Scribblings Archives - Page 21 of 34

On May 29, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Seventh Year of Decline in the Southern Baptist Convention

AP reports:

The nation’s largest Protestant denomination saw membership decline for the seventh straight year in 2013, according to an annual report released Wednesday.

The report by the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, Lifeway Christian Resources, puts total membership in the Nashville-based SBC at 15.7 million. That’s down from 15.9 million in 2012, a decrease of a little less than 1 percent.

Weekly church attendance decreased more than 2 percent last year, falling to 5.8 million as a weekly average for the year.

The report also notes a 1.5 percent decrease in the number of baptisms, falling to 310,368. Baptisms are an important measure for the denomination because of its strong commitment to evangelism.

The convention has been concerned about the membership and baptism trends for several years. After 2012 saw a drop in baptisms of 5.5 percent, a task force was convened to study why. The group of pastors released their report earlier this month and recommendations included praying for a “spiritual awakening in our churches and our nation.”

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On May 29, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings 1

Throwback Thursday-St. Augustine on the Ascension

This week’s “throwback Thursday” post features once again St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354 – 430). Today also happens to be the day on the Western church calendar that commemorates the bodily ascension of the God-man–the risen Lord Jesus Christ–into heaven. The following is an excerpt of Augustine’s sermon on the Ascension of Christ.

“Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? and when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food. Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him?

While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.

He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are sons of God.

So the Apostle says: Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body. Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.”

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On May 28, 2014 By Kuyperian In Books, Scribblings 1

C. S. Lewis: Gender and Sex in Perelandra

by Marc Hays

C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy should be required reading, at least twice through, before graduating high school. While Lewis had many distinguishing characteristics that were and remain outstanding from his and our contemporaries, one that always brings me back to reading more and more of his work is simply his ability to think. That depth of thought allows him to see larger forests and additional trees that most folks miss; at least I know I often miss them. A festschrift for him could be entitled, Through New Eyes. I always see the world anew and afresh, larger and more glorious whenever I read Lewis. Here’s an example from near the end of Perelandra, the second book of the Space Trilogy:

Both the bodies were naked, and both were free from any sexual characteristics, either primary or secondary. That, one would have expected. But whence came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was impossible to ignore. One could try–Ransom has tried a hundred times–to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the other were open, with the palms towards him. But I don’t know that any of these attempts has helped me much. At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, party exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity. All this Ransom saw, as it were, with his own eyes. The two white creatures were sexless. But he of Malacandra was masculine (not male); she of Perelandra was feminine (not female).

If you’ve been reading Narnia since you were a kid, you’re doing well. If you continue reading Narnia without moving forward into the Space Trilogy, you could be doing better. Here are some links to get you started:

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On May 23, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Their Muslim Problem

“This young man asked about the Ph.D. program, and I told him we don’t normally admit non-born-again believers to the seminary, but there is no reason we can’t,” said Paige Patterson, Southwestern’s president.

At Southwestern, if you agree to follow the seminary’s lifestyle covenant, which covers personal behavior such as smoking, drinking and sexual relations, you can enter as a student, even if you are a Muslim. So, let me get this straight: You cannot violate the 7th commandment, but you can violate the 1st anytime. Mormons, JW’s, Buddhists: I give you an open invitations.

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On May 22, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

New Audio Recording of J.R.R. Tolkien Unearthed

That’s one way to get us Tolkien lovers out of our hobbit-holes–you tell the world there is a secret audio from the legend himself that will soon be made public.

Over 20 years ago, a lost recording of J.R.R. Tolkien was discovered in a basement in Rotterdam, but the man who found it kept this important reel-to-reel tape hidden away. Until recently, only he had heard the recording. But now, I am one of those lucky Middle-earth lovers who has listened to this magical magnetic tape, and I happily declare that it is awesome. For it proves once and for all that Professor Tolkien was, in fact, very much the hobbit that we all suspected him to be. What’s more, we get to hear Tolkien reading a lost poem in the Elven tongue which he translates into English. And to top it off, he states in unambiguous terms (cue Rohirrim war trumpets) the real meaning of The Lord of the Rings!

