Give Me The Wings of Faith

Give me the wings of faith to rise

Within the veil, and see

The saints above, how great their joys,

How bright their glories be.

Once they were mourning here below,

And wet their couch with tears:

They wrestled hard, as we do now,

With sins, and doubts, and fears.

I ask them whence their victory came:

They, with united breath,

Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,

Their triumph to His death.

--Isaac Watts

What is Sustaining Grace?

What is Sustaining Grace?

Not grace to bar what is not bliss
Nor flight from all distress, but this,
The grace that orders our trouble and pain
And then in the darkness is there to sustain.

--Piper

Expectations, Marriage, and Sanctification

I have spent a little time thinking through expectations in marriage over the last few months and have been served by a conversation with a wiser friend. The thought that initially challenged me was that biblical expectations are the only ones which will serve the other in marriage. For one to expect something other than what the Bible describes is to be unloving. So to study passages on marriage and husbands and wives is to serve one's husband or wife. Below I seek to build on this simple idea.

Armed with biblical expectations, a spouse is prepared, not to bash the other with them, but to encourage, point, and lead the other toward them. A husband should want to be like Christ, the perfect man. For a wife to expect something which is inconsistent with the ideal (Christ) is to be unloving and unserving of him. What husband wouldn't want to be like Christ, to love his wife like Christ loves the church?

Generally, Christians understand that sanctification (here the husband becoming like Christ) is a process for which "God's method . . . is neither activism (self-reliant activity) nor apathy (God-reliant passivity), but God-dependent effort (2 Cor. 7:1; Phil. 3:10-14; Heb. 12:14)" (Packer, Concise Theology, 170). A loving wife aligns herself under the biblical expectations by understanding the gospel, sanctification, the role of her husband, and then pointing him patiently toward the ideal man--Christ.

[It is worth meditating on the fact that Christ was not a husband, yet his relationship to the church is the reality which the husband is to picture. For husbands are, after all, to love their wives as Christ loved the church.]

Likewise, for a husband to serve his wife by having the most loving expectations possible, he must know the biblical ideal (thinking of Proverbs 31, etc.). For him to expect something which is inconsistent with the ideal is to be unloving and unserving of her. Some might think to expect this ideal of a wife is not helpful and likely only overwhelming for her. To expect this is not unhelpful, but it can be (and sometimes is) done in an unhelpful way, just as expecting one's husband to be like Christ is not unhelpful--but expecting him to be like Christ right now, right away can be unhelpful. Here is my point: No wife would expect her husband to be like Christ immediately after marriage, yet some husbands expect their wives to be like the Proverbs 31 woman immediately after marriage. These clearly sinful (and all too common) expectations flow from a failure to understand sanctification and then apply it in both instances.

Progressive sanctification, the work of God's free but costly grace, requires time. Scripture itself understands this. Note the woman in Proverbs 31 had raised kids. Put simply, she was not a young wife. She was certainly not 24. The grace of God had been at work in her through the experience of mothering for years. In the context of the unique roles of wife and mother and through years of exerting herself in sustained obedience and God-dependent effort within that context, the young, godly wife has become the ideal wife of Proverbs 31. No short cuts on the road of sanctification are allowed.

Christians must understand sanctification is a process and time is required. For it is over time alone that sustained obedience and God-dependent effort can happen. May this understanding of sanctification be lovingly applied to both the husband as he seeks to be like Christ and the wife as she seeks to be like the woman described in Proverbs 31 and elsewhere. More to my point, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way and, if Christ has begun a good work in her, expect great things from Him (I Peter 3:7; Phil. 1:6).

A Better Word

Do this and live, the law demands,

But gives us neither feet nor hands,

A better word God's grace does bring,

It bids me fly and gives me wings.

--John Bunyan--

First Hire

Your first hire in a church (after a pastor/paid elder) should be a church administrator, not a _______. Hire an administrator first!

Sing Spiritually

While reading Bible Baptist Church's statement on music philosophy, I came across this excellent reminder.

Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve of here, and reward you when He cometh in the clouds of heaven.

--John Wesley, Select Hymns (1791), taken from the Introduction

Thought on Preparation and Preaching from Dever

Definition: a sermon on a portion of Scripture in which the point(s) of the passage is the point(s) of the message.

Goal: the Word of God in the context of the people of God.

Read the text and not questions I have--what people will be asking of the text--then address those questions.

Say what you think the text says--then have a conversation with some commentaries.

Mark always asks the preacher (where he will be that Sunday) what the text will be. That passage becomes the source of his Bible reading--which is thus more corporate than individual. This also serves to prepare his heart for the preaching of God's Word.

Always include the gospel (contra Keller).

Mark noted that Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug."

A sermon should not be able to be preached anywhere at anytime.

Conclusion is a wedge. The weight is all on a point--to be driven into their soul.

In regards to illustrations, two thoughts: (1) work hard to say something worth while and (2) they can communicate a lightness not becoming of the message.

How Sweet And Aweful Is The Place

How sweet and aweful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores!

Here every bowel of our God
With soft compassion rolls;
Here peace and pardon bought with blood
Is food for dying souls.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
“Lord, why was I a guest?

“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”

’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God!
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May with one voice, and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.

--Isaac Watts

"Lord, why was I a guest?"

The Whole Effulgence

I could write Charles Bridges quotes all day. If you haven't read The Christian Ministry, please do. It is a joy. He has the flavor of the Puritans, but like Ryle is readable and markedly devotional. And to help you down this trail, here is his opening sentence:



"The Church is the mirror, that reflects the whole effulgence of the Divine character."

From Dr. Lovitt's Last Letter

T'AI-YUAN-FU, June 28, 1900.

DEAR FRIEND--We do not know whom you may be, but we thought it well to leave this letter in the hands of a trusty native to give to the first foreigner who might come along . . . .
We would like our dear home ones to know we are being marvellously sustained by the Lord. He is precious to each of us. The children seem to have no fear. We cannot but hope for deliverance (hope dies hard), and our God is well able to do all things--even to save us from the most impossible surroundings when hope is gone. Our trust is in Him entirely and alone. We at the same time are seeking to do all that is in our power, and asking guidance at every step. . . .
There is not much time. We are ready.

ARNOLD E. LOVITT, M.R.C.S

--from Last Letters and Further Records of Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, p48.

The Cross and Christian Preaching

"If you get into a valley (say in Leviticus) and can't see the cross, keep working because the cross is always in view."

--Dever

Who should a church support?

"A church should support workers who are strategic, excellent, and known."



--Andy Johnson

Whitsitt 1205 -- 50 Years Later

I just had a most amazing meeting. Sitting at my desk reading some Last Letters from martyred missionaries of the China Inland Mission, I heard a knock on the door and a elderly man opened the door and entered. John Griggs, who trained as Southern 50 years ago and who was returning for the first time, used to live in my room. Mr. Griggs is now the Director of Prayer and Missions at First Baptist Church in Morristown, TN. But 50 years ago he lived in my room--watching the library being built out the window (which was completed in 1959). He had served for decades as a missionary in Zambia (not sure if I remember that right). He challenged me with the importance of repentance in salvation, indigenous missisonary work, and seeking the will of God by (1) dying to self, (2) enthroning Jesus as Lord, (3) putting my hand in the hand of my heavenly father as a little child, (4) reading my Bible, and (5) listening to God and obeying Him. These were all on a yellow magnet he gave me before gently and kindly talking through them in an extended challenge to me as a young man. Mr. Griggs then began praying for me without introduction. We took a few pictures--he of me and I of him--then he left to continue revisiting Southern.

