On the two genealogies of Jesus

> On other thing I am confused about: Jesus' blood line. You say it
was
> maintained pure through the House of David and yet (according to
> scripture) it is Joseph who was related to that caste; not Mary.
>
> In other words, if Jesus was conceived of a virgin then Joseph
being
> of the House os David is of no account unless veiwed as an
adoption.
> I mean, his father is God, after all, how much more pure does it
get?
>
> Now the subject of adoption is a big thing in scriptures and this
is
> fine and satisfactory...unless one talks about purity of blood
lines.
>
> What am I missing here?
>
> ps. there are no traps or hidden agendas here. I did not get this
> line of questioning from an atheist web site....I ask you this in
all
> sincerity...

In Luke 3 is the other of Jesus' two genealogies in the Gospels. Luke 3 is his mother Mary's line, and you'll see she also is a descendent of David. (Heli is Mary's father, and Joseph is said to be Heli's son-in-law). Because Jesus was actually fathered by the Holy Spirit his genealogy will be different by default. He is related to Joseph's ancestry by law, but his bloodline is also pure from David through his mother Mary.

You'll notice that in the Matthew genealogy Joseph's own father (Jacob) 'begat' Joseph. That means Jacob is Joseph's biological father. In the Luke 3 genealogy Heli didn't 'beget' Joseph. Joseph is Heli's son by virtue of having married Heli's daughter, Mary. Joseph is Heli's son-in-law.

The Matthew genealogy is a genealogy of a King. This is the key to understanding the seeming dissimilarities. [It's not a matter, for God's sake, of any historical push for promoting Mary, seminary boys, it is the very Word of God, just learn to read it.] As the genealogy of a King it begins with the founder of the dynasty (Abraham) and comes down through time to Jesus.

The Luke genealogy is the genealogy of a man. It begins in the present and traces the man's ancestry back as far as it can go (to Adam, in the case of Jesus).

(And the Gospel of Matthew of course is the gospel that presents Jesus as a King; just as Luke presents Jesus as a man; -- and Mark presents him as a servant, and John presents him as God).

ps- If you question that Heli is Mary's father you then have to question the inspired accuracy of all Scripture. It really isn't difficult to see anyway. The word 'begat' in the Matthew genealogy makes it clear who Joseph's biological father is. Then, beyond that, the recognition that Jesus is the Son of God conceived of the Holy Spirit makes you realize that His genealogy will be different of necessity than any other human being's genealogy (i.e. Jesus just simply HAS to have His actual bloodline traced through his mother's side because His father was the Holy Spirit [in the mystery of the workings of the Godhead]). People who would question it all are people who don't believe Jesus is God to begin with or was born of a virgin and etc., etc. Once you do believe then the two genealogies really don't present any problem whatsoever, and are, as is the rest of Scripture, remarkably consistent and in the usual way that is revelatory and that increases valuation for it all...

10 practices of the Christian, described, and shown how they relate

1. Separation

   Separated unto the Word. Separated unto the Kingdom of God. Separted from the Kingdom of Satan (the flesh, the world, the devil). Practically, the way you separate in the moment, in the midst of an event, in any situation or circumstance, is to take nothing more seriously than the commands of God.

   
   
2. Vow

   A vow gives an effort parameters and contains the effort with boundaries enabling the effort to accumulate force within those boundaries. Vow is aim. Formulated aim. Make vows carefully because completed vows glorify God (a vow is made to God) and build upon one another; while failed vows deplete your credit with God and weaken you in the spirit. Be wary of yourself, and savvy, in making vows. You want to provoke your limits so as to extend your limits, yet you don't want to vow to do something that is altogether currently beyond you.

   
   
3. Repentance

   Faith is a given (these are practices of the faith), but faith is something you have (that God has given you) rather than something you do. Repentance, on the other hand, is something you do. Repentance is, practically speaking, new thinking. It requires active reasoning in the moment. Remembering motivation, for instance. "Why am I doing this?" Because God's Word commands it, and it will enable me to glorify God and develop my being further into the image of God. Because my goal is heaven, not anything to do with this world. New thinking requires you to stop in your tracks and draw into memory God's Word and wisdom. Forgive others... Why do I forgive others? So God will forgive me my debts. This is an example of new thinking. Repentance.

   
   
4. Zeal

   Zeal is the portion of your effort you give to God. Like a portion of the harvest devoted to God. It is paid in effort. Zealous effort. Beyond normal-level effort. When you pay God this He shows favor on the rest of your effort (or project, or vow). Effort with zeal is more than, or different from, regular effort, because it is acknowledgement of God and payment to God.

   
   
5. Watchfulness & Prayer (prayer includes reading and meditating upon the Word of God)

   These are the engine of sanctification. The main practice of a Christian who is doing the teaching and commands of God. Watchfulness and prayer accumulate into you the Spirit of God. In the Old Testament the phrase is come across: "I am here, Lord." Or: "Here I am, Lord." This is spoken by an individual in a state of watchfulness in the moment. A person who is as if in the presence of God, or in the court of God. A person who is more awake, more circumspect, more aware of himself and his surroundings. More awake to what is higher than him. Watchful to be separated from his carnal self, and the imagination and illusions of the carnal self, the world, and the devil. Prayer is communication with God, at all levels, including simple talking to God. Reading and meditating upon the Word of God is prayer as well because it is communication with God (it is God talking to you). The Holy Spirit comes into you from the Word of God as well. This accumulating of energy from these practices set up a battle in you between your flesh and the Spirit. This battle is inevitable and very welcome to a Christian because it gives the Christian the opportunity to do battle and to glorify God on the battlefield and to extend his limits which means increasing level of being and capacity for new understanding and ability to glorify God more.

   
   
6. Mortification & Fasting

   This is the battleground set up by watchfulness and prayer. Killing the old man in you and the features of the old man in you (these features can be listed, and I have done it in a separate post in the index); and fasting from the desires and fears of the flesh, and the illusion and temptations and intimidations of the world and the devil.

   
   
7. Not fearing man

   Man and the world will provoke you, accuse and shame and deal wrongly with you (as you perceive it). Slight you, sting your vanity and pride; not show you the respect you think you deserve, etc. Not fearing man is an inner state, an inner orientation, where you maintain a separation from these forces and events involving other human beings, i.e. coming from other human beings, as you perceive it, real or not. Basically this is part of the biblical teaching on not worshiping idols (which includes just not giving reverence or undo importance to the creation rather than the Creator.)

   
   
8. Fear of God

   This is a general orientation. It takes one above the level of man and the world (and the fear of man) and the devil and the carnal self and anchors one's thoughts and words and deeds in the recognition and glorification of God. What is above vanity and worldly pride and self-will, and what is above the world and the devil.

   
   
9. Love thy enemy

   This is, practically speaking, everything to do with putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Love your neighbor and love your enemy are somewhat synonymous in the teaching of the Word of God. Loving those it is easy to love is...easy. The teaching is to love those it is not so easy to love. Love your enemy. It is not a command to pacifism (or turning your neighbor's cheek) or giving up personal safety and self-defense and common-sense. It is simply the practice of putting yourself in another person's shoes. It's a simple thing, but it's difficult to do in the heat of a moment when we are asleep and mechanical and acting on old, ingrained habit.

   
   
10. Wait on the Lord

    This is a powerful teaching in the Word of God. It gives one an answer to the most difficult question one comes to when one begins to do the Word of God and not just talk about it. If your enemy gets the better of you then as a Christian you say fine. So be it. I have a higher goal than to eye for an eye with people in this world. Yet you won't be able to escape the feeling and thoughts of the old man in you. Until death and glorification you won't be able to. This is where the teaching of waiting on the Lord comes in. When you are in a difficult, emotional state, with unresolved stupidity over whatever churning in your mind (i.e. you've loved your enemy, but as time goes on the internal battle continues with the carnal self that demands revenge...revenge of any kind to any degree. Waiting on the Lord at that point is knowing vengeance is with the Lord, He will repay. (This is the most difficult practice to describe because you can only see it and understand it in the heat of battle, based on real effort to get into that battle. It's not about actually thinking people owe you or that you're right and their wrong, or wanting God to 'deal with your enemies' in any kind of dumb way. It's about literally waiting on the Lord knowing God takes care of everything regarding pay off. You may have more of God's vengeance coming than your perceived enemy, that's not the subject here, it is a practice - to wait on the Lord - that is the only cure or solution or reconciliation that is available in the internal battle between the carnal self and the Spirit. It is a powerful practice and the capstone to all Christian effort and practice in the process of sanctification. Waiting on the Lord is the capstone to all the above.)

