Literary Ales has (Mostly) Moved

My blog has mostly moved over to literaryales.posterous.com. (Some of the older posts before I used Literary Ales look better here on WordPress.) Comments on new posts are disabled, and while you can still comment on older posts I prefer you do it at the new site.

Happy 450th Belgic Confession

This year is the Belgic Confession’s 450th anniversary. 

The Death of a Terrorist and Eschatology

I was going to write a blog about the death of Osama bin Laden and eschatological tension, but Michael Horton wrote a better article for Christianity Today. To sum, we can be reservedly glad that temporally justice is served but we still should mourn death and that he did not repent. When the Kingdom is fully inaugurated we will fully rejoice over the vanquishing of God’s enemies. As one last point, we should not confuse the actions of the state with the church.

And here’s a good article from Carl Trueman on Reformation21 on the Great Man Theory of history. 

Considering Adoption

An excellent link to a friend’s post about adoption. 

Context Poster in Image Format

And the quotes in plain text.

A text without a context is a pretext.

Quoted from unknown source by Rev. D. Hermerding

Gramercy, fellow; there, drink that for me. 

Richard III — Shakespeare

Et tu, Brutè? Then fall Caesar.

Julius Caesar — Shakespeare

Syme sat down at a café table with his companions, his blue eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Sammur with a pleased impatience.

The Man who was Thursday: A NIghtmare — G. K. Chesterton

Light hath no tongue but is all eye;

‘Breake of Day’ — John Donne

Charles Edward Telfair probably didn’t recognize how important his bananas would become.

Banana: the Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World— Dan Koepel

In leading up to this position, the logical analysis of science decisively reveals its own limitations and points beyond itself in the direction of a fiduciary formulation of science, to which I propose to move on at a late stage of enquiry. 

Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy — Michael Polanyi

But this leviathan, or perverse notion concerning works, is unconquerable where sincere faith is wanting. 

On Christian Liberty — Martin Luther

Thanks to the Zwickau discovery we can date his study of Augustine as far back as the autumn of 1509. 

Luther: Man between God and the Devil — Heiko Oberman

The fallacy of presentism is a complex anachronism, in which the antecedent in a narrative series is falsified by being defined of interpreted in terms of the consequent.

Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought — David Hackett Fischer

When noble Coön, Antenor’s eldest son, saw this, sore indeed were his eyes at the sight of his fallen brother.

The Illiad — Homer

When the child of the morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse.

The Odyssey — Homer

You cannot, for example, use Shakespeare’s Othello as a guide for brain surgery. At least, if your brain surgeon tells you that that is where he obtained his knowledge of surgical procedure, I would strongly recommend you ask for a second opinion.

Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History — Carl Trueman

Nero focused on his undramatic, slow-motion act, elated by both the feeling of standing up for his beliefs and the aesthetics of its execution.

The Black Swan — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

And, within the latter, reason was granted the right to examine and explain the credentials of revelation.

Reformed Dogmatics — Herman Bavinck

In Melanchthon’s Tractatus de Postestate et Primatu papae (1537), which was included along with the Schmalkaldic Articles in the Book of Concord, there is no hint of eschatological expectations, and the idea of the Endechrist is carefully but noticeably demythologized.

The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications — Heiko A. Oberman

Then imagine instead of the black or gray or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the main flying back in the wind.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe — C. S. Lewis

“What is ‘peace’?” she asked.

Perelandra — C. S. Lewis

‘It is now many years ago,’ said Glóin, ‘that a shadow of disquiet fell upon our people.’

The Fellowship of the Ring — J. R. R. Tolkien

Meanwhile the company had relaxed into a hollow but praiseworthy imitation of a pleasure gathering.

Christmas by Injunction — O. Henry

Away then with such subtleties!

Institutes of the Christian Religion — John Calvin

The year 1554 opened with stalemate in Geneva.

Calvin — Bruce Gordon

The Gnostics were profoundly influenced by the dualistic conception of the Greeks, in which matter as inherently evil is represented as utterly opposed to spirit; and by a mystic tendency to regard earthly things as allegorical representations of great cosmic redeeming processes.

Systematic Theology — Louis Berkhof

I came to Carthage and all around me hissed a cauldron of illicit loves.

