Theology, Religion & Other Musings
Things we’re not supposed to discuss but we should
There are one of three methods the government can take to pay for the Stimulus Bill and other spending bills that have passed.
Method 1 – The government can raise taxes and thus increase revenue.
Method 2 – The government can borrow the money.
Method 3 – The government can print the money.
There is no such thing as free money.
As Dr. Adrian Rogers notes, “The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.”
“Those who are really called of God to the sacred ministry are such as have been brought to a deep acquaintance with themselves, feel their own ignorance, and know their own weakness. They know also the awful responsibility that attaches to the work; and nothing but the authority of God can induce such to undertake it. They whom God never called run, because of worldly honour and emolument: the others hear the call with fear and trembling, and can go only in the strength of Jehovah.
How ready is the man to go, Whom God hath never sent! How timorous, diffident, and slow, God’s chosen instrument!”
–Adam Clarke, Commentary on Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 6
Too often preaching on the Gospels takes what I whimsically think of as the “Find Waldo Approach.” The underlying question in the sermon is “Where are you to be found in this story?” (are you Martha or Mary, James and John, Peter, the grateful leper . . .?). The question “Where, Who and What is Jesus in this story? Tends to be marginalized. The truth is it is far easier to preach about Mary, Martha, James, John, or Peter than it is about Christ. It is far easier to preach even about the darkness of sin and the human heart than to preach Christ. Plus my bookshelves are groaning with literature on Mary, Martha . . . the good life, the family life, the Spirit-filled life, the parenting life, the damaged self life . . . but most of us have only a few inches of shelf space on the person and work of Christ himself. Am I absolutely at my best when talking about him, or about us?
–Sinclair Ferguson