As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, famously set out what he saw as the three uses of the law. By the term “law,” Calvin explains, “[b]y the Law, I understand not only the Ten Commandments, which contain a complete rule of life, but the whole system of religion delivered by the hand of Moses.”1 Here, in this excerpt,2 Calvin explains the first of these:
“In this story there is a real evil, real danger, real pain. And, more importantly, real hope and real joy. I felt the story showed respect to the feelings and thinking of kids: it avoided cloying, no-fall-ever-happened saccharinity; and yet it didn’t over-burden the kids with darkness.” - Mark Ward
In 1739, George Whitefield sailed for the American Colonies. He was headed back to the colony of Georgia, having just concluded a great ministry in London, Gloucester, Bristol and points in-between. He had returned to England to raise funds for an orphan home he planned to establish in Georgia. While raising these funds, finding the pulpits of many Church of England congregations closed to him, Whitefield began to preach in the open air.
“Our analyses suggest that reading scripture for insights into attaining health and healing exacerbated the adverse effects of poor self-rated health on depressive symptoms, a finding consistent with an emergent literature on the ‘dark side’ of religious and spiritual coping…” - CToday
“There have been many attempts to explain the Christmas Star scientifically, and three will be mentioned here.” - AiG
Exodus 32:17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. 18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.
Reposted from The Cripplegate.
I’m all for putting Christ back in Christmas. And there is no doubt that our secularized culture is working hard at surreptitiously ushering the Baby out, without losing the murky bathwater of gift-giving and commercial celebration. But I’d like to address the misinformed concern that the use of “Xmas” as a placeholder for “Christmas” is part of the conspiracy to excise Christ from his holiday.
Discussion