Confessions — Augustine

“You have a quarrel on hand, I see,” said I, “with some of the algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”

The Purloined Letter — Edgar Allen Poe

Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence:

Pilgrim’s Progress — John Bunyan

And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

Numbers 22.21

This alternate sucession of appetites, adversions hopes, and fears is no less in other living creatures than in man, and therefore beasts also deliberate.

Leviathan — Thomas Hobbes

Then she suddenly smiled.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — J. K. Rowling

But with Isaiah it is different. His whole point of view is theocentric, emphasizing that Israel lives for the sake of Jehovah, and possibly the berith-idea with its strongly stressed mutualness did not appear to him peculiarly adapted for bringing this God-centered characteristic of religion to the front.

Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments — Geerhardus Vos

An example of this was given: If a king thanks his servants, they value it greatly, but if he makes it known throughout his realm, then is its value greatly increased.

Revelations of Divine Love — Julian of Norwich

In which regard there is no difference between the murdering of an innocent man and the executing of an offender; but as they are under a moral consideration, their ends follow their deservings, in respect of conformity to the rule, and so there is χάσμα μέγα between them.

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ — John Owen

A self-evident proposition, though always self-evident in itself, is sometimes self-evident to us and sometimes not.

Summa Theologiae — Thomas Aquinas

There was an immediate shortage of beer,

Drinking with Calvin and Luther — Jim West

And smale foweles maken melodye,That slepen al the nyght with open ye

Canterbury Tales — Geoffrey Chaucer

Humour and irony in the service of theology? Can a Protestant do that?

Beyond the Limitations of Chick Lit — Carl Trueman

Blurbing Dethroning the King: the Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon

In Dethroning the King, Julie MacIntosh chronicles the intriguing tale of the takeover of the producer of an insipid libation. She has taken great care in recounting the history of Anheuser-Busch after the repeal of Prohibition and how myopic decisions led to the largest American brewery with over 50% of market share to become an acquisition target. My only disappointment is she did not as thoroughly chronicle the acquirer InBev. Yet, MacIntosh kept my rapt attention the entire read; well worth my time. 

A New Bible Translation—Now More Conservative.

While in the hospital with my wife and new baby, I decided to do some light reading, Chick Lit; no, not what you’re thinking of but the bizarre cartoons of Jack Chick. Don’t ask me why, probably sleep deprivation; I had tried reading Augustine’s Confessions but didn’t think I was doing justice to it by being so tired. 

Anyway, Jack Chick is apparently a KJV-onlyite, and in his KJV page he made a reference to the new Conservapedia Bible. I’d heard of Conservapedia before but never looked at it. So I found the pages on Conservapedia. The most egregious mistranslation I found (granted I was looking for it because I know the passage) was the rewording of Acts 2.44 from ‘And all who believed were together and had all things in common.’ to the risible, ‘Everyone who believed was together and shared values, faith, and the truth.’ The context clearly shows it to be possessions; read the verses following. 

On the Colbert Report show the founder of Conservapedia commented that the bulk of Jesus’ parables were about the free-market. After looking around on the site, I’m not sure if it is the view of actual conservatives or parodying conservative view. (Sometime the two are very close.) But after seeing the Colbert Report interview I think it is actual conservatives. 

So go read the pages on the ‘Conservative Bible’; there is so much self-evidently wrong there it’s unprofitable to discuss it all. A few things, however, jumped out at me: 

 

Review: The Wages of Spin (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 Here

The second part of Carl Trueman’s work The Wages of Spin is entitled ‘Short Sharp Shocks.’ These essays are shorter and more accessible. If I had to comment on the balance of the types of essay, I’d argue Trueman should have included more of these short essays. 

Essay 1: The Importance of Evangelical Beliefs

Carl Trueman argues in line with Gresham Machen and the Apostle Paul that Christianity does not exist unless history and doctrine are indissolubly united. While we may gain respectability in applying Jacob de Zoet’s aphorism, ‘The truth of a myth lies not in its words but its patterns,’ (The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell) to Christianity, if we do so we lose the Gospel.

