That's the race that Paul talks of. It would be better explained as an obstacle race for we compete with a power which never gives up and won't until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back.
That's the race that Paul talks of. It would be better explained as an obstacle race for we compete with a power which never gives up and won't until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back.
Paul's Gratitude for God's Mercy
Originally Posted by 1 Timothy 1
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Prodromos,
Aye, when ye think about it, he, Paul or as Saul, was once the hunter and in the great plan of God subsequently became the hunted. This man who had studied the Law was soon to learn that the Law could save no-one yet that it pointed to the One Who could save, the One being Jesus Christ.
Paul says that even though under the Law his righteousness was faultless, he regards that as garbage compared to the righteousness of Christ that he has through faith.
Isn't it funny how Christians are frequently accused of being "self-righteous", when we're literally the only people on Earth who don't think our righteousness is going to get us into heaven?Originally Posted by Philippians 3
Originally Posted by Augustus Toplady
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Podromos,
Until that day when He comes back to gather in His own, saved or unsaved we are but sinners in corrupt bodies even if covered by His blood. Any righteousness we do have is His not ours. Only when our bodies are replaced by the promised heavenly garb will we be truly righteous like Him.
Abraham, Father of the Faithful
Originally Posted by Genesis 22Originally Posted by Hebrews 10
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Abraham believed God and so he was accounted righteous before Him. Through Isaac would come Christ the true sacrifice.
Last edited by basics; October 26, 2021 at 02:45 AM.
"Men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see Him and wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of His glory."
- John Calvin, Institutes Of Christian Religion, Book 1, 5.1.
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Originally Posted by Psalm 146
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This is a phenomenal article about the psychology of theological liberalism.
The Neo-Liberal Stealth Offensive - Phil Johnson
The gospels most dangerous earthly adversaries are not raving atheists who stand outside the door shouting threats and insults. They are church leaders who cultivate a gentle, friendly, pious demeanor but hack away at the foundations of faith under the guise of keeping in step with a changing world. ...
Theological liberalism is particularly dependent on the stealth offensive. A spiritually healthy church is generally not susceptible to the arrogant skepticism that underlies a liberals rejection of biblical authority. Liberalism must therefore take root covertly and gain strength and influence gradually. The success or failure of the whole liberal agenda hinges on a patient public-relations campaign.To help you withstand the drift, here are four major trends todays crop of neo-liberal leaders are fostering and taking advantage of:
3. Their faith comes with an air of intellectual superiority.
Liberals treat faith itself as an academic matter. Their whole system is essentially a wholesale rejection of simple, childlike belief. Their worldview foments an air of academic arrogance, setting human reason in the place of highest authority, treating the Bible with haughty condescension, and showing utter contempt for the kind of faith Christ blessed.
Consequently, liberals are and always have been obsessed with academic respectability. They want the worlds esteem as scholars and intellectualsno matter what they have to compromise to get it. They sometimes defend that motive by arguing that the secular academys acceptance is essential to the Christian testimony.
Of course that is a quixotic quest. It is also a denial of the Bibles plain teaching. Believers cannot be faithful to Scripture and win general accolades from the wise men, scribes, and debaters of this age. The world hated Jesus, and he made it clear that his faithful disciples mustnt expector seekthe worlds honor (Jn. 15:18; Luke 6:22; cf. Jas. 4:4). Paul, himself a true scholar in every sense, wrote this worlds wisdom off as sheer foolishness: Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God (1 Cor. 3:18-19).
True Christian scholarship is about integrity, not accolades. Liberalism covets the latter, and that explains why liberals are always drawn to ideas that are stylish and politically correct, yet they are resistant to virtually all the hard truths of Christianity, starting with the authority Scripture claims for itself.
Be on guard against that tendency.
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Prodromos,
The number of times I have heard people pray for the church to move on because the times are different has been many. So, when leading our church in prayer I asked where the church was supposed to go? If Jesus Christ is the Same, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow then surely His church must be the same standing on what He was, He is and He will be. If a modern day preacher does not offend his audience as Jesus offended His then they are not preaching the Gospel, rather what might be pleasing to that audience. It means that any commitment by a partaker would be shallow or false and regeneration still as far off as ever.
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism:
The liberal church has for over a century now tried to take away every possible offensive doctrine from Christianity to make it more palatable to unbelievers, to the point where we now have churches looking the other way on fornication, sodomy, statism and a whole host of other evils. They've tried and tried, but at the end of the day even the existence of a God is going to be offensive to people who consider themselves their own god. They can keep trying to make it more palatable, but we see where that's going: it's killing any church that makes even one step in that direction. Ironically, though its proponents claim that liberalism is the only way for the church to survive, it's liberal churches that are rapidly dying out while orthodox churches are growing steadily.The fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible taskshe is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: You people are very good, he says; you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bibleespecially in the life of Jesussomething so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people. Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and probably we shall be no more successful than He.
