever read the blog posts, this is good and encouraging to know!

  5. Hi Christy! Wow, you’ve been lurking here a long time! Thank you for saying hi and thank you for reading the blog for so long, that is cool!

  6. Hi Fitz,

    I hope all is well! Didn’t realize that you read the blog posts so regularly, that is encouraging and humbling to hear! Hope all is well in CO!

  7. Hey Bobby! I am a lurker who is more persuaded of the reformed orthodox/scholastic tradition, but I appreciate reading your perspective because it helps clarify (and challenge) my own! I am still trying to track down your Master’s thesis on 1 Cor 1-2, is there any place to access that in full?

  8. Hi Coleman,

    Thanks for unlurking! I guess I’ll allow you to keep reading here even though you’re of the scholastics πŸ˜‰ . As far as my Master’s thesis let me see if I can find a link for it. You’ll have to remember I wrote that back in 2003, so my writing isn’t quite at the same caliber then as it is now. But it still presents a strong (“A” level) argument πŸ˜‰ . I had the pdf on the desktop of my old computer, not sure I transferred that here. I’ll let you know.

  9. You may have come across me on Facebook, ho ho ho. Trinitarian blessings! Gilbert P.

  12. Thanks for the invitation. I have enjoyed your blog for quite a few years now as have the others in our little historical theology group. We have been meeting every Wednesday for 12 years. We have discussed many of your pieces and taken the challenge of reading many of the books that you have quoted from. None of the people in the theology group are seminary trained except myself, but theological training has not been the guiding force in the group but rather the leading of the Holy Spirit. We like to say we have been the School of the Spirit. Thanks for contributing to the curriculum.

  13. Thanks Bobby! I downloaded the thesis. I will be mindful that it was written almost 20 years ago, and I look forward to reading it soon!

  14. πŸ™‚ Thank you for providing the link to your master’s thesis. I found it to be a substantial treatment (and of course, as necessary to comply with the requirements of your institution), and I appreciated the value of your assay of these pericopes (a crucial focus of Paul within the scope of this epistle).Well done!

  15. Hello Bobby,

    I read regularly and appreciate your work. I have both volumes of Evangelical Calvinism and have several of Torrance’s books also now. I am not formally educated but desire to know God. The God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ. The glorious God who reveals himself to us. Knowledge that we can’t possess or control but in his love he graciously gives us himself. Thanks for you labors brother.

  16. Hey Bobby still lurking and reading and commenting occasionally and praying that the Lord will use you to be a goad to scholasticism (and any other form of thought that does not rejoice in the fact that God revealed himself only personally in Jesus !) Press on brother.

  17. Hi Anonymous, thanks for letting your presence being known! Glad I could help contribute to the ‘School of the Spirit.’ That school bears witness to Jesus Christ, magnifies Him above all, that’s a great school!

  18. Richard, thank you! Yeah, I wrote that thing amidst many stresses going on in life, including other coursework. Somehow got that done.

  19. Hi Chris, awesome! You can’t go wrong with the Torrances! Glad you’re a reader here, and thanks for letting me know that.

  20. Hi Richard S., thank you for continuing to read, and comment as led! Yes, that’s definitely my intended theme for the blog; to counter any theology that negates Jesus as the centraldogma of all things. Thankfully that can be done positively, and not always negatively.

  21. This was a great response and feedback. Thank you everyone! May we all stand perfect and complete in the will of God as we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ!

  22. Hey Bobby !
    I wouldn’t call myself a lurker 😁
    I’d call myself a slow grazer and contemplater
    of rich spiritual food which, alongside scripture, your posts continue my mulling and digestive process πŸ˜†

    Thanks for all you do on this blog, very grateful .

  24. Hey Brother!
    Of course you know me. I’ve been here since before your bout with cancer. Had much more time to catch up on old posts – reading through 2017 now, since I got kicked off facebook and stopped political wrangling. I refer to you as my theological mentor. Prayers for you and yours always,
    Thank you
    Duane D.

  25. Hi Bobby, I’ve been an occasional lurker on here for about a year. I’ve been slowly getting into Barth’s work (I’m from an Anabaptist background) and your work has been helpful; especially some of your older posts on Natural theology.
    I’ve been wanting to ask you a question for a while, so I might as well take this opportunity: what implications do you think Barth (and your) rejection of natural theology has for traditional sexual ethics?

    So many of the discussions the church is having these days around issues of sexuality or gender, seem often to revolve around arguments of Natural theology. With Conservatives grounding for example, a traditional view of marriage in a natural order revealed by reason apart from grace. I personally take a traditional view on these matters, but I wonder–if I’m going to be critical of natural theology, what basis could my stance have? Have you thought about this at all or written about this on your blog? Am I misinterpreting the implications of Barth’s critique of natural theology?

