KJV Quiz

Charlie Scrine presents a mini-documentary about the history of the King James Version of the Bible, which celebrates its 400th Anniversary in 2011.

The video has 5 quiz questions about the KJV:
Was the King James Version the first translation into English? (1:08)
Was the King James Version King James' idea? (3:00) 
Who was the King James Version against? (5:30)
Was the King James Version a fresh translation? (7:40)
Was the King James Version the most popular Bible of its time? (10:48)

the earth will be filled with the glory of God

When Christ came to earth over two thousand years ago, he came to inaugurate his kingdom successfully. During his ministry here, he bound Satan. Within a generation of his crucifixion he destroyed the old world of the old covenant and ushered in a new heavens and a new earth. The church is now the Holy City of God and all of the nations are brought into it. She will continue to preach the gospel on earth for thousands upon thousands of years, progressively growing in number and strength until one day, far in the future, the entire world will be transformed by the power of Christ and an Eden-like paradise will be restored. At some point in that golden day, Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Those who rejected his gospel will be sent to eternal punishment. The dead in Christ will be raised, joined to their resurrected bodies, and all the saints of all the ages will live together in union and communion with the Triune God for eternity. (p39-40, Duane Garner 'Why the End is Not Near')

The Faith of our Fathers

The talks are now here

(1) Reformed Catholicity 

Speaker: Ian Hamilton

(2) Reformed Ecclesiology 

Speaker: Robert Letham

(3) Reformed Sacramentology 

Speaker: Robert Letham

(4) Reformed Piety and Godliness 

Speaker: Ian Hamilton

Marcion and Richard Dawkins

For an excellent and brief treatment of Marcion as well as a host of other heresies (old & new) visit the resurgence.

More free stuff

Free pdf of With Calvin in the Theater of God here

The Church in History

A free book that looks pretty good and useful:

The Church in History - BK Kuiper

Harvard & Early Years Learning!

In America no other English-speaking colonizers established higher education as soon after their arrival as did the Puritans. Only six years after their arrival in Massachusetts Bay, the General Court voted four hundred pounds 'towards a school or college.' Thus established, Harvard College was kept alive during its early years partly through the sacrifice of farmers, who contributed wheat to support teachers and students. 

p 157 Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were

Old insights

from Tertullian's  Ad Uxorem


Chapter IV.—Of the Hindrances Which an Unbelieving Husband Puts in His Wife’s Way.


But let her see to (the question) how she discharges her duties to her husband. To the Lord, at all events, she is unable to give satisfaction according to the requirements of discipline; having at her side a servant of the devil, his lord’s agent for hindering the pursuits and duties of believers: so that if a station is to be kept, the husband at daybreak makes an appointment with his wife to meet him at the baths; if there are fasts to be observed, the husband that same day holds a convivial banquet; if a charitable expedition has to be made, never is family business more urgent. For who would suffer his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren, to go round from street to street to other men’s, and indeed to all the poorer, cottages? Who will willingly bear her being taken from his side by nocturnal convocations, if need so be? Who, finally, will without anxiety endure her absence all the night long at the paschal solemnities? Who will, without some suspicion of his own, dismiss her to attend that Lord’s Supper which they defame? Who will suffer her to creep into prison to kiss a martyr’s bonds? nay, truly, to meet any one of the brethren to exchange the kiss? to offer water for the saints’ feet? to snatch (somewhat for them) from her food, from her cup? to yearn (after them)? to have (them) in her mind? If a pilgrim brother arrive, what hospitality for him in an alien home? If bounty is to be distributed to any, the granaries, the storehouses, are foreclosed.


Chapter V.—Of Sin and Danger Incurred Even with a “Tolerant” Husband.


“But some husband does endure our (practices), and not annoy us.” Here, therefore, there is a sin; in that Gentiles know our (practices); in that we are subject to the privity of the unjust; in that it is thanks to them that we do any (good) work. He who “endures” (a thing) cannot be ignorant of it; or else, if he is kept in ignorance because he does not endure (it), he is feared. But since Scripture commands each of two things—namely, that we work for the Lord without the privity of any second person, and without pressure upon ourselves, it matters not in which quarter you sin; whether in regard to your husband’s privity, if he be tolerant, or else in regard of your own affliction in avoiding his intolerance. “Cast not,” saith He, “your pearls to swine, lest they trample them to pieces, and turn round and overturn you also.” “Your pearls” are the distinctive marks of even your daily conversation. The more care you take to conceal them, the more liable to suspicion you will make them, and the more exposed to the grasp of Gentile curiosity. Shall you escape notice when you sign your bed, (or) your body; when you blow away some impurity; when even by night you rise to pray? Will you not be thought to be engaged in some work of magic? Will not your husband know what it is which you secretly taste before (taking) any food? and if he knows it to be bread, does he not believe it to be that (bread) which it is said to be? And will every (husband), ignorant of the reason of these things, simply endure them, without murmuring, without suspicion whether it be bread or poison? Some, (it is true,) do endure (them); but it is that they may trample on, that they may make sport of such women; whose secrets they keep in reserve against the danger which they believe in, in case they ever chance to be hurt: they do endure (wives), whose dowries, by casting in their teeth their (Christian) name, they make the wages of silence; while they threaten them, forsooth, with a suit before some spy which most women, not foreseeing, have been wont to discover either by the extortion of their property, or else by the loss of their faith.


