April 2011
1 post
Deliberate Limitation
The Incarnation is the Deliberate Limitation of God. How so? – Christianity, which is the Ultimate Fulfillment and thus superseding reality of Judaism, agrees with the latter that “clouds and thick darkness” surround Him – that His thoughts are not ours – in John’s Gospel we read: “No one has ever seen God.” All of these facts [as testified to in Scripture] testify to the Reality that God is so,...
March 2011
3 posts
The Rescuer doesn't need to be Rescued
it seems that these days, everybody must rescue Jesus from somebody. the liberal theologians have to rescue Him from “dogmatic yet outdated theology” and “religious fundamentalism” - so they rape the Scriptures and reduce Him to a flowery, pansy pseudo-God whose only injunction is a weak and watery “love one another.” the staunch, take-America-back-for-God republicans have to rescue Him from the...
Quote #7
It is essential to practise the walk of the feet in the light of the vision.
~ Oswald Chambers
Two Rivers
it seems that there are constantly two rivers which flow thru one’s life – one of joy, the other of sorrow. there seems to be so much in the world which is worthy of rejoicing over – the celebration of life itself, of love, the bonds of friendship, those moments in which the beauty and awe of Nature seem to abound and speak in the silence, &c. - but then, there is so much sorrow! so much...
February 2011
5 posts
Nietzsche Was Half-Right
“without hope and without God in the world.” outside of Christianity, the ideas of nihilism do indeed ring true. without a Redeemer – without any kind of spiritual foundation upon which he can stand – man is simply another cog in the endlessly churning machine, spiralling downward in the darkness, trampling his way through the crowds of tens of thousands towards the mouth of hell, towards...
definition
faith is active surrender of the total person to the Person of Christ.
The Blessings of the Kingdom
i have decided, in addition to my other posts, to start putting up portions of my book The Blessings of the Kingdom, as i finish them. i hope to have a chapter or two written each week for the next few weeks. hopefully this will work.
here is the introduction.
thank you for reading.
From the outset of proclaiming the Eternal Standard of the Kingdom which He has come to establish, Jesus...
Deliverer
If Christ had left us to our own devices
We would have had our spines torn out through our mouths
If we had been abandoned to drown in our vices
We would have been damned to the fire by now
good intentions are not enough
in this dark hour, what we need most are men whose ways of thinking are entirely shaped by the Word of God. for convenience, and a desire to cling to the relative comfort and ease offered by the world, has poisoned the minds of even the best and well-intentioned of people; and so Christ and His demands for absolute loyalty have been shirked and are now forgotten, even considered to be foreign and...
January 2011
9 posts
Question:
5 But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has...
Prayer #1
in You alone I have rest. when everything else fades to the background, when I am alone, in the silence – Yours is the voice I hear speaking to me, offering words which lead to life – the only words which lead to life, in a world where every other path diverges from Truth and only results in death.
draw me closer to You. break me, batter me, empty me - - - strip away all the desires which are...
Quote #6
If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of...
Cyclops
everywhere there is a storm, a confusion: philosophers and scientists debating one another about the existence of God and the creation of the world, theologians and scholars writing impassioned treatises about the meaning of texts and the interpretation of certain scriptures; politicans and leaders taking up arms to implement reform and policies of change. but see! there, in the midst of the...
Parables by K. - #1
If two men were to eat nuts together, and the one liked only the shell, the other only the kernel, one may say that they match one another well. What the world rejects, casts away, despises, namely, the sacrificed man, the kernel —- precisely upon that God sets the greatest store, and treasures it with greater zeal than does the world that which it loves with the greatest passion.
Zechariah and Mary
God save us from the questions that spring forth from arrogance and doubt! rather, let us ask the questions of faith – not to disprove, but to understand; not to excuse ourselves from the responsibility of surrendering to what we know, but to grasp the task at hand so that we can surrender thru the faith quickened within by the Spirit.
Book Update #1
I am finished with the introduction and first chapter of my book, The Blessings of the Kingdom: An Examination of the Matthean and Lucan Beatitudes. If anyone is interested in obtaining what I’ve written thus far, please email me at didymus1024@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to send it along.
Quote #5
Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty five. But watch out if you are in a lifeboat and there are others who are younger, bigger, or smarter.
~ William Murray
let us turn into mirrors [or, the art of taking up...
in a sense, this being the first post of the new year, i guess you could say that what i am about to say is a new year’s resolution of sorts. but it’s not. i do believe that as we have arrived at a new year, it is good to renew our resolve and refresh our commitment to certain practices or disciplines which we have either neglected or never begun to practice at all. but what i want to...
December 2010
10 posts
A Word for the New Year
As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety...
Portrait of a man who finally stopped playing tug...
he has wasted years of his life staring into space, caught in a seemingly endless spiral of actionless reflection that bore no fruit. over and over Grace was extended to him; the severity of mercy cut thru the clouds of confusion so many times and pointed him in the right direction, showed him that, for all of his endless intellectual adventures, his dedication to the Eternal was still largely...
Quote #4
That Christianity is proclaimed to you means that you shall have an opinion about Christ; He is, or the fact that He exists and that He has existed is the decision about all existence. If Christ is proclaimed to you, then it is offense to say: I do not want to have any opinion on it.
~ Soren Kierkegaard
can the same be said of us?
one of my favorite quotes of all time comes from leonard ravenhill, who in his book why revival tarries describes the apostle paul: “Unsponsored, unwelcomed, unloved - made little difference to Paul. On he went - blind to every jewel of earthly honor, deaf to every voice of siren-ease, and insensitive to the mesmerism of worldly success.” and then consider some of these quotes that...
Quote #3
You see, there is a great deal of difference between revival and evangelism. I am so sick to death, I hardly read any reports of meetings that come to me. Everybody is getting half of America saved. If you add all the lists of people saved, everybody in America, the whole population has been saved and filled with the Holy Ghost about six times over in the last ten years. And yet we are as dumb...
There is no such thing as a "postmodern" Gospel.
“God is so infinite, so completely above us in every way – we can never understand Him.” yes, indeed, He is so completely infinite, not confined by space and time as we are – but does this mean that we cannot understand Him at all? to understand God completely is to reduce Him to our level, in other words to worship and idol – and yet God has reduced Himself to our level in Christ, He has...
Quote #2
The calling of a New Testament worker is to uncover sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Saviour, consequently he cannot be poetical, he must be sternly surgical. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful discourses. We have to probe straight down as deeply as God has probed us, to be keen in sensing the Scriptures which bring the truth straight home and to apply...
anti-philosophy
if one is to accept Christianity, one cannot refer to it as a “philosophy.” for philosophy is “a comprehensive system of belief” - placed on the same level as other “systems of belief” as if they are just as real, just as grounded as Christianity. but Christianity is the reality: not a mode of life, but Life itself.
what happens when we turn Christianity into a philosophy? we become romantics,...
Quote #1
If during our time on earth we pursue after “things” instead of God—after luxury for ourselves instead of love for others—then earth will be the extent of our heaven and eternity will be our hell. But if during our time on the earth God is our treasure no matter how many bad things happen, then earth will be the extent of our hell and eternity will be our heaven.
~ John Piper
wha - ?
as you can see, there are once again no posts on my blog. perhaps you are wondering why. well! i shall tell you.
recently, i feel that God has been leading me to write a book. about Christianity. in fact, at the moment i have ideas for three different books, all of which i want to write, if possible, before next year is out. along with this, i also want to finish my novel, Descent Into Madness,...