Essay 2: What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

“In the psalms, God has given the church a language which allows it to express even the deepest agonies of the human soul in the context of worship.’ (p 159)

This is probably Trueman’s best essay in this collection (out of several very good essays). He expresses that often the church has partially bought into the commercialism the West and with it the idolatry of health, wealth, and happiness. To this end, we end up denying that brokenness is part of the human—yes, even the Christian—condition. This is reflected in our worship; our songs as a whole don’t express this brokenness. 

Trueman states that the Psalms have a higher priority in singing. In the Psalms, there is the range of emotion of man’s soul. Let us learn to lament with the language of the Psalms, argues Trueman, and we’ll have a healthier and more evangelistic church. To which I can only respond, ‘Amen’.

Essay 3: The Marcions have Landed!

Marcion lived in the 2nd century and held to a cannon consisting only of a redacted version of the Gospel of Luke and ten epistles of Paul. The rest of Scripture, including the Old Testament, he rejected. He formulated this cannon because he believed the gospel message was exclusively of love. 

The essay proposes that modern evangelicals have so focussed on the love of God they have excluded a notion of his wrath. (Consider how the doctrine of penal substitution has recently fallen on hard times.) Unwittingly, this places them in line with Marcion’s theology.

Another aspect of neo-Macionism is the neglect of the Old Testament ‘in our theological reflection and devotional life.’ (p 166) Again, ‘As the Old Testament is the context for the New Testament, so the neglect of the Old Testament leaves the New as more or less meaningless.’ (p 167)

Trueman concludes with, ‘think truncated thoughts about God and will will get a truncated God; read an expurgated Bible, and you’ll get an expurgated theology; sing mindless, superficial rubbish instead of deep, truly emotional praise and you will eventually become what you sing.’ (p 168)

If our doxology suffers so will our life and witness; let us call evangelicalism back to the God of the whole Bible.

Essay 4: A Revolutionary Balancing Act Or: Why Our Theology Needs to be a Little Less Biblical.

My original review started, ‘And now an article with I disagree with Trueman.’ But after some discussions learned that Carl Trueman is (mostly) right. In this essay, he argues that while Biblical theology is a good thing and has valuable insights, it should not be done to the exclusion of systematic theology. Originally I thought he overemphasized the problem that people were ignoring systematic theology, but after a discussion with my pastor, he stated that not only is there some ignoring systematic theology but down right despise it. I am grateful for my time in the Reformed world, that my pastors have been balanced in their use of biblical and systematic theology.

Essay 5: Boring Ourselves to Life

Carl Trueman begins his essay with an amusing anecdote with the news showing people in preparation for a winter storm by ‘stocking up’ on rental movies, lest they be stuck in their houses and become bored. 

Why do we place such an emphasis on entertainment? Why are celebrities and sports figures paid so much? Why is entertainment more valueable to us than a host of other services and goods such as government and education?

To answer this, Trueman turns t o the writings of Blaise Pascal in his Pensées. Left to ourselves we think about the reality of death and our mortality. ‘Why do we pay sports stars, actors, and the various airheads that populate the airwaves more than we pay our political leader? Because they help to take our minds off the deeper, more demanding truths of life, particularly the one great and ultimately unavoidable truth: death.’ (p 177) Trueman concludes his essay by urging us to spend some time reflecting on the claims of Christ and the truths revealed in him. 

Essay 6: Why you shouldn’t buy the big issue.

This is a great essay asking, ‘Why is homosexuality one bridge too far?’. Carl is right on; if we’ve tolerated heresy as theological diversity then we should not be surprised when morality crumbles. We should defend more concerns such as the deity of Christ, his literal resurrection, etc., while also affirming Christian morality. The proverbial line in the sand should not be drawn at homosexuality but at much earlier point with the integrity of Scripture and doctrine. 

The essayist points out that when we make homosexuality the Big Issue rather than theological concern we come across not as being principled and biblical but merely bigoted and out of touch. Of course, we probably come across and bigoted and out of touch in any case but at least the world would be able to see a consistent ethic and practice if we were to take seriously the whole of God’s Word. 

Evangelicalism Through the Looking Glass. A Fairy Tale 

Carl Trueman’s last piece shows his characteristic wit. (I know I may not have mentioned it in the above reviews, this is of course why should read him and not me.) He humorously retells the Alice and Humpty-Dumpty encounter that must be read to be appreciated. 