Legendarium and the Tolkien site MiddleEarthNetwork.com have partnered with van Rossenberg to raise both awareness and funds in order to remaster the original reel-to-reel tape, chronicle the event, and make it available to the world this fall via the Rotterdam Project. “Anything new from Tolkien is always exciting,” said Tom Shippey, author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, “but the Rotterdam Project is especially so. A speech from Tolkien, in the first years of his success with Lord of the Rings, when he was among friends, enjoying himself, and able to speak freely!”

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On May 22, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Throwback Thursday-St. Augustine on Easter

Here is another “throwback Thursday” post where we look back to a church father for their insights into the Christian life and the church year. The Western church calendar is coming up on the sixth Sunday in Easter and this week’s post comes from St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354 – 430). It is an excerpt from of a sermon preached on Psalm 148 where Augustine speaks of the Lenten season (which “signifies troubles”) and the Easter season after it (which “signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future”).

Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to come; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.

Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.

Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future.

Now therefore, brethren, we urge you to praise God. That is what we are all telling each other when we say Alleluia. You say to your neighbor, “Praise the Lord!” and he says the same to you. We are all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.

We are praising God now, assembled as we are here in church; but when we go on our various ways again, it seems as if we cease to praise God. But provided we do not cease to live a good life, we shall always be praising God. You cease to praise God only when you swerve from justice and from what is pleasing to God. If you never turn aside from the good life, your tongue may be silent but your actions will cry aloud, and God will perceive your intentions; for as our ears hear each other’s voices, so do God’s ears hear our thoughts.

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On May 20, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

The Importance of Reading Scripture in Worship

By Contributing Scholar, Timothy LeCroy

Al Mohler comments on a Mark Gali article in Christianity Today remarking on modern Christians’ lack of appetite for hearing passages of Scripture read in church.

This is why we keep the traditional set of scripture readings in our services at Christ Our King. I often tell our people that my opinion as an expositor and preacher may be informed by education, wisdom, and experience, but my sermons are not inspired by the Holy Spirit. We need to read and hear Scripture so that we can make space in our worship for the Lord to work in changing our hearts and lives.

One way to look at it is that the reading of Scripture should be the main event. The sermon is simply explaining and applying what we have just read from God’s holy and inspired Word. All too often, it is the sermon and not the Scriptures (or communion!) that is the main event. This is a modern aberration in the history of Christian worship. Christian worship has always made the reading of Scripture the primary event, as it should be. In the standard worship service of most of the 2,000 years of Christian worship, passages of God’s Word were read from the Old Testament, The New Testament, and the Gospels. These lessons, as they are called, are often thematic to the time of the church year. At other times they relate to each other as one main text is being moved through sequentially (the Gospels, for instance).

In the historical worship service, the reading of scripture is highlighted and glorified by being interspersed with the singing of Psalms, Scripture Songs, and Hymns. In this kind of service, it is God’s Word that is magnified and honored, not the opinions and self-importance of one person. Is it any wonder that as the practice of reading scripture has lessened in our churches that the cult of personality has increased with celebrity pastors and mega-churches? What would happen if we read more scripture, sang more scripture, celebrated communion more often and had a shorter sermon? GASP!

Are we afraid to let God’s word to take precedence in our worship? Isn’t it a bit conceited and even idolatrous to think that my sermon could ever do a better job of edifying and strengthening the flock than the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God?

Dr. Timothy LeCroy is a Special Contributing Scholar to the Kuyperian Commentary and is the Pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Columbia, MO.

This post originally appeared on Dr. LeCroy’s blog, Vita pastoralis.<>game list

On May 10, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

150th Anniversary of the Death of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

KC Guest Contributor, Thomas Kidd, summarizes the life of Jackson:

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the tragic death on May 10, 1863, of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson from wounds sustained at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Along with Robert E. Lee, Jackson occupies a special place of veneration in the memory of the Confederate cause. It is hard to say how many southern boys today share a childhood like Don Williams’s, who sang in “Good Ole Boys Like Me” about growing up “with a picture of Stonewall Jackson above” his bed. But for many boys (mostly white boys, I assume?) of my generation, male relatives and friends still spoke of Stonewall as one of our heroes, whenever the topic of “The War” came up.