Chapter VI.—Danger of Having to Take Part in Heathenish Rites, and Revels.


The handmaid of God dwells amid alien labours; and among these (labours), on all the memorial days at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, she will be agitated by the odour of incense. And she will have to go forth (from her house) by a gate wreathed with laurel, and hung with lanterns, as from some new consistory of public lusts; she will have to sit with her husband ofttimes in club meetings, oft-times in taverns; and, wont as she was formerly to minister to the “saints,” will sometimes have to minister to the “unjust.” And will she not hence recognise a prejudgment of her own damnation, in that she tends them whom (formerly) she was expecting to judge? whose hand will she yearn after? of whose cup will she partake? What will her husband sing to her, or she to her husband? From the tavern, I suppose, she who sups upon God will hear somewhat! From hell what mention of God (arises)? what invocation of Christ? Where are the fosterings of faith by the interspersion of the Scriptures (in conversation)? Where the Spirit? where refreshment? where the divine benediction? All things are strange, all inimical, all condemned; aimed by the Evil One for the attrition of salvation!

No best before date

The gospel is glad tidings of mercy and grace and that our corrupt nature shall be healed again for Christ's sake and for the merits of his deservings only; yet on condition that we will turn to God, to learn to keep his laws spiritually, that is to say, of love for his sake, and will also suffer the curing of our infirmities. ( Tyndale's Preface to the New Testament p24)

The same sun that softens butter hardens clay

The nature of God's Word is that whosoever read it or hear it reasoned and disputed before him, it will begin immediately to make him every day better and better, till he be grown into a perfect man in the knowledge of Christ and love of the law of God; or else make him worse and worse, till he be hardened that he openly resist the Spirit of God, and then blaspheme after the example of Pharoah, Korah, Abiram, Balaam, Judas, Simon Magnus and such other. 

(Documents of the English Reformation, ed. Gerald Bray, Tyndale's Preface to the New Testament, p21)

..he that hath a good heart toward the Word of God and a set purpose to fashion his deeds thereafter and to garnish it with godly living and to testify it to other(s), the same shall increase more and more daily in the grace of Christ. But he that loveth not, to live thereafter and to edify other(s), the same shall lose the grace of true knowledge and be blinded again and every day wax worse and worse and blinder and blinder, till he be an utter enemy of the Word of God and his heart hardened, that it shall be impossible to convert him. 

(Documents of the English Reformation, ed. Gerald Bray, Tyndale's Preface to the New Testament, p21-22) 

William Tyndale

The Time: 1536

The Place: Outside of Brussels

The Martyr: William Tyndale

(Evangel)

I refuse to look to John Huss whose goose was cooked

Lord, I wanna put your truth in books

Now concerning my faith no turning away

I know eternity awaits even if I’m burned at the stake

Like avoiding their attacks of me would profit me

Great Whore that could be properly the papacy and prophecy

They say the Pope’s the holiest

Only if these people could see its phoniness and Scripturally erroneous

The Pope of men fail to respect- they wanna seek death

of William Tyndale so then I inhale a deep breath

Two doors- my hands push

As I stride inside I was grabbed by men hiding- it’s an ambush!

I was sabotaged- he was disguised and camouflaged

As a friend of me- I didn’t know he was the enemy

Now through discerning, I see this group is yearning

With ill will to kill bill like Uma Thurman

It’s a chaotic frenzy as they plot against me

Hey if God defends me or ends me- He’ll soon determine

Now I plead for these people (forgive ‘em!) they grieve Your cathedral

I don’t wanna repay evil for evil

When I’m weak I’m made strong- got my brave face on

We’re sheep for the slaughter being killed all the day long

I’ll never be a man-pleaser

No matter how tight the grip of the hand squeezer

I can’t breathe- I’ll stand with Jesus

Even if plans are grievous as they try to put me to sleep like anesthesia

Now I’m gagging and gasping- I’m sold out for You

No doubt this noose won’t choke out the truth

And leave a lasting legacy- cats who would never read

your Word after the death of me cats can cleverly

get pass the heresy and grab for this weaponry

Your sword- now Lord I pass to the heavenlies

The tool for the job

Though a man had a precious jewel and a rich, yet if he wist not the value thereof nor wherefore it served, he were neither the better nor richer by a straw. 

