f The Wittenberg Door: February 2011

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Commenting on Christendom, culture, history, and other oddities of life from an historic Protestant perspective.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Notable Quote: C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) on the desire for heaven . . .

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. . . . It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. . . . All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it.

The Problem of Pain

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:51 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Notable Quote: Michael Horton

Dr. Michael Horton on natural law . . .

God secretly governs the nations just as he does his church, although he governs the former through natural law and common grace and the latter through His Word written and preached. Calvin considers it erroneous to believe, for example, that a government must be framed according to “the political system of Moses;” rather, it is to be “ruled by the common laws of nations.” Natural law — the law of God written upon the conscience of every person — allows for marvelous “diversity” in constitutions, forms of government, and laws. The Mosaic theocracy was limited to the old covenant and is no longer the blueprint for nation-states.

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:05 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Ignatius of Antioch - Earliest Post-New Testament Martyr

Christian History and Biography posted a fascinating article about Ignatius at their site. Here’s how it begins . . .

"Now I begin to be a disciple. … Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment … come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ."

Ignatius was going to die. He knew it. He wanted it. The only possible problem, as he saw it, was meddling Christians.

You can read the rest here.

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:09 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Humility and Truth


Great thoughts on humility and truth over at bethinking.org:

Humble: bethinkers know that our understanding of some truths is fallible, and will not press a point beyond what the evidence allows."

Being less sure doesn't make you humble. That's just a plain fact. In the past, humility was the opposite of pride. But now it has become the opposite of conviction. Being sure of something is now often considered a character flaw. There are three basic reactions to being challenged. Reaction one is to turn the volume up. For example Fundamentalists seemed to have more "certainties" than they could every justify from Scripture. The next reaction is to turn the volume right down. This might seem humble, however, the danger might be that we overreact with equally arrogant assertions of uncertainty when God has clearly spoken. The third and final reaction is to turn the volume to a level so that you can actually hear the conversation or challenge and interact with it, but while you still keep the music on.

In the wake of all of this we should ponder carefully this question - Do we have the humility to doubt ourselves while having the courage to witness to the truth as it has been revealed?

HT: STR

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:29 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Notable Quote: James Sire

James Sire on the first task of a Christian thinker . . .

In an age in which postmodernism’s reduction of the real to a linguistic (whose disciplines are hermeneutics and semiology) and modernism’s emphasis on knowing rather than being (whose disciplines are epistemology and natural science), it is time to reassert the biblical priority of being (whose disciplines are theology and ontology or metaphysics). It may have a misplaced signified, a perverted meaning, but the slogan used to enlist people in the military has the words right: “Be all that you can be.” With the military, cannon fodder may be all one becomes, but with God, ah, that’s another matter. God simply is: “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14). This He Who Is is the Word, the One Who Speaks, and when he speaks, he says, “Jesus Christ!” To pay attention first to God in Christ: this is the first task of the Christian Thinker.

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:16 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Today in Church History: General Assembly (5th: 1939), Orthodox Presbyterian Church: Name

Meeting in Philadelphia on February 9, 1939, the fifth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America changed the name of the denomination to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Threatened by a lawsuit by the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the young church determined that it lacked the financial resources necessary to sustain the legal challenge to its name. Commissioners to that Assembly chose the new name after a vigorous, twelve-hour debate. Other names considered were the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian and Reformed Church of America, the North American Presbyterian Church, the American Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church of Christ, the Protestant Presbyterian Church of America, the Seceding Presbyterian Church (of America), the Free Presbyterian Church of America, the American Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the True Presbyterian Church of the World.

Historian Mark Noll interpreted the debate in this way: "In the end sentiment was divided nearly equally between the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, with only lesser support for names retaining the word 'America.' By one vote 'Orthodox' prevailed over 'Evangelical,' and so it has remained to this day. Most significantly, the new name indicated a new perspective. No longer would the denomination aspire to be the Presbyterian Church of America."

- John Muether

posted by The Catechizer | 6:10 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Notable Quote: John Bunyan

Let the most Blessed be my Guide,
If’t be his blessed Will,
Unto his Gate, into his Fold,
Up to his Holy Hill:
And let him never suffer me
To swerve or turn aside
From his Free Grace, and Holy Ways,
Whate’er shall me betide

The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:43 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Notable Quote: John Calvin

John Calvin on our destitute state, God’s unfathomable mercy, and those who would disagree . . .

For what is more consonant with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue, in order to be clothed by God? That we are empty of all good, to be filled by him? Blind, to be illuminated by him? Lame, to be made straight by him? Weak, to be sustained by him? To take away from us all occasion for glorying, that he alone may stand forth gloriously and we glory in him? When we say these and like things our adversaries interrupt and complain that in this way we shall subvert some blind light of nature, imaginary preparations, free will, and works that merit eternal salvation . . . For they cannot bear that the whole praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, righteousness, and wisdom should rest with God. But we do not read of anyone being blamed for drinking too deeply of the fountain of living water.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559)

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:16 AM | 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Notable Quote: John Murray

John Murray (1898 – 1975) on our adversary and the modern denial of him . . .

Back of all that is visible and tangible in the sin of this world there are unseen spiritual powers. Satan is the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. The arch-foe of the kingdom of God is not the visible powers arrayed against it; for behind these visible agents and manifestations of evil is the ingenuity, craft, malicious design, instigation and relentless activity of the devil and his ministers. It was this of which Paul was fully aware when he said, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritualities of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Eph. 6:12). Because we have given way to the impact of naturalistic presuppositions, and to the anti-supernaturalistic and anti-praeternaturalistic bias, we are far too liable in these days to discount this truth of Christian revelation. We are liable to discard it in our construction and interpretation of the forces of iniquity. To the extent that we do so, our thinking is not Christian.

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posted by The Catechizer | 6:50 AM | 0 comments links to this post