Nothing is more important than...

Sunday Worship.

Don’t make rules for your family that contradict the rules Jesus makes for us. Worship is the most important thing we do for our individual families. The best thing you can ever do for your children is to teach them that there is nothing, nothing, more important than worshiping God with His people on Sunday. If they learn this lesson, your family will be mightily blessed — and they will be blessed because they have learned that our individual families are secondary to the Family of God.

Read the rest at Family Time

Christmas video: Beatbox Nativity

There's only One Saviour

Lots of good pithy statements by Warfield about the One and Only Saviour, Jesus Christ and His wonderful salvation, including a comment I've heard before that "the gospel is not good advice but good news." As you rejoice in our Immanuel this Advent, read this and consider again how immense is our salvation

“Jesus did all that is included in the great word ‘save.’ He did not come to induce us to save ourselves, or to help us save ourselves, or to enable us to save ourselves. He came to save us. And it is, therefore, that His name was called Jesus—because He should save His people from their sins. The glory of our Lord, surpassing all His other glories toward us, is just that He is our actual and complete Savior; our Savior to the uttermost. Our knowledge, even though it be His gift to us as our Prophet, is not our Savior, be it as wide and deep and as high as it is possible to conceive. The Church, though it be His gift to us as our King, is not our Savior, be it as holy and true as it becomes the Church, the bride of the Lamb, to be. The reorganized society in which He has placed us, though it be the product of His holy rule over the redeemed earth, is not our Savior, be it the new Jerusalem itself, clothed in its beauty and descended from heaven. Nay, let us cut more deeply still. Our faith itself, though it be the bond of our union with Christ through which we receive all His blessings, is not our Savior. We have but one Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing that we are and nothing that we can do enters in the slightest measure into the ground of our acceptance of God. Jesus did it all. And by doing it all He has become in the fullest and widest and deepest sense the word can bear—our Savior. For this end did He come into the world—to save sinners; and nothing short of the actual and complete saving of sinners will satisfy the account of His work given by His own lips and repeated from them by all His apostles. It is in this great fact, indeed, that there lies the whole essence of the gospel. For let us never forget that the gospel is not good advice but good news. It does not come to us to make known to us what we must do to earn salvation for ourselves, but proclaiming to us what Jesus has done to save us. It is salvation, a complete salvation, that it announces to us; and the burden of its message is just the words of the text—that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” ― B.B. Warfield, The Power of God Unto Salvation

Baptists' distorted view of Scripture

Thanks to this chart showing the differences between the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession of Faith, I'm beginning to understand where Baptists (in their current mutation) come from. One of the key differences, relates to the alternative views of Scripture (specifically sufficiency) in the 2 confessions. The pertinent section is presented below with the WCF on the left and the Baptist Confession on the right. The significant bits are highlighted in blue, showing that while Baptists (wrongly) want everything laid out in black and white, the Reformed are (rightly) happy to join the dots.

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word; and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word, and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

Becoming flesh in 3D

Below is a stunning video of a baby's development from conception to birth by internationally renowned artist Alexander Tsiaras. His explanation of the incredible complexity of how life begins, is worth sharing as we contemplate during this season of Advent, the astounding fact that our risen and reigning Lord Jesus has been there and done it!

Marriage beats romance any day

Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but rather the creation of time and will, any marriage happy or unhappy is infinitely more interesting than any romance however passionate.

W H Auden

Nein are worthy, therefore move on up

“Do not forget this. At first it is natural for a baby to take its mother's milk without knowing its mother. It is equally natural for us to see the man who helps us without seeing Christ behind him. But we must not remain babies. We must go on to recog­nize the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes: all of them will die. We must be thankful to all the people who have helped us, we must honour them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any hu­man being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 158

In other words, none of thine heroes are worthy, therefore look him up (Acts 2:32-33)

Periodic table of the Bible

This is neat, especially if you're a Chemistry geek or like pictorial summaries.