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
Hmm. I'll leave this as an inside remark, but... hmm...
The Village of Morality Christians fear man so much they can't even talk. I won't call you a fake Christian, that's between you and God, but when your Christianity makes you so fearful you can't even engage in the slightest degree of an exchange with somebody you consider to be outside your smug and correct environment you are not on the Way...
What you fear is the Way itself. And Christians who fear only God...
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.
15 Comments:
Your fellow smug and correct-thinking bloggers are patting you on your back though (if they're not patting you on top of your head...)
Maybe my presence compromises your convivial status...
For the record, this is the comment that has just gotten me banned from yet another Village of Morality Christian blog:
Suzi hits the nail on the head, IMHV.
Some things need to be absorbed silently too.
On another subject: if I was C**** I'd ask Phil Johnson to kindly delete me out of that female ghetto link category he created. That is more than a little bit of a whipped boy move...
Your efforts on the internet and for biblical doctrine are hardly defined by 'convivial'...
Of course because I'm saying this you'll rally around ol' Phil, but after that initial reaction you should think about asking him to delete you out of that ridiculous category.
She was too fearful, too closeted in the zombiesque, man-fearing, moralising environment of the Village of Morality to just respond like a normal human being.
I could be wrong, but I don't recall her ever saying a damn word to me. Going back maybe even a couple of years now. And I was hardly breathing fire on her blog when I'd make comments there. She was solely going on the collective shunning rule of her 'people'.
It's actually disgusting when you think about it. Because these are people who self-identify as Christians...
Truth is, though, the moment they respond to me I go in for the kill. They know that. Some of them are more guarded, and C**** is one of those types. She doesn't want any shocks to her comfortable system. Certainly nothing that will tell you about anything called the Way...
Think about this: the very same Christians who engage in this collective shunning of me (in some cases based solely on following others and never having had a single conversation with me) are people who will gladly debate atheists and Christians with severely off-the-mark doctrinal beliefs, but a Christian who is on the Way? A Christian who isn't a resident in the Village of Morality or who isn't stuck in the Slough of Despond? These fools run scared. So be it. Real Christianity convicts them.
I point this out to show others where they currently stand. I can't get people to step out of the Village of Morality any more than I can convert anyone. Only God converts, and it requires an inward motivation to get oneself on the Way. Yet it is possible to convict people. And they are convicted. Shunning a person doesn't protect you. You know where you stand...
"But my children! my children! I have children and a life!"
Do your children save you? What are you saying? And do you have a 'life' if you refuse to get out of your smug, moralising state of being and get out on the Way? You have no life. You're dead in the world. What does Jesus say about family? Of course, you don't read the Bible. You can't read the Bible and justify being where you are. You can't 'see' it, if you should actually read it.
A thousand justifications to fear man rather than fear God.
"Christianity's about family!"
Is it, pilgrim? Think about that, pilgrim...
Lecture almost over, pilgrims...
"Why do you call us pilgrims?"
I'm making fun of you.
"Oh."
Yes. I want you to be angry at me. I want to leave you, also, with no line of retreat. You can avoid me, but you can't go anywhere, you can only wilt and cower. You're a stagnant pool of water anyway, so it's fitting.
"Why don't you just leave us alone?"
It's too fun not to.
"Is that a good reason to be doing what you're doing?"
There's some self-interest involved. It only gets empty if I do it too long...
You nail it in those last two paragraphs.
In a way I accept they don't want to screw around with me, but what convicts them is when they didn't know who I was or had ever read any blog of mine they gave me the same silent, shunning treatment. They know instinctively when someone isn't 'one of them'.
But what do they think being a Christian means? It means you're truly a stranger. So this very behaviour of shunning a person (and my point with them debating anybody - atheist, heterodox, whatever - is they admit I'm not that when they refuse to engage me on anything; they know they can't out-orthodox me, and they know they don't know the Bible more than me, and they don't want to get burned publically), so, again, this very behaviour of collectively shunning one person convicts them as being in that 'village' and not on the 'Way'. When you're on the Way you talk to anybody. You don't have that man-fearing controlling you (the group controlling you, the world controlling you).
