Quote of the week

"The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends His ear."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 97-98

You late!

Yep...

That's right... You late!

You late! You late! You late!

It's what I'd say to our leaders (political and religious) in their pathetic response to theawful idolatry that is Islam OR as one pastor puts it

"What is happening is that self-confidence is draining clear out of secularism, as can be seen in their inability to take a clear, public stand against the encroachments of militant Islam. The pathetic European attempts to dab around the edges of this problem, by trying to ban burkas, for example, are a day late and a Euro short."

Via: Very Little Stones

Thanks Shayne

Last week, I put out a plea asking what one would say in the course of an evangelistic conversation where in the course of asking a non-believer to consider Christ - his life and His claims, someone responded "I really don't like thinking too much about this stuff, as it gets my head into a spin". Earlier this week, one of the parishoners here suggested that to this kind of comment, I ought to reply "Well mate you need to change your thinking" Nice.

Thanks Shayne

Quote of the week

Commenting on 1 Corinthians 1:21, Doug Wilson writes

"...preaching is foolishness as far as the world is concerned, and always has been. This is why calls to make the preaching of the gospel “relevant” are exercises in vanity. If it is gospel preaching at all, there is no way to make it relevant."

AAAAAAAMMMMEN!

WWYSTThat?

Yesterday in the course of going round the parish doing door to door visiting, I got chatting to a young man in his late thirties who made a comment that left me somewhat stumped. His comment arose as I was asking the young chap to consider and think upon the things that Jesus said in the Gospels. In response, he said "I really don't like thinking too much as it gets my head into a spin" Ok so what would you say to that?

Red or dead?

One of the great blessings of the renewed vigour for good wholesome liturgy among the reformed folk in the States (and to an extent in the UK) is that many are really thinking hard about ways to portray and communicate the different components of the Lord's day service. At my last church (where I was privileged to see some of this full-bodied liturgy in action) it was a joy to see more than just 1 John 1:9-10 being used as the confession reading. Not only was this a wonderful reminder that all Scripture was breathed out for our good, but it also helped us to see the wonder of the gospel in its varied beauty... Now if you'd like to see something of this kind of biblical reading of Scripture, consider the following godly meditation which was used before inviting the good Christian folk of CC Moscow to confession

"We want our sins to be reckoned as tiny for numerous reasons. One is the obvious self-justifying one, but we also want our sins to be small because we want God’s forgiveness to be a reasonable forgiveness. We want God to be a gentleman, the kind of being who would obviously be well-bred enough to be able to overlook our little faults and peccadilloes. But God is not a well-mannered gentleman. His forgiveness is much closer to that which would be extended by an out-of-control crazy man. Our sins are as scarlet, and God forgives them all. Our sins are crimson, and He makes them like bleached wool [...]

God does not forgive us because we were already half the distance to passable. He does not forgive us because we were all semi-okay. No, we were all not okay, and not okay is an expression that does not do justice to our condition [...]

So our sins are as scarlet and crimson. Our problem is that sin is the wrong color—blood red. And the only thing that can put such a problem right again is something else that is the same color—the blood red color of our redemption. So as we come to confess our sins, let us seek red for our red."


Isn't that brilliant?

So harden not your heart, and God to the cross seeking red or else, you'll be dead!