In Denial

True Islam and Its Modern Heretics 

Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair assures us that Islam does not have a problem, per se.  Rather the problem lies with particular elements within Islam.  This is the consistent line taken it the West by the United States, the UK, and Nato countries in general. When atrocities like the Woolwich murder of Drummer Rigby occur, this is the standard, PC line.  The real question is whether  the standard, official line is merely propaganda, or wishful thinking, or an inability to tell the truth (first to oneself, then to one's coterie, then to the nation.)
Firstly, let's review Blair's comments as reported in The Independent: 

“There is not a problem with Islam,” he wrote. “For those of us who have studied it, there is no doubt about its true and peaceful nature. There is not a problem with Muslims in general. Most in Britain will be horrified at Lee Rigby’s murder.

Islam has a "true" and "peaceful nature" not on display in the Woolwich beheading.  To Blair's credit, he acknowledges that heretical Islam--for that is how he is positioning it--is strong, growing, and significantly influential.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Not Enough of a Chump

Friday, June 7, 2013 10:12 am

Douglas Wilson

 

 Having watched some (usually reasonable) talking heads go on about the Verizon monstrosity, and then the PRISM thing — Grendel’s mother — I am struck once again with how so many modern conservatives miss the point. They do not understand the central principle of limited government. They do not understand what it means to be governed by men who understand what the rule of law is supposed to mean. They do not get it — and these are the conservatives.

The point (at this juncture) is not what the government does or does not do. If our current foolishness keeps up much longer, that will become the point soon enough, but it is not quite the point yet. The point is not what the government has done or will do. Free men care about what the government is allowed to be in a position to do.

Free men don’t want a government that doesn’t get into your email. Free men want a government that isn’t in any position to get into your email.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 12

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. —Isaiah 49:9

Devotional:
If therefore we desire liberty, if we desire the light of the kingdom of God, let us listen to Christ when he speaks; otherwise we shall be oppressed by the unceasing tyranny of Satan. Where then is the liberty of our will?

Whosoever claims for himself light, or reason, or understanding, can have no share in this deliverance of Christ; for liberty is not promised to any but those who acknowledge that they are captives, and light and salvation are not promised to any but those who acknowledge that they are plunged in darkness.

The Real Dark Ages

Intellectual Snobbery Plays Tricks on Both the Dead and the Living

The dominant narrative of Western history runs something like this: the classical age (Greece, Alexander, and Rome) represents a crowning glory of human achievement.  This age was marked by an explosion of refined cultural achievement, knowledge, discovery, and scientific advance.  It was followed by the Dark Ages when the West came under the aegis of the Christian faith and its attendant superstition.  During nigh on a thousand dark years, the West lived in penury, illness, and degradation, presided over by tyrannical feudal despots and a superstitious religion.

Then came the Enlightenment which threw off the shackles of religious superstition and began to recover the glories of the classical age.  Out of the resulting explosion of knowledge and cultural advances of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment came the Western dominance of the world--culturally, politically, academically, scientifically, and so forth.

But as Voltaire observed, "history" is a trick the living play upon the dead.

Honest Atheists

Blind, Pitiless Indifference

There are few honest atheists around.  Those that are tend to embarrass fellow-travellers.  Merry warriors enlisted in God's Kingdom enjoy reminding them about honest atheists, thus heightening the embarrassment.

A World without God

Justin Taylor 12:24 am CT
June 5, 2013

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

—Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (Basic Books, 1995), 95.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 11

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. —Isaiah 53:11

Devotional:
Since, then, our Lord Jesus Christ puts his Word in our hearts, let us pray him that he will be gracious to us, so that we may have a pure and sincere disposition to seek in him all that we lack. This is how we shall be justified by his knowledge. For there is question of bringing some satisfaction which will content God; it is not a question of coming to bargain and saying: "Lord, we deserve to be received by you"; but "We confess that we are poor sinners, that we are liable to thy judgment, that it is impossible for us ourselves to satisfy it, and that only Jesus Christ must be regarded as sufficient to satisfy it."

