Neither the Bible, nor church history, nor Christian experience indicates that a one-size-fits-all crisis conversion is necessary. And the Reformers pressed for a view of Christian discipleship as typically rooted in the catechetical nurture of the baptized community, rather than in radical conversions. The preaching of the Word, sacraments, and prayer are the three ordinary means of grace, as Presbyterians call them. And good Evangelicals know that this is how disciples grow in their faith, regardless of whether they have been Christians all their lives or have come to faith by a crisis experience. Few believe that the Christian life is just one crisis experience after another. Rather, like Luther, they believe that “[w]hen our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” - Carl R. Trueman
We have, therefore, to say that in our considered judgement the clergy cannot claim the liberty to enter into sexually active homophile relationships. Because of the distinctive nature of their calling, status and consecration, to allow such a claim on their part would be seen as placing that way of life in all respects on a par with heterosexual marriage as a reflection of God’s purposes in creation. The Church cannot accept such a parity and remain faithful to the insights which God has given it through Scripture, tradition and reasoned reflection on experience. - Issues in Human Sexuality (1991)
Friday, 31 March 2017
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Quotes 31 Mar17
“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”
― C.S. Lewis
"Pride sets up the wisdom of a foolish man against the infinite wisdom of God; it makes men presume to judge their Judge, and judge his laws, before they understand them; and to quarrel with all they find unsuitable to their own conceits."Richard Baxter
"The Spirit may rightly be called the key that unlocks for us the treasures of the kingdom of heaven." —John Calvin
When tempted by the Devil to doubt of his salvation, Luther pointed not to the Tower (a conversion experience) but to the baptismal font. “I have been baptized!” was his consistent defense against Satan’s temptations.- Carl Trueman
― C.S. Lewis
"Pride sets up the wisdom of a foolish man against the infinite wisdom of God; it makes men presume to judge their Judge, and judge his laws, before they understand them; and to quarrel with all they find unsuitable to their own conceits."Richard Baxter
"The Spirit may rightly be called the key that unlocks for us the treasures of the kingdom of heaven." —John Calvin
When tempted by the Devil to doubt of his salvation, Luther pointed not to the Tower (a conversion experience) but to the baptismal font. “I have been baptized!” was his consistent defense against Satan’s temptations.- Carl Trueman
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
Quotes 30 Mar 17
“You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.” Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
“The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things, by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testaments, not to gratify men’s curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event; and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence.” --Isaac Newton, “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John” (published
1733)
There have been few more radical changes in the history of Western
culture than the change in attitude towards war and the military
profession brought about by World War I. Western literature began as
the literature of a warrior aristocracy, and until 1914 it took the
warrior ethic for granted; it assumed that war was glorious, and the
words _hero_ and _warrior_ were almost synonymous. Conscription and
"sophisticated" weapons have changed all that....
The symbol of the change was the construction after 1918 in all the
belligerent countries of monuments to the Unknown Soldier. Previously,
monuments had always been erected to known individuals, victorious
generals and admirals. About the Unknown Soldier nothing is known
whatever except that he lost his life. For all we know, he may,
personally, have been a coward. In his monument, that is to say, we pay
homage to the warrior, not as a hero but as a martyr. -- W. H. Auden, _A Certain World_ (1970), s.v. War
“The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things, by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testaments, not to gratify men’s curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event; and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence.” --Isaac Newton, “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John” (published
1733)
There have been few more radical changes in the history of Western
culture than the change in attitude towards war and the military
profession brought about by World War I. Western literature began as
the literature of a warrior aristocracy, and until 1914 it took the
warrior ethic for granted; it assumed that war was glorious, and the
words _hero_ and _warrior_ were almost synonymous. Conscription and
"sophisticated" weapons have changed all that....
The symbol of the change was the construction after 1918 in all the
belligerent countries of monuments to the Unknown Soldier. Previously,
monuments had always been erected to known individuals, victorious
generals and admirals. About the Unknown Soldier nothing is known
whatever except that he lost his life. For all we know, he may,
personally, have been a coward. In his monument, that is to say, we pay
homage to the warrior, not as a hero but as a martyr. -- W. H. Auden, _A Certain World_ (1970), s.v. War
Tuesday, 28 March 2017
Quotes for 29 Mar17
"Thus suffering, too, becomes a token of victory, because it leads one in the footprints of Christ." —Herman Ridderbos
"No one can live without joy. That is why when one is deprived of spiritual joy one becomes addicted to worldly pleasures." Thomas Aquinas
"Joys are always on the way to us. They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming."Amy Carmichael, reflecting on Psalm 30:5
"The Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot."Augustine of Hippo
Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "You are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)(In a speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; August 16, 1967.)