Review: The Wages of Spin (Part 1 of 2)

The Wages of Spin is a great read. Carl Trueman writes with his characteristic British humour to analyse various aspects of contemporary evangelicalism. As the essays don’t have much of a common them beyond that I’ll analyse them separately below. The book itself is divided into two parts: evangelical essays and short sharp stacks and so I’ll split my blog posts as well. 

Essay 1: Reckoning with the Past in an Anti-Historical Age

In this first essay, Carl Trueman reminds us that Christianity is an historical faith; of course this sharply contrasts with our postmodern age. He stresses that confessional Reformed theology (as well as confessional Lutheranism and conservative evangelicalism) is at a crossroads. This is a useful essay in its analysis of the current situation and as prescription for remedy.

The essay expounds antihistorical tendencies of the postmodern world. Particularly, we moderns are adverse to tradition; consider the Enlightenment which labelled the age before it as dark. Consumerism emphasises the novel: how else could they sell you the latest thing? Moreover, postmodernist deconstructionism have made all truth (including history) mere power plays. 

How has the Church reacted? Largely in one of two ways, argues Carl Trueman. Either by jettisoning the past including traditional Christian liturgy and focussing on the pragmatic (mainstream evangelicalism) or selectively embracing the past with no regard for its context (emergent churches). Carl uses an example of Celtic Christianity revival which I am not familiar with (but may be more prevalent in the UK). I personally suspect most evangelicals in America follow the first route. 

The essay offers two theses to study historical orthodox Reformed tradition in this post-Christian world. Thesis One: The Reformed tradition takes seriously the biblical teaching that God is primarily a speaking God. The Reformation was a movement rooted in words and one of the effects was the literacy of the populace. Contrast this with both the mediaeval and postmodern aesthetic centred on the visual. Thesis Two: The Reformed Faith appreciates the beneficial aspects of history and tradition. It is against mindless iconoclasm. ‘The Reformed church, with its creeds, confessions, catechisms, and theological tradition, provides its people with the historical continuity that so many crave today…’ (p. 34) Consider the Reformed scholastics (and Reformed theologians of different eras) who interacted with history and other traditions in their writings. But the last word I’ll leave to Trueman:

We might add, finally, that when we lose sight of God’s work in the past we may easily also lose sight of his work in the future, of the eschatological dimension of the Christian faith.…Reformed theology, by giving due place to history in God’s purposes, points beyond the present to a bright future in eschatological glory and thus does justice to the biblical tension involved in living in the world between Pentecost and the Parousia.

Essay 2: The Undoing of the Reformation?

Picking up a theme of the previous essay, Trueman writes on the importance of the spoken and written word. In many ways with the advent of the internet (of course TV also has an influence) we again have a mediaeval aesthetic of the visual. As a counterpoint I might mention the influence of e-books and podcasts which focus on the spoken and written, but overall I think Trueman’s statement is sound. Trueman does concede something similar, also reminding us when we apply for a loan, the loan manager does not do an interpretive dance for us. 

Carl Trueman recounts the confusion of the languages at Babel and the antiparallel at Pentecost where the gospel was heard in many languages. He also expounds on the reformers (both Lutheran and Reformed) the Word precedes the sacraments. (That is, the sacraments are not sacraments without the Word explaining them.) We see that God is primarily a speaking God. 

Trueman comments, ‘[I]t is clear that the denial of any role to authorial intent in determining the meaning of a text is lethal to evangelical Christianity.’ His critique of postmodernism is right on. Of course, modernism is no friend to Christianity either. Carl finishes with a great point, one of the features of TV is that it has conditioned us to relate to stories. ‘What an opportunity for the church! Is it not wonderful that God himself has provided us with the greatest story ever told?’

Essay 3: Theology and the Church: Divorce or Remarriage?

I must confess I don’t know much about the academy so I won’t have much to say on this. (I realize this isn’t a problem for most bloggers…) This essay discussed the relation between the church and the academy. Trueman outlines ‘grounds for divorce’ and proposes four theses for the church and four for the academy to reunite them for the glory of God.