Depravity of Another Kind

Gnawing Doubts 

Here is a truly horrific crime, as reported in Stuff:

A "depraved" paedophile has been sent to prison for sexual offending against his infant son. A 27-year-old South Canterbury man was sentenced in the Oamaru District Court this afternoon to eight years 10 months imprisonment by Judge Joanna Maze for offending which will have a profound effect on his child.

The man sat motionless in the dock as he was sentenced on a raft of child exploitation charges, including two of sexual violation and indecent assault, and selling the use of his then 13-month-old son for sexual gratification for $500. . . .

Death Panels, Anyone?

Dehumanising and Unjust

When Sarah Palin came out criticising President Obama's socialising of the health system in the United States, saying the system would set up "death panels" of bureaucrats deciding who lived and who died she was dumped on from a great height. 

She was right, prophetically so.  But this gift did not require a special prophetic gift--only some clear thinking on her part.  Health care resources and services, like everything else in this life, are not infinite.  They are limited.  Therefore, rationing of some sort is inevitable.  In a socialised heath care system the government does the rationing.  It is the government which will ultimately decide--bureaucratically--who gets treatment and who does not.  Put bluntly that makes the government a convener of death panels--and that is the fundamental objection, not to rationing per se which in one form or another is inevitable and necessary.   

Fast forward just  a few short months.  HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has become a one man death panel.  This from Politico.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 10

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; —II Timothy 2:25

Devotional:
And therefore Saint Paul says precisely, If at any time God should give them repentance. As if he should say, My friends, it is a very grievous and hard matter to bear with men that resist God and set themselves against his grace and cannot at the first hear the good doctrine that is for their salvation.

Men fret against them, and so they cast them off. But what?

Principled Umbrage

The Big One

About ten days ago rumours were circulating about "the big one"--a scandal that would rock the Obama Administration like none other to date.  It would appear that it has now "hit the fan".  We learn that the Obama administration has been exponentially expanding domestic surveillance upon all American citizens. 

Firstly, a summary of what has been going on:  the US government has been recording the "meta details" of all phone calls in the United States.  Meta details are not the actual conversation, but the number of the one making the call, the number being called, the time of the call and other data about the "event".  Experts say that it is a simple matter to cross reference other databases to establish the name, address, and identities of the callers and those they are speaking to, according to the Guardian:

But such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off.

Others are claiming that Obama is lying when he asserts that actual calls are not being listened to: in fact, they claim, the content of calls are being recorded.

The surveillance has moved from phones to the internet.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

What Plato’s Cousin Knew 

Monday, June 3, 2013
Douglas Wilson 

Theological disputes are often matters of great moment, even when those outside the dispute cannot track with what is going on. I think it was Gibbon who once displayed his ignorance by saying that the debate over homousia and homoiousia was somehow over the letter i — which is pretty similar to saying the debate between atheists and theists is over the letter "a".

But at the same time, theologians are capable of talking past each other simply because they are used to different terminology, or perhaps because they are worried about the trajectory of those who use that other terminology. Take, for example, the distinction between natural revelation and natural law.

Now before opening this particular worm can, I want to acknowledge that two positions represented by these phrases can be quite different indeed. But this is a historical fact, not a logical one. I believe the two essential positions can be collapsed into one another with 5 minutes of questions.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 8

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
So the angel that communed with me said unto me, Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. —Zechariah 1:14

Devotional:
When God says that he was moved with great zeal for Jerusalem and Zion it is according to the common language of Scripture. For as God cannot otherwise sufficiently express the ineffable favor which he has towards his elect, he is pleased to adopt this similitude, that he undertakes the defence of his people, according to what is done by a husband who fights with the greatest zeal for his own wife. This is the reason why he says that he was zealous for Jerusalem.

And we ought especially to notice this mode of speaking, that we may not think that God is indifferent when he delays and defers his aid; for as we are hasty in our wishes, so we would have God to be hasty in the same manner, and we impute to him indifference when he does not hasten according to our desires.

A Step Forward

Charter Schools Approved, But . . . 

Charter schools are now legal in New Zealand.  The first will open in January/February 2014.  Thirty-five applications have been received.  The Ministry of Education has indicated that three or four will be selected to commence.

