As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“The following theses are from Craig Carter’s new book, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Baker Academic, 2021). These theses are a corrective to the relational theism so prevalent in Protestantism, and serve to help evangelicals today return to the biblical, classical, and Nicene doctrine of God.” - Credo
Read Part 1.
Basically, this is a prayer for spiritual restoration. The psalmist has strayed from the “paths of righteousness,” and he cries out for the Great Shepherd to rescue him. He wants forgiveness, and he wants to know again the joy of his salvation. As he makes his petition he’s conscious of at two realities:
Christian biographies are a great means of edification and godliness. And yet, their benefits aren’t free from dangers. One danger that comes to mind is that of developing an unrealistic view of the Christian life. Often, Christian biographers maximize the virtues and minimize the faults of the saints. The picture they paint has too rosy a hue. We can partly understand this. Obviously, we want to view Christians in the best light. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt. We want to showcase their faithfulness to God.
James R. Gordon argues against the Eternal Functional Subordination view of Ware and Grudem and in favor of the “doctrine of divine simpicity.” - Credo
Read Part 1.
One of the most fascinating sights that we saw on our 500th-anniversary Reformation tour was the Luther Monument—sometimes called the Reformation Monument—which is located across the street from the park where Dr. Martin Luther’s famous stand before the Diet of Worms is memorialized.
“In the Greek New Testament, the noun euangelion (“gospel”) appears just over seventy times. Since, in one sense, the whole New Testament is about the gospel, we might have expected the word to have been used more frequently. Even more surprisingly, its use varies greatly among the authors of the New Testament books.” - Ligonier
Along with the startling claims of John’s prologue there are other texts in the NT which convey the same essential facts. In Colossians 1 the apostle Paul refers to Jesus this way:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. (Colossians 1:15-17)
“But so-called ‘premium’ Bibles aren’t new. And while they may not carry the same steep price tag, a number of new and traditional Bible publishers are stressing the beauty of an old-fashioned book and the experience of slowing down to read at a time when so much of life is lived online.” - C.Today
“She laughed when her friends said that, ‘in today’s scientific, progressive world, if something cannot be proved it is the same as not existing.’ In her view, ‘if there was no scientific proof that God did not exist, then it was unscientific to say that He did not.’” - Ref21
“Paul is a good example of someone putting this to work in ministry. When he’s introducing the gospel to members of a Jewish synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he references primarily the Scripture….But shortly later, when he’s addressing pagan Greeks in Athens, he takes an entirely different approach.” - Olinger
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