“While some of our habits are acquired by choosing to engage in certain practices (e.g., signing up for drivers’ ed. or registering for piano lessons), many are acquired without our knowing it. And this might happen especially when we are unaware of it. If we are inattentive to the formative role of practices, or if we treat some practices as thin when they are thick, then we will be inattentive to all the ways that such practices unwittingly and unintentionally become automated. We will fail to recognize that they are forming in us habits and desires, oriented to particular ends that function to draw us toward those ends at an affective, unconscious level such that we become certain kinds of people without even being aware of it.
Lord, You are the glorious King who is reigning right now and has conquered all by the blood of Your cross. Even though you are a King, You made Yourself nothing and suffered the penalty of our judgment in Yourself, and by Your perfect life’s work have made us not merely subjects who are forced to serve You, but rather You have made us Your own children who delight in You, who love to lift You up and make you known. Lord we praise You and rejoice in these truths, even though now at present we carry in us pain and suffering because of the outworking of sin in our own lives and in our world: the way our own sin causes havoc within ourselves and our families and relationships, the way oppression and violence seem to have no end like the Mosque bombing in Egypt this week that senselessly killed so many, natural disasters that destroy lives and upend communities, and health issues affecting us and those closest to us. We long for and look forward to the day of Your return, when you will demonstrate Your power, execute justice and usher in your eternal visible reign within a re-created, glorious heaven and Earth, where all things will be made new and we will live in Your presence forever. You are reigning and extending Your kingdom even now Lord and we pray that because of our union with You, that You would work in us to extend the grace and message of Your gospel and also the work of Your church to those who are suffering themselves within our congregation and those in our communities.
I recently had a good discussion with a friend about some of the reasons I left a Dispensational church for a Presbyterian church (PCA). I previously documented a number of reasons here in my journey, but I also wanted to look up resources that speak to the issue and found a few articles and sites that are worth perusing. It’s interesting to note that the major founders of Dispensationalism left Presbyterianism in particular.
I’m currently reading through Augustine’s Confessions with a group at Trinity Presbyterian and looked up some resources concerning Augustine’s life and work. Enjoy!
Recently, between reading Union with Christ by Rankin Wilbourne and Resurrection and Redemption by Richard Gaffin, the concept of union with Christ as resurrected as the central theme in Paul’s soteriology has been an enriching study. Here’s a quote from Gaffin:
Glorious Father, It is in you that we live and move and have our being. You have captivated our hearts through the unconquerable love You have demonstrated toward us in creation and redemption. You have united us together with Your Son. His death for sin is our death to sin. His resurrected life is our resurrected life as a new creation. His justification in His perfect life lived and sacrificial death on our behalf is our justification before You, through faith alone. You have adopted us and made us Your very own children through the work of the One who laid down everything so that You could have us as Your own. You have transferred us from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of Your beloved Son. Through your embrace of us, would you free us from the attachments and entanglements the world has on our hearts, with all of its distracting joys and delights, and replace those things we wrongly cherish more than You with an unfading joy and desire for You, surpassing the love of all things that so easily captures our hearts. Remind us throughout all our days of Your faithfulness and tender care and affection toward us, in order that we would remain faithful in this world.
Sola Scriptura: The Scripture Alone is the Standard
The doctrine that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority was the “Formal Principle” of the Reformation. In 1521 at the historic interrogation of Luther at the Diet of Worms, he declared his conscience to be captive to the Word of God saying, “Unless I am overcome with testimonies from Scripture or with evident reasons — for I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils, since they have often erred and contradicted one another — I am overcome by the Scripture texts which I have adduced, and my conscience is bound by God’s Word.” Similarly, the Belgic Confession stated, “We believe that [the] holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein…Neither may we consider any writings of men, however holy these men may have been, of equal value with those divine Scriptures nor ought we to consider custom or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God… Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule” (VII).
From an interview with James Cameron, director of the Terminator and Alien movies, amongst many others, and Tim Miller.
With this year being the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Reformation (though there were quite a number of precursors leading up to that point), there are a number of great resources that are celebrating what God has done in history in recovering the gospel, while expressing the urgent need for ongoing reformation in our present day in the church (universally).