    
    

Now, quickly, I said I'd show how each of the above relate, and I'll do that in a more focused way here: the first four above are the foundational efforts and practices. They come before anything else. The fifth and sixth are the main practices. They accumulate the Spirit and they contain the Spirit. They provoke the battle between the carnal self and the Spirit, and between the Christian and the World (and the devil). No battle without the fifth and sixth practices above. The seventh, eighth, and ninth practices are what you actively do once in the midst of battle. They involve your orientation and approach to man and the world and God. When Spirit wars with the carnal self it causes friction. That friction manifests as emotional energy channeled into resentment and anger and mental heat and negativity such as suspicion and jealosy and also depression (i.e all kinds of fake suffering); but all of it is, inevitably, one way or another, targeted at another human being or human beings. Either in real time, or in imagination, or from memory. It is always targeted (and always self-justifiedly so, from the point-of-view of the carnal self) towards a human being. This is why the seventh, eighth, and ninth practices deal with your approach and interaction with other human beings (Fearing God has to do with your approach to other humans in an implicit way). Then, the tenth practice consummates the effort (the battle). It is a total change of one's inner orientation and involves relying on what is higher rather than on oneself. You can forgive, but your old man will never forgive, but you can then wait on the Lord. That gives you a legitimate reason to set a grievance - real or not - aside. It is God's business. Again, this tenth practice is the most difficult to describe, and it really can only be seen (like all the others as well, but even more so) in the midst of experiencing the battle spoken of in all this...

All the practices together facilitate the fifth and the tenth. The fifth and the tenth are the warp and woof of active Christian effort in sanctification. They are both conscious, subtle (because passive) shocks to your system that can be described generally as a provoking and extending of limits, and the gradual, by degree, developing into (or recovering of the) full image of God lost in the Fall. It is never complete in life, but the more you make of the talents (silver) given you will have meaning for you (as Paul says very clearly) when the time comes (when time ends)...

[The above is all shorthand, of course, but it can be fleshed out more in posts taking on single practices... One note: as I reread the above I could see that the heresy hunters might zero in on the paragraph on repentance accusing me of mis-defining repentance, but I know what repentance is and the one or two examples I gave above were to describe an aspect of repentance that is not normally or often described. Repentance as new thinking involves recognition of sin, acceptance of sin (acceptance that one is a sinner), and mortification of sin as well...it involves alot. The above is shorthand...]

Divisions and heresy exist, by decree of God, and it is good

These are powerful verses:

18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. I Cor. 11:18-19

This is God saying: don't allow those who whine or accuse or shame regarding divisions in the visible church to pull you off of what you know to be true. God has decreed there be divisions and heresy -- so that His own will manifest in it all by contrast.

God is wise.

When you come to the truth of the five solas and the doctrines of grace (when you come to the truth of biblical doctrine that makes no concessions to your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will or the demands of the world and the devil) you will have a thousand-faced monkey eeeh! eeehing! at you continually, and throwing things at you, and mocking you, why? because you have the truth and they can see that.

From your point-of-view of all this know that it is God Himself who has set it up like this so that His elect - you - will become manifest by contrast with all that make up that monkey face. Divisons and heresy exist to make manifest those who are able to know and who hold to and defend the truth.

Thank God He has enabled you to know the truth. Thank God you see the Bible as authority and not man. Thank God you fear God and not man.

This is why doctrine is serious and important and more than mere intellectually grasped ideas. Doctrine is faith itself. Doctrine is how you commune with God. (Read John Owen on doctrine in the right hand margin of this blog.) Five solas is not merely one theological reading or formula among many, it is apostolic biblical truth. It is on-the-mark biblical doctrine. See it, hold to it, defend it, and your state and your being manifests as the very elect of God, in contrast to all that are - and that is - off-the-mark and against the Word of God.

Hold to the truth against the assaults of men and devils. Run the race to the finish.

Clarifying some things...

From the Boar's Head owner regarding me:

I mean, yeah, she's not family material, but I've never met anyone whose approach to Christianity was "Read the Great Books. Outline Greek history. Get under higher influences. Then read the Bible seven times and you'll be regenerated." I mean, give credit here. That's pretty original stuff.

No, no NO... You can't regenerate yourself any more than a field can plant a seed into itself. No, the field can be as fertile as any field, but it needs a farmer to choose it and to plant a seed in it. Then it needs the sun &c. to grow. The field is pretty helpless. (The metaphor can be abused and can break down in several directions, but it's OK basically.)

The classical influences just happen to comprise many if not most of the handful of summit influences available to man on this planet. (And I don't narrow history to Greek History in terms of what you need to engage. Plutarch and Thucydides transcend being mere Greek history...)

On reading the Bible seven times: you just simply can't do this and be the same afterwards (obviously seven is alot and once is potentially life-changing...eternal life changing). You will either be a hardened fool or a regenerated being. You force the matter. Which is probably why there is such kicking against the pricks when it is mentioned. People would rather remain in the drifting, nebulous state of unregenerate-though-yet-still-with-potential-in-tact.

The Bible is, among other things, a language. Download that language and you are able to see things in yourself and in the world around you (and above you) that you couldn't see prior. Just read it. It IS dangerous, though, I admit. The Bible is not only gospel but it is law, and though the gospel saves both convict.

There is simply not a more pure, practical, and bold approach to the faith than to have and engage in the goal to read the Word of God complete, Genesis through Revelation, once, three times, seven times. It is foundational to everything.

Obviously nothing is guaranteed, as stated. I assume, though, that I am speaking to Christians to begin with, eh? No?... Yes?

Sorry, seminary lad, you don't have it

This post represents the inanity seminary boys consider discernment to consist of. He's writing about a devil who basically says apostolic biblical doctrine doesn't exist, and meanwhile the Beast of Rome is just a-ok, yet this philosopher writes about him like he is somebody 'one needs to take seriously'. Elect of God have no patience for this seminary/church level lukewarm devil bilge, and this is why you don't see us walking through the doors of your synagogues-with-crosses. Christ the King and Warrior as well, as His Word makes very clear, has no patience for such emptiness and cowardice in the face of the devil and the world.

A good object lesson

Object lesson: A concrete illustration of a moral or principle.

Here is a good object lesson of why you need to fear God and not man, and why the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and not the fear/reverence of man.

We all know Dave Armstrong. We know this book he wrote is the same shabby, hyper-juvenile, pseudo-intellectual, mendacious RC apologist drivel he produces on his weblog on an hourly basis. So we know this reviewer who is taking Dave and his material seriously is an unconscious buffoon. And hence we know that the publication he is writing for is living in the dark to the degree that it can't even know when it has a buffoon reviewing a clown, and all in the service of the devil and his kingdom of darkness. We all know this when we see this review in question. Yet it's not so obvious when you see other productions by man in other publications, taken seriously by other men, etc., etc., is it? Just as a Dave Armstrong can slip into the worldly limelight (such as he has, but don't think there aren't similar Dave Armstrongs, just as comically lame, who have risen higher, writing bestsellers and influencing large numbers of fools in various media and from places of position and prestige and authority they have attained in the world, this is all obvious, but it becomes so obvious we can become numb to the reality of it), so can any man from any camp whose worth may be marginally higher than Dave and his material, yet still is merely a man with a man's wisdom &c.

Fear God. Go to His Word. Be instructed by God's wisdom, not man's.

The main point here is this: am I saying a John Piper type writer or any number of popular Christian writers are at the same level of a Dave Armstrong? Of course not, but the object lesson here is how easily the most obvious fool can be given, by the world, a voice to influence. Often the most shamelessly mendacious and foolish are rewarded by the world in this manner. The hard thing is to see it in the not-so-obvious cases.

Just basically fear God and not man. Learn from on-the-mark teachers, yes, but don't fear them, and don't give them your reverence. Fear only God. Be instructed by God and His Word and not man. The man you choose to be instructed by - with intentionally no caveats here, folks - is to God what Dave Armstrong is to all of us who have read his blog: a fool. And you're a fool if you fear and reverence that man.

Fear God, it is the beginning of wisdom.

Monk...monk.....the dude calls himself a monk

CT: If I ever teach a class on a postmodern deconstruction of Christianity , and I want an example of a reader-response approach to the creeds and Christian history....you are my poster :-)

So you'd be teaching on a subject you practice yourself, but you'd be teaching it as if its the people who hold to biblical truth who do it, and...did I mention that you put it in a context of you teaching a class... You, teaching? And you're also a pastor of a church? And you couldn't see the devil if he had you by the throat? (or, worse, you want him to have you by the throat, the better to be able to stick your tongue down his throat?)... Did you say, casually, "If I ever teach a class on a postmodern..." Can those words have actually come out of your mouth? Did Pol Pot have people who wore glasses killed? Yes, he did. OK, I'm coming to now, I see you're just playing along in the very well-defined line of satanic chaos artistry that got started in the last century full throttle and will continue until Jesus returns and makes the birds drink blood from your skull... OK.

