Aaron Armstrong's Blog, page 398
November 30, 2011
Seek Holiness in Christ, Not in Your Experiences of Him
Flee often to Christ in the sacraments. Faith in Him is a powerful motivator for holiness, since faith and the love of sin do not mix. Be careful, however, not to seek holiness in your experiences of Christ, but rather in Christ Himself. William Gurnall admonishes: "When thou trustest in Christ within thee, instead of Christ without thee, thou settest Christ against Christ. The bride does well to esteem her husband's picture, but it were ridiculous if she should love it better than himself...
A Scriptural Formula For Holy Living
In his book Living for God's Glory, Joel Beeke offers several diagnostic questions based on 1 Corinthians that provide, as he calls it, a biblical formula for holy living before God and man:
1. Does this glorify God? (1 Cor. 10:3 1)
2. Is this consistent with the lordship of Christ? (1 Cor. 7:23)
3. Is this consistent with biblical examples? (1 Cor. 11:1)
4. Is this lawful and beneficial for me-spiritually, mentally, and physically? (1 Cor. 6:9-12)
5. Does this help others positively and not hurt...
November 29, 2011
Book Review: Getting Back in the Race by Joel R. Beeke
We've all heard the term "backsliding" before, but what does it really mean? And just as importantly is there a cure? These questions are at the heart of Dr. Joel Beeke's new book, Getting Back in the Race: The Cure for Backsliding. In this concise work, Beeke gives readers a biblical understanding of the problem of backsliding and introducing the remedy that Scripture offers.
What is Backsliding?
Christians must anticipate a life that is a continual cycle of sin and repentance. This, sadly...
November 28, 2011
5 Biblical Names We Won't Be Using For Our Next Child
A few weeks back, I shared that Emily and I are expecting our third child. Last Thursday (November 24), we learned a couple of new details: one, the baby is due March 19th (the day after our oldest's birthday!) and two, the baby is a boy!
With each of our children to this point, we've had an… interesting time trying to agree upon a name. With Abigail, we spent weeks going back and forth before deciding on her name (looking at both name meaning and, if they appear in Scripture, who the...
November 27, 2011
Around the Interweb
Ray Ortlund suggests four ways that the devil seeks to defeat Christians. Here's number three:
A spirit of accusation. In Revelation 12:10 the devil is exposed as "the accuser." Another of his designs is to pierce our hearts with accusing thoughts about our sins – or even sins we haven't necessarily committed, but we fear we have, or others say we have. He spreads a mist of vague anxiety within ourselves and dark suspicion of others. How to defeat this defeat? Run to the...
November 26, 2011
Nothing So Little as Grace at First
There are several ages in Christians, some babes, some young men. Faith may be as `a grain of mustard seed' (Matt. 17:20). Nothing so little as grace at first, and nothing more glorious afterward. Things of greatest perfection are longest in coming to their growth. Man, the most perfect creature, comes to perfection by little and little; worthless things, as mushrooms and the like, like Jonah's gourd, soon spring up, and soon vanish. A new creature is the most excellent creature in all the...
November 25, 2011
The Gift Before the Demand
On November 20, 2011, I had the opportunity to preach at Tree of Life Church in Smithville, Ontario. The message was preached from Matthew 5:1-12. The audio is forthcoming—I hope you find my sermon notes below helpful.
When you're reading your Bible, have you ever just stopped and wondered what it would have been like to be at the event being described? What would it have been like to see the Red Sea part? What would it have been like to see the sun stand still so the Israelites could defeat t...
November 24, 2011
The Bible is a Strange Book
The Bible is a strange book, and with every decade that passes, its strangeness becomes more apparent. it is virtually the sole survivor, in the western world at least, of the books of antiquity. Caesar, Plato and Augustine are still in print and read by any. But they have no audience even remotely comparable with the Bible. Its sayings and stories have entered the culture as no other book has. But biblical illiteracy is apparent, and where the Bible is read its message is not...
November 23, 2011
Book Review: Earthen Vessels by Matthew Lee Anderson
An idea that gets thrown around a lot these days is being "incarnational." We're desperately trying to figure out how we are to live out our faith in the here and now—but we might have missed a step, suggests Matthew Lee Anderson. Before we can really figure out how to live our our faith, we need to understand why our bodies matter to our faith. That's his goal in Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, where he seeks to help readers develop a theology of the body.
Anderson's...
November 22, 2011
Inerrancy, the Church and the Cults
Today's post continuing our series on the doctrine of inerrancy is by Dave Jenkins, Director of Servants of Grace.
The doctrine of inerrancy means that the Bible is entirely truthful and reliable in all that it affirms in its original manuscripts. The Bible does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. As Aaron pointed out last week, the Bible's authority is derived from the character and authority of God. A tree has a root structure that supports the base and the weight of the tree...
