Saturday, September 17, 2011

Free Agents and Non-Partisans

“It appears to us that a Christian minister cannot keep himself in the true path of consistency at all, without refusing to each of the parties all right of appropriation. . . He who cares for neither of two rivaling political parties is the only independent man; and to him only belongs the privilege of crossing and re-crossing their factious line of demarcation, just as he feels himself impelled by the high, paramount, and subordinating principles of the Christianity which he professes. . . But turning away from the beggarly elements of such a competition as this, let us remark, that on the one hand, a proper administration will never take offence at a minister who renders a pertinent reproof to any set of men, even though they should happen to be their own agents or their own underlings; and that, on the other hand, a minister who is actuated by the true spirit of his office, will never so pervert or so prostitute his functions, as to descend to the humble arena of partisanship.  He is the faithful steward of such things as are profitable for reproof and for doctrine, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness”  Thomas Chalmers

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Over My Morning Joe


“What are the objects of mathematical science?  Magnitude and the proportions of magnitude.  But in the foolishness of my youth, I had forgotten the two chief magnitudes: I thought not of the littleness of time and I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity.”  Thomas Chalmers

Sorrow, But for a Time

"There are no crown-wearers in Heaven who were not first cross-bearers on earth."  Charles Haddon Spurgeon


"You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed." Samuel Rutherford

Friday, September 9, 2011

The One, True Sanity

What first attracted G.K. Chesterton to Christian orthodoxy, he remarked, was that “it was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons.” Fellow skeptics found the monks too meek and the Crusaders too bloody, the vestments too showy and the sackcloth too threadbare, the membership too common and the theology too exclusive. They faulted it for being too optimistic about the universe and too pessimistic about the world; for repressing sexuality too much and (according to the Malthusians) not enough. Yet the common man embraced Christianity. “Perhaps,” Chesterton concluded, “this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the center. Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad--in various ways.”

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Education and Faith

"Education is inescapably a religious discipline. The contentmethodology, and the very culture in which education takes place are the product of the theologies which drive them. There is no neutrality. When parents choose between a Biblical vs. non-Christian educational paradigm for their children’s education, they are actually making a decision between competing faith systems. The question is simply this—in which religious educational system will my child be discipled?"  Doug Phillips

Friday, September 2, 2011

All of Grace

‎"What sweet consolations, what deft motivations, what strong demonstrations there are for us in the grace of our God." Thomas Chalmers