Notice also there is no mention of the Word of God in what he finds it important to associate with Christianity (history and creeds).

Seriously, do you feel any responsibility to the books and volumes of ink these people wrote that disagree with your particular take on the sacraments?

If you find them saying they believe in baptismal regeneration then they very much do disagree with me - and with the Bible. Short of that any disagreement on issues surrounding baptism, Lord's supper, or church polity is not important because the Bible doesn't make it clear and dogmatic.

You say, "they didn't believe in sacramental regeneration, etc" as if that puts them in your camp on the questions of what are the sacraments and what do they do?

Actually I said 'baptismal regeneration'. Whether beyond that primary point (primary because the Bible makes it primary and certain that baptismal regeneration is false doctrine, and deadly, satanic false doctrine at that) Calvin or the Puritans disagree with me on mode or meaning or type regarding sacraments and church polity is neither here nor there regarding whether I'm a Calvinist or in the same doctrinal/experimental line of the Puritans, because on those issues the Calvinists and Puritans differed among themselves. They are not primary issues because the Bible doesn't make them so.

C'mon. Do I have to list the books by Puritans and Calvinists that contain not twenty words you could stand to read?

List them. How could I 'not stand' to read Calvin or a Puritan writer on infant baptism? I disagree, but it's not a major doctrinal point to me. If an infant baptism proponent veers into promoting baptismal regeneration as doctrinal truth then our disagreement becomes a disagreement of a different nature... You can't, on the other hand, list books by real Calvinists or Puritans that differ with me on issues summed up in the five solas or the doctrines of grace...

As you call me pomo,

Your own words expose you as everything defined by this word pomo.

it appears to me you have, at the same time, adopted a reading of the Puritans and Calvin that no scholar anywhere would amen.

How so? I'm a five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption Calvinist. Neo-orthodox and atheist scholars of Calvinism and the Puritans would not amen that, so what? On issues of sacraments and church polity Bunyan doesn't amen Calvin, and Owen doesn't amen Calvin, etc., etc.

(I know, they all are living blindly in the fear of men, etc. But ever Terretin, Berkhof and 99% of the WCF signers would find you wrong.

On the issues of the sacraments. On what else? They find those who drew up the LBCF wrong in the same way. So? The Bible gives warrant to such differences. Problem? Is the Bible your authority or isn't it?

Why don't you just say they are wrong and you are right?

On the issues of the sacraments and church polity I've stated my position as: whatever. It's not dogmatic doctrine because the Bible doesn't make it so, so why should I? Men who make it dogmatic - impose clericalism and sacramentalism - do so to assert vain, worldly power into God's domain. Short of the imposition of clericalism and sacramentalism I have no problem with people - especially Calvinists or Reformed - who differ with me on the sacraments or church polity. If they have a problem with me, so be it. My authority is not man, it is God and the Word of God.

I keep repeating this because, it's strange to see YOUR FEAR of being out there without the "Puritan" and "reformed" label, when you know darned well you couldn't be a teaching elder in any reformed church anywhere with your view of the visible church, the ministry or the sacraments. Yet, for some reason, you need to associate yourself with them.

I call myself a Calvinist because I see biblical doctrinal truth in the five solas and the doctrines of grace (and in covenant theology for that matter). Pure and simple. That's why I am a Calvinist and identify myself by that name. I associate myself with the Puritan approach because like them I have a practical approach to the faith, plus they were Calvinists who held to the five solas and doctrines of grace as well. Your use of the word fear in your statement above is typical of a man-fearing cleric who is out of ammunition against an elect of God and is throwing anything including the kitchen sink at this point. If I didn't have anything in common with Calvinism or the Puritans I'd just call myself a Christian and leave it at that. In this age when doctrinal differences matter one must practically identify themselves, and Calvinist and Puritan identifies me.

Those of us who read you understand you clearly: You alone are correct about what Christianity is. Why not just say it? Quit trying to rework the Puritans and Calvin into your image.

I didn't make up the five solas or the doctrines of grace or covenant theology. If I hold to them and you don't I suppose you will think I'm just saying I'm right and you're wrong. So be it. I hold to them because they are apostolic, bibilical truth. See it or don't.

Basically iMonk: you currently can't see the truth. You don't know what the hell the doctrines of grace are, why the Bible teaches them or why anybody would hold to them (as if, you think, anybody even understands them to begin with). You are an unregenerate, proud fool who takes the hall of mirrors illusion of the devil's kingdom you can't see through as the common experience of everyone. As a proud, vain fool who currently can't see God's truth you disdain anybody who holds to the truth of God or even 'affects' to 'know the truth'.

You're a clown as well because you insist on teaching.

In your hysterical claims in this recent comment you are attempting the divide and destroy tactic the devil channels into your hollow being and broadcasts out of your uncontrolled mouth. First you want to divide 'truth' from doctrine. Then you want to divide myself from Christians of the past who held to the same Truth I hold to. Only all you have is the sacraments and church polity as ammunition, and this elect of God knows the truth of those issues and what the Bible says about them. It's all the desperate activity of the devil and his willing servants to muck up the waters and hope to fool God's elect. You can't fool God's elect, though. Sin and rebellion against God is irrational to the core. The only people you can fool are people who have not yet been regenerated to begin with. The moment they are regenerated you will even lose them. Certainly God's elect who are regenerated now can't be fooled by your nonsense, yet you try and try. Irrational. Sin is irrational; rebellion against God is irrational.

Reading Proverbs

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Done. (This has been part of a complete reading of the Bible.)

Go ahead and copy me, Christian bloggers. Post reading progress of a book. Any book. A Biblical book or any other book. I don't have it registered or copyrighted. In my previous internet existence one thing I found the internet to be practically useful for was for creating incentive for doing and finishing projects. When you post progress of a project it creates incentive to continue with it and finish it. A reconciling force, if you will, to overcome inevitable friction in the midst of a project. I, in the spring of '02, read the complete works of Shakespeare (and I mean complete, including poetry and plays dubiously ascribed to him and even including fragments of plays) and blogged my progress for a both hostile and friendly audience. I basically, for each play, had a little template I drew up where I would write some intro material for each play I started on, then I summarized each scene of each act as I read them, then I wrote a general summary of the play after reading it. I also wrote down all the characters to just get them in mind, etc., etc. Then I'd move on to the next play. Until I'd read them all. All along the hostile audience was waiting for me to give up in the middle of the project, so that gave me incentive to soldier on. I wanted to be a good example to the friendly part of the audience too. To walk my talk, so to speak, regarding making real efforts and sticking with projects until they're finished. I would do the same with projects involving practical level practices of the Faith. I did alot of 40 day efforts. Make the internet useful; this is one way it can be made practically useful...

Calvin on baptismal regeneration

Calvin:

How much evil has been caused by the dogma, ill expounded, that baptism is necessary to salvation, few perceive, and therefore think caution the less necessary. For when the opinion prevails that all are lost who happen not to be dipped in water, our condition becomes worse than that of God’s ancient people, as if his grace were more restrained than under the Law.

This passage very much does expound Calvin's position on baptismal regeneration, i.e. his obvious position against it. Some things Calvin thought too 'silly' to refute. I think he'd have done better to be more diligent and direct in denouncing the devilish doctrine of baptismal regeneration, yet his position is implicit in all that he wrote. He states clearly his biblical understanding that regeneration is effected by the Word and the Spirit. He just doesn't do it in one place, hence leaving an opening for mendacious clowns and devils to clip endlessly his words out-of-context to bolster their Beast-inspired attacks on apostolic biblical doctrine (Auburn Avenue clowns and devils, can you hear? Oh, no...you are too busy riding above the rabble, sending down your latest "this won't fool the Calvinists, but it might go a ways to fool the iMonk and his type"...)

Well, you've got some numbers there...

(iMonk, iMonk, iMonk... Praising that stupid, shabby, and so juvenile little essay by James B. Jordan to high heaven like you did...)

Plain Path Christian, School of Geneva

Plain Path Christian. It's more biblical. School of Geneva. All the sacrament issues can be taken however one sees fit. As long as you don't believe in any stench of baptismal regeneration, which is pure death. Zwingli had it in understanding early on, then he kept thinking, and over-thinking, and confusing it all in conflicts taking it all out of context. Ending up Beast side. Here he is early on:

If someone is so strong that his assurance and certainty are independent of time, place, person and such like, then he has no need for sprinkling with water; but if he is a little stupid or thick-headed he needs some demonstration, so then that kind of believer is baptized because he is cleansed inwardly by faith in the same way as he is outwardly by water.

