Sin & Grace

"Sinners we are in the day we first come to Christ. Poor needy sinners we continue to be so long as we live, drawing all the grace we have every hour out of Christ's fullness. Sinners we shall find ourselves in the hour of our death, and we shall die as much indebted to Christ's blood, as in the day we first believed."

Ryle, JC, 1857, Expository thoughts on the Gospels, Vol.1, p.86
[Also at: http://www.gracegems.org/Ryle/m09.htm]

Human Evolution and Christian Ethics

"... Christian ethics and evolutionary theories are in principle consonant with one another. ... If one accepts the axiom that, ultimately, “truth cannot conflict with truth,” then one can argue that the knowledge provided by the natural sciences, including that pertaining to human evolution, is consistent with, and can help to shed light on, the truth affirmed in Christian faith." Pope, Stephen J. , 2007, Human Evolution and Christian Ethics, Cambridge University Press, p.2

Getting things into proportion!

'It cost GOD just a word to create this world, but it cost GOD the life of Jesus to bring [us] into relationship with him.'  

Wynne, Jago, 2009, Working without wilting, IVP, p.142

The Lord's Prayer - Our FATHER ...

"Furthermore, we should note that, against the grain of some post-Augustinian liturgies, the church is not instructed by its Lord to approach its Father with “Sorry” as its first word. Even the Prodigal Son began his speech with “Father.” There is, to be sure, an appropriate place for penitence, both for communities and individuals. But the normal Christian approach to the Creator God is the unfettered and delighted “Father.” There is a time for penitence, but its location within the Lord’s Prayer suggests that it should not take pride of place in regular liturgical worship." Wright, NT, 2001, "The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer", in "Into God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament", ed. R.L. Longenecker. 2001, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 132-54.

God's mirror (James 1:22-25)

Martin Luther's reported view was that "You do not interpret Scripture, Scripture interprets you." To 'understand' Scripture is to 'stand under' Scripture. (Paulson, S, 2004, 'Luther for Armchair Theologians', Westminster/John Knox Press, ISBN-13: 978-0664223816)

Kierkegaard who, in direct contrast to Luther, regarded the first chapter of James as his favourite bit of the Bible (Journals & Papers, Vol.6, p.416) says a lot about reading God's Word as God's Word, in his book 'For Self-Examination' p.11-51. (All refs and quotes are from the Hong's 1990 ed. ). In this book Kierkegaard lays down three principles in answer to the question he poses:

"What is required in order to look at oneself with true blessing in the Mirror of the Word?'

"The first requirement is that you must not look at the mirror, observe the mirror, but must see yourself in the mirror." (p.25)
"The second requirement is that in order to see yourself in the mirror when you read God's Word you must (so that you actually do come to see yourself in the mirror) remember to say to yourself incessantly: It is I to whom it it is speaking; it is I about whom it is speaking." (p.35)
"Finally, if you want to look at yourself in the mirror with true blessing, you must not promptly forget how you looked, you must not be the forgetful hearer (or reader) of whom the apostle says: He looked at his bodily face in a mirror but promptly forgot how he looked." (p.44)

Along the way Kierkegaard has some memorable advice:

"Alone with God's Word ... seeing oneself in the mirror. ... we should not look at the mirror but see ourselves in the mirror. If you are a scholar, remember that if you do not read God's Word in another way, it will turn out that after a lifetime of reading God's Word many hours every day, you nevertheless have never read - God's Word." (p.32-33)

At the end of this post I must mention Richard Bauckham's commentry on 'James' (1999) which first drew my attention to Kierkegaard's book.

The "necessity" of a hell

"Hell sensibly extends moral responsibility into the next world. I say 'sensibly' because this is the only way to prevent eschatology from making a mockery of the present world. I do not know what befell Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she died, nor what has become of Joseph Stalin. But the same thing cannot have come upon them both. If there is any moral rhyme or reason in the Universe, all human beings cannot be equally well off as soon as they breathe their last and wake again. The next life continues this life; it does not start at square one. … Hell which outrages our moral sensibilities, is paradoxically a product of those same sensibilities. It is a postulate of the conscience. It calls for divine justice to make things right, and it solemnly expresses the profound significance of our moral and religious decisions, a significance that crosses even the cordon of death, and goes so far that it raises the possibility of an ongoing alienation from God. In these particulars, hell makes good sense." Dale C. Allison, 2005, 'The Problem of Gehenna', p.99 in Resurrecting Jesus, t&t clark.

A proof of God's love?

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Often mis-attributed to Benjamin Franklin the actual (?) quote is:
"Wine is a constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Satires and Bagatelles, p.18, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Illustrated by Paul McPharlin, Published by Kessinger Publishing, 2005

ISBN 9781419105876,140 pages.

The 'limits' of science

"Science tends to keep the complexity of an explanation to the minimum needed to explain the available facts (a principle known as Occam's razor), but one should not confuse this simplest explanation with reality. It is merely a station along the way to ever more complex realities." Tschinkel, W (2006), The Fire Ants, p.327