I Picked A Fight

There is no lack in these days of captious listeners and questioners; but to find a character desirous of information, and seeking the truth as a remedy for ignorance, is very difficult. Just as in the hunter's snare, or in the soldier's ambush, the trick is generally ingeniously concealed, so it is with the inquiries of the majority of the questioners who advance arguments, not so much with the view of getting any good out of them, as in order that, in the event of their failing to elicit answers which chime in with their own desires, they may seem to have fair ground for controversy."

- Basil The Great. De Spiritu Sancto

Idle Religion

"To count the terms used in theology as of primary importance, and to endeavour to trace out the hidden meaning in every phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who are idle in the pursuit of true religion...."

- Basil The Great, De Spiritu Sancto

You Have Done Today!

"Your years are an ever present day. And how many of ours and our fathers' days have passed through this Your day, and received from it their measure and fashion of being, and others yet to come shall so receive and pass away! ​"​ But You are the same; ​"​ and all the things of tomorrow and the days yet to come, and all of yesterday and the days that are past, You will do today, You have done today."

- Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Cramped Soul?

"Cramped is the dwelling of my soul; expand it, that You may enter in. It is in ruins, restore it."

- Augustine. Confessions. Book 1

God Loses Nothing

"You pay debts while owing nothing;

and when You forgive debts, lose nothing."

Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Unchangeable, Yet Changing All Things

"What, then, are You, O my God— what, I ask, but the Lord God?

For who is Lord but the Lord?

Or who is God save our God?

Most high, most excellent,

most potent, most omnipotent;

most piteous and most just;

most hidden and most near;

most beauteous and most strong,

stable, yet contained of none;

unchangeable, yet changing all things;

never new, never old;

making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud and they know it not;

always working, yet ever at rest;

gathering, yet needing nothing;

sustaining, pervading, and protecting;

creating, nourishing, and developing;

seeking, and yet possessing all things.

You love, and burn not;

You are jealous, yet free from care;

You repent, and have no sorrow;

You are angry, yet serene;

You change Your ways, leaving unchanged Your plans;

You recover what You find, having yet never lost; ......"

Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Why Do I Ask God To Come To Me?

"And how shall I call upon my God— my God and my Lord? For when I call on Him I ask Him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come— into which God can come, even He who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain You? Do indeed the very heaven and the earth, which You have made, and in which You have made me, contain You? Or, as nothing could exist without You, does whatever exists contain You? Why, then, do I ask You to come into me, since I indeed exist, and could not exist if You were not in me?"

Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Can't Call Who We Never Heard Of

"Lord, teach me to know and understand which of these should be first, to call on You, or to praise You; and likewise to know You, or to call upon You. But who is there that calls upon You without knowing You? For he that knows You not may call upon You as other than You are. Or perhaps we call on You that we may know You. ​"​ But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? ​"​ [Romans 10:14]"

- Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Restless In Praise

"You move us to delight in praising You;

for You have formed us for Yourself,

and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You."

- Augustine. Confessions, Book 1

Liberalism and My Brother

Charles Spurgeon & The Downgrade Controversy 1887.
He amd his church withdraw from the British Baptist Union.

"but yet our solemn conviction is that things are much worse in many churches than they seem to be, and are rapidly tending downward."
Read those newspapers which represent the Broad School of Dissent, and ask yourself, How much farther could they go? What doctrine remains to be abandoned? What other truth to be the object of contempt? A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese; and this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. The Atonement is scouted, the inspiration of Scripture is derided, the Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence, the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the resurrection into a myth, and yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them brethren, and maintain a confederacy with them!
The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith… Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers, and England is following in her tracks.

For decades the press had attacked Spurgeon, but now he would be savaged by his own Baptist Union. Prior to the Downgrade Controversy, if the Baptist Union had a papacy, Spurgeon would have been the unquestioned pope. But now, his erstwhile brethren brutalized him. They charged him with pugilism, and being a schismatic. They even questioned his sanity with a whisper campaign that his physical maladies had made him mad. Graduates of Spurgeon’s College turned on him, and the leaders of the Baptist Union pilloried him.

Three months later, in January 1888, the Baptist Union Council voted to accept his withdrawal, and then, the Council of nearly 100 members voted to censure Spurgeon, with only a meager five men supporting the Prince of Preachers.
The Baptist Union adopted a compromise doctrinal statement, which was altogether too weak, neither clear nor comprehensive enough. Though outside the Union, Spurgeon opposed the statement for its obvious deficiencies. Nonetheless, it passed overwhelmingly, by a vote of 2000–7, and can appropriately be interpreted as a second vote against Spurgeon. Most tragically, Spurgeon’s brother, James, seconded the motion to pass the compromise doctrinal statement.

keep The Faith.

As Christians, we are called to share our faith, but we are also called to keep it. Like the Apostle Paul, every believer should aspire to the epitaph, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”

- Jason Allen -

Will You Brave Hostility?

"...... brave hostility and misunderstanding, and who have the scars and tell the stories that prove that the life of faith can be lived in every place and among all peoples— must be lived in every place, among all peoples."

(Eugene Peterson, "Run with the Horses")

Satan Is A Patient Seductrice

"Satan is far more likely

to dull your affections

over a decade

than to destroy your soul

in a day."

Matt Smethurst

Give Grace To The Graceless?

"So I’m going to ask you to do something really, really hard. Maybe the hardest thing anyone can do.

I’m asking you to extend grace to people who didn’t extend grace to you. To show grace to the graceless. That doesn’t mean you pretend nothing ever happened. Grace doesn’t rewrite the past; it offers the future the chance to be free from it. It doesn’t mean you don’t confront those who wronged you. Grace doesn’t conflict with truth; it offers healing for what truth reveals. And it doesn’t mean you are right about everything and they are wrong. Grace knows that two people can experience the same event in different ways."

Jody Vickery

Get God Right

"If there is a God - a faith statement for sure - we don't get to make him up. A real God should not and cannot merely be a

reflection of my imagination. A God who is real and alive must exist beyond my own puny understanding, bigger than any box in which I try to contain him or her or whatever pronoun we use for this Being."

- Bradley Jersak -

(A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel)

Know Hod Well From Rudeness

"I am enough of a romantic to believe that,
if someone is worth being rude about,
it is worth
understanding well."

- David Bentley Hart -
The experience of God.

Church Leadership

"In the Kingdom of God, the goal of those in authority is not to dominate, but to liberate."

~ Francis Frangipane

Approval Seeking?

“If you're a risk taker and overwhelmingly consumed with being understood, it's going to be a heck of a long day for you.”

~ Randy Bohlender

Preachers Kids Are The Best!

"I love hiring preachers kids.
They come in with their eyes wide open and their expectations realistic."

- Andy Stanley

I'm Not So Good With Others Wisdom

My friend Jeff Frazee is not able to return to Mali, as a missionary at this time. The recient coup, caused his mission to say deny their return at this time. But they want to go.
Here is what he said about this.

"He led us through some very clear open doors, throught prayer and the reading of scripture, and the wisdom of other people, to come and work with 'World Venture', to be under their umbrella of leadership and authority. That's faith too. That is one hundred percent faith too.
Trusting that someone else that disagrees with you has wisdom that God is using to guide you. "