He thought water baptism was for those with weak faith and feeble minds. They needed it as assurance. So be it. More Zwingli:

“They are wrong, therefore, by the whole width of heaven who think that sacraments have any cleansing power.” and “This was a vain invention; as if, forsooth, when a man is wet with the water something happens in him which he could not possibly have known unless water had been poured over him at the same time!” and “It is clearly frivolous to teach that . . . the sacraments can remit sins or confer blessings.” and “Water-baptism cannot contribute in any way to the washing away of sin.” [From here.]

So just be a plain path Christian, school of Geneva, and find the practical level of the faith from there...

(I should state that what sets a plain path Christian apart is the valuation and moving towards and doing the practical level of the faith. Plain path in this sense is what the Puritans were about. Reducing to practice. Practical knowledge exists to guide one in this direction and at this level, but it has to be found, or, connected with. This is part of the process. A plain path Christian also reads the Word of God complete: once, three times, seven times. Men and devils mock this, without - and within - the visible church, and so be it. It is the foundation. It is what makes you serious. It is what the devil most doesn't want you doing. "Read those commentaries, boys! Read that Christian theory and philosophy! Anything...!" anything but that Word of God... The devil hates the Word of God because it regenerates God's own. The Word and the Spirit. And read it pure: AV1611...or NKJV if you must...all other versions are based on the devil's personal manuscripts...)

Born. I always wondered what I was. In terms of terminology. I'm a plain path Christian...

• Holy Bible, AV1611
• Institutes of the Christian Religion - Calvin
• Commentaries - Calvin
• Institutes of Elenctic Theology - Turretin
• Biblical Theology - Owen
• Economy of the Covenants - Witsius
• Westminster Standards

A plain path puritan

A plain path puritan. That means the faith that is pure, bold, and practical. Five solas. Doctrines of Grace. Covenant of Redemption. Experimental Calvinism. No clericalism, no sacramentalism. The devil's nightmare.

Making book lists

It's difficult for me to make a definitive list of books nowadays. I could do it prior to conversion and learning real, on-the-mark biblical doctrine. In fact I had a 7 book list that was rock-like in being definitive and immutable and balanced. But post-conversion it's difficult to list the same books, and I'm not even talking about easy to give up influences of youth like Herr Nietzsche or Mr. Emerson. I mean influences like the Homeric epics and Plutarch. In a way I see them as Christian, though. In the sense that some influences reside at the summit level and contain enough of what is universally true to be worthy to be set alongside explicitly Christian works. Who could argue with a shelf that contained the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and Calvin.

There's also the problem of whether to include influences that are not 'names' (are not time-vetted, known 'great works'), yet contain influence you know is rare and inspired and summit level. Not many contempory works could even fall into this category, but influences having to do with elucidating the practical level of the faith can. These are school influences though, and one can't speak out of school. It's where the Words of God "don't throw your pearls before swine" become a knife in your conscience, and you just follow.

I've been reading Calvin's Commentaries (actually I've been skimming through the Library of Christian Classics selection [0664241603] which I just aquired used) and have been struck continually how alive his writing is and how on-the-mark his insight is and how clear and strong and bold his approach is. How much he understood the faith. (How much he understood man, the world, and the devil...) So, I put Calvin's Commentaries on my new list (I can see that's definitive right now). What gets taken off? I mean if I were to make a new definitive list post-conversion?

We all learn from a thousand and one influences which lead us to where we eventually end up. (If we do, that is, end up at the summit level...) Lists usually always overpass all the influential early and mid-climb influences. We don't want people to associate them with where we are now. Or use them to mock us or just use them as ammunition against us. Many influences that may have been big in our development might have - certainly did - contain much chaff. People focus on the chaff, when you were interested in the wheat. "You read that book? so you're like a [fill in the taboo incorrect abomination]?" I have little patience for that empty nonsense. Still, even if I didn't care about that it would still be hard to include early and no-longer-important-to-me influences in a list. Even though one of them may have saved your life even at one point or stage of your life.

I focus, now that I've been at the summit for awhile, on influences that carry higher visual language or metaphor for universal subjects (On War is an example of that; and so is Wealth of Nations, though that is harder for most people to see). War, Wealth, Government... Works that are not merely the literature of knowledge but the literature of power (to use de Quincy's terms). Didactic or philosophical works can be of the literature of power as well. The Homeric epics (more Christian than people suppose). The closest to Holy Writ, but close like planets are the closest bodies to the Sun. A poem like Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. Plato. Montesquieu. Thucydides is a rare influence in that it is the closest thing to a bible in the category of history. It's like a block of stone you have to chip away at to get at what it has to offer, but... Plutarch is human architecture. Plutarch's Lives present patterns of inner development via lives of heroes. It's a sacred work. Herodotus' book in its own way carries sacred influence. (By sacred I'm not saying 'Biblical'. Calm down, heresy hunters...)

Talking about what an early influence can do for your development there are few works more powerful on the developing understanding than the first history of the world you read. (If you've ever read one and have experienced what I'm talking about, of course. It's not automatic.) So now, though, I come to sacred history and then I learn of Covenant Theology and the history suddenly slips time itself and reaching back before Creation begins in the council of the Godhead and ends after time ends... I search for classic, inspired works on this subject and come across an Owen (Biblical Theology) and a Witsius (Economy of the Covenants). Not to mention Holy Writ itself. I force my way through Vos, and... Lose patience with these theologians... Between the prolixity of the Puritans and the academic knotwork of a Vos or Kline... They don't make it easy. (But the subject matter is rarely explained with understanding because few men attain real understanding of it.) Then some seminarian writes a 'Simple Introduction' to Covenant Theology but decides to screw it all up by writing it in dialogue form. A. you need at least a modicum of literary talent to pull that off. B. Covenant Theology is not the subject matter to apply it to. Though I appreciate his effort.

Just as the Bible doesn't give up understanding of itself promiscuously neither does Covenant Theology. It's all offered, like the practical level of the faith, palm half-open. You are forced to make some real effort. Effort and zeal is rewarded... You learn that when you've been on the open sea some...(no, I can't speak out of school...) To sum up on making book lists... When you get to the summit read works that go into essence (and that you want in essence). Conquer them, possess them. Works that are like physical monuments of universal influence and not merely books containing surfacy knowledge about things. Find seven. Don't waste time. Count your days...

Why acting from God's will makes you a real individual with real liberty 3

To see how you have real liberty the more you act from God's will use the analogy of a kingdom.

Does an individual who a king makes a duke or a baron and gives a large estate and responsibility in one part of his kingdom to and even gives him his own army of knights and so on...does this individual have more liberty than the person in the kingdom that is living on a little rented patch of land scratching out a living growing food and maybe repairing pots and pans on the side? Of course the duke (or baron or whatever) has more liberty.

And remember we're talking about the Kingdom of God, not some corrupt aristocracy with a syphilitic king at the top. (And as for the guy scratching out a living and repairing pots and pans remember that the lowest in the Kingdom of God is greater than the greatest in this world.)

The duke has to answer to the King, so he doesn't have total liberty. Yet that just means he's not the king. The King is the king.

As a regenerate Christian you are a king (with a small 'k') and Jesus is the King. You're not Jesus. You're not God, yet you have quite a position in God's Kingdom (you're an heir of God and you have what God has; striking, radical promises in the New Testament). Alot of liberty (and responsibility, but responsibility that you can handle because you have self-command and you desire responsibility from the King...you live for it).

But just as the duke has his estate in a part of the kingdom and isn't under the thumb of a dictatorial presence above him (he's treated as an individual) the same in the Kingdom of God.

Yet you still have God's will as real command above you that you follow.

God doesn't regenerate you to make you a robot or a frightened, obsequeous slave. He wants men. Real, developed kings in their own right. In fact: prophets, priests, and kings. Which is the image of God.

Note: the question arises as to who the lower subjects are in the Kingdom of God, but in the Kingdom of God all are equal in state but just unequal in standing due to natural development and reward. The New Testament speaks of degree of reward and degree of level of being among glorified, saved individuals in the afterlife. It just does. The main point about that though is this: wherever you are in the hierarchy is natural for you to be. There is no unfairness or unhappiness about it. One can also fairly and not wildly speculate that there is vertical movement in God's Kingdom. Maybe very different than what we know about here or can even speculate about, but as above so below, generally speaking...

Note 2: the fact is: in all this that involves God's Plan God is calling and regenerating royalty. His royalty. His people. What the responsibilities of his royalty are, and what activities they are involved in, in what areas of God's creation, who knows. But remembering this fact and knowing you are being tested now can and should be a constant shock to you. When you conform or give in to the world at critical testing moments you are failing God and yourself.