Even so, though we read the Scripture and babble of it never so much, yet if we know not the use of it and wherefore it was given, and what is therein to be sought, it profiteth us nothing at all. 

It is not enough therefore to read and talk of it only, but we must also desire God day and night instantly to open our eyes, and to make us understand and feel wherefore the Scripture was given, that we may apply the medicine of the Scripture, every man to his own sores, unless that we pretend to be idle disputers and brawlers about vain words, ever gnawing upon bitter bark without and never attaining unto the sweet with within, and persecuting one another for defending of lewd imaginations and fantasies of our own invention. 

(Tynadale's Preface to the Pentateuch p35-36)

Desperately Seeking

(the Late Middle Ages) far from being a period of decline, was alive with all sorts of spiritual vitalities. It was, as Lucien Febvre described it, an age with 'an immense appetite for the divine.' The braying at Mass in honour of the donkey on which Mary rode, the name of Jesus tattooed over the heart, veneration of bleeding Hosts. More often it followed the beaten paths of mainline piety. But, in either case, it was for many people a deeply unsatisfying spirituality. The nervous moralism and ceaseless attempts to placate a high and angry God served to intensify the primal anxieties of death, guilt, and loss of meaning. (p30)

Two things

ye see that two things are required to begin a Christian man. The first is a steadfast faith and trust in Almighty God, to obtain all the mercy that he hath promised us, through the deserving merits of Christ's blood only, without all respect to our own works. And the other is that we forsake evil and turn to God, to keep his laws and to fight against ourselves and our corrupt nature perpetually, that we may do the will of God every day better and better. 

(Tyndale's Preface to the New Testament, p20-21)

Ranke the events in order of importance

History is never the simple recounting of the past as it really was [Leopold von Ranke's aim to reconstruct the past wie es eigentlich gewesen or to those like me who don't speak German 'as it actually happened']. It is inevitably an interpretation of the past, a retrospective vision of the past, which is limited both by the sources themselves and by the historian who selects and interprets them. (p15)

A fine holiday in Wessex

We have just returned from a great holiday with my parents, filled with much fun & joy. A superb break. Amidst a swim, some lovely walks and not inconsiderable amounts of feasting I even got my teeth into King Alfred the Great. I have childhood memories of a history book in which he appeared, but I have never really taken him seriously, or been attracted to him until the last week or two. My loss. Truly is he called 'the Great'.
I enjoyed Ben Merkle's book enormously and I would recommend it to historian and non-historian alike. Ben gives some helpful corrections to the 'tone' and 'bent' of 'professional' historians and is himself that rare thing - a serious minded Christian writing engagingly and (I think) credible Christ-centred history. And he writes without endless footnotes, without getting tangled up with trying to look impressive and without the paralysis that can afflict this period of history due to the sparce nature of the surviving evidence.
So I would say something for everyone!
I also stretched myself to re-read Asser's Life of King Alfred (which can be easily found on the web and is not that long) and in doing so was inspired to go and look round Sherborne Abbey (where he was Bishop and where 2 of Alfred's brothers are buried). Strange to be a tourist where I have sat many hours as a school boy!

All in all a very encouraging holiday.
Oh yes, and my sister introduced me to Farmville. But I will not get sucked into that!

The world turned empty

The Northmen came about our land
A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen,
Great, beautiful half-witted men
From the sunrise and the sea.

Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange gold and fire,
And hairy men, as huge as sin
With horned heads, came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire.

Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood:
The world turned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood.

Their souls were drifting as the sea,
And all good towns and lands
They only saw with heavy eyes,
And broke with heavy hands,

Their gods were sadder than the sea,
Gods of a wandering will,
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,
Sadly, from hill to hill.

They seemed as trees walking the earth,
As witless and as tall,
Yet they took hold upon the heavens
And no help came at all.

They bred like birds in English woods,
They rooted like the rose,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To hide him from their bows

There was not English armour left,
Nor any English thing,
When Alfred came to Athelney
To be an English king.

For earthquake swallowing earthquake
Uprent the Wessex tree;
The whirlpool of the pagan sway
Had swirled his sires as sticks away
When a flood smites the sea.

And the great kings of Wessex
Wearied and sank in gore,
And even their ghosts in that great stress
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,
With the lords that died in Lyonesse
And the king that comes no more.

from The Balad of the White Horse - GK Chesterton

The Pope from St Albans - I never knew that!

History in the Making

with Calvin in the Theater of God

Desiring God Conference 2009

Lots and Lots to see & hear here!