The Best of Belief

9/11 The Flag V The Cross

Posted on 11 September 2011 by Islwyn

“It was shattering to admit that we had lost the theological means to distinguish between the United States and the kingdom of God. The criminals who perpetrated 9/11 and the flag-waving boosters of our almost exclusively martial response were of one mind: that the non-violent way of Jesus is stupid. All of us preachers share the shame; when our people felt very vulnerable, they reached for the flag, not the Cross.”

“I’m going to preach as never before about Christ crucified as the answer to the question of what’s wrong with the world. I have also resolved to relentlessly reiterate from the pulpit that the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on their own terms by crucifying the Son of God.””

Quoting Bishop Will Willimon in ‘Christianity Today’ Ben Witherington comments on 10 years on from 9/11.

Posted in Christ's Sacrifice, Christian Mission, Forgiveness, Jesus, Nature of Man, The Church, The Gospel | Comments Off

‘Grace And The Law Of God’ by Dr. John Stott

Posted on 9 September 2011 by Islwyn

Said Bill Meuhlenberg in his post on Loving God And Keeping His Commandments:

“A sad situation is enveloping large parts of the evangelical church today, especially those associated with the emergent church. Increasingly we are being told that love is the only thing that matters in the Christian life, and any talk of obedience or keeping God’s commandments is somehow legalistic or in fact counter to love. Thus a new antinomianism is creeping through our churches.” As an Adventist I found myself sympathizing with Bill Meuhlenberg.

In my last post I added some statements from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in support of what Meuhlenberg had to say on the ‘Law of God’. Here is further explanation from the writings of Dr. John Stott on how we should view the Law of God, to avoid antinomianism as well as legalism. What do these terms mean?

From another book in my ‘downsized library’ Dr. John Stott explains three different views of the Law of God in MEN MADE NEW, (Inter-varsity Press,1973 -several printings and editions). A Study of Romans 5 – 8. Chapter three, “Freedom From The Law,” on Romans 7:1-8:4 – pages 59-83. Says Stott:

“By way of introduction it may help us find our way through this difficult chapter if we think of the three possible attitudes to the law – attitudes represented first by the legalist, secondly by the libertine or antinomian, and thirdly by the law-abiding believer.

1. The legalist is a man in bondage to the law. He imagines that his relationship to God depends on his obedience to it. And as he seeks to be justified by the works of the law, he finds the law a harsh and inflexible taskmaster. In Paul’s vocabulary he is `under the law.’

2. The antinomian (sometimes synonymous with `libertine’) goes to the other extreme. He rejects the law altogether, and even blames it for most of man’s moral and spiritual problems.

3. The law-abiding believer preserves the balance. He recognises the weakness of the law (Romans 8:3, `God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do’). The weakness of the law is that it can neither justify nor sanctify us, because in our selves we are not capable of obeying it. Yet the law-abiding believer delights in the law as an expression of the will of God, and seeks by the power of the indwelling Spirit to obey it.

To sum up, the legalist fears the law and is in bondage to it; the antinomian hates the law and repudiates it; the law-abiding believer loves the law and obeys it.”

pp.65-66. “Is the law still binding on the Christian? The answer to that is, No and Yes! `No’ in the sense that our acceptance with God does not depend on it. Christ in His death fully met the demands of the law, so that we are fully delivered from it. It no longer has any claims on us. It is no longer our lord. `Yes’ in the sense that our new life is still a bondage. We still `serve.’ We are still slaves, although discharged from the law. But the motive and means of our service has altered.

“Why do we serve? Not because the law is our master and we have to, but because Christ is our husband and we want to. Not because obedience to the law leads to salvation, but because salvation leads to obedience to the law. The law says, you live, so do this. The motive has changed.

pp. 73-74. “This is summed up in 7: 14: `The law is spiritual; but I am carnal.’ We need to note the fact that `the law is spiritual. ‘ We must never set the law and the Spirit in opposition to one another as if they were contradictory. They are not. The Holy Spirit writes the law in our hearts. What Paul contrasts with the indwelling Spirit is not the law itself but `the letter,’ that is, the law viewed merely as an external code. Now let me repeat that anyone who acknowledges the spirituality of God’s law and his own natural carnality is a Christian of some maturity.”

p.79. “According to 7:22, the believer delights in the law of God, but in himself cannot carry it out because of indwelling sin. According to 8:4, however, he not only delights in, but actually fulfils the law of God because of the indwelling Spirit.”

pp. 82-83. “`But this is an intolerable contradiction,’ someone may say. `How can I be at the same time free from the law and obliged to keep it?’ The paradox is not hard to resolve. We are set free from the law as a way of acceptance, but obliged to keep it as a way of holiness. It is as a ground of justification that the law no longer binds us (for our acceptance we are `not under law but under grace’). But as a standard of conduct the law is still binding, and we seek to fulfil it, as we walk according to the Spirit.”

