Bully's Blog

The Son has promised to meet us two places: in our sin and in our weakness. He will rejoice in our glory, but only if we have first encountered Him in our humility. As sinners, we must meet Him in our sin, and as creatures, as newborn babies, as little children, we must meet Him in our weakness. Good works, maturity, and glory must be the outflow of that encounter, not the basis of it.

RITE REASONS No. 59: The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 3 
James B. Jordan  www.biblicalhorizons.com

This way a silhouette before heaven’s smile
That way a solitary shadow upon prison walls
August yet base
Is the profile of man. Continue reading

 It is impossible to impose any foreign worldview, modern or otherwise, onto the Bible. It will never be accommodated to the current ephemera. It comes in like a sword and violates our thinking until we think the way God does. Then it has dambusting consequences in every area of life.

It is a weapon to crush the head, to bring death and resurrection in us, and in the world. It carves up nations like a sacrifice and makes them a pleasing aroma to God. It rebuilds cultures from the inside out, and is the fount of all western society, art, literature (and literacy), music, government and charity.

And western atheism is in reality a black leech hanging off this grandeur, a little horn with a big mouth, totally dependent on the longsuffering and mercy of Christ the ascended King. 

Secular humanism is but a perversion of Christianity. As a ‘Christianity without Christ’, and thus bankrupt, it can only ever survive on borrowed capital. It is a temporary wart.

From Peter Leithart today:

“With what disgust, contempt, and hatred Christ must look upon every second of our lives, the reviewing of which must be a long torture for us, were such a judgment in our future!”

These are the words of a Presbyterian minister, writing in a prominent evangelical magazine. He’s trying to refute the belief that we’ll be judged according to works at the last day. He’s wrong on that point.  Continue reading

This one still makes me laugh…

Pray until you pray. That is Puritan advice. It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much of our praying—though admittedly that is a point the Scriptures repeatedly make. Even though he was praying in line with God’s promises, Elijah prayed for rain seven times before the first cloud appeared in the heavens. The Lord Jesus could tell parables urging persistence in prayer (Luke 11:5-13). If some generations needed to learn that God is not particularly impressed by long-winded prayers, and is not more disposed to help us just because we are garrulous, our generation needs to learn that God is not impressed by the kind of brevity that is nothing other than culpable negligence. Continue reading

The LORD called out to the man and asked, “Where are you?”  Genesis 3:9

For those who wonder why God doesn’t fix all the wrong in the world right now, C. S. Lewis wrote that when the Author walks onto the stage, the play is over. That is true, but narrow…

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Unfathomable Depths

“One of the great joys of studying Scripture is that there is plenty of low hanging fruit: food for the youngest and simplest believer; yet, at the same time there are unfathomable depths to enjoy. Let Augustine (certainly brighter than you or me, and a great student of Scripture) spur you on to be Bible crazy:

There is such depth in the Christian Scriptures that, even if I studied them, and nothing else, from early childhood to worn-out old age, with ample time and unflagging zeal, and with greater intellectual ability than I possess, I would still each day find new treasures within them. The basic truths necessary for salvation are easily found within the Scriptures. But even when a person has accepted these truths, and is both God-fearing and righteous in his actions, there remain so many things which lie under a great veil of mystery. Through reading the Scriptures, we can pierce this veil, and find the deepest wisdom in the words which express these mysteries, and in the mysteries themselves. The oldest, the ablest, and the most eager student of Scripture, will say at the end of each day: ‘I have studied hard, but my studies are only just beginning.’

Augustine, Letter 137.”

Pilfered from Matthew Mason’s blog.

Gospel For Asia President Calls India Election Results A Vote Against Extremism

The size of the vote against those advocating violence against Christians amazed the political pundits, who had predicted a close election with perhaps years of unstable and weak coalition governments in India’s future.

“No one expected this,” Dr. Yohannan noted. “The Congress party itself is surprised.”

But Dr. Yohannan said there was a clear explanation.

“Many political pundits are talking about the ‘X’ factor in this election, something unexpected that can turn the results. There was an ‘X’ factor, and I believe it was God.

“There are 1.2 billion people in India,” he explained. “They are very important to God, and He worked.

“So much prayer went up,” he added. “Christians have been praying, and God answered their prayers. That’s what happened.”

It’s interesting that in India a secular state will curb the persecution, while in the West it is the secular state that is increasingly becoming the instrument of persecution by litigation.

And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the Land. (Revelation 5:6)

The Bible is the story of the historic battle between the serpent-king and the servant king. Both sit on bloody thrones. Herod slaughters the innocents, and is then slaughtered by God. The innocent Christ is slaughtered, then sends His followers into the world as seven Spirits (Lampstand/Pentecost), but also as lambs among wolves.

Continue reading