Alfred North Whitehead saw philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato. In a similar way we can see Scripture as a series of footnotes to Genesis 3:15. (SF)Be a Baranabas not a Sabanarab! (SF)
For the only duty of the philosopher is to 'open' the truth. And I do not care much how it should be opened, whether you should use a wooden key or a golden key. It is far better to open it with a wooden key than to shut it with a golden key. (Augustine)
When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. (G K Chesterton)
A heart of thankfulness is an entry point . We're to enter God's gates with thanksgiving. (Sam Crabtree)
I. Resolved, that I will endeavor hereafter, by God's help, to remember more deeply and solemnly than I have ever yet done, that I am not my own, but Christ's servant; and of course, bound to seek, not my own things, but the things which are Jesus Christ's.
II. Resolved, that I will endeavor, by the grace of God, to set such an example before the candidates for the ministry committed to my care, as shall convince them, that, though I esteem theological knowledge and all its auxiliary branches of science very highly, I esteem genuine and deep piety as a still more vital and important qualification.
III. Resolved, that I will endeavor, by the grace of God, so to conduct myself toward my colleague in the seminary [Archibald Alexander], as never to give to give the least reasonable ground of offence. It shall be my aim, by divine help, ever to treat him with the most scrupulous respect and delicacy, and never to wound his feelings, if I know how to avoid it.
IV. And whereas, during my residence in New York, a very painful part of my trouble arose from disagreement and collision with a colleague, I desire to set a double guard on myself in regard to this point. Resolved, therefore, that, by the grace of God, while I will carefully avoid giving offence to my colleague, I will, in no case, take offence at his treatment of me. I have come hither resolving, that whatever may be the sacrifice of my personal feelings - whatever may be the consequnce - I will not take offence, unless I am called upon to relinquish truth or duty. I not only will never, the Lord helping me, indulge a jealous, envious, or suspicious temper toward him; but I will, in no case, allow myself to be wounded by any slight, or appearance of disrespect. I will give up all my own claims, rather than let the cause of Christ suffer by animosity or contest. What am I, that I should prefer my own honor or exaltation to the cause of my blessed Master? (1813 Resolutions of Samuel Miller - see more here)
The only singular immediate act of the person of the Son on the human nature was the assumption of it into subsistence with himself. (John Owen)
The Sabbath is an ascent to the summit (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)
... the horror of Sunday used to cast its prescient gloom as far back in the week as Friday ... (John Ruskin on his evangelical childhood)
The eschatological is an older strand in revelation than the soteric. (Geerhardus Vos)
But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was adoing, mGod could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (Bunyan in Grace Abounding)
O death, we defy thee! A stronger than thou
hath entered thy palace; we fear thee not now!
Oh, sing hallelujah, oh, sing hallelujah,
oh, sing hallelujah! Be joyful and sing,
death cannot affright us - Christ Jesus is King! (William Plunket)
Therefore I say, we get no other thing in the Sacrament than we get in the Word. Content yourself with this. But if this is so, the Sacrament is not superfluous.
Would you understand then, what new thing you get, what other things you get? I will tell you. Even if you get the same thing which you get in the Word, yet you get that same thing better. What is this “better”? You get a better grip of the same thing in the Sacrament than you got by the hearing of the Word. That same thing which you possess by the hearing of the Word, you now possess more fully. God has more room in your soul, through your receiving of the Sacrament, than he could otherwise have by your hearing of the Word only. What then, you ask, is the new thing we get? We get Christ better than we did before. We get the thing which we had more fully, that is, with a surer apprehension than we had before. We get a better grip of Christ now, for by the Sacrament my faith is nourished, the bounds of my soul are enlarged, and so where I had but a little grip of Christ before, as it were, between my finger and my thumb, now I get him in my whole hand, and indeed the more my faith grows, the better grip I get of Christ Jesus. Thus the Sacrament is very necessary, if only for the reason that we get Christ better, and get a firmer grasp of him by the Sacrament than we could have before.
(Robert Bruce in The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper)
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