Thoughts on this special meeting:
(1) He knew the Bible and was bold to challenge me to know the Bible. He challenged me to rise early and seek God through his Word. His prayer for me was about 75% words of Christ.
(2) God has been faithful to use means like a little room on a quiet campus to raise up countless men [one must wonder about the men who have lived here between Mr. Griggs and I] to preach the gospel. May I be among the faithful to have been blessed with time in Whitsitt 1205.
(3) Mr. Griggs seemed very much like me--though he is an older man now. He met his wife here and talked about the 'Valley of Decision'. As I told him of my engagement, he was quite pleased.
(4) Praise God Southern still holds to the doctrine Mr. Griggs was clearly taught here. Praise God Mr. Griggs still holds and shares that same message.
(5) 'Father, please help Mr. Griggs to finish well. Thank you for his life and its example to me. Father, help me to be faithful to you. Don't let me go astray from you. Use me as you see fit. Thank you for the means of biography in my perseverance in the faith. Bless Mr. Griggs as he continues to remember your kindness to him through Southern. Amen.'

Sing (and when you do, sing about heaven a lot)

A unique way in which confidence in the Christian life can come is through congregations singing many hymns about heaven. To sing with others about our glorious future with God has three immediate affects on me: (1) God seems really big and lovely, (2) death seems really small, and thus (3) laying my life down for others through missionary labor seems reasonable.

Church 'Growth': Stepping Over Graves

"The victories of the Church are won by stepping over the graves of her members."

--Krapf in Last Letters and Further Records of Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, p94

Tracts Worth Reading (esp. for Christians)

Discouraged with hard situations right now? with how things appear to be unfolding in your life? Perhaps a journey into the world of apocalyptic literature might be the means God has for you to be encouraged in the present--looking to the future.

Consider these often controversial and rarely read portions of your Bible as tracts for hard times.

Press on.

The Means of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is a means to keep God's people persevering. It is a gigantic means.

--Brian Vickers

"The Greatest Love Is Rarely Merely Spontaneous"

I must be purposeful in my loving of others. This looks like church membership. This looks like covenanting to love and serve. Commitment and planning are needed. As I've pursued Suemi, I've learned this. I have to purpose to show love to her. I may want to, but little just happens when one is as passive as me. And the covenant of marriage brings clarity to my thinking as I consider the church covenant. Covenantal relationships are the context for deep, meaningful love of others. Spontaneity is over valued. Faithful resolve is under valued. May I be a young man like Jonathon Edwards who saw resolve and commitment as the context for love.

Principles on Worship

I would echo again and again the principles of mere and enhancing in relation to form. Mere and enhancing.

Worship: A Simple Definition

Peterson provides a simple and useful definition of worship.



Worship "is essentially an engagement with [God] on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible."



--Peterson, Engaging with God, 20

Christ's Training School

"The sphere of every day experience is Christ's training school for bringing forth the highest aspects of Christian character."

--said to be evident from the suffer of missionary to China and martyr William Cooper (martyred probably July 1, 1900) by Walter B. Sloan, Martyred Missionaries, 156. Mr. Cooper was called after reading a copy of a Spurgeon sermon entitled "The Divine Call for Missionaries."

Busyness

If you know me well, you know I am passive. This is a characteristic which looks like the sin of procrastination often. C.J. Mahaney is writing a series on just that--procrastination. This is a sin with which I have often fallen into and desire to more faithfully fight.

C.J. soberingly reminds me:

• Busyness does not mean I am diligent
• Busyness does not mean I am faithful
• Busyness does not mean I am fruitful

Quoting a helpful article in the Journal of Biblical Counseling, he describes me too well:

• If my task is not due anytime soon, put it off.
• If the task is due tomorrow, cast aside all other responsibilities and focus on this one task.
• And after accomplishing a large task, take a break and reward yourself.

May God give grace as I seek to trust Him and work hard. And press on to know Him.

Mere Watering

Much of pastoral labor is water into the ground--no clue if 'working' or 'helping.'

From Fundamentalism to the CHBC Internship

In my closing paper on the internship, I described the experience like this:

"I've stepped into a larger pack running the same race and have been very heartened by their presence."

Demerited Favor

Grace is demerited favor. It is more than unmerited favor. Grace reaches beyond neutral, into the debt side, and then bestows the gift.



So is there only grace in the redemptive context? Is Genesis 3:15 the first display of grace?