And how do we know we are walking according to the Spirit? In Galatians 5:22-26 we have listed there the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. We know we often fail here but here is what’s best about Christian belief, through the grace of God it challenges us to live better and fuller lives in Christ.

Posted in Apologetics, Faith & Obedience, Law of God, Saved By Grace | Comments Off

‘Grace And The Law Of God’ by Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones

Posted on 7 September 2011 by Islwyn

“Without a clear concept of the law and its demands, we will not have a clear concept of our need for Christ. As John Bunyan rightly stated, “The man who does not know the nature of the law cannot know the nature of sin. And he who does not know the nature of sin cannot know the nature of the Saviour.””

Thinking of Bill Meuhlenberg’s essay in the last post on ‘Loving God And Keeping His Commandments’ set me thinking about what other leading Christian writers have said on the close relationship between Loving God and Keeping His Commandments. Here are some quotes from Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on GRACE AND THE LAW OF GOD: Romans 7:1 – 8:4 (Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1973).

“The Law: Its Function and Limits.”

p.26. “…the whole purpose of salvation is to enable us to keep God’s Law.”

p.27. “Thank God we are no longer `under’ it as a way of salvation; but we are to keep it, we are to practice it in our daily life.”

p.27. “The Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good! Do not dismiss the Law… The Law of God is perfect and we are to keep it. We are not `under’ it, there is no condemnation; it is not the way of salvation, but that does not mean we have no interest in it…the object of salvation is to enable us to carry out the righteousness of the Law.”

pp.27-8. “Therefore, as Christians, we must never say, foolishly and wrongly, `I have nothing to do with the law at all.’…The Apostle Paul preached the Ten Commandments to the Christians in Rome, and they are as applicable to us today as they were then…”

pp.38-9. “The Apostle Paul never makes light of the Law, he never disparages it… A man who speaks disparagingly of the Law merely shows he is a defective and ignorant Christian… If you do not see the Law being honoured on the cross of Calvary you have never seen the true meaning of the death of Christ: it is essentially an honouring of the Law.”

p.50. “Much `Christianity’ so-called is unethical and almost immoral. We do not `make void the Law through faith, yea, we establish the Law.’ God forbid that we should even attempt do anything else.”

Dr.Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 8:15-17 (Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1974). “The Sons of God.”

p.44. “`The carnal mind is enmity against God’, and therefore `it is not subject to the Law of God’….But the Christian has a true view of the Law of God. It is no longer true to say of him that he is not `subject to the Law of God.’ `His commandments are not grievous’ says John of the Christian. A man who objects to the Law of God is not a Christian…The commandments are an expression of God’s character; they were designed for the good of man; and so the Christian says: `O how I love thy Law!’ Even the Psalmist had been able to say that; and the Christian does so still more certainly; he delights in the Law of God. He sees its glory, and its excellence, and he desires to keep it.”

Posted in Apologetics, Law of God, Saved By Grace | 2 Comments

Loving God And Keeping His Commandments

Posted on 2 September 2011 by Islwyn

I should say before beginning this post that I have some affinity with Baptists. For one thing I married into a Baptist family. In her early years my wife faithfully took her nieces and nephew to Sunday School every week to her Baptist chapel. That is about midway from where we were both born and raised. Her nephew now stands 6’ 7” tall as minister in his own evangelical Baptist church up north.

Of all the churches outside of my own that I am acquainted with I have visited Baptist churches the most. That is due in some part to invitations from my wife’s family to hear certain speakers or for special occasions. But when we lived in Trethomas several years I was invited by a friendly neighbour, while gardening down on my allotment plot, to join the Baptist Men’s Mid-week Fellowship. That was where, along with two other active Christian friends of my age, one belonging to that Baptist chapel and the other to the Methodist chapel at the nearby village of Bedwas, were given opportunity to exercise our speaking skills to the Sunday evening congregation. That was to prepare us for lay-preaching in our local area.

The Baptist chapel in Trethomas has since been replaced by residential buildings, and the Welsh Congregational chapel across the road where we sometimes preached on Sunday evenings is now given over for community activities. We were invited to preach in other chapels outside the local area but that was when the enthusiasm of my friends at that fellowship grew on me to want to do more than I was doing in industry.

