THE FAITH PURE, BOLD, PRACTICAL
Fear God,
it is the
beginning
of wisdom.
When you
fear only God
you don't
fear man
(and man's
opinion
of you),
which enables
you
to pursue
wisdom.
What are the conditions of admission into Christ's Kingdom? Simply practical recognition of the authority of the sovereign.
- A. A. Hodge
Ask basic questions, and have the answers to them. This is understanding to be able to answer basic questions. Such as:
I can answer each one. More incisively than most. But I'll leave them open since everybody has to answer such basic questions on their own...
Five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption (Covenant Theology is not the servant of infant baptism), Traditional Text, King James Version only; doing the two great commandments of Christ at the practical level (i.e. actually doing them); and recovering by degree the full image of God. This is the foundation I stand on and build upon.
ESSENTIAL I ~ II ~ III ~ IV ~ V ~ VI ~ VII ~ VIII ~ IX ~ X ~ XI ~ XII ~ XIII ~ XIV ~ XV ~ XVI ~ XVII ~ XVIII ~ XIX ~ XX ~ XXI ~ XXII ~ XXIII ~ XXIV ~ XXV ~ XXVI ~ XXVII ~ XXVIII ~ XXIX ~ XXX ~ XXXI ~ XXXII ~ XXXIII ~ XXXIV ~ XXXV ~ XXXVI ~ XXXVII ~ XXXVIII ~ XXXIX ~ XL ~ XLI ~ XLII ~ XLIII ~ XLIV ~ XLV ~ XLVI ~ XLVII ~ XLVIII ~ XLIX ~ L ~ LI ~ LII ~ LIII ~ LIV ~ LV ~ LVI ~ LVII ~ LVIII ~ LIX ~ LX ~ LXI ~ LXII ~ LXIII ~ LXIV ~ LXV ~ LXVI ~ LXVII ~ LXVIII ~ LXIX ~ LXX ~ LXXI ~ LXXII
STICK DRAWINGS & DIAGRAMS 1 (Note on 1) ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5
--Fuse the Word of God into Memory, Will, and Understanding Prayer and Fasting -- (of --) Acute Warring of the Holy Spirit with the carnal spirit -- (storms struggled through; extending limits to glorify God by doing it when it's most difficult) |
(Short Essay On My Reading History)
The practical, experimental level of the faith (the Puritans called it experimental Calvinism) is for those ready to leave off laying the foundation over and over and begin building the house (see Calvin's commentary on Hebrews 6:1).
Psalms 27:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path...
"God examineth with trials, the devil examineth with temptations, the world examineth with persecutions."
- Henry Smith
"The word of God . . . is the light to our paths, the key of the kingdom of heaven, our comfort in affliction, our shield and sword against Satan, the school of all wisdom, the glass wherein we behold God's face, the testimony of his favour, and the only food and nourishment of our souls."
- Geneva translators, 10 April 1560
"When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth - when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us - when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts - when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for - then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men."
- John Owen
"Where the Puritans excelled was at bringing this high view of God
down to the level of ordinary life. One Puritan woman - the wife of a
soldier in Cromwell's army - defined Christianity as
'that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the
regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is designed up
into the Divine will and love, and all its actions designed to the
obedience and glory of its Maker.'
By defining the Christian faith in this way, she was making a
connection between the doctrines of grace and daily experience."
- the Doctrines of Grace,
Boice/Ryken
"Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will."
- B. B. Warfield (from his essay Calvin as a Theologian)
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, ritualism, formalism, or moralism. The devil's nightmare.
Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
Lives - Plutarch
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
"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
"As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce anything more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought... yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination."
- John Owen, A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit
The antithesis of vanity is: faith. The antithesis of worldly pride is: repentance. The antithesis of self-will is: descent-of-the-dove God's will.
21 Comments:
The first question: What is the gospel? is a popular one that gets thrown around (or thrown at people).
It seems to deny a short, comprehensive answer, yet that is what understanding calls for.
It's the last call.
The second question: What am I to believe in?
The authority and revelation of the Holy Scripture.
The third question: How am I saved?
Like a fish in a boat with a hook stuck in it.
The fourth question: Why are you a Christian?
Because I'm a son of God; it's the most natural thing in the world for me.
The fifth question: Why do I need to be saved?
I can't do it myself. Death, darkness, bondage to sin; corruption of my being; they overwhelm me; they overwhelm me so much they are me. Everything needs to be paid for, and I don't have the jack to buy my freedom. The richest man in the history of the world doesn't have the jack to buy his freedom. Why do I need to be saved? There are two kingdoms, and I'm in the one where Satan is king. (I'm a poisonous snake who can't get my poison out of me... I can, or may possibly, not strike, but I still have the poison in me. No poisonous snakes allowed in God's Kingdom. Only the brazen serpent held up high by Moses, Jesus Christ, can cleanse my soul of its inherent snake poison.
The sixth question: Why is Christianity the only way?
It's the only way atheists really have a problem with. Only Christianity truly assaults vanity, worldly pride, and self-will. All other religions and ways are no threat to vanity, worldly pride, and self-will...
Kind of like the King James Version vs. the corrupt versions issue: What is the real version of the Bible? The one you most don't want to read, pilgrim.