"No one can live without joy. That is why when one is deprived of spiritual joy one becomes addicted to worldly pleasures." Thomas Aquinas
"Joys are always on the way to us. They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming."Amy Carmichael, reflecting on Psalm 30:5
"The Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot."Augustine of Hippo
Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "You are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)(In a speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; August 16, 1967.)
Monday, 27 March 2017
Quotes 28 Mar 17
All you need to do to determine what a people worship is to look at their parades. - Anthony Esolen
How silly were the idolaters of old, who knelt before the clumsy wooden figurines of their own making! We are wiser now. We kneel before mirrors. - Anthony Esolen
When people accuse us of being retrograde, or medieval, or puritanical--all words rummaged out of the box labeled “Not Progressive”--we should shrug, as if they had accused us of walking on two feet. - Anthony Esolen
Our motto instead is, “Work—or do anything at all, so long as you do not pray, or even come to an awareness of your frailty.” Turn up the noise. - Anthony Esolen
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all, but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”- Martin Luther
How silly were the idolaters of old, who knelt before the clumsy wooden figurines of their own making! We are wiser now. We kneel before mirrors. - Anthony Esolen
When people accuse us of being retrograde, or medieval, or puritanical--all words rummaged out of the box labeled “Not Progressive”--we should shrug, as if they had accused us of walking on two feet. - Anthony Esolen
Our motto instead is, “Work—or do anything at all, so long as you do not pray, or even come to an awareness of your frailty.” Turn up the noise. - Anthony Esolen
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all, but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”- Martin Luther
Sunday, 26 March 2017
Quotes 27 Mar 17
Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit. --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (July 1 1742 – February 24 1799) (German scientist, satirist and philosopher), _Aphorisms (1765-1799)_ Notebook C (1772-1773) C 26
The gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifiable under the Constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect, that no statute ever was enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every law in the universe,--God's law as well as man's. A law is no law without coercion behind it. When a man has murdered his brother, coercion takes the murderer, tries him, and hangs him. --Congressman James Garfield [Ohio] (1831-1881), Reply to Alexander Long [Ohio], 8 April 1864, House of Representatives, 38th Session; _The Life and Work of James A. Garfield_ (1881)
Every single pagan philosopher of the ancient world said…the worst form of slavery was slavery to your own appetites. - Anthony Esolen
He who would save a culture or civilization must not seek first the culture or the civilization but the kingdom of God. - Anthony Esolen
The gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifiable under the Constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect, that no statute ever was enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every law in the universe,--God's law as well as man's. A law is no law without coercion behind it. When a man has murdered his brother, coercion takes the murderer, tries him, and hangs him. --Congressman James Garfield [Ohio] (1831-1881), Reply to Alexander Long [Ohio], 8 April 1864, House of Representatives, 38th Session; _The Life and Work of James A. Garfield_ (1881)
Every single pagan philosopher of the ancient world said…the worst form of slavery was slavery to your own appetites. - Anthony Esolen
He who would save a culture or civilization must not seek first the culture or the civilization but the kingdom of God. - Anthony Esolen
Friday, 24 March 2017
Quotes for 25 Mar 17
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believedthat the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large that…they may be enabled to know ambition under all shapes and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778)
To cling to the crucified and risen Lord is to abolish all hopelessness. There are no hopeless situations for the Christian.- P. Andrew Sandlin
He who is armed with the power of God will not tremble at the noise raised by the world. -John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
"New life is not something we can work up, it is something that must come down." —Sinclair Ferguson
·
Affirming the Bible’s inerrancy is not the same as trusting its sufficiency. - Brian Osisek
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778)
To cling to the crucified and risen Lord is to abolish all hopelessness. There are no hopeless situations for the Christian.- P. Andrew Sandlin
He who is armed with the power of God will not tremble at the noise raised by the world. -John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
"New life is not something we can work up, it is something that must come down." —Sinclair Ferguson
·
Affirming the Bible’s inerrancy is not the same as trusting its sufficiency. - Brian Osisek
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