In his post You Will Never Guess Who Is Really Responsible For The Softening of Males In The Church, Mark Sayers shifts the blame for the current “sea of passivity” in modern males from feminism to men like John Newton.
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Charles Stone introduces his book, ‘Five Ministry Killers and How to Kill Them‘ with an account of how a Church fired their Pastor. As I started the first paragraph, I thought it was a fictional parable used to kick off the main topic of the book. Wrong!
Tim Gallant has a beautiful piece over at the BH blog:
One of the most beautiful promises of Scripture is Zephaniah 3.17: “Yahweh your God is in your midst; the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.”
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In The Covenant Key, you’ll see the structure and purpose of all Biblical Covenants laid bare. It hammers home what is promised and what is at stake (the future), and how it all hinges on one simple thing — obedience.
“Real supernatural power is always found in the last place we want to look, the place of humble submission to God and His Law.”
Without fail, the simple passing of time exposes all the man-made isms for what they are: sophisticated attempts to obtain the blessings of God while avoiding obedience to the Law of God.
“So I commended
…..enjoyment,
……….because a man
……….has nothing better
……………under the sun
…..…..than to eat,
…..drink,
and be merry…”
(Eccles. 8:15)
If you love the chiasmi of the Bible, why not arrange a “Covenant” Christmas banquet using the Bible Matrix?*
People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
–D. A. Carson
(HT: Rob Lamont)
Spotted by Bojidar Marinov at Manoah’s Wife blog, and well worth sharing:
“It may very well be that the Communists, who are so anti-Christ, are closer to Him than those who see Him as a sentimentalist and vague moral reformer. The Communists have at least decided that if He wins, they lose; the others are afraid to consider Him either as winning or losing, because they are not prepared to meet the moral demands which this victory would make on their souls.
From Mark Horne’s blog:
So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.
So writes Paul to Philemon about his runaway slave, Onesimus.
Notice the exchange that takes place.
“He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found…”
And [Moses] said, (T) (Creation)
…..“If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God (H) (Division)
……….and do what is right in His sight, (Ascension)
……………give ear to His commandments (E) (Testing)
……….and keep all His statutes, (Maturity)
…..I will put none of the diseases on you (O) (Conquest - Blessing)
…..which I have brought on the Egyptians. (Conquest - Cursing)
For I [am] the LORD who heals you.” (S) (Glorification)
— Exodus 15:26
“QuantumGreg” posted a comment on Sam Frost’s review of my book. He objects to the idea that, under the New Covenant, obedience to the Law will bring a decrease in disease. It’s a very reasonable objection.
“…does this not sound like Law to you? In fact, it is the Law (Deuteronomy 28). It sounds so much like the Old Covenant that it has no resemblance to the New Covenant, don’t you think?
