“Any attempt to strengthen the family without also strengthening the institutional Church is self-defeating for Christians.” –Quoted in The Church-Friendly Family
The Fiery Weapon
The Church is God’s greatest masterpiece. It is not a man-made institution; it is the creation of God the Father, Son, and Spirit. It is the fiery weapon that God uses to pierce the hearts of men.
{Editor’s Introduction, The Church-Friendly Family}
Putting Humans to Right
God is going to put the whole world to rights… But the advance plan for that is to put human beings to rights in advance. The gospel isn’t just Phew! I’m okay now so I’m going to heaven!It’s I’m actually being put right, in order that I can be a part of that ongoing purpose… –N.T. Wright
What the Blessed Man Believes About His Children
The blessed man will not accept what the world says about his children. He will believe what God says about his children. God says they are olive plants, holy and beloved. Thus, the godly man will water his children in baptism and fertilize them with the Scriptures and the Lord’s Supper, so they can bring forth juicy olives, full of the oil of the Spirit.
Inescapably Personal
If the universe is inescapably personal, then there can be no phenomenon or event in the creation which is independent from God.
{Gary North, Genesis: The Dominion Covenant, 2}
Doug Wilson on Biblical Memorization
Yes, we are to store God’s word in our hearts. Yes, it will keep us from sin. But we are not instructed to cram His Word into our hearts sideways or upside down. God’s Word cannot be properly hidden in our hearts when it is misunderstood. And it cannot be understood apart from context. —{Doug Wilson}
Caesar vs. Jesus
Phillips summarizes the evangelistic distinctions between the disciples of Christ and the disciples of Caesar:
But whereas the Caesars sought to Romanize the world through brutality, force, and bloodshed, the Christians sought to evangelize the world through love, self-giving, and sacrifice. The glad tidings of Jesus were therefore bad news for Caesar, since it proclaimed there was another way to transform the world that was superior to Caesar’s way. It announced that God had called out a people whose vocation was to work for peace and justice on Jesus’ terms, not Caesar’s (43).
Patrick Henry and the Revivalists
Thomas Kidd describes Rev. Patrick Henry’s (the revolutionary’s uncle) reaction to the revivalist era:
For the revivalists, religiosity and morality were not enough for Christians: instead, they focused on the experience of personal conversion, or being “born again.” Some of the new preachers even hinted that certain of the Anglican parsons had never truly put their faith in Jesus for salvation. Pastor Patrick Henry thought that the evangelicals only whipped crowds into a religious frenzy, reporting that they screamed at their congregations that they all were “damn’d double damn’d, whose souls are in hell, though they are alive on earth, lumps of hellfire, incarnate devils, 1000 times worse than devils.” An alarmed Pastor Henry envisioned these wild preachers shouting and beating their pulpits until their frightened audience fell into convulsions (30).
{Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots}
Patrick Henry’s Obituary
Marriage as Gospel Picture
Marriage is instituted by the Triune God, and when rightly understood it is one of the most glorious pictures of the gospel ever given to man. And of course, when it is abused (as it often is), it presents a potent false gospel as well. That false gospel either seduces people into a sentimental mess, attracting them on false grounds and with false promises, or it presents an unwelcome caricature that causes people to be repelled. But as Christians who want structure all of our lives on the bedrock of the Scriptures, we should certainly do the same with marriage, and we will quickly discover that this way of living presents the world with a stark alternative.
{Douglas Wilson, For A Glory and a Covering, Introduction}