--thoughts from Hermeneutics class with Brian Vickers

Illustrative Preaching

The preacher is to reflect the doctrine of revelation. He is to illustrate how God communicates to his people. So preaching as conversation would seem to fall short of this understanding.

Bridges Is Golden Again and Again

Another amazing quote by Bridges:



"Difficulties heaped upon difficulties can never rise to the level of the promise of God."



--The Christian Ministry, 175

Means and the Spirit's Glory

"The use of means honours the work of the Spirit. But dependence upon means obscures his glory, and therefore issues in unprofitableness."

--Bridges, The Christian Ministry, 177

Definitions Are Vital

Defining a church is crucial in defining the role of the leader of that church.

Regeneration and Membership

With church membership, you are looking for a wise and balanced way to determine regenerate church membership. A church is striving to find a wise medium. A church is not to do everything to make sure a member is regenerate.

Lessons Learned at CHBC

This break I plan on reviewing my papers from the internship at CHBC and journaling things that stike me--particularly things I noted during discussions with Mark. Also, I am posting thoughts from class lectures this past fall here at SBTS.


I know the reminders will serve me well. I need to be reminded constantly.

The Fear of Man

Don't buy the lie that your fear of man is circumstancial

and

remember the fear of man can't be fought alone.

Not Like A Mushroom—But Like An Oak.

"Remember, the growth of a believer is not like a mushroom—but like an oak, which increases slowly indeed—but surely.

Many suns, showers, and frosts, pass upon it before it comes to perfection. And in winter, when it seems to be dead—it is gathering strength at the root.

Be humble, watchful, and diligent in the means, and endeavor to look through all, and fix your eye upon Jesus—and all shall be well."

—John Newton, Letters of John Newton (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth: 2007)

If you don't receive a daily e-mail from First Importance, I would recommend you consider it. This blog will e-mail you a short gospel quote daily--though I don't read them everyday, I always benefit from them when I do.

English - The Mother Tongue

"Snowfall in Germany forces a lorry driver to attach snow chains to his tyres..."

Today I read this caption on BBC's website . . . . 'Lorry' and 'tyres' . . . language is interesting indeed.

In Flanders Fields

As I grow older, holidays mean different things. In some cases, they begin to mean something. Veteran's Day is one such holiday. This morning Dr. Peter Gentry began class by quoting this poem--and then lead the class in a prayer.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

A Caution Related to Biblical Theology

"Illegitimate totality transfer," coined by Barr, is helpfully summarized by Osbourne in The Hermeneutical Spiral by the following sentences: "After going to so much trouble to find multitudinous meanings and uses for a word, it is hard for the scholar to select just one for the passage. The tendency is to read all or most of them (that is, to transfer the "totality" of the meanings) into the single passage. Such is the "illegitimate," for no one ever has in mind all or even several of the possible meanings for a term when using it in a particular context."

Barr, who does not summarize his terminology as clearly, applies the idea well in a caution related to biblical theology. Written in 1961, it is no less applicable today with the renewed interest in this discipline.

"We may briefly remark that this procedure ["illegitimate totality transfer"] has to be specially guarded against in the climate of present-day biblical theology, for this climate is very favourable to 'seeing the Bible as a whole' and rather hostile to the suggestion that something is meant in one place which is really unreconcilable with what is said in another . . . . There may be also some feeling that since Hebrew man or biblical man thought in totalities we should do that same as interpreters. But a moment's thought should indicate that the habit of thinking about God or man or sin as totalities is a different thing from obscuring the value of a word in a context by imposing upon it the totality of its uses. We may add that the small compass of the NT, both in literary bulk and in the duration of the period which produced it, adds a plausibility to the endeavour to take it as one piece, which could hardly be considered so likely for any literature of greater bulk and spread over a longer time."

--James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, 218-19.

It Is Finished (Hark, the Voice of Love and Mercy)

Hark, the voice of love and mercy,
Sounds aloud from Calvary!
See, it rends the rocks asunder,
Shakes the earth and veils the sky!
“It is finished, It is finished,”
Hear the dying Savior cry.