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On July 6, 1415, the Czech reformer Jan Hus was burned alive by the Roman Catholic Church for the crime of proclaiming that Christ is the head of the church and that salvation is in Christ alone. Shortly before his sentenced was carried out, he turned to his executioner and said, "Today you burn a goose (hus), but in one hundred years a swan will arise which you will prove unable to boil or roast."
On October 31, 1517, the small-town monk Martin Luther marched up to the castle church in Wittenberg and nailed his 95 Theses to the door, thus lighting the flame of the Reformation.
On April 16, 1521, Luther was brought to Worms by the Emperor, who wanted him to recant his teachings while he was there. Luther didn't see any proof against his theses or views which would move him to recant: "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen."
When Luther and the princes who supported him left Worms, the Emperor imposed an Imperial Act (Wormser Edikt): Luther is declared an outlaw and may be killed by anyone without threat of punishment. On the trip home, Elector Friedrich of Saxony allowed Luther to be kidnapped (Luther knew about it beforehand). Luther was taken to the secluded Wartburg and the Reformation had time to stabilize and strengthen itself.
Happy Reformation Day
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Podromos,
Thank God for men like Luther, Calvin and Knox!
The Wife of Noble Character
Originally Posted by Proverbs 31
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Prodromos,
It's sad to say that our church just held a remembrance service for a lady who passed recently from our midst, one who held most of the above. She was indeed some lady of God.
"Hold baby Jesus hostage until Tony finds your lost keys for you"
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Prodromos,
Is that real? What some people will do to make a buck especially bringing the name of our Lord and Saviour into the equation is just beyond acceptance.
It's real.
https://www.autom.com/product/st-ant...s-statue-MC133
I don't know if this kind of thing is officially church-sanctioned, but it might be an example of the old practice of the "humiliation of the saints."
https://tantumdicverbo.blogspot.com/...of-saints.html"The Miracles of Saint Benedict at Fleury tell of a certain Adelard who persisted in mistreating peasants on monastic lands. Once he stole something from a woman, who then ran to the saint's church. There she threw back the altar cloths and began striking the altar, crying to the saint, "Benedict, you sluggard, you sloth, what are you doing? Why do you sleep? Why do you allow your servant to be treated so?"
Because the serfs of the monasteries were the servants of the saints to whose monasteries they belonged, they believed that the saints were obliged to protect them. Oppression was therefore the fault of the saints. The ritual by which they attempted to rectify the situation was an inversion of their usual relationship to the saint, just as the monks' ritual was an inversion of theirs... Likewise, the physical action against the saint was one most appropriate within a peasant culture and not a monastic one. Punishment in lay society comes not in the form of hair shirts, thorns, or prostration but in blows. Thus the peasants beat their saints, just as they would beat a reluctant beast of burden, to awaken him and force him to do his job."
-- Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages
Stories of saints who bless and punish are familiar enough to us, but tales of "erring" saints who are on the receiving end of punishment are rarer. ... The point of this humiliation of the saints, as expressed in the symbolic debasement of his relics, was to show their impotence and failure in living up to their reputation as the undisputed lords of the realm. ... The patron saint of the land, newly rendered impotent, is thus seen to have failed his people, most especially his immediate and most powerful vassals, the monks.
It is curious, but not really surprising, that the humiliation of the saints would die out in the years leading to, and immediately following, the Council of Trent. The Council, which developed a more efficient, more legalistic framework for Catholicism, I think, can rightly be called the first instance when the Church became "self-conscious" as Roman Catholicism-- Western European in mind, culture, and structure. Its move from what was essentially a sacrificial, ritual cult-- which dealt primarily with the invincible powers of Heaven-- into a bureaucratic, technocratic, clericalist system shifted the object of veneration from the saints to the priests themselves. Hierarchy, as in a military structure that flowed from the Pope down to the foot soldiers (ordinary priests), came to exclusively define the relationship between man and divine. Any naive beating of a saint's tomb, now, becomes a grossly political act that is seen as subversive of clerical power.
But if these stories tell us anything, it is that to live in a universe saturated with the presence of the sacred does not always mean these powers are ready to fight our battles for us. Disturbingly, it seems as if the saints were often viewed with a certain regard for the "mischief" they may sow, or the "arbitrariness" of their help. In that respect, we can see how they were probably more feared than Christ Himself. At the same time, they were indispensable to the life of the community, as the benefits they bring more than outweighs any arbitrariness that could be blamed on them. Again, it must be said that while I do not think of orthodoxy as merely an ecclesiastical fiction, one has to wonder if majority of Catholics-- the unschooled, unchurched bunch-- ever fully imbibed the Church's rationale on the matter.
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Hey I watched Benedetta last week. It is not very good narratively, but it does describe the pragmatism / cynicism / hypocrisy of the Catholic Church quite well.