Note 3: Read the first five verses of chapter 5 of the apocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon. It's not Holy Writ, but it has value when it has value...

Why acting from God's will makes you a real individual with real liberty 2

Example of acting from God's will rather than from self-will:

Practicing the command to love your enemy in a moment when your self-will would rather indulge resentment and anger.

You definitely have to actually give something up when you give up your self-will and act from God's will. Indulging resentment is pleasurable. Being a victim is pleasurable. I have to give that up? your carnal self asks. Well, yes. If you value acting from God's will you do. You have to value acting from God's will though.

What's in it for me? your carnal self asks.

(What's in it for the carnal self? death. Shhhhh.) In the short term, alot of friction and confusion and negativity from the world and so on. In the long term (and maybe not so long a time) real awakening, real understanding, and real will. You can't imagine what all that is now, but this is why you need to value the 'program', so to speak. The program is contained in the Word of God.

Real awakening comes by regeneration. You can't do that, but you can approach God via His Word. Approach God and He says Himself (in His Word) that He will approach you.

Real understanding comes by engaging higher influences - history, imaginative literature, philosophy, art, music, science, religion - (and ultimately, a real gauge, the more you understand the Word of God the more your understanding is increasing). Understanding is also developed by developing all divisions, so to speak, of your being: physical, emotional/creative, intellectual.

Real will comes by cultivating and developing the will of God within you. This is done by following the Word of God at the practical, doing, level. This involves a search, usually, starting from lesser influences that one can begin to grasp; even the lowest of the low...self help books (some of them contain bits and pieces of actual wisdom). What I mean by that is this: practical knowledge (i.e. what you are actually to do) is rare and difficult to find, and you start usually in very low lying levels of influences - where separating alot of chaff to find a little wheat is usually the order of the day - until you find threads to follow and things to pursue and so on. It's a process of whatever it takes. Reading the Bible all along the way. Basically, though, real will in action is a top-down action just as self-will is a bottom-up operation. Just as, for instance, thoughts (or reason) should control emotion (rather than allowing your emotions to do your thinking for you) God's will needs to control your thoughts. It's hierarchical within you. God's will is above intellect, intellect is above emotion, emotion is above the physical level desires and fears.

In a person where self-will is the driving force physical desires and fears drive emotion which dictates thoughts and God's will is not even in the picture.

Atheists have a point regarding reason being high on the totem pole, yet if reason is left to itself without God's will - God's influence - controlling reason from above reason eventually just becomes the servant of the lower parts of human nature and being. Reason alone can't control emotion and physical demands, especially when the entire being is corrupted with original sin.

Addendum: in the paragraph above where I mention self-help books I wasn't real clear. What that is getting at is this: to see the practical level in the teachings of Jesus, for instance, is not easy. You have to approach it from other influences (you just do). You begin to find this rare, practical level knowledge in sometimes not very prestigious places like for instance, the lowly self-help category of books. But Christian publishers are aware of this (lest anybody mock too loudly out there)... To see the practical level teaching in the two great commandments of Jesus requires alot. It just does. I've been up the mountain on all that. I'll tell you it requires effort and time and a willingness to learn from everything. (Everything.) If you fear man more than God you'll never engage some of the influences you simply have to engage to get there. If you fear God then the Holy Spirit Himself will guide you in your efforts. As stated self-help books would be the lower end of the spectrum. There are bodies of knowledge available - remarkably refined and inspired knowledge, actually, language...practical knowledge - that one can come into and learn from. The knowledge exists. You can only find it on your own. The reason for that is it can be right under your nose, but if you're not ready for it or able to recognize its value you won't see it. And if your dutiful fear of man makes you pronounce everything new age or occult or some similar name then...it's just not for you. Not everything that looks new age or occult is new age or occult. Including the Gospel of John or the Book of James...

Why acting from God's will makes you a real individual with real liberty

When people are told that they have to give up their self-will and act from God's will the natural reaction is to think that that means becoming less free. Atheists, for instance, freak out at this point.

The illusion involved in this is thinking you have freedom now. You're controlled by your vanity, your worldly pride, and your fear of man, none of which has anything to do with your real essential self, and you think you're free nevertheless. All your words, thoughts, and deeds are controlled by things and forces that aren't the essential you, yet that is what is taken as freedom.

On the other side of it to be able to act from God's will requires a level of internal development that all said literally makes one into a real individual. Of course it requires regeneration and the Holy Spirit. Our problem is we're ignorant and we're weak. We need real knowledge (Word of God and the Spirit of Truth and Discernment, not to mention the initial awakening regeneration is all about) and we need strength (a King to first save us from what has us enslaved and then to provide the strength and protection of His Kingdom within us to conquer and keep at bay those same forces that had us truly enslaved). This all is given by God and can only be given by God.

Human beings aren't God, so we will never be totally autonomous with no need to rely on anything; so in this sense we are always dependent on something (I hate to do this, but: you gotta serve somebody; it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody); but consider the remarkable revelation that we are created in the image of God. This means that acting from God's will is what is most natural to us to begin with.

Acting from God's will (actually, in a real sense, once God's will is what our very heart is, it is more our being God's will) doesn't make us automatons; it makes us real individuals. Real individuals with real liberty.

Note: vanity and worldly pride and the world and the devil will now whisper in your ear how everything written above is a lie.

You will hear that counsel all the way to hell, if you want to. Some people want to.

See Part 2 and Part 3.

The plain path and war

The plain path is the fear of God. This leads, inevitably, to war.

Once you make yourself a known enemy to the Kingdom of Satan you are at war with the Kingdom of Satan. (At war with your carnal nature, with the world around you, and with the devil himself).

When you walk the plain path you inevitably put yourself on a battlefield. You put yourself on spiritual ground. Ground where the forces of darkness confront the forces of light. The devil doesn't need to take notice of people who are sleepwalking through his kingdom and being, in effect, tame prisoners. The devil takes notice of individuals who begin to wake up and take the bold step of walking the plain path of fearing God and God only.

The conflict and friction is not merely external to you. The friction, again, also derives from conflict between the Spirit of God and the carnal spirit within you.

I'm going to interact with this person's post

Confession for Theoblogians
September 13th, 2005
Inspired by a conversation with Russ Rankin today at lunch. For some theoblogians, this might be the first step to improving a blog:

I Repent
of pretending to know more than I do,
of speaking without listening,
of correcting without caring,
of passing judgment without understanding,
of talking at people instead of with people,
of using words that hurt and do not heal,
of writing without grace, charity, love and kindness,
of writing with arrogance and pride,
of being more critical than redemptive,
of presuming my words are more valuable than others',
of uncovering problems without pointing to solutions,
of being more zealous for a system than for a Savior,
for I am a man with an unclean blog, and I write among a people of unclean blogs.

"of pretending to know more than I do" - The word pretending in this line suggests the person has had run-ins with regenerate individuals who talk in a way and about things he has yet to experience and so he denies them their own experience. This is common vanity and pride at work protecting vanity and pride. From a practical standpoint if a person is writing about more objective matters they don't have understanding of or are just pretending to know about they will be exposed soon enough if they interact at all with other people.

"of speaking without listening" - This is a legitimate problem on the internet. I once engaged in a twenty or thirty (or even more) post exchange debate on theology with a Roman Catholic deacon on a liberal forum who was responding to me as if he had a mental disorder compounded by drinking problems. He later admitted he'd not read one of my responses. My experience is: people who take doctrine seriously tend to listen to what people are saying. For the most part. (I was reading every word of the deacon.) Other 'not listening' issues occur in the realm of things like mistaking agreements for attacks (little misunderstandings like that) that can occur in the heat of an exchange (especially if you are commonly in environments where it is 30 to 1 and you are the '1', and if you're a real Calvinist you know).

"of correcting without caring" - Correction is always difficult to accept. It always comes across as an assault to one's vanity and worldly pride and self-will. So actually nobody ever admits correction, but only in time as the wounds fade and things sink in (and the person comes into the new understanding 'on their own' ha, ha). So with this in mind I just state directly and boldly whatever I state. I don't expect agreement. You can just present things and they manifest down the line in the person or they don't. The real correction without caring is banning or silent treatment that cuts off conversation which is typical of man-fearing fools at many if not most Christian forums and similar sites. Their prerogative though if they own the controls to the banning tools... So be it. The level of worldly maturity among church level Christians is not high. They don't know how to just talk.

