Caleb Batchelor > Recent Status Updates

"God is not just my Father, but 'Our Father.' These two words remind us that we're both children of God and siblings to each other."

"If prayer clings to the hope we share in Christ, then prayer should reflect our togetherness in Christ. If prayer has a gospel shape, then by implication it must have a church shape." 37

"A true saint, when in the enjoyment of true discoveries of the sweet glory of God and Christ, has his mind too much captivated and engaged by what he views without himself, to stand at that time to view himself, and his own attainments: it would be a diversion and loss which he could not bear, to take his eye off from the ravishing object of his contemplation, to survey his own experiences..." 252-253

"A fixed star is easily distinguishable from a comet, in a clear sky; but if we view them through a cloud, it may be impossible to see the difference. When true Christians are in an ill frame, guilt lies on the conscience, which will bring fear, and so prevent the peace and joy of an assured hope." 194-195

"Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination, as by action." 195

"So has God disposed things, in the affair of our redemption, and in his glorious dispensations, revealed to us in the gospel, as though everything were purposely contrived in such a manner, as to have the greatest, possible tendency to reach our hearts in the most tender part, and move our affections most sensibly and strongly." 124

"Various Gospels popped up throughout the second century in various places, but the only Gospels known to all of these writers in common--and probably to the authors of the alternative Gospels too--are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." 101

"The salient fact is that these Christian believers, some clerics, some laymen, give some indication of how prevalent was the acceptance of a fourfold Gospel in the time between Irenaeus and Athanasius. These Christians represent the mainstream of the 'Great Church' of the third century, in widely separated regions of the empire. All attest to the church's acceptance of the same four Gospels." 50

"God is like a great Niagara--you look at it and think: surely this can't keep going at this force for year after year after year. It seems like it would have to rest. Or it seems like some place up stream it would run dry. But, no, it just keeps surging and crashing.... That's the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him." John Piper, The Pleasures of God, 173-174

"Beholding is a way of becoming." 6

"The word feedeth meditation, and meditation feedeth prayer.... To hear and not to meditate is unfruitful." Thomas Manton, 98