Aside from his tactical brilliance, the most fascinating aspect of Stonewall’s character was his intense Presbyterian faith. Having been baptized an Episcopalian, Jackson joined the Presbyterian Church after thorough study of the Westminster Confession of Faith, becoming “the bluest [most traditional] kind of Presbyterian,” according to one newspaper account. Jackson was rigorously principled and devout, assiduously avoiding activities on the Sabbath whenever possible. He saw his army as fulfilling God’s purposes, whether in victory or defeat, telling his wife that his men could become “an army of the living God.” He prayed for outpourings of the Holy Spirit on his army for revival.

Jackson’s biographers have tended to see faith as Jackson’s animating force. Frank Vandiver wrote in Mighty Stonewall that “Christianity was to Jackson a great cause, and to it he gave his whole allegiance.” Other historians have suggested that Jackson’s faith veered toward militaristic “fanaticism.” Harry Stout says in Upon the Altar of the Nation that his soldiers “absorbed [Jackson’s] almost manic obsession with destruction and glory even at the cost of unprecedented casualties.”

Southerners, especially Virginians, came to respect and love Jackson, sometimes to excess. One Virginia woman wrote that “I believe that God leads Jackson and Jackson his men, just where it is best they should go. My only fear is that people are in danger of worshiping Gen. Jackson instead of God, who rules over all. If we idolize him, he will be taken from us.” And taken he was, struck down by a volley of Confederate fire from sentries who mistook Jackson and his men for a Union detachment.

Memorials to Jackson began even before his death, including the famous 1863 photo taken a week before his fatal wounding at Chancellorsville.

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On May 9, 2014 By Kuyperian In Books, Scribblings Like

Logic or Dialectic? Which one? When?

Logic or Dialectic? Which one? When? These terms are not mutually exclusive and must, in fact, be employed in conjunction for either to function properly, but in the book Norms and Nobility, David Hicks points out that emphasis may be laid on one or the other depending on the accepted concept of “truth” in a particular cultural climate. The epistemological trends of a people will necessitate whether “dialectic” or “logic” is most often employed, stemming from which one carries the most weight in public discourse.

“The seven liberal arts of antiquity included the four preliminary studies of arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy, followed by three advanced disciplines of grammar, which combined literary history and linguistic study, rhetoric, and dialectic. This curriculum passed through the Romans to the Latin West and formed the basis for the medieval quadrivium and trivium. During the Middle Ages, the trivium was generally taught first, with logic taking the place of dialectic. This substitution was not accidental. For an age that possessed the Truth, the dialectical search for truth was a fruitless and even frivolous, irreverent endeavor. When one knows the truth, one has no need for dialectic – all one needs is logic. Yet to an age like ours, lacking the confidence (some would say the complacency) of the early Christian era, the dialectic holds out a serious method of study imbued with a noble purpose.” (p. 66)

No single book, much less a single paragraph, even asks all the questions, much less answers them, and David Hicks does not even remotely pretend to do that, but we would do well to listen when he offers his finely honed opinion on education. The really exciting thing about this quote is that it is only the first paragraph of an entire chapter brimming with both information and provocation–answering old questions and prompting many glorious new ones. It is a book to be read, studied, treasured, and implemented.

Follow this link to a much more thorough review of David Hicks’ seminal work, by Jennifer Courtney.<>tokarevsound.com тест интернета пинг

On May 8, 2014 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Throwback Thursday-St. Cyril of Alexandria on the Resurrection

If you are following the Western church year, we are preparing for the fourth Sunday in Easter. It’s also time for another “throwback Thursday” post where we look back to a church father for their insights into the Christian life and the church year. This week’s paragraph comes from St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444) and is an excerpt from a lecture entitled “On the Ten Points of Doctrine.”

But He who descended into the regions beneath the earth came up again; and Jesus, who was buried, truly rose again the third day. And if the Jews ever worry thee, meet them at once by asking thus: Did Jonah come forth from the whale on the third day, and hath not Christ then risen from the earth on the third day? Is a dead man raised to life on touching the bones of Elisha, and is it not much easier for the Maker of mankind to be raised by the power of the Father? Well then, He truly rose, and after He had risen was seen again of the disciples; and twelve disciples were witnesses of His Resurrection, who bare witness not in pleasing words, but contended even unto torture and death for the truth of the Resurrection. What then, shall every word be established at the mouth of two of three witnesses, according to the Scripture, and, though twelve bear witness to the Resurrection of Christ, art thou still incredulous in regard to His Resurrection?

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