30 Thursday May 2013
26 Sunday May 2013
God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our savior
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
08 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Poetry
Tags
A Hymn to God the Father, fear, forgiveness, Jesus, John Donne, poetry, sin
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin by which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.
- John Donne, A Hymn to God the Father
24 Sunday Mar 2013
Posted in Quotes
“And I thought to myself, twelve hours! In those twelve hours the whole world had changed, because of one insensate act. And what madness made a man pursue something so unspeakable, deaf to the cries of wife and children and mother and friends and blind to their danger, to grasp one unspeakable pleasure that brought no joy, ten thousand of which pleasures were not worth one of the hairs of their heads? Such desire could not surely be a desire of the flesh, but some mad desire of a sick and twisted soul. And why should I have it? And where did it come from? And how did one cure it? But I had no answers to these questions.”
- Pieter, after he committed adultery in Alan Paton’s novel Too Late the Phalarope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 174.
21 Thursday Feb 2013
Posted in Life
Were I quicker on my feet I would have said the following to the college student at the coffee shop who, I believe, stole my pen:
“Eh-hem… I realize that I’m fallible, so forgive me if my postulation is wrong. But, I came here with a pen which I used and set-down there. I asked you to watch my stuff while I went to the bathroom. Now the pen is gone. I’ve thoroughly checked my backpack and the surrounding area to no avail. I don’t have the pen on my person and you said that you didn’t see anything happen to it.
“If the pen is not lying around here, if I don’t have it, and if nobody else took it then I’d like to postulate that you closed your eyes, grabbed my pen and are currently in possession of it. I’d like to let you know that stealing is both rude and wrong, as is lying.
“None the less, I’d like you to keep my pen as a gift from me. I hope it lasts long and writes smoothly for you. If you ever attend a Billy Graham Crusade, I hope you use it to sign your ‘decision card for Jesus.’ Have a nice day. Goodbye.”
However, insofar as I’m not quicker on my feet, I simply furrowed my brow and went home; one pen poorer than before.
16 Saturday Feb 2013
Posted in Quotes
Tags
bread of life, Cornelius Plantinga Jr., cupboard, Evangelism, Jesus, missions, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be
“We do not welcome strangers into our lives or homes, and we do not go out to meet them. We do not inform ourselves of events abroad and cannot locate them on maps or in context… We have never dealt seriously with a homeless person. We do not grieve over news stories of poverty or starvation, and we make token efforts to relieve such suffering by our charity. Claiming allegiance to the Christ who speaks in active imperatives (Go! Tell! Witness! Declare! Proclaim!), we Christians nonetheless prefer to keep the bread of life in our own cupboard and to speak of it only to those who already have it. De we subconsciously suppose that in such inbred silence we can keep our dignity, and unbelievers can go to hell where they belong?”
- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 189.
24 Thursday Jan 2013
Posted in Et Cetera, Gleanings from Books
Mark Dever chronologically schedules old books into his reading. Genius. Insofar as this is a new year, I’m going to seek to follow his schedule, reading a book from each time period in its given month. Athanaisus’ On the Incarnation will be the book for January.
“Dever’s annual reading schedule is structured chronologically, and it looks something like this:
- Tony Reinke, Lit!, 180-181.
06 Sunday Jan 2013
Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned
By sickness, death’s herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison,
But damned and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh make thy self with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.
- John Donne, Holy Sonnets IV
24 Monday Sep 2012
Tags
Batter My Heart, batter my heart three-personed God, Holy Sonnets, John Donne, poem, poetry, sonnet
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like a usurpt town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your Viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
- John Donne, Holy Sonnets, XIV.
13 Friday Jul 2012
Tags
“‘Good morning!’ said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on?’”
- The Hobbit (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 17-18.
04 Wednesday Jul 2012
Tags
America, Fourth of July, freedom, Micah Bournes, sin, slavery, spoken word
07 Monday May 2012
“Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” – Romans 8:34
[RSS readers must click through to see video]
16 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Quotes
“God in His sovereign good pleasure from eternity elected certain persons in Christ to everlasting life. By nature the elect, like all other men, are totally depraved sinners who cannot save themselves. In order to save the elect God sent His Son into the world to purchase redemption for them by His precious blood and perfect obedience. By the atonement Christ merited for the elect the Holy Spirit, who effectually regenerates them and works the gift of saving faith in their hearts. That God’s chosen, whom Christ has redeemed and to whom the Holy Spirit has applied redemption, should perish is entirely out of the question. Those are the five points of Calvinism. Together they constitute one doctrine – that of salvation by sovereign grace.”