At the end of 1972 we moved from Trethomas to a new home in Cefn Hengoed. The row was called Valley View. And that was the view we had. We could see right across the valley as well as up the valley and when it came to concerns about getting the washing off the line before it rained we would not be taken by surprise because you could see the heavy rain making its way down the valley long before it got to us, giving plenty of time to getting the washing in.

But we were there only 6 months. We had made up our minds to go to Newbold College to study for the ministry. It was a big thing for us both, to sell up our home and to take on a study programme after 22 years in industry. But it was no big thing for me to move. I had left home when I was 16 years of age and had moved around quite a bit – until Maureen came to the rescue of this ‘waif and stray’ by the time I was 25.

But for Maureen, hers was a close-knit family and her friends were near home. So for her to break away to parts unknown with two young daughters aged 7 and 5 to support me in a 4-year course of study in a completely new environment was, as you can imagine, quite a wrench for her. In those four years she worked full time and kept home and raised our two children, there was no government grant. But that experience with such committed Christian friends at the Trethomas Baptist Men’s Fellowship had no small influence on my life and in that decision we both made to go to Newbold. There were two other houses in our row up for sale the same time going for less than ours. But we sold to the first person who came along and when we returned home to visit family a year later those two other properties were still up for sale! We felt God had been helping us out.

Another association with Baptists was when I was at Cambridge. I was invited to attend a baptism of a new friend at Eden Baptist church (that is the old ‘Eden’), and was invited to keep attending to hear the well-known preacher speak on the Ten Commandments. They were excellent sermons. However, when it came to the 4th Commandment he chose Deuteronomy 5 as his text instead of Exodus 20. Exodus 20 gives creation as a reason for keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5 gives the Exodus as the reason. So the Seventh-day was for the Jews in recognition of their redemption from Egypt. That is one way of looking at it. Another is that, apart from no evidence of God personally revoking any of his Law, both Creation and Redemption are reasons for keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath. In Genesis 2-4 we are told that God finished his work of creation and blessed and rested on the Seventh-day. On the cross Jesus uttered his final words “It is finished” (John 19:30). His work of redemption for humankind was done and he was laid to rest in the tomb. As Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28), it was the only whole day Jesus spent in the tomb: the Sabbath, a sign of both Creation and Redemption! And that is how I would see the giving of the 4th Commandment in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

We know the Ten Commandments have been under attack in recent years, from inside the church as well from outside. So how important are the Ten Commandments these days? On his blog, Bill Muehlenberg titles this particular post: “Loving God and Keeping the Commandments”

When I read his essay I thought it all made good sense that could easily have come from an Adventist author. it raises the question, with so much in common with fellow Christians what is the difference between fellow Bible believing Christians and Seventh-day Adventists? It’s in the name. I’ll need to explain that in another post.

But the title of Bill’s essay caught my eye and I opened it up to read. As a Christian I found it was well worth reading.

Posted in Apologetics, Law of God, Saved by Faith, Saved By Grace, The Gospel | Comments Off

‘Christianity Today’ Pays Tribute To Dr. John Stott

Posted on 3 August 2011 by Islwyn

Further to my previous post Christianity Today has provided a collection of books by John Stott and articles and materials on John Stott’s life and work – (Sermon section only accessible by membership).

Albert Mohler’s Interview With John Stott

Posted in Biographies, Books & Book Reviews | Comments Off

Tributes To Leading Anglican: John Stott Dies At 90

Posted on 2 August 2011 by Islwyn

Links to tributes follow this article. I first visited All Souls to hear Dr John Stott in the mid-70s. I have visited several venues since then when he was the speaker.

Back in the 70s (?) I recall buying two tapes by Stott with four half hour sermons on the Second Coming of Jesus – as an Adventist I thought they were among the best expositions on the subject I had heard. As with such materials they get lent out and lost track of. I hope they have done some good wherever they’ve got to. The titles went something like, ‘The Promise of His Coming, The Manner of His Coming, The Certainty of His Coming, and the Challenge of His Coming.

I have downsized my library a lot since retirement, but I still hang on to some of John Stott’s commentaries, and given quite a number of his ‘Basic Christianity’away.

