10 Characteristics of Scots atonement theologians by Donald Macleod

Good day looking at Smeaton yesterday with the other men at the John Owen Centre. Stumbled across this list from Donald Macleod on Scottish Atonement Theology (Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology) here. Such theologians are characterised by

1. A sustained, reverent reflection on the sufferings of Christ. 

2. A perception of the work of Christ in sacerdotal terms.

3. An insistence that the sufferings of Christ were penal.

4. A portrayal of the atonement as a satisfaction to divine justice.

5. The sufferings of Christ were vicarious.

6. The setting of the cross in a covenant framework.

7. The indispensable necessity of the atonement to salvation.

8. The unambiguous portrayal as a fruit and consequence of the love of God [the Father].

9. A prominence for the idea of victory not surpassed in any other Western tradition before Gustaf Aulen.
10. A belief in limited atonement, but stated very carefully.

Lord's Day June 17

I remarked recently that an anomaly on this blog is that I rarely mention the Lord's Day activities. There are reasons why it happens but I think it gives a false impression so just to say that it was good to be with God's people in Childs Hill yesterday, morning and evening. We sat down to communion before the evening meeting. In the morning we said farewell to Andreas and his family from who return to Germany soon after two years in LTS. Alice made a lovely cake for us to enjoy after with our cuppa. We also had a church photograph. About fifty of us were there altogether.

In the morning I did the third of a series I am doing on Ultimate Realities. I have preached two sermons on heaven and this was the third. I looked at the six glorious negatives of Revelation 21:1-22:5 (no sea, no night, no curse, etc). In the evening we are in Numbers and came to Chapter 13 about the spies and their report. My plea was for a right understanding of the Christian life and a positive presentation of the gospel.

Smeaton on the atonement

I'm planning to be at the John Owen Centre today where the Theological Study Group will be discussing George Smeaton's book Christ's Doctrine of the atonement. It's been good to read a book that has sat on my shelf unused too long. It is full of excellent insights.

Pause, my soul!

I used to like to choose from Grace Hymns this Gadsby hymn. Sadly, it didn't make the cut for Christian Hymns, which we now use. I don't think it's in many modern hymnbooks.

1    Pause, my soul! and ask the question,
            Art thou ready to meet God?
        Am I made a real Christian,
            Washed in the Redeemer’s blood?
                    Have I union
            To the church’s living Head?

    2    Am I quickened by his Spirit;
            Live a life of faith and prayer?
        Trusting wholly to his merit;
            Casting on him all my care?
                    Daily panting,
            In his likeness to appear?

    3    If my hope on Christ is stayèd,
            Let him come when he thinks best;
        O my soul! be not dismayèd,
            Lean upon his loving breast;
                    He will cheer thee
            With the smilings of his face.

    4    But, if still a total stranger
            To his precious name and blood,
        Thou art on the brink of danger;
            Canst thou face a holy God?
                    Think and tremble,
            Death is now upon the road.

Needs in Honduras

Operation World urges prayer today for Honduras, a place with many problems. They note that

Socio-economic problems are widespread and deeply entrenched. At the root of most problems lies endemic and lasting poverty, affecting up to 80% of the population. Pray for these issues:

a) Children at risk. More than half of Honduras’ population are children, the majority living in poverty. Destitution drives them to desperate measures.

i Illegal emigration. Thousands of children attempt to cross to the USA to find family members working there. Usually, they end up incarcerated in Guatemala or Mexico – in terrible conditions.

ii Pepenadores, or garbage dump children, are more prevalent in Honduras than in any nation in the Americas.

iii Street children, numbering in the thousands, are often exterminated as a nuisance by ruthless groups in the name of social cleansing.

iv Vice and crime. Many of the above groups and others get swept up by organized crime and exploited as gang members and sex workers.

b) Powerful gangs known as maras are made up mostly of youth, but have massive influence and power in Honduran society. They are becoming more violent and ruthless and are linking up with drug cartels using Honduras as a transshipment point. The government is waging an increasingly intense war against these groups for whom kidnapping, extortion and assault are the main activities.

c) AIDS has decimated the population. Honduras is home to 60% of Central America’s AIDS cases. Poverty, ignorance, a widespread sex industry, a macho culture and the Catholic stance against contraception all contribute to its rapid growth. Pray for moral courage and an educational shift among Hondurans to halt the spread of AIDS.

d) The devastation of Hurricane Mitch continues to blight Honduras. Many towns, villages and churches were virtually destroyed. The needs after 10 years are to re-establish both infrastructure and self-sustaining industries. Pray for all involved (World Relief, Tearfund, WVI, Lutheran World Relief, others).

Happy Meal

It's in the eye of the beholder, I guess

England do it again

This was a little like the old England in places but not enough to throw it away and so a win over Sweden leaves them sitting pretty. Don't blow it!