- R. B. Kuiper, For Whom did Christ Die? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 70.
09 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Quotes
Tags
commentary, Douglas Moo, glory, inheritance, path, Romans, suffering, Thomas Schreiner
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” – Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)
“[T]his glorious inheritance is attained only through suffering. Because we are one with Christ, we are his fellow heirs, assured of being “glorified with him.” But, at the same time, this oneness means that we must follow Christ’s own road to glory, “suffering with him” (cf. also Phil. 1:29; 3:10; 2 Cor. 1:5)… [T]he suffering Paul speaks of here refers to the daily anxieties, tensions, and persecutions that are the lot of those who follow the one who was “reckoned with the transgressors” (Luke 22:37). Paul makes clear that this suffering is the condition for the inheritance; we will be “glorified with” Christ (only) if we “suffer with him.” Participation in Christ’s glory can come only through participation in his suffering… the glory of the kingdom of God is attained only through participation in Christ, and belonging to Christ cannot but bring our participation in the sufferings of Christ. Just as, then, Christ has suffered and entered into his glory (1 Pet. 1:11), so Christians, “fellow heirs with Christ,” suffer during this present time in order to join Christ in glory.”
- Douglas Moo, Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 505-506.
“Suffering is the path to future glorification.”
- Thomas Schreiner, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 428
photo: Resclassic2
08 Sunday Apr 2012
Though the Earth cried out for blood
Satisfied her hunger was
Her billows calmed on raging seas
For the souls on men she craved
Sun and moon from balcony
Turned their head in disbelief
Their precious Love would taste the sting
Disfigured and disdained
On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with the keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave
So three days in darkness slept
The Morning Sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throes of death
And over turn his rule
Now daughters and the sons of men
Would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent
When the day rolled a new
On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke holding keys
To Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave
On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave
He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all
[RSS readers may have to click through to play the video]
04 Wednesday Apr 2012
Tags
I like this.
“Trying harder and harder to stop looking at porn isn’t the way to stop looking at porn—you must look somewhere else, namely, the person of Jesus Christ. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18 writes, “And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” True inward change comes from beholding Jesus not from not looking at porn. As it has been said, what you behold you become, or as biblical theologian Greg Beale puts it, you become what you worship. Look at porn and become a person controlled by lust and idolatry or look at Jesus and become a glorious and whole human being that reflects the beauty and glory of God.”
02 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Quotes
Tags
Christ, coheirs, commentary, Douglas Moo, Romans, Thomas Schreiner, union
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” – Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)
“To say that believers are [only] heirs of God, however, leaves out a major motif in Paul’s thinking, for believers are also “fellow heirs with Christ.” This statement does not function as a corrective to the previous one but elucidates the means by which believers are heirs of God. The inheritance becomes a reality through union with Christ, the true seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). Those who are united with Christ share in the inheritance that he has gained for them.”
- Thomas Schriener, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 428.
“Paul is… reminding us that Christians inherit the blessings of God’s kingdom only through, and in, Christ. We, “the sons of God,” are such by virtue of our belonging to the Son of God; and we are heirs of God only by virtue of our union with the one who is the heir of all God’s promises (see Mark 12:1-2; Gal. 3:18-19; Heb. 1:2).”
- Douglas Moo, Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 505.
26 Monday Mar 2012
Posted in Quotes
Tags
Abraham, commentary, Covenant, God, heirs, promise, Romans, Thomas Schreiner
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” – Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)
“Paul asserts that believers have inherited the promise of Abraham (Gal. 3:14, 29), and this promise is an astounding one, for Abraham is heir of the world (Rom. 4:13…). Here he says something even more stunning: believers are “heirs of God” himself. The wording suggests not merely that believers are heirs of what God has promised but of God himself. The supreme benefit of the covenant with Abraham is not inheriting the land but having God as one’s God (Gen. 17:7).”
- Thomas Schreiner, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 427-28.
19 Monday Mar 2012
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
- Civilla Martin
A reworking of this hymn by Audrey Assad.
photo: source
[RSS readers may need to click through to play the video]
12 Monday Mar 2012
Posted in Quotes
Tags
“Paul’s meaning is that, in dying for us, Christ died for those who were helpless, ungodly, sinners, enemies. What Paul is here concerned to bring out is the fact that the divine love is love for the undeserving, love that is not the result of any worth in its objects but is self-caused and in its freedom itself confers worth upon them.”
- C.E.B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, Ed. J.A. Emerton, Vol. 1 (International Critical Commentary; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), 264.