One of the most memorable moments of him speaking was at one of the occasions he was invited by the Student’s Association to speak at Newbold College, It was what followed his presentation that has lodged in my mind since, that of loyalty to the Gospel and his amazing mental recall that was evidenced in the question and answers that followed. It was about the time that ‘Myth’ had been published and some of its authors were present at that occasion and posed questions which went in the order of point 1, point 2, point 3 etc with their own sub points. I thought when Stott finished his reply to point 1 with its sub points he might have just paused to be reminded of what points two and three were again. But no, he continued replying confidently and authoritatively to all the points presented by the authors of ‘Myth’ who were present. In addition, as I can vaguely recollect and in my own words, he suggested respectfully that if they no longer believed the Scriptures and the Gospel it contained shouldn’t they feel obliged to return their ministerial credentials. (Anyone there at the time check me out on this?). But I can understand what J. I. Packer means when he says of Stott, “He had an unparalleled gift for setting things in order in his own mind and then articulating them to others.”

One of the concerns behind the Lausanne Covenant was the developing theology of pluralism as represented by ‘Myth’. Said Stott in an interview with Christianity Today,

“In 1977 Professor John Hick’s symposium The Myth of God Incarnate was published, and in 1987, ten years later, The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. All the contributors confessed that they had “crossed the Rubicon” from “exclusivism” and “inclusivism” to “pluralism.”

“The reason we must reject this increasingly popular position is that we are committed to the uniqueness of Jesus (he has no competitors) and his finality (he has no successors). It is not the uniqueness of “Christianity” as a system that we defend, but the uniqueness of Christ. He is unique in his incarnation (which is quite different from the ahistorical and plural “avatars” of Hinduism); in his atonement (dying once for all for our sins); in his resurrection (breaking the power of death); and in his gift of the Spirit (to indwell and transform us). So, because in no other person but Jesus of Nazareth did God first become human (in his birth), then bear our sins (in his death), then conquer death (in his resurrection) and then enter his people (by his Spirit), he is uniquely able to save sinners. Nobody else has his qualifications.”

In 1966 when sharing the same platform Dr John Stott disagreed with Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones over his passionate appeal for evangelicals to come out from their existing denominations to a unified Evangelical movement. Fearful of an ‘evangelical’ exodus from the Anglican church Stott responded critically to Dr Lloyd-Jones appeal but is said to have later apologised to him as it was inappropriate for him to have replied to Lloyd-Jones’ appeal, seeing he (Stott) was the ‘chair’ at the meeting.

Back in 2006 Andrew Grills did an appraisal of the coming together and what eventually separated these two men who towered ‘above the landscape of twentieth century British evangelicalism.’ There is no doubt that they have been respected and revered by ministerial colleagues and lay around the world, said in some circles to have been the two greatest expository preachers of the twentieth century.

Says Rick Warren in his tribute to John Stott, “If you were going to name the most influential pastor of the 20th century, John Stott would be my choice. In fact, I believe he is among the three most influential Christians in the last half of the 20th century, right alongside Billy Graham and Mother Teresa.”

Stott did cause a stir among evangelicals with his stance on the subject of ‘Hell’. In Essentials, Stott says on page 314: “Emotionally, I find the concept intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain.” But Stott’s feelings must give way to what Scripture says. And for Stott, Scripture supported his feelings. On page 316 he says, “It cannot, I think, be replied that it is impossible to destroy human beings because they are immortal, for immortality – and therefore indestructibility – is a Greek not a biblical concept. According to Scripture only God possesses immortality in himself (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16), he reveals and gives it to us through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).” Says Stott on the nature of hell fire, “the fire itself is termed ‘eternal’ and unquenchable’, but it would be very odd if what is thrown into it proves to be indestructible. Our expectation would be the opposite; it would be consumed for ever, not tormented for ever. Hence it is the smoke (evidence that the fire has done its work) which ‘rises for ever and ever’ (Revelation 14:11; cf. 19:3).” For the conditionalist, God made man out of the dust of the ground and breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). He doesn’t have a soul – the living being is a soul. Stott has not yet gone to be with the Lord; he awaits the Second Coming of Jesus and the resurrection (2 Timothy 4:7-8). Despite the furore his conditionalist views caused, the links below will show how Dr John Stott has been greatly admired as a great Christian thinker and leader.

The first book I bought of his was, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5-8 (Reprinted 1973). When I took it out of the bookcase a few days ago it fell open to page 22. The last paragraph on the page reads:

“Is there a Christian reading these pages who is full of doubts about his eternal salvation? Are you sure you have been justified, but not at all sure that all will be well at the end? If so, let me stress again that final glorification is the fruit of justification. ‘those whom he justified he also glorified’, as we shall see when we come to study Romans 8:30. If this is your problem, I would urge you to trust in the God who loves you. Ask him to go on flooding your heart with his love through the indwelling Spirit. And then away with gloomy doubts and fears! Let them be swallowed up in the steadfast love of God.”

