When the Pope arrived in Scotland a couple of days ago, on the first leg of his state visit to the UK, a welcome speech touched on the Reformation and mentioned the persecution of Catholics by Protestants. It did not, however, refer to the treatment of Reformers by Catholics.
In a recent article in The Living Church, John Martin notes that in London stand two churches within a mile of one another, each commemorating religious martyrs:-
…A plaque in St.
The Christian view of man (i.e. of human beings) may be summed up in the following way:-
1. Human beings have worth. The biblical record explicitly and implicitly affirms the value and worth of humanity. This positive statement is grounded in God’s creative activity, the ultimate plan of redemption that has been revealed in Jesus Christ, and the ongoing care that God provides for all creation. The worth of humanity is not based on anything inherent in people but is the result of God choosing to grant worth and dignity to people.…
Christians, as J.I. Packer reminds us, believe in divine guidance. We believe that God has a plan for us, and we believe that God is able to communicate that plan to us.
We fall into error, however, when we think of guidance as inward prompting of the Holy Spirit apart from God’s written Word.
It is a mistake to narrow the focus of guidance exclusively to vocational guidance (Whom should I marry? Which church should I join?…
B.B. Warfield, while recognising the obvious fact that the term ‘Trinity’ is not a biblical term, nevertheless maintains that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a biblical doctrine.
The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view.
The doctrine of the Trinity, insists Warfield, not only is a biblical doctrine; it must be a biblical doctrine, because it is not discoverable by natural reason. …
“O God (if there is a God), save my soul (if I have a soul).”
Such, allegedly, was the tentative prayer of a soldier whose life was in mortal danger on the battlefield.
But what is the ‘soul’? Does it have a separate existence apart from the body?
It needs to be recognised immediately, I think, that the biblical terminology is fluid, rather than fixed. I don’t think, for example, that anything can be proven from any single use of the word psychḗ in the New Testament. …
It was no accident that J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) gave the first chapter of his celebrated book on Holiness the simple title, ‘Sin’. ‘I make no apology,’ he writes, ‘for beginning this volume of papers about holiness by making some plain statements about sin.’
Here are some of the rather striking things he has to say on this subject:-
‘Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies and false doctrines of the present day.…
It is clear to any reader of the works of John Calvin that he had a very high view of the truthfulness of Scripture. There are a handful of passages, however, where some have detected hints that the great Reformer thought that the Bible might err in matters of detail. These are categorised by J.I. Packer as follows:-
Laughter has not always been prized as a wholly positive phenomenon. In the 18th century Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son: ‘there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.’ John Ray called laughter ‘the hiccup of a fool’, and Oliver Goldsmith thought that it spoke of ‘the vacant mind’. As recently as 1964 a specialist psychology dictionary characterised laughter as an ‘emotional response, expressive normally of joy, in the child and the unsophisticated adult.’ …
This book, by Adam McHugh, has recently been reviewed by Michael Pahl. According to Michael, the book gives voice to thoughts and feelings that many of us have had throughout our lives (for up to 50% of the population would come out as ‘INTs’ on the Myers-Briggs personality assessment).
‘Introversion’ is not a name for a syndrome, a set of preferences, or a character defect. It is, rather, a name for a tendency of personality. It is not about not wanting relationships, or being interested in people, or about not being able to speak up in public (many gifted teachers and public speakers are introverts).…
I wonder how many meals you have eaten in your life? Assuming a rate of 3 meals a day, then by the age of 16 you will already have eaten over 17,000 meals, and by the age of 60 over 65,000.
I wonder how many of these meals you can remember? Some are more memorable than others – a wedding reception, a birthday party, a family picnic, your first communion.
We come this morning to the last in a short series from Luke’s Gospel exploring notable meals that Jesus attended.…