Thirty-five applications is a fair number.  The restriction to such a small number being given approval in 2014 unfortunately gives the impression that charter schools in New Zealand amount to little more than a pilot or experiment at this stage.  This will deter serious players.  Why make an enormous investment in time, money, and effort only to have the whole programme shut down when the government changes (which could happen as early as next year)?  Thus, what we will have represented in the applications thus far are "early adopters", possibly the more desperate, probably the less substantial and more experimental. Moreover, the resulting impression will be inevitable that of the thirty-five applications, the vast majority (about eighty-five percent) were sub-standard and unworthy.

Letter From America (About Drastic Cooling in the UK)

Coldest Spring In England Since 1891

WUWT

Posted on June 2, 2013 

By Paul Homewood

Originally, it was thought to be the coldest spring since 1962.

Winter? Teesdale in County Durham blanketed in snow on May 23 in what is likely to be Britain’s coldest spring since 1962

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333312/UK-weather-Spring-coldest-50-years-average-temperature-just-6C.html

According to the Central England Temperature Series, England has just experienced its coldest Spring since 1891. The average mean temperature of 6.87C ranks the 31st coldest on records starting in 1659, and is 2 degrees lower than the 1981-2010 average of 8.9C.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 7

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God. —Job 32:2

Devotional:
If a man be angered by a fleshly passion, he has respect to himself, and intends to maintain himself. Again, if he shows special favor to his friends, this is respect of persons, and he is really seeking his own advancement. We should rather be angry with ourselves, if we desire God to recognize our anger and permit it.

And how is that done? It is when a man enters into his own conscience, and searches himself earnestly, and does not look at others as much as at himself, to condemn himself, and to fight against his own passions.

Manifest Foolishness #2

 The Tender Mercies of Early Childhood Education

When men turn away from God they become stupid, worse than dumb animals.  Sense departs to be replaced by a degraded sensibility.  Here is a second example of what we have in mind, as reported in Stuff:

A woman has been banned from a Wellington childcare centre after a Ministry of Education staff member saw her "inappropriately restraining" a child. . . . A ministry spokeswoman said a staff member saw someone "inappropriately restraining" a child during a visit to the centre on April 23. . . . The daughter of the centre's supervisor had been on the floor with the children and was seen "stopping" a 4-year-old boy from hitting another child by putting her hand on his arm, she said. However, she did not see the incident, so could not be sure. . . . The centre had a no-hitting policy, but staff usually told children verbally to stop if they were found to be "rough-playing".

Here is Lucia's comment on this piece:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Book of the Month: June 2013 

Saturday, June 1, 2013
Douglas Wilson



This was a very good book on one level, and a very important book to me on another.

First, Meaning at the Movies was a good book because it managed something that a lot of Christian books about movies do not manage. If there is a ditch on both sides of the road, as there usually is, this book stays out of both of them. On the one hand we find the problem of an over scrupulous approach, where worldview analysis is done by cuss counts, and the thinking is about as deep as the skin that is being complained about.

The opposite error knows only one thing, and that is that of having no intention of being lumped in with that first group. The phrase Christian liberty is used as an all-purpose disinfectant, and if it has a sound track, clear thinking about it becomes immediately impossible. You don’t want to be in either ditch, but it has to be said that this ditch is dumber and dirtier than the other one.

Meaning at the Movies is a book that is not ashamed to bring foundational biblical truths to bear on the movies, and to praise or blame them accordingly. At the same time, the biblical truths that are applied are not trifles. The things that the overly pious object to are placed in their proper context — but it is not as though it is the beginning and end of the matter.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 6

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. —Matthew 23:14

Devotional:
But this diligence in prayer, although it chiefly respects the particular and private devotions of each individual, has, notwithstanding, some reference also to the public prayers of the Church. But these cannot be unceasing, nor ought they to be conducted otherwise than according to the polity which is appointed by the common consent.

This, indeed, I confess.