    Best,

    Julian

  26. Hi Julian, thanks for unlurking!

    On natural theology and sexual ethics: I’ve always found it rather odd that so many so-called Barthians affirm the progressive mantle on sexuality and gender etc. Anti-natural theology, from my perspective, entails that we rely fully on God’s Self-revelation as attested in Holy Scripture in order to know God and His Way. To think sexuality from Scripture’s witness, in my view, then, entails that the Dominical, Pauline teaching contra say homosexuality, and any other “porneia,” is grounded in a universally binding cosmic order as that has been given for the world in Christ. Jesus, for example, didn’t abrogate the sexual order of Genesis 1–3, instead He presupposes it as “essential” to His teaching on marriage, and all that implicates in regard to human sexuality etc. The Barthian’s who affirm progressive sexualities and gender constructs aren’t really Barthian at all, they are neo-Kantians and/or radical neo-Nominalists, presupposing a discord between God’s Logos in Jesus Christ, and its written reality deposited (in a dispossessive sense) in Holy Scripture. If Scripture, particularly the NT (or “New Covenant”), has its res or reality in its “living” reality in Jesus Christ, then in what way can these types of neo-Kantian dualisms be read into a robustly, even Barthian, theology of the Word? They cannot. But this is what people who claim Barth’s mantle of anti-natural theology often do; I don’t! Does that help at all?

  27. Thanks Bobby, that’s helpful. Can you think of any Barthians who have written helpfully for the traditional side of this conversation?

  28. Not this issue, in particular. John Webster’s books, in a broad, principled way, would help supply a way into this https://www.amazon.com/Barths-Moral-Theology-Action-Thought/dp/0802838588/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=V6BW3NJXR2ZH&keywords=john+webster+barth+ethics&qid=1646697670&s=books&sprefix=john+webster+barth+ethics%2Caps%2C147&sr=1-4

    https://www.amazon.com/Barths-Ethics-Reconciliation-Bainbridge-Webster/dp/052147499X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=V6BW3NJXR2ZH&keywords=john+webster+barth+ethics&qid=1646697670&s=books&sprefix=john+webster+barth+ethics%2Caps%2C147&sr=1-1

  29. Many well meaning people get carried away with all other types of proofs other than the image of God in Christ and this is where the fog happens. Since the love of God in Christ aka his glory can only be seen and uniquely imaged in human relationships between a bride and a groom then it is impossible to accept human sexuality that departs from this image as authentic or real.
    The profound mystery of the marriage of Christ and the Church (his body) can only be seen in the male female marriage relationship not two brides or two grooms. It is very simple. this is the “aposteriori” way of knowing ourselves in the light of God’s own self revelation as our groom and consummating lover.

  30. Hola Bobby, soy un lector entusiasta de tu sitio web y tambiΓ©n, desde hace muchos aΓ±os un blogger. Te escribo desde Argentina y como decimos en mi paΓ­s “Β‘Un fuerte abrazo!”

    RaΓΊl Amado

  31. Richard, indeed. Which is the antecedent reality to Jesus’ public ministry and teaching on marriage that we find in Gospel accounts, and what is reiterated throughout the NT!

  32. @RaΓΊl,

    Hola! Thanks for being a reader here. I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and a semester of conversational Spanish at City College, but I still had to google translate your comment πŸ˜‰ . Thanks for unlurking!

  33. Given that this image of God is manifest in this way it makes matrimony itself sacramental. The signum and the res (as you would frame it think Bobby) are one in Christ. Have you read any of Schmemann’s work? I’m reading “The life of the world”. It’s deep water.

  34. Richard, yes I’ve read some Schmemann. I’m pretty Barthian when it comes to the sacraments, so I just go with Christ as the sacrament, Christ as decree. As such marriage, like our individual marriages, bear witness to the reality, but don’t serve as some sort of ‘means of grace’ as most sacramentology would have it.

  35. Thanks Bobby – I do follow you in upholding Christ as the sole mediator. Maybe the semantic value of the word sacrament bears some explication in this context. I think it’s ok to understand Jesus as the sacrament manifesting himself truly and actually in the marriage in a living / dynamic witness to himself. (Same with the Eucharist). This would be the only way they could be understood as sacramental, Otherwise they are signs without any direct connection to the reality ie they could not function as a proper symbol (again this word needs some explication in terms of what it means in its context). Jesus is the sacrament, Jesus is the decree and Word. That certainly is the fist and last and only word. I don’t believe it’s possible to depart from this and have anything meaningful to say or know about God.

  36. Yeah, that’s where I depart from people like Schmemann et al; ie high church sacramentalism, or even as that comes in Lutheran and some Presby frames.

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