Quote of the week

“When God acts contrary to our will, disappointment is understandable. But when our desires go unfulfilled and disappointment begins to define us, something else is afoot. It’s called discontentment.” 


Via: Frustrated at work?

Marriage tis hard/The Sermon and the Lunch

With a heading like that, some might be thinking, what's gone wrong... I've been married for only 6 sorry 5 months! The truth is family life is a real joy and it is right for us reformed folk to big up marriage, especially the delights of having a wife (Proverbs 18:22) and the joy of having children (Psalm 128). Nevertheless I'd be a bad pastor if I failed to mention to those in my charge that family life is a labour. There are times, when marriage contains a certain drudgery e.g. doing the chores I'd rather not do (such as getting up early to de-ice the car, talking the rubbish out when it's freezing cold, etc, etc) and failing to warn others of such trials is to set them up for disappointment BIG time. It is right to give the impression that marriage is something to be greatly enjoyed. Nevertheless to give just this impression is to fail to prepare people for marriage. 

I'd like to say that these are all original thoughts but I found out today that CS Lewis got there before me and I recommend his excellent essay, The Sermon and the Lunch which I reckon should be required reading for those doing any sort of marriage prep

England day 1 at the Ashes

Joke of the week

One time G.K. Chesterton, the rolypologist, was patted on the stomach by his adversary, George Bernard Shaw, a beanpole of an infidel, and was asked what they were going to name the baby. Chesterton replied immediately that if it was a boy, John, if a girl, then Mary. But if it turned out to only be gas, they were going to name it George Bernard Shaw.

HT: Uncommom Commonplaces

Video of the week: Quantitative Easing explained

This is a must watch!

No mama = no papa

Is what Calvin says in a roundabout kind'a way. He says it in the Institutes, whilst addressing the issue of the Visible Church whereupon he writes:

there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for (Institutes Book IV, ch i, para 4)

In simple words, people are always born and people have mothers. There is always blood and there is always water


Similarly, if people are to be re-born, they must have a new mother, and there must be blood and water. 

Without a mother and without blood and water, there is no rebirth and no way we could 
call God, Father. 


Or as Paul puts it in Galatians 4, no mama = no papa.


HT: Toby S and Steve J

Quote of the week

The Calvinist movement in which Puritanism was rooted dignified activities that were previously considered mundane, through vigorously affirming the sacredness of earthly life, the glory of the physical, the splendour of the ordinary and the intimate unison between spirit and matter. The Puritan allowed one to serve God by serving one's wife, to be faithful to the Lord through being faithful in one's vocation. To read more about that, click here