Greg Steward – Head Tangler
Reformation21 blog reports this quote of Tim Keller from an interview in New York magazine. This quote is in reference to “spiritual adultery” — God’s creation worshiping something other than the creator.
“God is in the longest bad marriage in history.”
Should you get out of a bad marriage? Only if you have been in it longer than God has.
“God has acted in grace and mercy through the death of Christ with an offer of forgiveness, to which people must respond in faith, turning from evil, receiving empowerment through God’s Spirit, and looking forward to eternal life.” (William D. Mounce, The Pastoral Epistles, WBC v.46, lxxvi.)
[Quote posted at http://julianfreeman.ca/gospel/answer]
“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 64:4
“Paradise will not be a hall of mirrors. It will be a display of majesty. And it won’t be ours.”
John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ,” p 117.
“Teach me the happy art of attending to things temporal with a mind intent on things eternal.”
From “Valley of the Vision,” page 136.
Carl Trueman has a thought-provoking essay that considers the relationship between form and content in worship services (Look, It’s Rubbish at Reformation 21.org).
If God is awesome, sovereign and holy; if human beings are small, sinful, and lost; if Christ died and rose again by a most miraculous and costly act of grace, then this should impact the way things happen in church. This is not to argue for a one-size-fits-all-my-way-or-the-highway approach to church. Context and culture are important; but what is expressed through the idioms of particular cultural manifestations of the church should be awe, reverence, and, above all seriousness – not a colourless and cold miserable seriousness but a fitting amazement at the greatness of God and his grace.
Crossway.blog has an interview with Ajith Fernando, author of “A Call to Joy & Pain,” which recently won a 2008 Christianity Today Book Award in the Church/Pastoral Leadership category.
You mention wanting to help people develop an approach to life that “refuses to look upon suffering as a big deal.” How can this be possible when we inherently view suffering as being a very big deal?
If we realize the great wealth of a life of godliness with contentment (1 Tim. 6:16) and the great wealth of our riches in Christ, then we are able to put suffering in perspective and look at it in relation to the greatest things in life. Then the sting of suffering is reduced. Our theology tells us that even suffering will work out for our good (Rom. 8:28). We realize that suffering is less significant than the love of God for us and in us (Rom. 8:31-38) and the deep joy of the Lord in us arising from the fact that God loves (1 John 3:1) and delights in us (Zeph. 3:17).
Read the whole interview.
“Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.” – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.17.11
From March 2 to 31, get a free look at the online version of a great study bible – The ESV Study Bible
“But we must so cherish moderation that we do not try to make God render account to us,
but so reverence his secret judgments as to consider his will the truly just cause of all things.
When dense clouds darken the sky, and a violent tempest arises,
because a gloomy mist is cast over our eyes,
thunder strikes our ears and all our senses are benumbed with fright,
everything seems to us to be confused and mixed up;
but all the while a constant quiet and serenity ever remain in heaven.
So must we infer that, while the disturbances in the world deprive us of judgment, God out of the pure light of his justice and wisdom tempers and directs these very movements in the best-conceived order to a right end.
And surely on this point it is sheer folly that many dare with greater license to call God’s works to account, and to examine his secret plans, and to pass as rash a sentence on matters unknown as they would on the deeds of mortal men. For what is more absurd than to use this moderation toward our equals, that we prefer to suspend judgment rather than be charged with rashness; yet haughtily revile the hidden judgments of God, which we ought to hold in reverence?”
John Calvin, “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” 1.17.1, paragraph 3