The seventh question: What makes you actually believe all this?
The deadness of false idols.
Jeff is make believe isn't he? No doubt named after one of your 49 smelly cats.
You are all alone here posting to yourself. What a sad loney life you have.
BTW what happened to the POST with the f-word? That was fun. Your madness & dispair sustains me.
This particular Anonymous is probably someone I wounded greatly God knows where in the blogosphere.
I don't mind his "You're alone! ha ha!!" theme.
If he writes it five hundred times (which he will now) it's alright with me.
The comments section of a blog can range from the type of thing anonymous writes to more interesting writing than the post that is being commented on. It can also serve to add things to the post itself (though this is not really the best way to add things to a post, since they get lost potentially in a long thread of comments).
I think bloggers get too worked up and controlling regarding what people write in their comments threads. Bloggers try to control that reponse content as much as they control their own writing in the posts themselves. They need to realize the comments are not the blog itself and lighten up. People can sort out the wheat from the chaff and see motives and all that...
Blogger now has a moderation function for comments. This will further deaden the blogosphere. Especially the Christian blogosphere where people need shocks to their system, and where battle and competition and heat in exchanges produces more light than in the political/social subjects usually...
Like what you do, Jeff, is a kind of shock. When a Protestant is used to hammering Roman Catholics and getting the same in return and then using ultimate belligerent and nasty language and all that it's a shock when a Roman Catholic does what you do (sort of like what that Ken Temple does on the Protestant side towards Roman Catholics, to use an example from Armstrong's blog).
It's a legitimate shock because it forces the Protestant to step back and, without compromising what you know to the be hardcore truth and reality of bibilcial doctrine vs. false teachings, etc., think about individual people within the Roman Catholic domain and so forth.
Then you can sort things out like: I react as hard as I do to RCs specifically when I'm in the presence of an RC apologist who to me is like a tempter. A tempter into the darkness. But Roman Catholics who aren't necessarily apologists aren't trying to tempt me, so it's a different dynamic and all that.
Then all the games that get played between Protestant and Roman Catholic apologists that are meta-doctrinal for the most part ("Didn't an active member of John McArthur's church convert to Roman Catholicism? Ha, ha!")
If you notice, prior to (and then usually as a parting shot) my getting all worked up and mean towards Catholics my main evangelical thing is to promote the reading of the Bible complete. To me, there is not much else one can do regarding evangelization. I mean in a serious way. Of course others can take other approaches, but someone needs to say: just read the Bible complete.
A person won't even be able to see the truth, or desire to find it, until they have the Spirit of Truth in them via the Word of God...
Totally unconnected to this thread: I can't help but notice that a day or two after I wrote a passing comment in which I referred to a play about Mozart as being 'overrated' the Pedantic Protestant has a lengthy post based on just that same play. Perhaps it's coincidence that Amadeus would get two references one after the other on two blogs that mostly discuss Christianity, but still I'd like to clear the record on my passing comment. I wrote:
"I did see the star of the first Star Wars in a play in San Francisco. He was playing Mozart in that overrated play."
In my defense I was too young to know if the play was overrated as a work of literature or not (or even follow it at that level), yet I WAS old enough to have a visceral negative reaction to the person that was cast in the Mozart role for the movie version of the play. (I'd played classical music - piano - from the age of five, so I had a sense of who Mozart was, etc.) So my calling the play 'overrated' really was more a comment on my memory of that actor who portrayed Mozart in the movie. In fact, I think that reaction actually came later in time, when I was more political and sensitive to Hollywood always taking its shots at western civilization, and making Mozart a juvenile, hysterical buffoon (kind of like Elton John in his best, self-absorbed, hysterically gay, incessant blabbering, pill-popping, "master is impossible today", emotional roller-coaster days) prejudiced me against the play itself.
Jeff isn't real. Please post more F-words. Your silly behavior sustains me.
Your cats smell as bad as you.
>I can answer each one. More incisively than most.
Caroline really needs to sell t-shirts with this kind of thing on it.
Michael is clearly real.
So is Max.
Jeff: I remember that article having seen it back when it came out. Victor Davis Hansen talks about the sheer jealosy and envy of muslims in Europe where they praise their homelands in the abstract and yet refuse to take the two-hour plane flight back there, and only want to burn to the ground Europe. They have all the traits of followers of the devil. Returning evil for good being the most foundational.
(I know there are muslims who aren't of the devil-follower type, but even they will jump on the jihad bandwagon if it starts to look safe enough... Their holy book tells them to do just that afterall...)
All: my answers to the seven questions above were intentionally not of a boilerplate nature. You need to know the boilerplate, though...
jealousy
Max:
I miss the old days. "Devil's jism" was a particular favorite.
CT has really sunk into civility. Disappointing.
MS
That was when I helped you identify that substance on your chin awhile back... I forget the context, for the record. I don't say once facialed, always facialed either, for the record...
Shouldn't Roman Catholics call the Rainbow Sash Brigade the Speaking Out of School brigade? I mean from your clerics point-of-view...
CT a few days ago wrote the F-word on her blog. So she has not sunk into civility we are merely inbetween psychotic rants.
Jeff is CT. No question. At best he is a hand puppet of CT's stained of course with Cat Urine.
Marvelous!
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