Essay 4: The Princeton Trajectory on Scripture: A Clarification and Proposal

This essay interacts with various models of inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Trueman discusses Old Princeton, particularly B B Warfield. Warfield, he argues, is still relevant for today, although a development of the human composition of Scripture would be useful. This may serve to alleviate concern the Princetonians held to a view of inspiration akin to the authors of Scripture copying the words verbatim from God.

Essay 5: The Glory of Christ: B B Warfield on Jesus of Nazareth

Carl Trueman introduces us to an aspect of B B Warfield beyond the three topics he is usually remembered for (inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, cessation of miraculous gifts, and his support of theistic evolution). The essay shows B B Warfield’s work on the Incarnation and the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not being familiar with his view on this, was was interested to read the essay. It has created a desire to read B B Warfield’s writings and learn more about him. That is, of course, one of the greatest things an essay can accomplish.

Essay 6: Is the Finnish Line the New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle

While I am most certainly unqualified to write on this essay, as I had not heard of Tuomo Mannnermaa and the Helsinki Circle’s efforts to link Luther’s doctrine on justification with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis, if Trueman is correct, that the contributions of scholar Heiko Oberman is absent from the writings of the Helsinki Circle, it is certainly to the detriment of their views. 

New Site: Reformed Confessions Serialized

I have a new project and a new site: Reformed Confessions Serialized. This year I’m starting slow and introducing the Second Helvetic Confession; the publishing schedule will be every Monday. Subscribe to the RSS and it’ll automatically deliver the new sections for you. 

Christmas Lights at the Zoo

Lunar Eclipse 2010

On longest night,

Moon shines most bright.

Yet what is this?

The edge is kissed

with a black hint,

darkening tint.

The blackness grows;

chocolate now glows

the moon an hour.

Light loses power.

Then a sliver 

stirring quiver

on th’edge appears

of silver sphere.

From shadow soon

emerges moon.

Again that orb bright

illumines night.

100 Influential Christian Works

Click here for a post where you can leave comments.

Inspired by a note making the rounds on FaceBook I decided to create my own list of books.

