A Gem from Agatha Christie

Nemesis, p. 158

speaker: archdeacon brabazon, a minor character

"I know when a couple are really in love with each other. And by that I do not just mean sexually attracted. There is too much talk about sex, too much attention is paid to it. I do not mean that anything about sex is wrong. That is nonsense. But sex cannot take the place of love, it goes with love, but it cannot succeed by itself. To love means the words of the marriage service. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. That is what you take on if you love and wish to marry. Those two loved each other. To love and to cherish till death do us part."

Ooh, the WCF Makes Me Weak in the Knees...

from Chapter 19.6 of The Westminster Confession of Faith:
"Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; i that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs, and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin; together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience."

Quotes from the Augsburg Confession (1530)

Written by Philip Melanchthon, Luther's right-hand man, the Augsburg Confession was basically a last ditch effort to reunite the Reformation movement with Rome. Perhaps if you read the cited passages below, you will see why it didn't work.

I think it's interesting that Melanchthon is considered a "liberal" Reformer.


On Original Sin: "[...A]ll men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers' wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through baptism and the Holy Spirit." Doctrine of total depravity, anyone?

On Justification: "[...W]e receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith, when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us." Go here, thanks to him.

On the New Obedience: "It is also taught among us that such faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded, but we should do them for God's sake and not place our trust in them as if thereby to merit favor before God." Just because something isn't necessary for our salvation doesn't make it irrelevant. (We talked about this a heap in my ethics class last summer.)

On Repentance: "Properly speaking, true repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the gospel and absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ), and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest." You can't have one without the other. Believe me, I've tried.

On the Use of the Sacraments: "It is taught among us that the sacraments were instituted not only to be signs by which people might be identified outwardly as Christians, but that they are signs and testimonies of God's will toward us for the purpose of awakening and strengthening our faith." Yay sacraments!!!

On Faith and Good Works: "[Our opponents] do not teach now that we become righteous before God by our works alone, but they add faith in Christ and say that faith and works make us righteous before God. This teaching may offer a little more comfort than the teaching that we are to rely solely on our works." Haha! A little more, perhaps, but certainly not much. At all.

[Emphases mine.]

Fantastic Line from How I Met Your Mother

Ted: Dude, do not pretend you're not the kind of guy who keeps a list of all the girls he's slept with.

Marshall: I have one. It's called my marriage license.

Surety

"For Luther, as for the reformers in general, one could rest assured of one's salvation. Salvation was grounded upon the faithfulness of God to his promises of mercy; to fail to have confidence in salvation was, in effect, to doubt the confidence in God, untroubled by doubt. Faith is not the same as certainty, although the theological foundation of Christian faith may be secure, the human perception of and commitment to this foundation may waver."
(Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought, 194)

Hear ye, hear ye: feelings lie sometimes.

hilarious quote from "the perfect man"

construction worker: hey, you're a jets fan, right?
gay restaurant manager guy: oh my gosh, i LIVE for west side story.

Van Til Quote

as cited in Richard Pratt's He Gave Us Stories, p. 395:

"The consistency that is found in the believer is correspondent to the consistency that is found in God. This consistency in the believer consists in willingess to think God's thoughts after him, in willingness to do God's will after him, and to feel God's feelings after him."

ok that last one is what gets me.

do you think van til means "consistency" as in "what is the consistency of this polenta?" or "are you going to commit to consistency in your walk-like-an-elephant exercise class?"

do you think this is true?

does anyone have van til's Introduction to Systematic Theology who wouldn't mind looking it up? (it should be on p. 245)

Rethinking the Role of the Church

"So I would lay down as a basic proposition that the primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically, it is not to make him happy. I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information, she does bring them happiness, she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God....It has come into the Church and it is influencing the thinking of many in the Church - this notion that the business of the Church is to make people happy, or to integrate their lives, or to relieve their circumstances and improve their conditions. My whole case is that to do that is just to palliate the symptoms, to give temporary ease, and that it does not get beyond that." D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preachers and Preaching, p. 30

Quote from the Files of Donald Fortson

"He who takes himself for a master becomes himself the disciple of a fool." - Bernard of Clairveaux

The Death of Death...

i'm reading the death of death in the death of Christ by john owen right now. it's so gooooooood. and as much as i respect and appreciate john owen, and look up to him and am grateful for the heritage he left, i must confess that sitting down to read his introduction to the book today, i was not expecting him to be so completely hilarious! dude is a scream!!!!

of course, he's also very sound. very deep. very profound. so fun. :)

ok, so here's an example of owen's humor. he's writing about the "use" of scripture by universal salvationists: "Now, concerning this I shall only desire the reader not to be startled at the multitude of places of Scripture which he may find heaped up by some of late about this business (especially by Thomas More in his "Universality of Free Grace"), as though they proved and confirmed that for which they are produced, but rather prepare himself to admire at the confidence of men, particularly of him now named, to make such a flourish with colours and drums, having indeed no soldiers at all..." (41)

Another Lovely Quote

this one from michael horton's putting amazing back into grace, which we are reading in our small group, is really exactly what i needed to read on this very day.

"another way of saying sanctification is 'taking the bull by the horns.' we do not wait for the Holy Spirit to perform some supernatural number on our lives: he has already done this for us! we actively pursue holiness and Christ-centeredness in our lives, recognizing that the same One who commands us to work, perservere, and obey gives us the supernatural ability to do so. just do it! you do the work; but recognize that, if the work is done, God has done it in and through you." (p. 207 in the old school edition)

what do y'all think about this? lately i've been really thinking alot about how our "working" as christians is different than the "working" of non-Christians - in the moment. do we simply trust God with and for the results of our work, which had better be miraculous gifts in my case, since everything i touch gets messed up pretty quickly? how do we treat our obligations - with rigor? and why?

i just hate trusting in myself, and it's so easy to do without realizing it.

galatians 4

Some Fantastic Quotes

these are some quotes my campus minister put on our outline for large group last night. they are fantastic.

"Before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must not only be sad for your sins, you must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, but likewise you must be troubled over your best duties and performances. When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then that poor one, being born under a covenant of works, flies directly to a covenant of works again. As soon as he is awakened and he senses his need for God, he says, 'I will be mighty good now. I will reform. I will do everything I can, and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy upon me.' And, as Adam and Eve hid themselves in the trees of the Garden and sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, so the poor sinner, when awakened, flies to his duties and to his performances to hide himself from God. But before you can be certain that jesus Christ is in your heart, you must be brought to see not only that your sins must be done away with, but your righteousness. You must see that all your duties, all your righteousness, all put together are so far from recommending God to you, so far from being any motive of inducement for God to have mercy on your poor soul, that He will see them to be filthy rags and that God hates them and God cannot but do away with them if you bring them to Him in order to recommend you to His favor." - George Whitfield

"With our mouths we say 'Christ alone' is what makes us acceptable, but in our hearts we add Christ AND financial freedom. Christ AND approval of my parents. Christ AND the respect or happiness of my children. Christ AND the acceptance of a peer group. Christ or something. But anything that you add to Jesus Christ as a requirement for being happy will become a slave master that will strangle you. It will drive you into the ground and will hang you by the neck until you are dead." - Becky Pipert

harsh? sure, but true. it hardly does us good to pretend that matters aren't serious. which is of course what makes it amazing that what DOES "recommend you to His favor" is the completed work of Christ. That's the beauty of the gospel: that which is demanded is supplied.