Bragg on Solomon

I'm a bit behind with me Melvyn Bragg but if you check out the website here you should be able to find the one on Solomon, which though very secular was nowhere as near as anti-conservative as it might have been and worth a listen.

Chad and Mali

Good News from Chad

Praise God that the translation of the Chad Arabic New Testament is complete. Pray that the printing will go smoothly and also for the distribution process. Surprisingly, a key element of distribution is making the scriptures accessible on mobile phones - they are very common in much of Africa. An audio version of the New Testament is also being made, for which voices are needed. Pray that the right people will come forward to be involved. (WEC International)

Bad News from Mali

These are critical times for Mali. The crisis began long before the military coup that grabbed the headlines recently. Mali is still suffering from the devastating Sahel food crisis following last year’s failed harvests and lack of rains. Extreme food shortages have led to a rise in food prices which, in turn, have led to 3 million people going hungry. Now facing a bitter ethnic and religious conflict, food prices are escalating and more than 200,000 people have fled their homes. Pray for the millions of people facing food insecurity in the Sahel, and for  leaders of the groups in Mali that they might

turn to peace rather than violence. (Tearfund)

Matthew Henry

I've been so taken up with the fact that 1662 was the year of the Great Ejection that I'd pretty much forgotten that it is also the year of Matthew Henry's birth. Thankfully I stumbled across Allan Harman's new biography (Matthew Henry his life and influence) and have been reading it on my kindle. It is well done for the most part with the bulk of the book looking at the life and then some essays at the end looking at his preaching, commentary, etc. These stand independently and so repeat information found elsewhere. Matthew Henry was clearly a godly and hardworking servant of the Lord in that difficult post-Puritan period and his life deserves to be as well known as his commentary is. This book does that job well.

You can read the opening chapters here.
More here.

Death of Ivan Ilyich

I was in the local library the other day and I saw a book I had never heard of by Leo Tolstoy. Being quite a short paperback, a novella, I thought I'd try it. Well, it's an amazing book! It is brilliantly written for starters. Then it deals with a vital subject that few books tackle - death. Finally, it actually deals to some extent with sin and salvation. I understand that it was the first book Tolstoy wrote after his "conversion". I hadn't realised that at all when I picked the book up so that has doubled the impact on me. It's great when something comes out of the blue like that. I also like it when someone like Tolstoy who is supposed to be brilliant turns out to be just that. Check it out. You can find it online here or buy it here.

Well done, England!

Many will be surprised at that heading but the truth is that again and again over the years I have sat down hoping England will do well only to give up at some point because of the disappointing attitude of the primadonnas that usually play. Well, this time it wasn't like that at all. How refreshing. Let's hope it stays that way.

Descendants and Sherlock Holmes II

Sat down to watch a couple of DVDs recently. The George Clooney film Descendants had seven Oscar nominations and so one expected something extra special. In fact it was quite an ordinary film really though quite watchable apart from the needless swearing, with plenty of drama and a refreshing Hawaiian backdrop. The only Oscar it won was for screenplay adaptation (it is based on a novel) and that seemed quite deserved. So, quite a good drama on a humanist level and worth watching if you can cope with the foul language.

As for Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows the less said the better. I thought they just about got away with it in the first film but this sequel is pretty useless and I gave up watching half an hour from the end. I suppose that if it wasn't called Sherlock I never would have watched a Guy Ritchie film. It does seem unfair to hijack a name like that. Surely he should be a bit like the character in the Conan Doyle books.

More here and here.

Novelists 13 Thomas de Quincey

Thomas de Quincey 1785-1859 was an English essayist and translator best known for his novel Confessions of an Englsih opium eater. I did start to read it once but put it down somewhere and can't locate my copy at the moment. He moved in the right literary circles but led a strange sort of life, reflected in the novel to some extent I believe. Money problems were never far away. Apparently he suffered neuralgic facial pain in the form of "trigeminal neuralgia" ("attacks of piercing pain in the face, of such severity that they sometimes drive the victim to suicide." according to one source)  which I mention only because my father also suffered from it until he had an operation to render that side of his face without feeling.

Unusual words 04 Mien Taciturnity

Mien and taciturnity are not so unusual but I came across them together recently in the same sentence and although I could tell you what mien is easily enough, I would struggle a little with taciturnity. The sentence is "Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word." The sentence is from near the beginning of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.

Mien is, of course, face or look. It's a bit of a literary word and comes up in R L Stevenson's famous book in the sentence "The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll ..."
Taciturnity derives from a word for silence and means incommunicative (I'd thought it meant obtuse or difficult to be honest). See W Somerset Maugham Of human bondage "Perhaps his taciturnity a contempt for the human race which had abandoned the great dreams of his youth and now wallowed in sluggish ease; or perhaps these thirty years of revolution had taught him that men are unfit for liberty, and he thought that he had spent his life in the pursuit of that which was not worth the finding."