March 2011
35 posts
“The reader’s fallen condition lies like a veil over the word of God,
a...”
– Martin Luther, on biblical hermeneutics
“In essentials, unity
In non-essentials, liberty
In all things, charity”
– Augustine
“Love is to find your happiness in the joy of the other.”
– Jonathan Edwards
“The greatest enemy of faith may be forgetfulness.”
– Dale Ralph Davis, ‘Joshua’
“True Israelites tremble when God is angry.”
– Matthew Henry
In my place condemned he stood
Man of Sorrows! What a name for the Son of God, who came ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood; sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Guilty, vile, and helpless we; spotless Lamb of God was He; “Full atonement!” can it be? Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Lifted up was He to die; “It is...
“Better to have weak faith in someone who is worthy of it, than to have strong...”
– Anon
“A blog is like a product. First it needs to be good and then you need to market...”
– Shelby White (via teaim)
“Our problem is that we prefer the tolerance of men to the praise of God.”
– Dale Ralph Davis, on our lack of church discipline. (From ‘Joshua’)
“If God is all-powerful, he certainly doesn’t need help from a jerk in a suit...”
– Frank Zappa, on televangelists
“Just nonsense. The result of sitting down with Red Stripe and a spliff.”
– Noel Gallagher (once described by Q Magazine as the greatest songwriter of all time) on the lyrics to the smash hit Don’t Look Back In Anger
Powerful weakness
The more the Holy Spirit works, the more Christians will be used in battle, and the more they are used, the more there will be personal cost and tiredness. It is quite the opposite of what we might first think. People often cry out for the work of the Holy Spirit and yet forget that when the Holy Spirit works, there is always tremendous cost to the people of God - weariness and tears and...
When Satan tempts me to despair...
When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: “I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.”
- Martin...
“How do we learn about the present? We look to the past.”
– Fox Mulder, The X-Files
“Nobody understands another person’s pain, Lewis. That’s the human tragedy.”
– Inspector Morse
“God touches the spring of penitence in men through many deep experiences, but...”
– H. R. Mackintosh
From start to finish
It is grace at the beginning, grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our deathbeds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us at the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace....
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What!...”
– C.S. Lewis
“In God’s sight there are no little people and no little places”
– Francis Schaeffer
Our need, Christ's provision
“We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake or we cannot be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe it is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing. No matter what our attainments in Christian graces, or our achievements in behaviour may be it is always on the basis of his blood...
View him prostrate in the garden
On the ground your Maker lies;
Then on Calvary’s tree behold him,
Hear him cry before he dies:
“It is finished! It is finished!”
Sinner, will this not suffice?
- Joseph Hart, ‘Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched’
“Maybe sometimes we don’t do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don’t want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it’s dangerous. We’re more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right. It’s very hard.”
—Will, The Amber Spyglass
“The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most...”
– Martin Luther
Frowning providence, smiling face
God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform
he plants his footsteps on the sea
and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
of never failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs
and works his sovereign will.
You fearful saints fresh courage take
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble...
Religion is, I fear, most often practiced to buy off God’s anger, to pay for a sin done, so that one is free to go on in it. We throw ourselves into church or confession as a burglar might throw a steak to a watchdog - to keep him at a safe distance.
- John Ensor
A Dictatorship of Relativism
Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists...
President Bartlet's middle class 'truth'
So, who watches The West Wing? Ratings show that the US audience splits evenly across Republican and Democratic lines. The unifying factor seems to be the audience’s income. The West Wing is the number one show in households making more than $100,000 a year. There are many potential explanations… …Important is a form of pluralism in Sorkin’s commander in chief. He stays on the fence for...
None like Christ
He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was his like among the choicest of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold he always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and...
“Love God and do what you like.”
– St. Augustine
The extraordinary ordinary providence of God
“Clarence Macartney told the story about Dr. John Witherspoon … a signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the (then) College of New Jersey. He lived a couple of miles away from the college at Rocky Hill and drove horse and rig each day to his office at the college.
“One day one of his neighbors burst into his office, exclaiming, ‘Dr. Witherspoon, you must join me in...
“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”
– Richard Sibbes 