Second Thoughts

A few short, interesting, maybe challenging quotes from the blogosphere:


"When I come to a text which speaks of election, I delight myself in the doctrine of election. When the apostles exhort me to repentance and obedience, and indicate my freedom of choice and action, I give myself up to that side of the question." - Charles Simeon quoted by John Stott

This from David Murray's "A Disciple's Diary"

12 Christian Pleasures

In The Pleasantness of a Religious Life, Matthew Henry’s aim is to make us see that real Christianity is a journey into joy, always moving us on from one joy to another, and that this is one of many good and strong reasons for being excited and wholehearted in our discipleship. He makes his point well, and this is how: First, he lists twelve pleasures that Christians as such enjoy:

1. Knowing God and the Lord Jesus Christ
2. Resting in God
3. Being God’s child
4. Tasting God’s gracious goodness in all creature comforts
5. Relying on God’s care
6. Delighting in God
7. Praising God
8. Escaping slavery to our appetites…
9. …and passions
10. Loving and doing good to others
11. Communing with God constantly
12. Looking forward to heaven’s glory.

J I Packer, Puritan Portraits, 68.

Sounds a bit better than “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

A "Quiet Revival In New England"? It seems curch planters are becoming active in what was once the cradle of Evangelicalism in the USA. 

Ray Ortland, "Sir, if you abuse your wife or daughter or girlfriend, physically or verbally, you are more than a bully.  You are the enemy of God."

Tim Challies has an excellent challenge on how we perceive God; “Trusting God for what he has done positions our hearts to trust God for what he has promised to do.”

Greg Strand weighs in on the subject of gradual moral decay in society, "...the implications of a public square without faith, or when religious faith is swallowed up by secularism. He notes five key entailments when religious faith is marginalized or absent:"