15 Saturday Nov 2014
Posted in Christianity, Personal, Theology
Tags
emotions, experience, friendship, Gospel, homosexuality, loneliness, Romans, Scripture, sexual sin, sexuality, sin, temptation, witnessing
A couple of days ago, one of my classmates sent me a PM through Twitter, asking me my thoughts about Andrew Wilson’s recent piece for ThinkTheology. We PMed back and forth on the subject, but as I was at work (sorry, boss), I couldn’t think it through as it deserved. Now seemed like a good time.
23 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’–or else not. It is still ‘either-or’. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.
C. S. Lewis, in this quote from Virtue and Vice, makes a great point both in the indicative sense and in the imperative: “If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.” They must be disposed of.
But if we accept Heaven, we will dispose of them. God doesn’t leave us as dry branches and then take us to heaven that way. Instead, He unites us to Christ and gives us life in Jesus. (That’s regeneration, among other things.)
18 Tuesday Dec 2012
Dylan Thomas
This morning, as I study for my Hebrew exam, I was taking a short break and flipping through a book that a friend bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Dylan Thomas is one of his favorite poets and I think he’ll become one of mine before too much longer.
I must admit that poetry is a language which is, despite my being a composer, continually foreign to me. I’m much more at home in the language of the textbook or other prose; and yet, as a musician, poetry calls to me. This poem certainly did.
11 Friday May 2012
Posted in Book Discussion, Christianity, Theology
Tags
culture, deception, false teaching, leadership, Paul, psalms, repentance, Romans, sin, teaching, temptation, Thomas Brooks
To get this book from Amazon, click on the book cover.
Thomas Brooks’ book Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices talks about various ways the Christian is dissuaded from the life Christ wants him or her to live. One such idea is to present God as made up entirely of mercy, to the exclusion of other things which can be said about him.
One way the Christian can fight the urge of our time to view God this way is to consider that the people of God who have gone before didn’t consider God’s mercy as an excuse to sin. The psalmist wrote,
3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in your faithfulness.4 I do not sit with men of falsehood,
nor do I consort with hypocrites.
5 I hate the assembly of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.–Psalm 26:3-5, ESV
