A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
Blog of the Week 6
J Gresham Machen
John Gresham Machen
Nicknamed Das (as in Madchen)
Thought that the liberals were sin'ster
And so started Westminster
There once was a teacher called Machen
He must have been blessed with quite thick skin
When his name they'd abuse
For anti-modernist views
He carried on preaching salvation
This blog seeks to round up material on J Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Theological Seminary. I began it in 2008 after a week studying Machen at the London Seminary. It can be found here. There are about 150 posts there at the moments and getting on for 6000 hits. I probably need to give it a little more attention than I do.
Most popular post on the blog (getting on for 3000 hits) is the one on how to say the man's name. You can find it here.
365 Albums 91-105
- Profile Jan Akkerman 1972
- Focus in Time Jan Akkerman 1996
- Uam Julie Fowlis 2009
- Life in a paper boat Kate Rusby 2016
- Introspection 2 Thijs van Leer 1975*
- Planxty Planxty 1973
- Focus Jan Akkerman & Thijs van Leer
- Focus 3 Focus 1972
- Brainbox Brainbox 1969
- Ommadawn Mike Oldfield 1975
- Springfever Joachim Kuhn 1976
- Lent to Maunday Thursday Page CXVI 2014*
- Good Friday to Easter Page CXVI 2014*
- Love Beatles 2006
- Chieftains Tears of Stone 1999
Lord's Day April 12 2020
Thankfully I'm not a great one for the church calendar as on Good Friday I was busy preparing and preaching my Easter Sunday sermon on Luke 24:45-47 and the resurrection. For the first time I did it with a visual as well as audio. See here for link. I didn't feel it had gone too well but when I listened on the Lord's Day it wasn't so bad. So it was the usual pattern 10 am singing some resurrection hymns then from 11 listening to a recorded morning service with an evening zoom at 6.30 pm when about 20 of us tuned in for our evening meeting when I prayed and read and preached Psalm 121. We also had a Junior Church on Saturday morning. Still wondering who I'm missing.
How to preach in a plague
... Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sank than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them no doubt did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance, but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way; and indeed, as God Himself through the whole Scriptures rather draws to Him by invitations and calls to turn to Him and live, than drives us by terror and amazement, so I must confess I thought the ministers should have done also, imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this, that His whole Gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God’s mercy, and His readiness to receive penitents and forgive them, complaining, ‘Ye will not come unto Me that ye may have life’, and that therefore His Gospel is called the Gospel of Peace and the Gospel of Grace.
But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and opinions, whose discourses were full of terror, who spoke nothing but dismal things; and as they brought the people together with a kind of horror, sent them away in tears, prophesying nothing but evil tidings, terrifying the people with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, not guiding them, at least not enough, to cry to heaven for mercy.
Daniel Defoe A Journal of the Plague Year
Midweek Meeting April 8 2020
So we zoomed again for our midweek meeting. Again numbers were good. We were rather slow to start as people logged on but because there is no travelling home time with this set up you can goo on a bit longer. I spoke on the closing verses of Isaiah 26, as these verses have been spoken about a bit in connection with the virus. Of course, Isaiah is not talking about our specific situation but the verses do highlight the way our current situation is a picture of how we need to stay indoors with Christ, hide in him we more often say, until the evil passes and judgement comes. The prayer time was fine too. Most of us also met the following night (Thursday) for our annual and regular church members meetings. Zoom allows you to put documents up and even correct them online so that was useful. SO we are getting through these strange times and learning to cope.
Game Of Love Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders
We had this single at home (on the Fontana label!). Always liked it.
That's Eric Stewart (later of 10cc) on guitar.
Day off Week 15 2020
These strange days continue and I tried to keep yesterday as a day off which meant reading another chunk of Hilary Mantel. I am now beyond the first 500 pages. Spoiler alert Jane Seymour is dead and the search for a new wife is on. I have enjoyed the Tyndale thread and much else. It is interesting to note how in recent pages the whole idea of social distancing is there (because of fear of plague). I also read a little more of the Calvin book and the newspaper, of course. There were one or two other things that needed to be done and I did a bit more tidying and clean, which we are doing a lot of in this lockdown. Then in the evening we watched the film Vice about Dick Cheney. The film comes with heavy bias but didn't seem overly unfair. US policy in the middle east has been a mess for aeons I fear.
