Tried With Fire

O Lord of Grace, The world is before me this day,    and I am weak and fearful,    but I look to thee for strength; If I venture forth alone I stumble and fall,    but on the Beloved’s arms I am firm as the eternal hills; If left to the treachery of my heart I shall shame thy Name,    but if enlightened, guided, upheld by thy Spirit,    I shall bring thee glory. Be thou my arm to support,              my strength to stand,              my light to see,              my feet to run,              my shield to protect,              my sword to repel,              my sun to warm. To enrich me will not diminish thy fullness; All thy lovingkindness is in thy Son, I bring him to thee in the arms of faith, I ...

By Tom Gauld

The following quote is by Alan Jon Hauser - Genesis 2-3: The Theme of Intimacy and Alienation .  Michelle Lee-Barnewell refers to Dr. Hauser's paper in Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian in the section where she proposes that unity is the primary theme of Adam and Eve's relationship in Genesis 2 rather than authority/submission or even equality. 1 As I read Dr. Lee-Barnewell's argument and then Dr. Hauser's analysis, I think they have both honed in on something that has been missing from the gender debate. (I would add that Lee-Barnewell's position does not necessarily negate male elders nor any application of Ephesians 5.) If unity/oneness is indeed the hallmark of Adam and Eve's pre-fall state, then sin brought in alienation between men and women and between mankind and God. In Hauser's examination of the text, he notes that the Hebrew verb tenses are plural even when the serpent is addressing Eve, thus emphasizing the oneness of Adam and Eve. But ...

Lord Jesus, great high priest, Thou hast opened a new and living way    by which a fallen creature can approach Thee with acceptance. Help me to contemplate the dignity of Thy Person,                                         the perfectness of Thy sacrifice,                                         the effectiveness of Thy intercession. O what blessedness accompanies devotion,     when under all the trials that weary me,                              the cares that corrode me,                              the fears that disturb me,                  ...

The Tao of the Man Bun with J.P. Sears:

I'm posting at Out of the Ordinary today: My opinion of politics has been marred ever since President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. I may have only been a kid at the time, but even a kid knows cover-ups and lying aren't right. Any standard of "right" has undergone a slow deterioration from bad to worse over the years, so I am not encouraged by the state of my nation. It is also easy to become fearful and wonder what will happen to the church-at-large given the political and social climate. But the culture has never been a good metric of the progress of the Kingdom of God. History has shown time and time again that the gospel spreads and the church flourishes in the most adverse circumstances, proving once more that the foolishness of God is wiser than men. ( 1 Cor. 1:25 ) Read the rest of the post here.

Pentecostal Outpourings: Revial and the Reformed Tradition, Robert Davis Smart, Michael A. G. Haykin, Ian Hugh Clary, editors, Reformation Heritage Books, 2016, 280 pages. Most Christians would agree that we need revival today, but what does that look like and what are its fruits? If we are honest, an accurate assessment of modern-day revival is "a humanly engineered series of meetings to convert the unsaved and with a fanatical experience that has little to do with the gospel and biblical theology." 1 Sadly, this definition bears little resemblance to New Testament. Hence our ideas need correcting, and  Pentecostal Outpourings offers a   much-needed biblical and historical corrective. This book examines historic revivals of the past in the British Isles and America. The accounts are not confined to one particular denomination but cover a range of groups all within the reformed tradition. Thus what constitutes  revival is defined by that theological con...