Category: Quotes

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Quote on Theonomy

Some have tried to argue that Christ only upholds the continuing validity of the Decalogue; yet this cannot be the case, as the judicial case laws are expositions of the moral law (for example, we need to go to the case laws to understand what constitutes adultery as the seventh commandment does not specifically define it). Moreover, Christ explicitly put the death penalty for reviling one’s parents on a par with the fifth commandment itself (Matt. 15:4). Therefore, the death sentence for stated crimes must be every bit as perpetually binding today as the Decalogue itself.1

 

  1. Reformed Covenanter [↩ back]
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On the Sacraments

Christ feeds us with his glorious new humanity through the Spirit. Christ is the sacrament because, as John Macquarrie says, “There is nothing in them that is not already in him.” 1

  1. Quoted from Leonard J. Vander Zee: Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, pg.47. [↩ back]
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Quote, Alexander Schmemann and Eucharistic Participation

It is a well-known and undisputed fact that in the early Church the communion of all the faithful, of the entire ecclesia at each Liturgy was a self-evident norm. What must be stressed, however, is that this corporate communion was understood not only as an act of personal piety and personal sanctification but, first of all, as an act stemming precisely from one’s very membership in the Church, as the fulfillment and actualization of that membership. The Eucharist was both defined and experienced as the “sacrament of the Church,” the “sacrament of the assembly,” the “sacrament of unity.” “He mixed Himself with us,” writes St. John Chrysostom, “and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head.” The early Church simply knew no other sign or criterion of membership but the participation in the sacrament. – Alexander Schmemann

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Alexander Schmemann on Eucharistic Participation

It is a well-known and undisputed fact that in the early Church the communion of all the faithful, of the entire ecclesia at each Liturgy was a self-evident norm. What must be stressed, however, is that this corporate communion was understood not only as an act of personal piety and personal sanctification but, first of all, as an act stemming precisely from one’s very membership in the Church, as the fulfillment and actualization of that membership. The Eucharist was both defined and experienced as the “sacrament of the Church,” the “sacrament of the assembly,” the “sacrament of unity.” “He mixed Himself with us,” writes St. John Chrysostom, “and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head.” The early Church simply knew no other sign or criterion of membership but the participation in the sacrament. — Alexander Schmemann

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May Flower Compact

may-compact1.jpg “In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620.”

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Christianity Today on Children

Leslie fields has written a marvelous piece in defense of large families though she admits: ” I am not a proselytizer for large families…” I am not so sure how that is possible, nevertheless this is a fantastic article. Here are a few sample quotes:

When large families make it to the movies and television screen, in shows like Yours, Mine, and Ours, Cheaper by the Dozen, and the Brady Bunch, children fare better. But comedy, it seems, is all that can be expected of a pack of kids. Chaos generally rules, with Disneyesque household destruction following in the wake of an errant animal or child, a riotous bedlam that miraculously concludes with everybody fed and dressed and out of the door each day looking nearly normal.

What happens in larger families? Children are more tolerant. They learn that they are part of a whole much larger than themselves and that the common good usually takes precedence over their particular desires.

So why do we have children at all? So much is against the whole enterprise. Children cost too much hmoney. They cost too much of ourselves. Children undo us. They show us how much and how little we’re made of. They come, it often seems, only to break our hearts. And we let them. We invite it all. We admit perfect strangers through our doors and decide before we even know who they are to love them wildly, without condition, for as long as we live.

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Calvin


Fanatics of the present day disregard Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and consider them childish elements. They can not do so without at the same time neglecting the whole Gospel; for we must not separate those things which the Lord has commanded us to join.

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Quote, Laurence Vance on Target on the war

The Republican Party has historically been the party of militarism, big government, plunder, compromises, and sellouts. Not in his wildest dreams could Lyndon Johnson have ever imagined his Democratic-controlled Congress increasing total spending or the rate of increase in spending as much as George Bush and his Republican-controlled Congress have done. And he too was fighting a war. –Laurence Vance

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Quote, Flavius Josephus on AD 70


…the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations… (Josephus, Wars 1:1)

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Quote, Press the Antithesis

The antithesis between followers of God and followers of Satan is sovereignly inflicted as God’s judicial curse. This enmity is not only social but also intellectual in nature, and, therefore, to ignore it in our apologetic is to compromise the gospel.

–Bahnsen, Greg. The Necessity of Biblical Antithesis