Banner Article
You may be interested to know that I have an article in this month's Banner Magazine called Christ the Bride: A Brief Introduction to the Book of Proverbs. See here.
Lord's Day April 5 2020
We followed the a similar pattern to previous weeks. At 10 am several of us gathered on Zoom to sing hymns. That went well for us but I'm not sure how it is if you are on your own. Then around 11 we tuned into the audio service available on our website. As we would normally be sitting down to communion on this Sunday I decided to preach from 1 Corinthians 11:26. It is one of the hundred texts that I have spoken of often enough here. I'm not sure when else I might have preached that sermon. In the evening we zoomed again and I preached on another psalm, Psalm 23. I think I found it easier this time (technically speaking). The sermons can be found here and here.
Last week we found time to hear my son in Aber twice as well as all that but this week we were tireder and somehow and his morning sermon was recorded not live as previously.
We are also having Junior Church on Saturday mornings and I have started doing a verse of the day on our whatsapp group. I also had a a Zoom officers meeting (and a fraternal) this week so we are doing what we can. Keeping busy then. It was good to have one or two around today that we have not had so much but still lots missing.
Blog of the Week 5
Benjamin Beddome 1717-1795
He wrote down his sermons then said 'em
He also spent time
on Christian rhyme
They're good - I should know cos I've read 'em.
Benjamin Beddome
A saved Son of Adam
For 55 years preached in Bourton,
The blast from his trump not uncertain.
This is one of my biggest blogs. I began it in 2007. It can be found here. There are over 400 posts there at present and there have been over 80,000 hits. It collates material concerning the 18th century Particular Baptist Benjamin Beddome. The blog has been the means of putting me in touch with more than one person I would not have known otherwise and in part led to my contribution to a book on Beddome that came out a short while ago.
Midweek Meeting April 1 2020
We met via Zoom once again. We were a good number and I gave a full message from Proverbs, from Proverbs 24:10. Towards the end I said
1. How are you doing? Have you
found yourself feeling weak at this time of crisis?
How have you been doing? Perhaps
you are embarrassed by the question. Yes, you know that as a
Christian you should be strong and standing firm but it has all
rather knocked you back. Well. don't be surprised. That is what is to
be expected. People do falter in times of trouble. They may do very
well when the waters are calm but come the storm, like the disciples,
they begin to panic. We shouldn't worry or panic but if we have been
doing that then it reminds us of how weak we really are and, as Paul
says, when I am weak then I am strong. Those feelings of weakness are
reminders that we need to rely on the Lord.
2. What do you see around you?
Are people faltering in this time of trouble?
I don't know about you but I have
seen more people in tears on the TV screens and more people crying
phoning into radio stations than I have for a long time. Some people
have really been hit for six by this. I am thinking of people in
government and in the caring professions who are overwhelmed, people
whose schemes are in tatters because of the changes, people stuck the
other side of the word, people in quarantine on their own, parents
trying to do their work from home and dealing with their children
home from school, quite apart from those worried that they have the
virus or might catch it or whose relatives have gone down with it.
Yes,
plenty of people are faltering. It is not unusual. If
you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength!
3. How are you doing? Now is
the time to be strong, now in this time of crisis.
The
other thing that is right to say from this proverb is that if we take
the right attitude we can be strong even in this crisis. The house is
still being built, the rooms are still being filled. Now, perhaps it
is more difficult to build as we ought to, to find those rare
treasures that will suit best. But is we look to the Lord we will go
on, we will stand firm. Many have remarked on how it is like being
ina war this coronavirus crisis. Well at such times Surely
you need guidance .. and victory is won through many advisers. So
let's got to God's Word - to psalms like Psalm 46 and 91 and 23,
let's go to the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 8 and 2 Corinthians 13
and every place else we can find help. Let's strengthen each other
with Scriptures and with other encouragements by means of word and
deed. if we look to the Lord there is no reason why we cannot come
through this.
I then went to the end of Isaiah 40 and Hebrews 12:1-3 an closed with a nice Spurgeon illustration.
Day off Week 14 2020
Another common or garden one reading (Mantel and new book on Calvin edited by Derek Thomas and John Tweeddale and later watching TV (Liar). Also managed to glimpse the last Private Eye.
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