investigating the man who is God

as we are about to embark on a study in Luke 1 at eXcel I will be watching this with extra interest (if it is available on-line, which I guess it will be)

The Poetry of Paradise

What are you doing on October 24th?

Torsa Two

This summer has seen:

Mike Perham's achievement in Totallymoney.com

Hilary Lister's achievement in Me Too

And now, Malcolm has done it (again) in Torsa II

er, ok then

The Church remains finite and sinful; at her best, she has only a partial grasp of the riches of God’s infinite Word, and through sin, she holds the truth in imbalanced, disproportioned, and sometimes inaccurate ways. And so, Reformed theology should be reforming theology. Sometimes even deeply cherished beliefs should be challenged or supplemented by further and deeper reflection on Scripture. Sometimes new situations confront the Church, which previous generations never had to address, new apologetic challenges arise, new idolatries seek to rival the supremacy of Christ in her affections, new ethical questions press for her attention.

More positively, as history progresses, God, by his Spirit, is transforming the Church from one degree of glory to another. In the Church, he is growing humanity to maturity in Christ. And as she matures, the Church will grasp new things in new ways, not contradicting old truths rightly held, but enriching her understanding and ability to serve her Lord. It is the glory of God to conceal things; the glory of kings is to search them out (Prov. 25:2). What is needed, then, is a new generation of kings, glorious in their union with the glorified Christ, who will devote themselves to seeking new treasures in God’s Word and new treasures in his creation, and who then, like well trained scribes, will bring out of their treasury new along with old, in the service of Christ’s Church.

I love this approach.

And the rest of the first edition of the journal has impressed me too. I even understood some of the words.

I have enjoyed Ros Clarke on the Maximalist Hermeneutics of James Jordan. A very sensible article.
I am just starting to read about John Owen's Doctrine of Union with Christ. I am pleased to see it comes with diagrams.
The book reviews of the books I have read have been both fair and stimulating.

OK, Neil, I am giving in to a year's subscription!

The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [she believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess' to Him, and that He should execute just judgement towards all; that He may send 'spiritual wickedness,' and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love...

(Bk 1, Ch 10.1, Irenaeus Against Heresies)

Great blessings!

(above) 4 generations of Ambrose men
[assembled for my Grandpa's 90th earlier this year].

(below) last week Simeon met his Great Grandma.

I failed to take a 4 generations photo ...
but at least there are 3 in the photo. The 4th is taking the photo!

Revelation (Ch 1-5)

The book presents itself from the outset as part of the Canon, primarily written to be read in the liturgy (1:3). tabernacle imagery is used in the opening Doxology (1:4-5), and the Church is declared to be constituted as the new Kingdom of priests, as Israel had been at Sinai (1:6). the theme of the book, stated in 1:7, is Christ's coming in the Glory-Cloud; then, almost immediately, St John uses three words that almost always occur in connection with covenant-making activity: Spirit, Day, and Voice (1:10). The following vision of Christ as the glorious High Priest (1:12-20) combines many images from the Old Testament - the Cloud, the Day of the LORD, the Angel of the LORD, the Creator and universal sovereign, the Son of Man/Second Adam, the Conqueror of the nations, the Possessor of the Church - all of which are concerned with the prophecies of the coming of the New Covenant. The vision is followed by Christ' own message to the churches, styled as a recounting of the history of the Covenant (Chapters 2-3). Then, in Chapter 4, St John sees the Throne, supported by the Cherubim and surrounded by the royal priesthood, all singing God's praises to the accompaniment of Sinai-like lightening and voices and thunder. We should not be surprised to find this magnificent array of covenant-making imagery culminating in the vision of a testament/treaty document, written on front and back, in the hand of Him who sits on the Throne. The Book is nothing less than the Testament of the resurrected and ascended Christ: the New Covenant...

....But the coming of the New Covenant implies the passing away of the Old Covenant, and the judgement of apostate Israel....

...As St. John sees the opening of the New Covenant, therefore, he will also see the curses of the Old Covenant fulfilled on the apostate Covenant people.

(p167-169, Chilton The Days of Vengeance)

God bless you Son

When we obey God, as a general rule, we may expect His blessings, financial blessings included.

I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice,
bestowing wealth on those who love me and making their treasuries full.
Proverbs 8:20-21

With me are riches and honour,
enduring wealth and prosperity.
Proverbs 8:18

The blessing of the LORD brings wealth,
and he adds no trouble to it.
Proverbs 10:22

So we must seek wealth God’s way and teach our sons the same. What has he said about it?

1. Fear God
Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honour and life.
Proverbs 22:4

2. Be Generous
A generous man will prosper;
he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Proverbs 11:25
(cf 22:9; 28:27; 11;24)

3. Work Hard
All hard work brings a profit,
but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Proverbs 14:23

4. Save
A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children,
but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous.
Proverbs 13:22

5. Be wary of borrowing
The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is servant to the lender.
Proverbs 22:7

6. Care for the poor
He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will reward him for what he has done.
Proverbs 19:17

(Future Men, Ch 8)

The New Concealed

'Their (the medieval monks) study of the Old Testament was closely tied to their understanding of the New, for 'the Old and the New Testament taken as a whole tell the same story of the same people of God.' If the New Testament was necessary to a proper understanding of the Old, the principle worked in reverse as well: 'truth [in the New Testament] unveils the figure [in the Old] and shows forth its meaning; once revealed, the figure in turn illuminates the Truth.' Knowing Christ meant knowing Him not only from the pages of gospels and epistles, but knowing Him as He is presented in type and shadow in the Old Testament. Studying the Old Testament was thus never merely an historical interest - never a study of 'Hebrew religion' - but a central means for growing in 'compunction,' the desire for God in Christ that was the goal of monastic life.'

(A House for My Name, p 17)

Laziness ... too much like hard work

Laziness: identifying characteristic #6

Strange to say, laziness is tough.

The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns,
but the path of the upright is a highway
(Proverbs 15:19)

Diligent hands will rule,
but laziness ends in slave labour
(Proverbs 12:24)

Proverbs teaches us that laziness is counterproductive; it does not accomplish its desired end.

(Future Men, Ch 7)

Torsa Triumphs

Congratulations Malcolm
(& Torsa!)!

Secondary Points Winner (Tuesday) 2009

Out of the bottle

Click on the image below to see Rob's 'La Tomatina' photos:

Laziness: identifying characteristic #5

Compounding (becomes worse and worse, more and more complicated and tangled)

Laziness brings on deep sleep,
and the shiftless man goes hungry.
Proverbs 19:15

The sluggard craves and gets nothing,
but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
Proverbs 13:4

(Future Men, Ch 7)

New Word Alive 2010

New Word Alive 2010

serving the church, reaching the world

13-18th April

check out the promo video here