Holiness with a Backbone [and the beard to prove it] ...

For your own soul's sake dare to make up your mind what you believe, and dare to have positive distinct views of truth and error. Never, never be afraid to hold decided doctrinal opinions and let no fear of man, and no morbid dread of being thought party-spirited, narrow, or controversial, make you rest contented with a bloodless, boneless, tasteless, colourless, lukewarm, undogmatic Christianity.

-J C Ryle, Holiness

"The Glory of the Psalms"

Here's a great quote from Greg Wilbur's latest blog :

Of how many heroic characters have these old temple songs been the inspiration! Jewish saints and patriots chanted them in the synagogue and on the battlefield; apostles and evangelists sung them among perils of the wilderness, as they traversed the rugged paths of Syria and Galatia, and Macedonia; martyrs in Rome softly hummed them when the lions near at hand were crouching for their prey; in German forests, in Highland Glen, Lutherans and Covenanters breathed their lives out through their cadences; in every land penitent souls have found in them words to tell the story of their sorrow, and victorious souls the voices of their triumph; mothers watching their babes by night have cheered the vigil by singing them, mourners walking in lonely ways have been lighted by the great hopes that shine through them; and pilgrims going down into the valley of the shadow of death have found in their firm assurances a strong staff to lean upon.

—H.T. Hanna

Book List [what I've been reading these days] ...

YOU ARE WHAT YOUR MIND EATS ...

Liturgical Undertow

One of the early church fathers said: Lex Orandi Lex Credendi: 'the law of prayer is the law of belief'. The liturgy will shape you in potent ways. A 5-year-old kid will not remember what I preached on 4 Sundays ago, but he will remember that we raise our hands in the Gloria Patri and we sing this psalm when the offering is brought forward. The kids know the liturgy. And what this kind of liturgy does, is that it enables little kids to fully participate. It's something they can learn and master because we do it every week. It includes all the people of God.

-Doug Wilson, Q&A Session of the 2003 Conference for Cultural Change

Socialized Healthcare: A Biblical Perspective

When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
Consider carefully what is before you;
And put a knife to your throat
If you are a man given to appetite.
Do not desire his delicacies,
For they are deceptive food.

- Proverbs 23.1-3

IOW: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH - ESPECIALLY WHEN THE FOOD COMES FROM WASHINGTON!!!

In our century, families have 'sat down with the ruler,' the State. They have enjoyed the State's many delicacies: 'free' education, 'free' retirement benefits, 'free' medical care, and 'free' everything else. Families have been gluttons at the State's table. They have stuffed themselves with deceitful meat. Now they are suffering indigestion.

- Gary North, Inherit the Earth, pg 139

Worship in Wobegon

Q: What about preachers and humor? Some of us are prone to begin our sermons with a joke or light story, is that a good way to start a sermon?

A: I’m very intolerant of jokes from the pulpit, if that’s what we’re talking about. I would say: be sparing. And you do have to keep in mind that that first minute or 30 seconds is crucial to keeping your audience, and you don’t want to put a joke there. That seems to promise something that there not gonna’ get. You’re not going to be doing a standup routine for them, and simply to put one there to get people’s attention is to get it on the wrong premise. People hear all sorts of jokes in the course of a week; people are submerged in entertainment and satirists and late-night television and they’ve heard jokes. That’s not what they come to church for.

Q: My father was taught in seminary never to use the first person. The current trend is for preachers to splay themselves all over their congregations. What do you want to hear from your preacher - personal, poetic, or prophetic?

A: Well, I guess I don’t want my preacher to have given too much thought to the question of what I want to hear. I’m not there as a consumer. I’m not shopping around. I want there to be some authority behind what he or she is preaching.

- Garrison Keillor in an interview at the 2008 Festival of Homiletics sponsored by mainstream Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations

Committing Matrimony

Reuters reports the results of a recent economic survey on wedding prices. Before you continue reading, you might want to sit down.

-$28,082: the average cost of a U.S. wedding in 2009

-$6,348: the average price of an engagement ring

-$1075: the average cost of the wedding dress

-18% - of weddings were paid for totally by the bride's parents

-8% of wedding were paid for totally by the bride and groom

-58% of brides paid for wedding costs using credit card debt

Is it any wonder that half of our marriages end in divorce? Financially speaking, they were over before they began.