BLESSED UNION

The first time I saw my future husband, he occupied the pulpit of New Park Street Chapel...if the whole truth be told, I was not at all fascinated by the young orator's eloquence, while his countrified manner and speech excited more regret than reverence. Alas, for my vain and foolish heart! I was not spiritually-minded enough to understand his earnest presentation of the gospel, and his powerful pleading with sinners, but the huge black satin stock, the long, badly-trimmed hair, and the blue pocket-handkerchief with white spots which he himself has so graphically described--these attracted most of my attention, and, I fear, awakened some feelings of amusement. There was only one sentence of the whole sermon which I carried away with me, and that solely on account of its quaintness, for it seemed to me an extraordinary thing for the preacher to speak of the "living stones in the Heavenly Temple perfectly joined together with the vermilion cement of Christ's blood." (p. 280-281)

I think of that old garden as a sacred place, a paradise of happiness, since there my beloved sought me for his very own, and told me how much he loved me. Though I thought I knew this already, it was a very different matter to hear him say it, and I trembled and was silent for very joy and gladness...thank God, throughout all my blessed married life, the perfect love which drew us together never slackened or faltered, and , though I can now see how undeserving I was to be the life companion of so eminent a servant of God, I know he did not think this, but looked upon his wife as God's best earthly gift to him.
In the diary I then kept, I find this brief but joyful entry: "August 2, 1854.--it is impossible to write down all that occurred this morning. I can only adore in silence the mercy of my God, and praise Him for His benefits." (p. 284)

// posted by Christel Humfrey @ 25.8.06

• Strange Baptist Fire
  

• Ligon Duncan
  

• Theopedia
  

• Cyrene Ministries
  

• Reformation Theology
  

• Irish Calvinist

• Jenson's Blog

// posted by Unknown @ 25.8.06

I wonder when my congregation will say, "Enough is enough. Why do we continue to be part of a denomination that consistently does things that are so obviously divisive and unwise, if not offensive to us? When does the cost of being part of the PCUSA overwhelm the dwindling benefits?" As a pastor, I wonder how much longer I want to keep putting out denominationally-set fires in an effort to protect my church from burning down.

Which takes me to my point – mainline denominations like the PCC are dead and this is why: God is not there. End of story.
God will not come down to a place where His supremacy is denied, His Word is mishandled, His Name is mocked, His presence is not sought, His holiness is forgotten, His Son is ignored, His created gender distinctions are not honoured, His Gospel is not preached, and His reality is considered trivial. That is what you get in mainline churches and that is why they are dead.

// posted by Unknown @ 24.8.06

In that same year, 1925, a great spiritual calamity occurred in the church history of Canada. It was in that year that the union of the Methodist, Congregational and Presbyterian churches was consummated. By this union a large proportion of the Presbyterian Church in Canada abandoned the historic Presbyterian witness and entered into a communion that had as its basis a confession acceptable to the overwhelming majority of Methodists and Congregationalists in that Dominion.

// posted by Unknown @ 23.8.06

Hard soil sprouts no fruit. In the farmer’s world, this truth spurs him to till his acres and break up the fallow ground. Likewise for the Christian, he must cultivate the rocky terrain of his heart, turning over the crust of decay and plowing up the nutrients of older, deeper times. In the shifting seasons of history, Christianity has been in a cycle of birth, growth, decay, and rebirth. As with all of God’s creation, there have been times to plant new seed amid the compost of rotting residue. Such a time came at the mid-point of the 20th century when a new planting occurred through a renewed interest in the Reformers, Puritans and the preachers of revival. This movement served to bring life to a parched Christian landscape, and has been characterized as a type of pietistic Calvinism, nicknamed, “Neo-Puritanism”.

// posted by Unknown @ 21.8.06

• presence/ absence
• incarnation/ resurrection/glorification
• seen/unseen
• temple-holy of holies/ temple of Holy Spirit-church in the world

// posted by Unknown @ 20.8.06

Jesus Christ says that no man comes to Him unless His Father draws him (John 6:44). The apostle Paul says also, " All have not faith" (2 Thessalonians 3:2) and "faith is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). From this I understand that it is not a man's power to believe, to love, and to confide. Nor is it in the power of man to know God or to know himself. All of this is only brought about by the distinct favor of God. For it is beyond a man's power to make himself inwardly pious, just, and holy, since it is only God that is able to effect all of this.

// posted by Unknown @ 19.8.06

...contemporary women should be encouraged by the women in the Scriptures
who have contributed to the spread of God’s kingdom message. God does not use men
alone to accomplish His purposes. Both sexes are created in God’s image, and both men
and women have been used mightily by God. No woman who has a desire to please God
should feel that there is no place for her ministry in the church.

// posted by Unknown @ 15.8.06

• Ian: Dr. Geoff Adams
  
• Paul: Dr. Geoff Adams Has Gone to Glory
  
• Christian: Gone Home
  

// posted by Unknown @ 11.8.06

One Sunday evening in the spring of his seventh year as king, as his musicians were gathering for the evening concert, a courtier brought Frederick his usual list of arrivals at the town gate. As he looked down the list of names, he gave a start.
"Gentlemen, " he said, '"old Bach is here." Those who heard him said there was " a kind of agitation" in his voice. (p.5)...

Nowhere were they more different, though, than in their attitudes toward music. Bach represents the "learned counterpoint" of canon and fugue, a centuries-old craft that by now had developed such esoteric theories and procedures that some of its practitioners saw themselves as the custodians of a quasi-divine art, even as weavers of the cosmic tapestry itself. Frederick and his generation were having none of that. They denigrated counterpoint as the vestige of an outworn aesthetic, extolling instead the "natural and delightful" in music, by which they meant the easier pleasure of song, the harmonic ornamentation of a single line of melody. For Bach this new, so-called galant style, with all its lovely figures and stylish grace, was full of emptiness. Bach's cosmos was one in which the planets themselves played the ultimate harmony, a tenet that had been unquestioned since the "sacred science" of Pythagoras; composing and performing music was for him and his musical ancestors a deeply spiritual enterprise whose sole purpose, as his works were inscribed, was "“for the glory of God."” For Frederick the goal of music was simply to be "agreeable,"” and entertainment and a diversion, easy work for performer and audience alike. He despised music that, as he put it, "smells of the church" and called Bach's chorales specifically "dumb stuff." Cosmic notions like the "music of the spheres" were for him so much dark-age mumbo jumbo. (p.7-8)

// posted by Christel Humfrey @ 4.8.06

Unfortunately however, we don't have sufficient funds to warrant going this fall. This has been quite disappointing for me.

However we are trying to look for God's intentions for us if we stay in Alberta for a year--working and raising support.

In all of this the challenge for me is to hold even my good ambitions with a loose hand, and to trust God for provision and procedures.

We covet your prayers as we look forward to God's unfolding intent.

// posted by Unknown @ 3.8.06

Learning to read literature will be an invaluable tool for reading the Bible. Learning to read well--that is, learning to listen to a text and notice the way in which its form contributes to its meaning---is necessary to good Bible reading. Reading is more than learning the alphabet and vocabulary. Good reading is understanding what an author is expressing. Christians must be good readers if they really want to understand the Bible.

// posted by Unknown @ 1.8.06