Month: October 2010

Reformation Day: What the Word can do

Today is Reformation Day and a reminder that God grants reformation and revival not primarily through new church programs or slick technologies, but through the simple act of opening the Bible:

“I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenburg beer with my friends, Philip and with Armsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy, that no prince or emperor ever inflicted some damage upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.” (Martin Luther, The Eight Wittenburg Sermons, 1522)

For more information about Luther and his act that sparked the Protestant Reformation, Justin Taylor has posted some good resources.

Without grace-driven effort

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

D.A. Carson, For the Love of God, volume 2, Jan. 23

10 Myths About the Middle Ages

Listverse shows how the following  misconceptions about the Middle Ages (the period between the 5th century and the 16th century) are false:

1. People of the Middle Ages were crude and ignorant.
2. People in the Middle Ages believed the earth was flat.
3. Women were oppressed in the Middle Ages.
4. The Middle Ages were a time of great violence.
5. Peasants lived a life of drudgery and back-breaking work.
6. People didn’t bathe in the Middle Ages, therefore they smelled bad.
7. Peasants had thatched roofs with animals living in them.
8. The poor were kept in a state of near starvation.
9. Bibles were locked away to keep the people from seeing the “true word”.
10. The death penalty was common in the Middle Ages.

Read the whole thing.

http://listverse.com/2009/01/07/top-10-myths-about-the-middle-ages/

Why truth should matter to us

Os Guinness, at the Third Lausanne Congress on Global Evangelization, offers six reasons why Christians should care about truth:

1. Only a high view of truth honors the God of Truth.
Truth is primarily a matter of theology. What faith believes corresponds to reality. Those who weaken their hold on truth, weaken their hold on God.

2. Only a high view of truth reflects how we come to know and trust God.
Faith is not a a psychological projection, an emotional crutch, or a matter of wish-fulfillment. Our faith is a warranted faith. We are those who think in believing, and who believe in thinking.

3. Only a high view of truth empowers our best human enterprises.

4. Only a high view of truth can undergird our proclamation and defense of the faith.
To abandon truth is to abandon faithfulness, and therefore to commit theological adultery and inevitable spiritual suicide.

5. Only a high view of truth is sufficient for resisting evil and hypocrisy.
Only with truth can we stand up to deception and manipulation. Truth is the absolute necessity for all who hate hypocrisy, all who care for justice, all who defend human dignity, and all who fight against evil.

6. Only a high view of truth will help our growth and transformation in Christ.
Our task is not just to believe the truth, or even to know and defend the truth. Our calling is to so to live in truth that we are shaped by truth in our innermost beings, until by the grace of God, we become people of truth.

Tomorrow Will Do

The story is told of three apprentice devils being trained by Satan. ‘What are you going to try today?’ asks the leader.

The first apprentice replies, ‘I’m going to tell them there is no God.’

‘Well,’ says Satan, ‘you can try. A few fools will believe you. But the universe shouts the existence of God. There is evidence all around and you’ll not do very well. Indeed, even in the secular twenty-first century you may find your self witnessing the slow death of atheism. Any other ideas?’

The second apprentice tries this: ‘I’m going to tell them there’s no judgment.’

‘That’s a better idea,’ says Satan. ‘You will persuade more people of that, especially some of the clergy. But human beings have a gut sense of accountability, that actions have consequences. They know what it is to feel guilty even when there therapists tell them not to. So I think you’ll find it an uphill struggle. Anyone else have an idea?’

The third apprentice pipes up, ‘I’m going to tell them there’s no hurry.’

‘Brilliant,’ says Satan. ‘That is just what you want to say. You will have great success. Let them listen to the word of God and whisper in their ears, “This is good stuff. One day you ought to do something about this. But tomorrow will do.”’

Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p 65.

HT: Charles Sebold (via Patrick Chan)