Those thoughts by John Stott brought to mind the hymn Blessed Assurance by Fanny Crosby, a hymn writer who had as great an influence in her era as Dr John Stott has been in ours. ‘Considered to be the greatest hymn-writer in the history of the Christian church’ that last paragraph by Stott is echoed a century later in one of her still most popular of hymns of today echoing the best in Christian belief:

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior, all the day long;

With three months of the year over the last 50 years spent in Wales John Stott would know how the Welsh love to repeat the last stanza of a hymn or the refrain or part of a refrain, and this is what Fanny Crosby does here as she repeats,

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior, all the day long.

All the tributes you read about him lead to saying, that was the life of John Stott’s!

Tributes To John Stott:

Legacy Of A Global Leader – Christianity Today

Leaders And Friends Remember John Stott – Christianity Today

The Man Who Wouldn’t Be Bishop – CT Library

Evangelism Plus – CT Library

Rest In Peace: John Stott – Cross Walk

John Stott: A Life Lived Well – Premier

The Rev John Stott: Daily Telegraph Obituary

John Stott: Evangelist And Theologian Dies Aged 90 – Christian Post

John Stott Has Died – Christianity Today

Basic Stott – Christianity Today

History: Wikipedia

Posted in Biographies, Christian Mission, Nature of Man, Second Advent, The Resurrection, Uncategorized, Views On Hell | Comments Off

What Concern Is Marriage To Government?

Posted on 28 July 2011 by Islwyn

When it comes to Marriage “what interest does the state have?” asks Glen Stanton.” He certainly makes a good case that marriage and family is not a Christian institution but the basic building block of any successful society. Read Glen Stanton here.

Posted in Marriage & Family | Comments Off

The Apostle Paul And The Old Testament

Posted on 23 July 2011 by Islwyn

What if the Jewish nation had accepted Jesus as Saviour and Lord? Hypothetical I know, but how would he have died? Would it have been ordained at the hands of the High Priest or ? ? ? – like Abraham who was commanded to slay his son Isaac, and according to Hebrews 11:17-19, in intention he “offered Isaac as a sacrifice,” and “figuratively speaking he did receive Isaac back from the dead.” Would Genesis 22:21-19 have been included among the many Old Testament passages in the Emmaus road discourse with the two disciples as prefiguring his death, when he stated in the imperative that “Christ had to suffer these things and then enter his glory” (Luke 24: 25-27; 44-46)?

With Christ as risen Lord and Saviour would the nation of Israel have then become the centre to which all nations of the earth would be invited to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, which was God’s intention for Israel in the first place (Genesis 22: 15-18), when God put his people on the crossroads of the then nations of the world (Ezekiel 5:5)?

What gave rise to this thought is an article in Christianity Today by Timothy Gombis who is associate professor of New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and the author of Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed (T and T Clark).

I am assuming, quite safely I think, that if Jesus had been accepted by the Jewish nation as their Messiah, and following his death and resurrection had become Christ the Lord to his nation, that the nation of Israel would then have carried out the intentions of their Lord of welcoming all nations to come under the rule and blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ as promised to Abraham. With that thought in mind can we assume there would have been no New Testament, at least not in the way we now have it. What then would have been different about the teachings of Judaism – would we have needed the epistles of the Apostle Paul to explain the teachings of the Old Testament and the way of salvation?

There are Christians today who would abandon the Old Testament as obsolete, even having those in Old Testament times as saved under a different dispensation or system, that of salvation by works, while in contrast the New Testament teaches salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Very unfair it seems to me and difficult to see how this can be when pervading the whole of the New Testament is the authoritative teachings of the Old Testament. And whatever the Apostle Paul extrapolated from the Old Testament it was never salvation by works, but salvation by faith in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews in Hebrews 11:4-12:2 makes it quite clear that the Old Testament ‘celebrities’ in Jewish thinking were all examples of how we are to be saved.

So to come to Gombis, once the Apostle Paul became a Christian, did he become anti-Jewish? What would he have left out of Jewish belief and practice and what would he have maintained as necessary to the Gospel?