And because you're a stranger yourself you don't treat others like they are nothing. (You don't do that just because it's kind of weird, but nevertheless because you yourself are a stranger in a strange land you don't have that smug, self-satisfied, 'linx-eyes' - as Nietzsche put it in another context - toward other people.)
But...you can't force people to not shun you. It IS a battle after all. I AM convicting and challenging them. (And the effect is made without them ever saying a word to me, anyway, when all is said and done, so...)
In this recent case I just found it more than usual interesting that this was a person who literally had never responded to anything I'd ever written at her site. And as I said I was not belligerent at her particular site. I often was just offering very tame sort of responses to some of her writing (which is often interesting writing). Notice she was sitting back doing the usual: looking for the least infraction to use as an excuse to ban me. That means if I don't write everything like their grandmother I get banned. Sweet people. Sweet Village of Morality Christians...
It IS possible to debate me, but they get exposed as being Village of Morality and they don't want to be put in that situation, so I say: who's got the problem? Wake up. And be honest.
One way you can debate me is suggest I tend to drive home the advantage like General Sherman's march to the sea...
They need it though.
It's a serious thing to separate from the world. It's demanding alot. But God is doing the demanding...
Really all I've ever talked about in my time in this 'realm' is serious - i.e. actual complete - reading of the Bible (mocked from the beginning), and the fact that sanctification calls for an active role (i.e. effort) -- mocked from the beginning...
So you can see that even the most basic level of active, practical faith is anathema to the mainstream. To 'churchianity'. They'd rather wake up every morning and start up once again with the same old worldly, vain nonsense...
Well...
If that's what they desire...
I've also hammered the theme of the difference between fearing man and fearing God only.
This too is mocked by the Village of Morality Christians. It convicts them to the core.
It's really the central thing. They're fear of man is what makes them mock the reading of the Word of God and to mock the mere notion of making efforts in the Faith...
Now watch. Watch how they'll defend themselves against all three things they've already exposed themselves on with their mocking. They'll adopt all three, changed to fit their man-fearing, Village of Morality standards. You might ask how they could change man-fearing itself into anything other than man-fearing? They've already done it: they've already made the fear of God to be the fear of man. It's the central tenet of their doctrine and approach to, and practical of, the Faith. They'll just give lip service to the 'fear of God' while all along maintaining their vain insistence and belief that it means 'fear of man'...
They need to be real careful at this point though. They've been convicted on these things. How they react now goes on their record...
And I can take my leave...
At least your latest posts on Dave Armstrong's blog should put to rest that we're the same person. I didn't even understanding half of that post about your priest being in a conclave...
If you go into Tradition vs. (whatever Tradition is vs.) it would add to it...
Now I feel like backing off and resetting on my dramatics vs. the Village of Morality folks. Afterall, it's not part of my aim to get anybody to 'do' anything. Or even see things my way. I've just been doing satire and challenging people on the few central things mentioned above... And meanwhile (though it seems long ago) forging a language of practical effort using biblical language solely...
Thaks for the compliments...
Of the making of books...
I think my efforts to develop into the image of God are a good goal for inspired type effort...
When you truly separate from the world nobody even wants to read books written by you...
(To be honest on that: I'm pretty sure I got as much a 'thrill of publication' the first thing I ever wrote that appeared on some site my first week on the internet as I would with getting a book published. I'm serious about that. Readership is more than likely better as well. You just don't get the item on your resume, which impresses the world...)
I'll stop whining. I will no longer be General Sherman pouting because nobody in Georgia wants to talk to me. (If they raise their head I pull out a pistol anyway...)
Successful warfare can warp you. I'd better be Odysseian in being alert and savvy regarding any potential backlash...
That Village of Morality is cockroach-like in it's ability to sustain itself... And it always has the numbers... Just stay on the Way, and I'll be alright...
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