1 *The Bible
2 Didache
3 The Shepherd of Hermas
4 Dialogue with Trypho — Justin Martyr
5 Against Heresies — Irenaeus
6 De Carne Christi —Tertullian
7 De Unitate Ecclesiae — Cyprian
8 Ecclesiastical History — Eusebius
9 Orations Against the Arians — Athanasius
10 On the Holy Spirit — Basil the Great
11 Collected Homilies — John Chrysostom
12*Confessions — Augustine
13*The City of God — Augustine
14 Enchiridion — Augustine
15 The Ecclesiastical History of the English People — Bede
16 ?On Loving God — Bernard of Clairvaux
17 Cur Deus Homo? (Why God Man?) — Anselm
18 ?Sic et Non — Peter Abelard
19 Four Books of Sentences — Peter Lombard
20 Summa Theologica — Thomas Aquinas
21 Summa Contra Gentiles — Thomas Aquinas
22 Divine Comedy — Dante
23 The Cause of God Against the Pelagians — Thomas Bradwardine
24 Imitation of Christ — Thomas à Kempis
25 Mirror for Christians — Dietrich Coelde
26 Commentary on the Psalms — Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples
27 In Praise of Folly — Desiderius Erasmus
28 *95 Theses — Martin Luther
29 *The Freedom of the Christian — Martin Luther
30 *Commentary on Galatians — Martin Luther
31 67 Theses — Ulrich Zwingli
32 On True and False Religion — Ulrich Zwingli
33 *Decades — Heinrich Bullinger
34 Loci Communes — Phillipp Melanchthon
35 Loci Communes — Peter Martyr Vermigli
36 *The Institutes of Christian Religion — John Calvin
37 Commentaries — John Calvin
38 *Treatise on Relics — John Calvin
39 *Heidelberg Catechism — Zacharius Ursinius
40 Icones — Theodore Beza
41 The History of the Reformation in Scotland — John Knox
42 The Bruised Reed — Richard Sibbs
43 *The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment — Jeremiah Burroughs
44 *Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices — Thomas Brooks
45 *The Death of Death in the Death of Christ — John Owen
46 Communion with God — John Owen
47 *The Mortification of Sin — John Owen
48 The Christian in Complete Armour — William Gurnall
49 *The Sinfulness of Sin (org. Sin: that Plague of Plagues) — Ralph Venning
50 Institutes of Elenctic Theology — Francis Turretin
51 *Pilgrim’s Progress — John Bunyan
52 *Grace Abounding — John Bunyan
53 *Westminster Standards
54 The Marrow of Modern Divinity — Edward Fisher
55 The Crook in the Lot — Thomas Boston
56 The Fourfold State of Man — Thomas Boston
57 The Christian’s Reasonable Service — Wilhelmus à Brakel
58 The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man — Hermann Witsius
59 *Charity and its Fruits — Jonathan Edwards
60 *Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God — Jonathan Edwards
61 Resolutions — Jonathan Edwards
62 The Christian Faith — Friedrich Schleiermacher
63 History of the Reformation — J. H. Merle d’Aubigné
64 Systematic Theology — Charles Hodge
65 The Mystical Presence — John Nevin
66 ? Either/Or — Søren Kierkegaard
67 The Sickness Unto Death — Søren Kierkegaard
68 Commentary on the Confession of Faith — A A Hodge
69 The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible — B B Warfield
70 The Person and Work of Christ — B B Warfield
71 *Morning and Evening — Charles Spurgeon
72 Lectures on Calvinism — Abraham Kuyper
73 *Reformed Dogmatics — Herman Bavinck
74 *Systematic Theology — Louis Berkhoff
75 *Biblical Theology — Geerhardus Vos
76 Pauline Eschatology — Geerhardus Vos
77 Orthodoxy — G K Chesterton
78 *Christianity and Liberalism — Gresham Machen
79 Church Dogmatics — Karl Barth
80 The Defense of the Faith — Cornelius Van Til
81 *Mere Christianity — C S Lewis
82 *Till We Have Faces — C S Lewis
83 *Space Trilogy — C S Lewis
84 The Cost of Discipleship — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
85 *Your God is Too Small — J B Phillips
86 The Bible and the Future — Anthony Hoekema
87 *The Pursuit of Holiness — Jerry Bridges
88 *Concise Theology — J I Packer
89 *Luther: Man Between God and Devil — Heiko Oberman
90 *The Christian Life — Sinclair Ferguson
91 *Children of the Living God — Sinclair Ferguson
92 The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses — Vern Poythress
93 *Putting Amazing Back into Grace — Michael Horton
94 *The Valley of Vision
95 *The Reason for God — Tim Keller
96 *The Wages of Spin — Carl Trueman
97 Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics — Richard Muller
98 *The Big Picture Story Bible — David Helm
99 *The Jesus Storybook Bible — Sally Lloyd-Jones
100 *Calvin — Bruce Gordon

 

25/30/*41/?3/^0

Zeal Oats

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
Romans 12:11 (NIV)

Start your day right: with Zeal Oats™.

Zeal Oats provide a hearty breakfast encouraging zeal for the Kingdom and healthy living.

Although several products have already been Christianized, until now there have been few Christian breakfast grains, as they have previously been considered either neutral or the domain of a pagan goddess. That changes with Zeal Oats!

Zeal Oats are a new product developed by Healthy Christian Flavor. Using a zealously guarded process, Zeal Oats combine the taste of steel-cut oats with the convenience of instant oatmeal. In the process, they infused with organic milk and honey. The oats are reaped and rotated using Biblical principles outlined in Leviticus. When you buy Zeal Oats, your purchase helps nourish the poor from the corners of the fields. In addition, the Zeal Oats box contains inspirational quotes about zeal from the Bible and famous Christian thinkers. 

Zeals Oats are sure to increase your zeal: preferably for Christ and his Kingdom. (Please use product responsibly and do not misdirect zeal into unprofitable arguments, fruitless diversions, or unwelcome badgering.) 

Zeal Oats are sold in the breakfast foods aisle of your local Christian bookstore. 

Please also try these other fine products from Healthy Christian Flavour: 
Meek Puffs: Even the milk is turned meek!
Joyoghurt: With live Laetatiobacillus gaudiphilus cultures.
And flavor your meals with low-sodium Psalter. 