“It is finished,” O what pleasure,
Do these charming words afford.
Heavenly blessings, without measure,
Flow to us from Christ the Lord.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints the dying words record.

Finished all the types and shadows,
Of the ceremonial law;
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints from hence your comfort draw.

Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs;
Join to sing the pleasing theme;
Saints on earth and all in heaven,
Join to praise Immanuel’s name.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory to the bleeding lamb!


--Jonathan Evans, 1784 & Benjamin Francis, 1787

A Prayer--Lovely Lover of My Soul

Father, I come to you now with a repentant heart, loving my sin more than I should and asking you to help me to hate my sin and rather love you more than I do. For I can not love you more than I should. Only as I should--though to a lesser degree than would be merely proper. Proper love to you, Father, is a love which remain and endures. I Cor. 13 speak of love in a most amazing way: love is patient. Love is committed for the long hall and will wait--not merely for reciprication--but for love to overcome the unlovliness of the loved in the eyes of the lover. Love is thus kind--when kindness is odd. Love doesn't envy the loved or his circumstances. Love is not proud. Love doesn't boast--boasting by the lover is excluded, whether of the loved or lover himself. Love is not rude. Father, I am not loving. Yet I have been loved by the Lover such that love for others is now possible. I, the loved, have been so loved I can begin to be the lover. I can begin to make progress only through the Lover and because He has loved me. The Lover's love comes down and, through me, is bent outward to others--that they may see and feel and be loved too by the Lover. Father, thank you for loving the unlovely. For if you did not, I would never have been loved nor been able to love. Great Lover of my soul, you are lovely. I love you. Amen.

Saved from the Wrath of God through Christ

Last night I was struck again by these lines from the Gospel Primer:

So now God relates
to me only wiht grace--
The former wrath banished
without any trace!
And each day I'm made
a bit more as I should,
His greace using all things
to render me good.
Yes, even in trials
God's grace abounds too
And does me the good
He assigns it to do.

The text moves from propitation to sanctification to sanctification through trials--with the common theme of grace. With this view of God, I, not my circumstances, are in the greatest need of change. And God promises to change me--not my circumstances. Circumstances do change and life comes in seasons. In the midst of the seasons (which seem to move slowly when one is in the midst of them--quickly looking back), day by day God's grace is making me more like I should be.

Help My Unbelief

I know the Lord is nigh,
And would but cannot pray,
For Satan meets me when I try,
And frights my soul away.
And frights my soul away.

I would but can’t repent,
Though I endeavor oft;
This stony heart can ne’er relent
Till Jesus makes it soft.
Till Jesus makes it soft.

Chorus
Help my unbelief. Help my unbelief.
Help my unbelief.
My help must come from Thee.

I would but cannot love,
Though wooed by love divine;
No arguments have power to move
A soul as base as mine.
A soul so base as mine.

I would but cannot rest,
In God’s most holy will;
I know what He appoints is best,
And murmur at it still.
I murmur at it still.

Chorus

--John Newton (1725-1807)

Hymn 244 - Evening

Glory to thee, my God this night
For all the blessings of the light;
Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings,
Beneath thy own almighty wings.

Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done,
That with the world, myself and thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.

Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed;
Teach me to die that so I may
Rise glorious at the aweful day.

O may my soul on thee repose,
And with sweet sleep my eyelids close,
Sleep that may me more vigorous make
To serve my God when I awake.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise him all creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

--Thomas Ken (1637-1711), The New English Hymnal

Missions: Dying for Russians

Missions has not been on my mind this semester. More than on factor undoubtedly is contributing to this. But missions has been on my mind more these last few days. I've been struck by the presence of sin and its affect on cultures and life. Whole societies and whole cultures are affected by sin. Missions should not have affecting societies or cultures at its main goal. But the gospel changes people and can thus change whole countries.

