Blessings abound

O what blessedness accompanies devotion, when under all the trials that weary me,
the cares that corrode me,
the fears that disturb me,
the infirmities that oppress me, I can come to thee in my need and feel peace beyond understanding!

(p214 The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions)

Pugh nails it

Plans for the Bank Holiday?

Lessons from Calvin

What is the Bible about?

HT: Dan

The World is Filled with Boys Who Can Shave

So says Mark Driscoll: 

The Apostle Paul says, "When I was a boy, I talked like a boy, I thought like a boy, I reasoned like a boy. When I became a man, I put childish and boyish ways behind me" (see 1 Cor. 13:11). A lot of guys don't, as if responsibility is a bad thing and the longer you can prolong it, the more masculine you are. That's the world. It's absolutely childish and it's consumerism.

The marketing sweet spot for many companies is young men ages eighteen to thirty-four. These guys don't know what it means to be a man, and so marketers fill the void with products that define manhood by what you consume rather than what you produce.

The tough retrosexual guys consume women, porn, alcohol, drugs, television, music, video games, toys, cars, sports, and fantasy leagues, as if being a man is defined by how much meat you can shove through your colon, how many beers you can pound, how fast you can drive, how stinky you can fart, how hard you can hit, how far you can spit, how loud you can belch, and how big your truck is.

The artsy, techie metrosexual types consume clothes, decaf lattes, shoes, gadgets, cars (not trucks), furniture, hair products, and underwear with the names of very important people on the waistband. For them, manhood means being in touch with one's feelings, wardrobe, and appearance.

A legion of moms and girlfriends enable these boys who can shave. They pay his bills, pick up his messes, loan him their car, and refill his sippy cup with beer or martinis, depending upon his preference. Girlfriends, gal friends with benefits, and miscellaneous other mannies (nannies for men) need to know this: you want a guy you can marry and have babies with. You don't want to marry a guy who's a baby.

Men are supposed to be producers, not just consumers. You're defined by the legacy, the life, and the fruit that come out of you, not by what you take in. But most guys are just consumers.

To see the whole article visit the Washington Post here

Dancing on the brink of eternity

Godless education ...

Godless education ignores or denies that man was created responsible to God. This implies that sin is not a transgression of God's law. Hence Christ did not need to die in our stead. Godless or nontheistic education is therefore also non- or anti-Christian. Godless, non-Christian education naturally becomes humanistic, i.e., man-centred. If man does not need to live for God, he may live for himself. If then we want a God-centred and truly Christian education, we will have to break away completely from the educational philosophy that surrounds us.

Non-Christians believe that man is surrounded by an absolutely unknowable universe. Man is grasping in the dark, except for the little light that his own mind is radiating as a headlight in the mist. Christian believe that originally man  lived in the light of the revelation of God and that in Christ as the fact-revelation and in Scripture as the Word-revelation, man is in principle restored to that true light of God.  

(Foundations of Christian Education: Addresses to Christian Teachers (Christian perspectives) Ch 1, Antithesis in Education, p3)

Handling (student) debt

Facing up to the antithesis

Non-Christians believe that the universe has created God. They have a finite god. Christians believe that God has created the universe. They have a finite universe. Non-Christians therefore are not concerned with bringing a child face to face with God. They want to bring the child face to face with the universe. Non-Christian education is Godless education. What is of most importance to us in education, that which is absolutely indispensable to us, is left out entirely.

(Foundations of Christian Education: Addresses to Christian Teachers (Christian perspectives) Ch 1, Antithesis in Education, p3)

for better or worse

Keeping Body & Soul Together

The first four verses of 3 John (with the help of google images): 
v1-2 John (the elder) prays for Gaius' wellbeing.

v2-4 Yet the thing that John is really concerned about is Gaius' spiritual well-being. This is the ball game and gives him great joy, no greater joy in fact because of the positive news he has heard. We'll see more of what spiritual fitness involves in v5-8.



v2-4 The thrilling and challenging thing is that despite Gaius' health and what looks to be a very draining and disappointing church situation (v9ff) he is walking in the truth. We'd like to excuse our sin or make it that spiritual health was only for the elite spiritual athlete. But John holds up to us Gaius - a normal Christian man in tough times who is doing well.
Could he say that of Mii? Or you?
Here is the Old Spice Advert I referred to. 

The Topic of Cancer

Christopher Hitchens writes about his recent diagnosis in an article entitled:  'Topic of Cancer' here. 

John Piper and David Powlison have written about their cancer from a different perspective here.

Sobering and very striking, given that 3 John 1-4 is before us morning.

Trusting God to Maturity

Thankful

If you click on the image below you will be able to read some of the many reasons we are so thankful to God for edgehill 2010: 

Remember whose messenger sickness is ...

Misunderstand not sickness, as if it were a greater evil than it is; but observe how great a mercy it is, that death has so suitable a harbinger or forerunner: that God should do so much before he takes us hence, to wean us from the world, and make us willing to be gone; that the unwilling flesh has the help of pain; and that the senses and appetite languish and decay, which did draw the mind to earthly things: and that we we have so loud a call, and so great a help to true repentance and serious preparation. (Practical Works of Richard Baxter: A Christian Directory v. 1 Ch XXX, p527)

Not mere Christianity

The Church is not a people united by common ideas, ideas which collectively go under the name of 'Christianity'. When the Bible speaks of a people united by faith it does not simply mean that we have the same beliefs about reality. Though the New Testament does use 'faith' to refer to a set of teachings (e.g., 1 Cor 16:13; 1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 4:7), 'faith' stretches out to include one's entire 'stance' in life, a stance that encompasses beliefs about the world but also unarticulated or inarticulable attitudes, hopes, and habits of thought, action or feeling. To be of 'one mind' (Phil 1:27) means to share projects, aspirations, and ventures, not merely to hold to the same collection of doctrines. (p14  Against Christianity)

Daily

Live therefore in the daily thoughts of Christ, and comfort your souls in the belief of that full supply and safety which you have in him. 

(Practical Works of Richard Baxter: A Christian Directory v. 1, Ch XXIX, Dir III, p520)