Gombis certainly doesn’t see Paul as anti-Jewish following his conversion to Christianity. For Gombis, Paul remained a Jew. “ Paul saw no contradiction at all between his commitment to Christ and his faithful participation in Jewish practices. Explaining his ministry before a variety of audiences, Paul emphasized his Jewish identity and claimed to be acting in faithfulness to the God of Israel. To King Agrippa, he again claims to be a Pharisee whose hope is in the promises of God to Israel (Acts 26:4-6).”

For Gombis, “Paul never calls upon Jews to reject Judaism. Instead, he exhorts them to recognize Jesus as their Messiah and welcome his non-Jewish followers as siblings in God’s new family. We get a glimpse of his preaching to Jews in Acts 17:1-3: “When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said.””

For Gombis, The Apostle Paul was faithful both to the Scriptures (which was the Old Testament) and to his Jewish heritage. He would have seen the Old Testament Tabernacle system had run its course in all it predicted of the Messiah to come (Matthew 27:50-51). No more priests or sacrifices. Just one faithful High Priest and one Sacrifice, ‘he sacrificed once and for all’ (Hebrews 8:1-2;7:25-27).The Apostle faithfully preached Jesus as the Messiah to both Israel and to all non-Jews (Gentiles). All would become siblings in God’s global family in Christ (Romans 8:17; 1 John 3:1-2).

Gombis is quite right of course about the Apostle Paul’s loyalty to his own people. He would give his own life for them if it would mean they would be redeemed and saved in God’s kingdom (Romans 9:1-5; 11:1-6). So how much of the Old Testament would the Apostle Paul have retained and what would he have discarded? In writing, The Paul We Think We Know, perhaps Gombis did not intend me to ask those questions, but it is what I found myself asking. Maybe I should buy his book, Paul: A Guide For The Perplexed.

Posted in Apologetics, Bible, Books & Book Reviews, Faith & Works, Law of God, Saved by Faith, Saved By Grace, The Church | Comments Off

Jane Austin’s Answer To A Successful Marriage

Posted on 22 July 2011 by Islwyn

Steve Doughty of the Daily Mail 14th July 2011, reported a top judge saying, ‘Getting a divorce is easier than getting a driving licence.’

Sir Paul Coleridge said a cultural revolution has made it possible to end a marriage quickly with a basic form-filling exercise. The result is that 3.8million children are now left at the mercy of the courts because of parents breaking up.

Mr Justice Coleridge is said to have repeatedly called for legal reforms to clear up the mess resulting from the decline in marriage.”

Says, Doughty, “He has blamed youth crime, child abuse, drug addiction, binge drinking, truanting and bad behaviour in schools on the ‘meltdown’ of the family.”

Mr Justice Coleridge wants the government to set up an independent commission to reform marriage and divorce laws. “He described the problem of family breakdown as huge and condemned the ease of divorce.”

“Sir Paul blamed family break-up on social changes including the shift in attitudes towards cohabitation and increasing numbers of children born outside marriage.

“’We’ve had a cultural revolution in sexual morality and sexual behaviour,’ the judge said. ‘We need to have a reasonable debate about it and decide what needs to be done – and I don’t mean Government,’ he said. ‘They didn’t cause the problem.’“

“It was statistically proven parents were far more likely to stay together until their children’s 16th birthday if they were married, he said.

“Official figures suggest that an average marriage lasts around 11 years, but a cohabitation is likely to break up in three if the partners do not marry.”

The real casualties are the 3.8 million children left to the mercy of the courts. Mr justice wants to see reforms to the divorce laws, but what about the break-up of unmarried partners? The USA is in the same boat, perhaps even worse. Chuck Colson suggests one resolution to the social mess we are in resulting from the decline in marriage is to go back 200 years and read Jane Austen’s “Sense And Sensibility”.

“While it may be “a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” as Austin satirically put it, — she would make sure her readers learned a more serious point: That the route to marital happiness is recognizing that there is a moral order, and that we ignore it at our peril.” Colson makes a good argument for a solution to marital and family breakdown, to accept Jane Austen’s marital advice.

Posted in Marriage & Family | Comments Off

Getting What We Don’t Deserve

Posted on 18 July 2011 by Islwyn

I have a soft spot for the retired Baptist preacher Dr. Joe McKeever. He has a good way of speaking about things that are important. Nothing more important than what we read in Ephesians 2:8-10. But illustrations appeal very much to Dr. McKeever and Luke 7:36-47 appeals to him. He talks about wanting what we have got coming to us – or what’s best about the Christian faith – getting what we don’t deserve.

Posted in Forgiveness, Saved by Faith, Saved By Grace | Comments Off