"of passing judgment without understanding" - This is not an impressive one here. Maybe reword it: of giving advice about a situation you don't and or can't know anything about. Or passing judgment based on second hand testimony (very common). Anyway, 'passing judgment' is such a ill-defined bogey man of a thing in the minds of immature liberal and immature Christians (not to mention what 'understanding' constitutes) that this particular repentance is best left alone until better stated.

"of talking at people instead of with people" - But what is the one thing people with bad doctrine want? Dialogue? To have their side taken seriously? So the moment you don't give their doctrine the legitimacy they demand you are suddenly 'talking at them' and not 'talking with them'. I think debating someone is talking WITH them. They think they're being talked AT. Whatever. On the mark is on the mark. It can be defended. If things come down to foundational principles like what is your authority then of course when I talk about the Word of God being authority I will be seen as 'talking at' people at that point.

"of using words that hurt and do not heal" - I've hurt people with words. Positively, but also negatively. Usually people who wander into an environment where weapons have been in use and who maybe don't know what they've wandered into, yet you deal with them as with the others in the enivornment. I've never been quite convinced though that the hurt party wasn't just indulging a pleasurable resentful victim's status. We all though imagine the nightmare of a precocious child coming on the 'net and getting torn to shreds by out-of-control gunfighters. That would be an uncommon case though. I think what happens is people lurk and get a sense of an environment and then jump in or don't based on what they see... I.e. they know what they're getting into.

"of writing without grace, charity, love and kindness" - Obviously writing is relative regarding these qualities. A sharp, on-the-mark rebuke can be packed full of grace and love and charity and kindness. It all comes down to on-the-mark off-the-mark. Using the four words above (grace, charity, love, kindness) as a weapon to make everybody talk like blithering, lukewarm idiots is a tactic of political-correctness and is a sure recipe for creating dead environments. If that's what you want... It's also a way to allow the devil the upper hand.

"of writing with arrogance and pride" - A person who is able to be on-the-mark can also fall into this (obviously an off-the-mark person can fall into too). If you have a team behind you or some instutition you can fall into this because you don't have that feeling of being a stranger in a strange land like the lone wolfs do. Lone wolfs can obviously be arrogant and prideful but it's tempered by having that 'outsider' status and certain survival issues people in a group don't have. The lone stranger will learn more, potentially, because when alone he's really alone and things can take root. The group person retreats to his group and the reinforcing noise of his group.

"of being more critical than redemptive" - This one is just too mushy for me to comment on.

"of presuming my words are more valuable than others'" - Alot of these sentences are just obviously lame (i.e. they carry lame meaning or are worded lamely, and obviously express much of the immature (and devilish) demands one finds in various politically-correct, intensely policed environments such as in left-wing academia and in socialist government. As for your words having more value than other people's words: you're either on-the-mark or you're not. We can also talk about what you deem to be ultimate authority.

"of uncovering problems without pointing to solutions" - Whining is a problem in most human environments. But we're talking about theology here and writing about theology, and not fixing the garbage disposal. The answer to most any problem related to Christianity or the Christian experience is getting serious with the Word of God and with doctrine. Just getting serious period. Counting your days and getting serious.

"of being more zealous for a system than for a Savior" - The system that is the Savior's system is the system I'm zealous for.

Some notes

Found here:

Finally, to set the record straight, I am not really a Libertarian. I am a registered Republican, who votes for any Consitution Party candidate on the ballot... even if they are sometimes nutty.

God bless you, child. You're what's called a young moron. Or an active, dedicated Democrat.

+ + +

I don't have a link for this note because the evidence can be found in several posts on Andrew Sullivan's blog, but the depth of wickedness of the left (and Sullivan is as leftist as they come, no pun intended) can be seen in his little additions lately to his evil, mendacious criticisms of the Iraq war effort by hedging his bets saying that if things do afterall turn out OK (and if the overall strategic goal was a good one, which it is) it will be despite the U.S. military and U.S. initiative in it all and only solely because of the noble effort of the wonderful Iraqi people.

Following the descending arc of this little creep over the last several years is instructive in seeing, in some of the more subtle ways (obviously he's always been an unrepentant sodomist), just how depraved humanity is capable of being.

A related note: don't allow dictionaries to tell you that 'sodomy' means any unreproductive sexual act. Sodom was not destroyed by God because its citizens were indulging male/female oral sex...

+ + +

Hmm. I was going to write a note regarding the more raw, rough-hewn, respect-for-mystery and not having to explain everything if God doesn't Calvinism of Calvin himself vs. the Reformed scholastic theologians that came after, and how certain papist-moles pit the two...but...it made me sound like I was doing a bad impression of a lame intellectual, so... Personally, I have no problem with the scholastic Reformed theologians. I see poetry in scholastic type writing. Of course, I see the truth in the doctrines of grace in a way - more experiential - than most Calvinists do; and against that understanding I tend to find the post-Calvin Calvinists to be rather on-the-mark...(I mean the 17th century crew, for the most part)...

Calvin's work is the Everest, and Calvin himself has alot of the impressions and influence of the desert prophet in him... There's a rugged, deeper poetic mystery and inspiration in Calvin. He was connected to the same great ancient current of ideas and influence that a Homer and Socrates and Plutarch reside in that comes down through the ages (and flowed into the Renaissance). Call it the General Revelation, or the natural deep fountains and celestial pillars of God's common Revelation that includes all influences and that set a theologian potentially on a more ancient and strong foundation and gives him a deeper background. (Owen's somewhat disappointing railing against classical influences in his Biblical Theology is surprising, yet in context one can see what he's getting at, yet one can also see that he's devaluing influences that obviously made up a substanital part of his own education and made him the special theologian he became. It's actually Owen not at his best. He's saying in that book, in those passages, that he had the discernment to get something from such influences, but other people go off in wrong directions... Yeah, it's always like that, John...but don't deny to others what you benefited from yourself...)

Defining the 'liberal', spirit of disobedience mind since ca. 1990s

Men are stripped of all their glory, not to leave them groveling in their own shame, but to clothe them with another that is better. For God does not take pleasure in men's shame.

John Calvin, Commentaries.

To affect to lose your self-glory to then glory in shame, is to keep your self-glory, pilgrim.

Don't fear my lesions, celebrate them...

Kevin Johnson is a devil. He's one of those devils who mask their devilishness behind an affected mental and emotional fragility. The Discerning Reader guy is a similar case.

The Faith and on-the-mark doctrine make one strong, not a hand-wringing, affected, quivering voice mental case.

They're spots at your feast. Literally, like gay men with lesions all over their bodies, lecturing to you all what truth is and telling you to be this and that (which always comes down to "Be just like me, a lesion-besmattered sodomite").

Who are these weenies worthy knights, where did they come from?

centuriOn, ostensibly a male, wrote:

"ct is banned from my blog because he/she (we don't really know which) is a complete troll who cannot interact with anyone at any level without insults. That ct offends Armstrong is no surprise because ct offends everyone."

"In the end, you're [he's speaking to Dave Armstrong] no better than ct because you cannot handle criticism without calling your adversary names."

This pudge-muffin has despised me with a womanly vengeance since I appeared in this mainstream Christian environment. Harumph. Well...so be it.

Anyway, since he called me a troll, and then he said Armstrong is no better than me, didn't he call Armstrong a troll?

And I speak to Armstrong the way I do because I'm a vicious, Foxe's Book of Martyrs-fueled, Holy Spirit-enabled defender of the Faith and on-the-mark doctrine anti-Papist. I don't mince words.

mince: To moderate or restrain (words) for the sake of politeness and decorum; euphemize: "Don't mince words: say what you mean." [or] To speak in an affected way.

Affected. That would be you, sitting there with that white doughnut powder spread across your chin, comic book in hand, getting ready to affect your voice again for another post on your blog, or respond somewhere in the Christian blogosphere. "Thus shall it ever be far from me to broadcast mine own brilliance [no, yes, brilliance] Thus shall it ever be far from me to broadcast mine own brilliance, yet I fear it must be done lest it never get done. I don't see a line of hardy souls waiting to broadcast my brilliance, as hard and long as I look out upon the horizon. For any worthy fools who hath read thus far allow me to set up the scene:

| >There once was a fat guy from somewhere
| >Who couldn't fathom conciliarist theories
|>His Calvin was lame
| >

Ah, poor audience...why finish? My opponent has embarassed himself enough to this point... What was I talking about? Does it matter? If you're reading you've already fathomed you have stumbled into a rather low-rent intellectual realm of time-suckness... Ballyhoo, anyway... ['suckness' is a bad word. Make this a draft and edit later....is 'low-rent' a racist word? do research]"

Why heaven isn't boring

Here's the reason heaven is not boring: because it's a Kingdom with hierarchical levels. The Kingdom of God. Kingdoms are good when God Himself is the King. In our fallen world democratic institutions work best to check the nature of fallen man. A kingdom, of course, in a fallen world is not necessarily the best form of government. But when God is King a kingdom is the best form of government. And in the kingdom that is the Kingdom of God (heaven) there is real liberty to develop and move up levels of the natural hierarchy that constitutes the structure of the kingdom. This eliminates boredom because having a real goal and being engaged in attaining that goal is a cure for boredom.