Healthy Christian Flavor: helping displace books from Christian bookstores since 2010. 

 

Calvin on Assurance

One of my friends recently listened to a lecture in a Western Civ course about John Calvin. The professor stated that Calvin did not believe Christians could be assured of their salvation. My friend was sceptical and asked me if I knew about this. I replied I was reasonably certain that Calvin did teach assurance, but I’d look it up for him. (After looking it up I now should have been very certain he taught assurance.)

In The Institutes, Calvin mainly addresses assurance in 3.2. Here are some quotes from that chapter. Brackets are mine except the Scripture references which are Calvin’s editor, John T. McNeill. 

3.2.16:

No man is a believer, I say, except him who, leaning upon the assurance of his salvation, confidently triumphs over the devil and death; as we are taught from that masterly summation of Paul: I have confessed that “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come … [Calvin’s ellipsis] can separate us from the love of God which embraces us in Christ Jesus” [Rom. 8:38–39 p.]. Thus, in the same manner, the apostle does not consider the eyes of our minds well illumined, except as we discern what the hope of the eternal inheritance is to which we have been called [Eph 1:18]. And everywhere he so teaches as to intimate that we cannot otherwise well comprehend the goodness of God unless we gather from it the fruit of great assurance. 

3.2.24: Calvin teaches the basis of our assurance is union with Christ. 

For because they [the half-papists] cannot defend that rude doubt which has been handed down in the schools [mediaeval scholasticism], they take refuge in another fiction: that they may make an assurance mingled with unbelief. When ever we look upon Christ, they confess that we find full occasion for good hope in him. But because we are always un-worthy of all those benefits which are offered to us in Christ, they would have us waver and hesitate at the sight of our unworthiness. IN brief, they so set conscience between hope and fear that it alternates from one to the other intermittently and by turns….But what kind of confidence will that be, which now and again yields to despair? If, they say, you contemplate Christ, there is sure salvation: if you turn back to yourself, there is sure damnation. Therefore unbelief and good hope must alternately reign in your mind. As if we ought to think of Christ, standing afar off and not dwelling in us! For we await salvation from him not because he appears afar off, but because he makes us, ingrafted into his body, participants not only in all his benefits but also in himself. So I turn this argument of theirs against them: if you contemplate yourself there is sure damnation. But since Christ has been so imparted to you with all his benefits that all this things are made yours, that you are made a member of him, indeed one with him, his righteousness overwhelms your sins; his salvation wipes out your condemnation; with his worthiness he intercedes that your unworthiness may not come before God’s sight. Surely this is so: We ought not to separate Christ from ourselves or ourselves from him. Rather we ought to hold fast bravely with both hands to that fellowship by which he has bound himself to us. 

3.2.40:

Not content with trying to undermine firmness of faith in one way alone, they [the Schoolmen] assail it from another quarter. Thus, they say that even though according to our present state of righteousness we can judge concerning our possession of the grace of God, the knowledge of final perseverance remains in suspense. A fine confidence of salvation is left to us, if by moral conjecture we judge that at the present moment we are in grace, but we know not what will become of us tomorrow!

These passages definitely teach assurance, not only that it is possible but a vital part of faith! Perhaps this professor needs some of Calvin’s famous spectacles. 

Reformation Day Jeopardy

In the month of October I designed a Reformation Day Jeopardy Game for my church Desert Springs Pres in Tucson. As many Reformation Day activities online are decidedly Lutheran I decided to have this focus more on the Reformed wing of the Protestant Reformation. Unlike Lutherans we don’t have a single theologian to define our tradition, so getting all the names and places correctly is more challenging. Even so, I probably made it more challenging than I ought. But feel free to borrow for your church’s Reformation Commemorations in the future. (Mentioning where you got the game is always appreciated.)

As a bonus, two questions about Peter Martyr (who was sadly cut from the original game).

A: Calvin credited this Italian Reformer for his work on defining the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

Q: Who is Peter Martyr Vermigli?

A: Both Phillip Melanchthon and Peter Martyr Vermigli entitled their works of systematic theology this.

Q: What is Loci communes? (Common Places)

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