Russia needs the gospel. Russians need the gospel. This may seem obvious but articles like this one by Dr. Mohler give the obvious weight. Who will see dying as gain and go to Russia? Who will seek the lost to save (and their children)?

Discipline

Discipline is the price of freedom.
Freedom is the reward of discipline.
Discipline without direction is drudgery.
The alternative to discipline is disaster.

--Don Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, p. 24, 27

Christians and Pleasures

I have found C.S. Lewis especially freeing in regard to pleasure in this life. Since I can't quote the whole section, I will use an extended quote to provoke you towards Lewis.

The original meaning of temperance "referred not to specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further. . . . One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself with wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons--marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things a re bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning. . . . A man who makes golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as 'intemperate' as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, "The Cardinal Virtues"

Do you feel the freedom Christianity offers regarding pleasure--both from excess and from avoidance? How should we then live?

The Telos of Alice

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

--Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

Though I found many versions of the above quote (and since I don't own the book), it may be best to summarize it. 'If you don't know where you are going, it doesn't matter which road you take. Any road will take you there.'

An Educated Christian

"If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But, fortunately, it works the other way around. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is the Christianity is an education itself. That is why an educated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, "The Cardinal Virtues"

Awe Fill

Two things fill the mind with awe the more and more you think on them: (1) the starry hosts above and (2) the moral law within.

--Unknown (by me)

How are you right with God?

“Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.”

—The Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 60

Absortion

"We almost never think about one truth for 5 minutes."
"It is not how much we get but how much we absorb."

--Donald Whitney, from lectures for the class 'Personal Spiritual Disciplines'

Meditation is an idea I have not given much thought to. Ironic. I fail to read my Bible in such a way so as to be able to meditate on it day and night with ease. Meditation proceeds obedience. Obedience proceeds God's blessing. Though I struggle with the vague idea of God's blessing, the principle stands. Meditation on truth will lead and does proceed change in action--and feeling. For I will never feel deeply about which I never think deeply. Depth of thought and depth of emotion have a direct relation.

May God lead me into a growing desire to discipline myself toward godliness through meditation. Amen.

Continual Reformation and The Idol of Certainty

"Careful handling of the Bible will enable us to "hear" it a little better. It is all too easy to read the traditional interpretations we have received from others into the text of Scripture. Then we may unwittingly transfer the authority of Scripture to our traditional interpretations and invest them with a false, even an idolatrous, degree of certainty. Because traditions are reshaped as they are passed on, after a while we drift far from God's Word while still insisting all our theological opinions are "biblical" and therefore true. If when we are in such a state we study the Bible uncritically, more than likely it will simply reinforce our errors. If the Bible is to accomplish its work of continual reformation--reformation of our lives and our doctrine--we must do all we can to listen to it afresh and to utilize the best resources at our disposal."

-- D.A. Caron, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed, pp. 17-18

Liberalism

Liberals consider themselves to be reasonable and moderate in their views. This moderation flows from the reasonable view that Scripture is not authoritative historically. Upon this reasoning, liberals can move in countless directions away from the Scriptures--always considering themselves to remain consistently reasonable and moderate.

Ethics

"Most of ethics is not a matter of intellect, but rather a matter of the will."

--K. T. Magnuson, 9/5/08

"The Trials and Difficulties of the Christian Ministry"

"Our Lord's illustration of the necessity of a previous counting of the cost in important undertakings forcibly applies to the Christian Ministry. . . . Indeed the difficulties of this work to the considerate conscientious mind must exclude any expectation of temporal ease and comfort. Many other tracks in life offer a large promise of indulgence. But to this work is most especially linked the daily cross: and in it must be anticipated severe and sometimes overwhelming trials--arising from the professing church, the world, the power of Satan, and ourselves."

--The Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges, pp. 11-12

We are dwarfs--grateful for giants of antiquity.

"We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants; thanks to them, we see farther than they. Busying ourselves with the treaties written by the ancients, we take their choice thoughts, buried by age and human neglect, and we raise them, as it were, from death to renewed life."

--Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George, quoting the medieval theologian Peter of Blois.