Another factor at play is the fact that in a glorified body one is able to be externally what one is and becomes internally.

Another factor at play is: because there is real liberty in the Kingdom of God it means that the citizens of that Kingdom - the citizens of the New Jerusalem - have real self-command. This is the result of sanctification and glorification. So this means: in the Kingdom of God (heaven) there are less laws to constrict one. (Because there is a higher degree of real self-command in individuals so that they don't need alot of external laws to control them.) This just means that in heaven there is a degree of real liberty unknown to fallen man in the fallen world.

Another factor at play is: along with the fact of less laws (which includes physical laws of nature even) there is more delight and joy due to higher levels of emotional energy. Fallen man transmutes higher degrees of emotional energy into explosive negativity and anger and depression. If he gets any in his system. With real self-command and inner development (santification/glorification) man is able to contain higher levels and degrees of energy (more refined energy) and even live in environments with higher, more refined levels of energy, which translates into what is evoked by the word delight, or joy.

The main thing is knowing that in the Kingdom of God there will always be a level above you that you will be able to set a goal to attain to. This cures ennui and depression and boredom. It also means that one can simply live happily on the level they are currently at until they feel the necessity, within them, to move up. And in the Kingdom of God this vertical movement is possible, and the new level will be truly new for that individual; i.e. the effort to move up is truly worth the making.

In the fallen world free market economy mirrors God's liberty best because it also allows for the most liberty and vertical movement if one makes the effort. (Adam Smith even stated in his Wealth of Nations that he was merely delineating the laws of God's liberty in the realm of economic activity.) Of course free market economy in the fallen world mirrors God's liberty poorly, but better than any other system of economy. Better than centralized command economies or tradition economies, where individuals are either glorified (or not so glorified) slaves or stuck in a family situation with little opportunity for anything else. Modern day children of Belial will say that free markets create a slave like environment, but in a fallen world where perfection is not attainable this is a cry of either the devil or the severely ignorant and immature.

That aside on free market economy aside... The main point of this post is: in heaven there are less laws, and more real liberty, because there is self-command; there are higher levels of energy which translate into delight and joy; and there is a natural hierarchy where everybody is at their natural level, yet can move up; and having that very goal available to always be able to move up a level is a cure for any kind of boredom or depression that is sometimes associated with heaven when fallen man speculates about heaven. And keep in mind: attaining a new level in the Kingdom of God means attaining something that is truly new. Not something you can know about prior to getting there...

Not that everything has to be geared towards 'moving up'. Only if you're bored with where you're at... Moving up might involve some initiation or baptism of fire type pain too... Real development has to be real development...

[One note: man's internal being has to be a kingdom as well. Man as microcosm ideally is a kingdom; but you can't exercise real command of your inner domain until you accept the real command of the King (Jesus) above you. When you develop - in the process of sanctification - you become internally a kingdom. This is hard to describe without using extra-biblical language, but the 'you' that is king becomes a more stable, real presence within you. Not just one of a thousand shifting, unstable "I's" which take central stage within you willy-nilly beyond your control, and unknown to each other. Anyway, it's instructive to know that to truly move up in a real way within the hierarchy of God's Kingdom you have to mirror, within your own internal being, the level you are going to.]

Penguin on faith

Penguin Classics has a new series of little paperbacks called Penguin Great Ideas where they're presenting substantial extracts of 12 major works and packaging them (I think) attractively. In one they have Gibbon's chapters from his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on Christianity. They've titled it The Christians and the Fall of Rome. What caught my attention was the copy on the back cover:

Gibbon's subversive and iconoclastic description of the rise of Christianity inspired outrage upon publication and remains one of the most eloquent and damning indictments of the delusory nature of faith.

No bias from the British publisher there, eh?

It goes without saying that reading Gibbon's monumental history is not one of the more empty things one can do in one's life. Even his take on religion is instructive, though perhaps in ways he didn't intend always, and in ways even the reader may not realize (especially pre-regeneration). I'm always brutally honest regarding what I've actually read, and I've only read complete the first 12 chapters of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (the first 12 chapters are often stated to contain a basic microcosm of what Gibbon has to offer, in a, again, basic way) and have only read the famous Christian chapters in extract via abridged editions. I know somebody who has mentioned that Gibbon changed his take on Christianity as he continued on in the writing, but I can't confirm. It doesn't matter. One doesn't read Gibbon for his understanding of the Faith. One reads Gibbon for his understanding of the nature of worldly power and the nature of human nature...

The two great commandments

The two great commandments: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

One involves your relationship with what is above you (vertical); the other involves your relationship with other human beings created by God in His image just as you are (horizontal).

The first commandment involves presence and being awake to what is higher than you (recognizing and accepting chain-of-command and your place in that chain); the second commandment involves loving your enemy.

As Jesus says, afterall, if all you did was love those who it is easy to love then where is the effort in that?

Liberals get this commandment all twisted up (either because they're confused, or because they have motivation to intentionally twist it).

It's in your self-interest to love your enemy. Ironically, the very act of loving your enemy keeps you separate from the world. Sanctification is being separated out, afterall. When you're able to love your enemy (anyone, in the moment, in an event, in real time, or in imagination, or from memory, that you would normally feel and act out resentment and anger or depression in some way, to some degree, towards) you're able to be contained and separate from the influences of the world. This combined with actively being in the presence of God and recognizing God and loving God -- builds you up by degree into the full image of God. It is a process of provoking limits and extending limits.

When you are able to be more present and awake in the presence of God you get filled with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God wars with your carnal self. This is the battlefield. This is provoking your limits. This energy - friction - created inevitably gets expended, via resentment, on other human beings. Which is why you have to practice the second commandment to love your neighbor (or more, practically put, and as Jesus put it elsewhere, love your enemy).

It's all a process of developing in the image of God. It's all activity and effort that is in your self-interest. 'Love' in this sense is not even the mushy, emotional love associated with the word. It involves everything summed up in the practice of putting yourself in another person's shoes and also seeing in yourself what you dislike in others. Forgiving others' debt - or perceived debt - to you so God will forgive yours. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

There's a two-part process in the above that feeds on each other, and when done as a part of your actual will (when acting from God's will becomes your actual will) it develops you - increases your level of being (i.e. increases your capacity to contain understanding and increases your ability to glorify God) by degree, which defines recovering by degree the full image of God (which is complete at glorification, but needs to and can occur by degree right here and now -- and should occur right here and now. The parable of the talents alone gives motivation and biblical warrant for this).

Reading Psalms...

Since I've hit my first interval of friction (in this case just not reading at the pace I need to to finish at my goal) this post will chronicle the reading of single books; for now the Book of Psalms (i.e. there's incentive created when I have a post up to record progress).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Done.

The dictionary won't tell you this

The antonym of vanity is: faith.

The antonym of worldly pride is: repentance.

The antonym of self-will is: God's will.

Excellent blog covering children of Belial

Here.

Gurnall's book is a rare influence describing the bracing ethic of the elect of God

"The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell; the violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force: cowards never won heaven. Say not that thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy despite men and devils."

- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour

Lesson for the Boar's Head Tavern, No. 867

Quote Advertised at the Boar's Head Tavern:

I would counsel young people to avoid liberalism, but not to ally themselves carelessly with self-professed conservatives. It is not a mark of wisdom to abandon Karl Marx only to take up with Ayn Rand. Rather, study the scriptures, work on becoming Christians, and see where that takes you. I can predict with some confidence this will make full cooperation with any party impossible, but this does not mean you will not be able to rank, and support, secular parties (and they are all secular) according to what might be called their degrees of perfection--some, perhaps, quite fully, others hardly at all. -S.M. Hutchens

No, here's how it works: you read the Bible, you experience regeneration, you have the Spirit of Truth in you, you know a false idol when you see one, you recognize the influence of the kingdom of darkness when and where and how it manifests, subtly or not-so-subtly. You read everything, you learn, you get up to speed, you see in history how the devil has worked and what he's accomplished, you discern where the forces of life, light, and freedom have managed to fight death, darkness, and tyranny; you see the battleground, the successes, the losses, the effort and degree in both; you see great manifestations of God's glory working in His people, you see it inevitably weaken and dissolve away in time. You see strongholds, you see the taking down of strongholds. You begin to discern and hold to basic truths that ride above the fray and noise in time. Basic truths such as what are written in the U.S. Constitution; basic truths such as free markets and strong defense and classical education; basic truths such as the Ten Commandments. If you're relying on your vain little mind to see these things you end up being a wobbly little fifty-percent dupe for the darkness, never fully seeing the scam, always manifesting Stockholm Syndrome to one degree or another towards your prison wardens and guards ("I was just listening to Hilary Clinton, and she's not so bad! I mean, maybe I'm having a giddy, love-the-world moment here, but I could vote for her!"). You need the Spirit of Truth in you. You need a real navigator to guide you and give you real discernment and understanding as you sail over waters with as many hazards as this world presents. You need regeneration. Read the Word of God complete. It exists to impress into you what is false and what is true. It exists to give you discernment of which way is up. It is the Rock foundation upon which real discernment and understanding reside. You can't regenerate yourself, but you can move close to God (James chapter 4).

