As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Paul affirms the significance of our topic when he prays for the saints in Philippi. ‘And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment [the ability to perceive and discern]; that ye may approve [a testing process] things that are excellent’ ” - P&D
“As I read the Christmas story that year, I saw I was in good company as a mom when my festive expectations were dashed. Mary was the first mother to experience Christmas, and I doubt it was what she expected” - TGC
“The custom of praying to thank God for each meal is a wonderful one. But why should we restrict this custom to meals? Why not thank God throughout the day for a hundred other things?” - Randy Alcorn
“A job is worthy of our efforts if it harmonizes with God’s original mandate that humans steward the earth in submission to him (Gen. 1:28). Legitimate work must serve God by serving people.” - TGC
This is the beginning of a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. It’s basically the Heidelberg Catechism (first ed. 1563) with Baptist flavor and a few other additions. It is a rightly famous tool for doctrinal and devotional instruction in Baptist churches. In the congregation where I serve as pastor, we discuss one question from the OC each week during the worship service.
“When we consider the state of the family at the beginning of the twenty-first century, our tendency is to reflect nostalgically on imagined idyllic days of generations past when families weren’t perfect but pretty close to it, or so we like to think.” - Ligonier
“…the longer we’re in church and the higher we go up the Christian ladder, the more likely it is that we’re stuck in the Christian bubble…. we need to recognize some of the signs that we’ve insulated ourselves from a world we’re called to reach.” - Chuck Lawless
By C.H. Spurgeon
Sermon No. 1094, delivered on Lord’s-Day morning, February 2, 1873, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:20.
“Using the word makarios, which means ‘happy-making,’ Jesus said, ‘There is more happiness in giving than in receiving’ (Acts 20:35 GNT). Nanci and I found that happiness, not duty, permeates a God-honoring theology of money.” - Randy Alcorn
Discussion