What I've been Reading Lately [Book List] ...

You are what your mind eats ...

May 21, 2011 ... just another day, actually

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.  And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

- St Peter

[the actual reference is 2 Peter 2.2 - look!  The #2 appears 3 times in succession!  And if you multiply 2 and 3 you get 6!  And that number three times in succession is 666! And if you ... oh nevermind.]

And Provoke them not to Wrath ...

"By withholding affection to children when they were young, but also then endeavoring to control their behavior well into adulthood, Victorians were in the very odd position of simultaneously trying to suppress childhood and make it last forever. It is perhaps little wonder that the end of Victorianism almost exactly coincided with the invention of psychoanalysis."

- Bill Bryson, At Home

Another droll quote from another kill-joy Puritan

Games may be divided into three sorts: games of wit or industry, games of hazard, and a mixture of both. Games of wit or industry are such as are ordered by the skill and industry of man. Of this sort are shooting in the longbow, shooting in the caliver, running, wrestling, fencing, music, and the games of chess and draughts...These, and all of this kind, wherein the industry of the mind and body hath the chiefest stroke, are very commendable, and not to be disliked.

- William Perkins

Taste and See ...

"I can tell you at once that nothing you touch today will have more suffering, bloodshed, and woe attached to it than the innocuous twin pillars of your salt and pepper set."

- Bill Bryson, from his chapter on the history of the Western diet in At Home

Having Faithful Children: The Standard [please don't forget to pray for my family]

"Not only must a minister's children not be dissolute and rebellious, they must be faithful (Tit. 1:6). Whether or not that last word is rendered as faithful or as believers amounts to the same thing. A minister's children are his first parishioners, and they are the canary in the mine...

When the Protestant world cries out for reformation and revival, as it does, this would include the Protestant ministers. Guys who like fat books more than their wives, and committee meetings more than their kid's ball game, to hear their own golden tones flowing out from the pulpit more than to hear their little girl's chatter on a weekly date, are men who will find themselves caricatured in cartoons when the reformation comes."
 
-Doug Wilson

10-year-old AA Hodge's "Letter to the Heathen"

Dear Heathen:

The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? And soon there will not be a Nation, no, not a space of ground as large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself have, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy tracts and Bibles to teach you.

Archibald Alexander Hodge, and [sister] Mary Eliz. Hodge, June 23, 1833
Friends of the Heathen.

[painting: St Boniface Felling Thor's Tree unknown artist]

IMAGINE ... Postmillenialism

As many of you [well - okay - both of my readers] may know, my eschatology is from that row in the garden with 'postmil' sharpied on the Popsicle stick.  It used to be the standard pre-trib, pre-mil variety, but after years of Reformed teaching and a growing familiarity with the Psalms as sung and read in worship at church and home, I find myself optimistic for the very long-term.  I respect others who differ, but agree that among friends, laughable ideas ought to be laughed at ... at least every once in a while.  So in the spirit of giving ideas their due, here's a funny little rendition of John Lennin's lyrically-horrific song, Imagine, that we whipped together for the St. George's Festival hosted by All Saints Church at Lancaster this weekend.  There is a video of me singing it somewhere out there, so maybe I'll post that at some point too.

Imagine there's no rapture;
no Left Behind;
no Harold Camping;
no Thief in the Night;
Imagine all the steeples filling the landscape ...

Imagine no Hal Lindsey;
it's easy if you try [go on and try];
no Jack Van Impe;
no unmanned airplanes in the sky;
Imagine Jesus' kingdom, going all the way ...

You may say I'm a dreamer, a mini Keith Mathison.
I hope some day you will join us, in a right reading of The Revelation.

You may say I'm a dreamer, like that old Doug Wilson,
I hope some day you will join us, cuz the Lamb will overcome.