Developing a new bottle to hold new wine

One way you increase your capacity for new understanding is to engage influences that (a) are above your current level of understanding; and (b) are outside the boundary of your current interests.

What are these influences in question? Higher influences. Not worldly influences. World level influences require no effort to be engaged. They just come at you. Everything regarding money, sex, survival, food, shallow entertainment, diversion, gossip, mother-in-law. These are not influences you have to make an effort to move towards to engage.

Higher influences are:

History
Imaginative Literature
Philosophy
Art
Music
Science
Religion

Anything else that is a higher influence falls into one of the above categories in some general way.

Influences also reside in a hierarchy. People not awake to influences take everything at the same level. A genre novel, the Iliad, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, a Beatle's album...they are all taken at the same level. Everything is filtered by vanity and pride and reduced to the same level. Why? Because when you are in the control of your vanity and pride you don't recognize even the existence of hierarchy. Recognition of hierarchy is the death of vanity and worldly pride. Vanity and worldly pride recognize no level higher than themselves. Iliad, whatever. Bible, whatever. God, whatever.

Once, though, you get out from under the control of your vanity and worldly pride (and self-will) and you begin to pursue Wisdom herself you then not only begin to recognize the very existence of hierarchy regarding influences, but you begin to see it.

Higher influences can be identified by two distinguishing traits: the higher the influence the rarer it is (there are many western genre novels, there is one Iliad); and, the higher the influence the more effort and directed attention is required to engage the influence (pop music is easy to listen to and hear; great works of classical music require effort and directed attention, if you are really hearing them and not zoning out as they play in the background).

If you demand of every novel you read that the story 'move' or you set it down, you're not going to provoke and extend your limits and increase your capacity for new understanding.

There is a parallel area of development that increases capacity for new understanding which involves activities. Doing activities that are new for you and/or outside your interests. Activities associated with intellectual, creative, and physical aspects of being. Learning a musical instrument, for instance. Learning - doing - mathematics. Engaging in some athletic or performing arts activity that you've never engaged in.

To truly become a 'new bottle' that can hold new wine you have to develop yourself in a balanced way. Some people are more intellectually-oriented; some more emotionally/creatively-oriented; some more physically oriented. The intellectually-oriented person may never consider doing anything of a physical nature, or creative nature. The creative person who doesn't think of himself as 'bookish' may never develop himself along those lines; the physically-oriented person avoids anything intellectual or creative. Each individual has a center-of-gravity, or type, in one of the three. To develop you have to make the effort to develop in areas you are currently undeveloped in. Then the 'new wine' will have a container that can hold it. I.e. your capacity for holding new understanding will have increased.

Provoke your limits, extend your limits. Discern hierarchy in influences. Engage influences that are above your current level of understanding and outside your current interests.

(I havn't mentioned it, but this big subject is also an aspect of fearing God and not fearing man. The fear of man and what man desires of you and thinks of you keeps people from engaging influences and activities that are outside and beyond their natural type and societal 'place'.)

Matthew 9:17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

To develop new understanding you have to develop (increase) capacity for new understanding.

Scrape that plate

Luther and Calvin left slimy, deadly portions of the fat and darkness of the Roman beast on their plate: sacramentalism, clericalism, disdain for the effectual work of the Word and the Spirit in regeneration. (Granted in Calvin's case it is alot of man-fearing clerics that have defined Calvin more in the direction of the Roman beast than Calvin ever was, yet in Calvin's 4th book of his Institutes he didn't escape enough the darkness of the Roman beast domain.) On-the-mark Biblical doctrine is five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption doctrine; tempered by two-commands (Jesus' two great commandments) practical level doing (real effort); on a foundation of engaging and absorbing and getting written on your heart, via complete readings, the Word of God (when your tongue is a pure fountain you'll know...not a politically-correct or man-fearing, man-pleasing fountain, but a pure fountain); accompanied by practical level prayer and fasting (be awake and love thy enemy).

Be serious, pilgrims...

This tidbit was written on the Boar's Head Tavern:

Michael's biggest failing in the Reformed Blogosphere is his consistent inability to attract and hold onto sycophants. The TR crowd needs them to survive, much more so than even the TBN crowd. Perhaps we should end each post with "iMonk rules!", even if we are disagreeing with him. Then at least we will be able to pass for a Reformed blog.

Sycophant: A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.

Let's grant that this exists in the 'Reformed blogosphere'; but let's also grant that this exists in any and every environment where human nature is in play. Let's not grant that this defines the Reformed blogosphere exclusively, though, or even to some kind of signature degree. (About TBN I can't say, not being in their target audience.)

Reformed Theology is pure, apostolic biblical doctrine. When you can see it and understand it and value it you tend to also value individuals who are able to be rock solid on-the-mark with it themselves. Wobblies are everywhere, either in full-blown manifestation or in potential. At any given time a new wobbly will make himself/herself known. Individuals who have a strong track record of not being wobbly tend to attract an audience. Not sycophants, just an audience.

The iMonk suffers from wobblism (though I'll grant him his claim that he'd never known the truth - never was a Calvinist - to begin with).

When you just alone mock Reformed Theology, or individuals who hold to Reformed Theology, by calling them 'TR' (Truly Reformed) it kind of undermines any other reason you might give for that person not being taken seriously among Reformed people. It's like you're saying: "The iMonk couldn't be popular in the Reformed blogosphere because they hold his mocking of them and of Reformed Theology against him."

Did I mention that Reformed Theology is pure, apostolic biblical doctrine? For serious Christians in the 'Reformed blogosphere' that kind of is the most important thing. That transcends everything, and is the foundation of everything. If you want on-the-mark doctrinal teaching from theologians you turn to, ultimately, Reformed theologians. Whether John Calvin, or John Owen, or Jonathan Edwards, or any number of living sinners who have and can use the discernment of the Spirit of Truth within them.

Camille Paglia: Further Proof Roman Catholics Don't Read Their Bibles

Camille Paglia in a predictably thin and inane commentary for the foreign press, a commentary on hurricane Katrina (I mean, latest vehicle to carry the necessary Bush-bashing and obituaries of America), writes this:

Despite the enduring and perceptibly increasing influence of Christian fundamentalism here [the U.S. of A.], the political will is constantly being tested and refined against the pagan chaos of brute nature.

Quick, somebody tell the Living God of all Creation, the Triune God, God Most High JEHOVAH - sovereign in creation, providence, and grace - that pagan forces have taken over His creation and are running it. Running it to thwart the Bush administration.

Camille Paglia burst onto the cultural scene (I don't know how else to put that) with her often interesting work Sexual Personae (often interesting, but shallow, yet she had enough non-taint of academic political-correctness and non-taint of French philosophy that she stood out in her subject matter in a poisoned landscape). She's been as hip and insightful as toxic green polyester bellbottoms (and as brash and bold) ever since. (What I mean by that is she is alot of worthless noise.)

Notice the Drudge reference in her commentary. This gets her the Drudge link. She knows her Drudge.

Notice how easily she modulates to Brad Pitt from death and destruction.

On a general note: aside from their desire to carp maliciously and instantly about anything that will glut their desire to throw feces at George W. Bush and America, we have to now consider the real possibility that the left is missing the part of the brain that registers scope and scale in space and time. Or maybe it's just another aspect of the left's 'magical thinking' when they suggest a hurricane/flood/thug-uprising can be taken care of by the snap of some Republican's finger and the fact that it isn't means the Republican in question disdained to exercise the necessary effort to snap his finger. (Actually it's just their 'zero defect standard' they apply only to those who are not socialists, communists, Democrats, third world dictators, historic mass-murderers, drug addicts, or indigenous peoples of the Earth.)

God knows what is in your heart. All will get their reward.