Manifest Foolishness, #1

Whimpering in the Dark

When men turn away from God they become stupid, worse than dumb animals.  Sense departs to be replaced by a degraded sensibility.  Here is an example of what we have in mind:

A school plans a father-son bonding session, but cancels it because a solo-mother insists upon attending.  Here is the account  from Stuff:

A father-son bonding session planned by a North Island primary school was cancelled after a single mother demanded to be included. Two "Band of Brothers" seminars were arranged by Matakana School to help fathers get more involved in their sons' lives, and as a forum for dads to share their issues. One session was for dads and another was for fathers and sons. A solo mum wanted to attend but was told she couldn't because her presence would inhibit discussion. She was told a mother and son seminar was planned for later in the year.

"We really just wanted an opportunity for the guys to open up and chat, and they wouldn't particularly want to do if there were females around - which I think is understandable," said principal Darrel Goosen. The woman's son was welcome at the second seminar and the guest speaker offered a specific session with her and her son but she continued to insist on attending, Goosen said, so the school board decided to cancel the event. "In hindsight we realise we may have offended some single parents, for which we apologise, as this was never our intention," said a school note to families.

The mother's foolishness is clearly on display.

More Headscratching Amongst Evolutionists

Darwin’s Doubt: An Interview with Stephen C. Meyer

Justin Taylor
May 30th, 2013



Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design and director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, has a new book being published June 18 by HarperOne: Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. 
(For the best discount and free shipping, you can pre-order the book here, and they’ll also send you four free eBooks on intelligent design.)

Dr. Meyer argues that the mysterious features of the Cambrian explosion are better explained by intelligent design than purely undirected evolutionary processes. He was kind enough to answer a few questions.

What is the “Cambrian Explosion”? 
The Cambrian explosion is an important event in the history of life where nearly all of the major animal body plans appear abruptly in the fossil record without any apparent evolutionary precursors.

Why is that significant?
What this means, in essence, is that virtually all of the major animal groups (called “phyla”)—vertebrates like fish, to arthropods (e.g., trilobites and shrimplike creatures), to various types of worms (e.g., earthworm-like annelid worms), to mollusks (e.g., shellfish), and many other types of animals—appear in a geological “blink of an eye,” without any direct ancestors in the fossil record. Even Richard Dawkins has observed that the Cambrian animals looked as if “they were just planted there without any evolutionary history.”

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 5

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? —Zechariah 3:1, 2

Devotional:
Let us know that Christ never performs the work of the priesthood but that Satan stands at his side, that is, devises all means by which he may remove and withdraw Christ from his office. It hence follows that they are much deceived who think that they can live idly under the dominion of Christ; for we all have a warfare, for which each is to arm and equip himself.

Therefore at this day, when we see the world seized with so much madness, that it assails us and would wholly consume us, let not our thoughts be fixed on flesh and blood, for Satan is the chief warrior who assails us, and who employs all the rage of the world to destroy us, if possible, on every side. Satan then ever stands at Christ's right hand, so as not to allow him in peace to exercise his priestly office. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin's Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Quislings and Dhimmis

The Principled Courage of the Australian National University

I M Fletcher, over at NZ Conservative, has a piece documenting the double standard that applies throughout the West when it comes to Islam--particularly amongst the Commentariat and the complicit media.  The piece is entitled, Islam and the Fear of Offending.

One instance cited by I M Fletcher was the Australian National University forcing a student newspaper to retract an article which sent Islam for a long walk up Satirical Street.  The rich irony is that the piece was indiscriminate: it also sent up Roman Catholicism, Scientology, Judaism, and Mormonism.  (One presumes that it was a piece written from the perspective of atheistic secular materialism).

What is most startling is firstly that the ANU forced the withdrawal of the piece on Islam (but not the other religions) and secondly, the justification offered: the piece on Islam risked offended Muslims (apparently).  So why is Muslim offence getting special consideration from the censors?

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America (About Inheritance and Covetousness)

That Comfy Little Covet-Cubby

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

 Douglas Wilson

A number of people in my generation are coming to an age when issues of inheritance are becoming more and more . . . relevant. Our parents are being gathered to their fathers, and we are left to sort out the stuff. The fact that we do not do well in this is not a new phenomenon. We should recall that the grudge that the older brother had toward the prodigal was all tangled up with inheritance issues.

And then there is this.

“And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:13-15).

The last of the Ten Commandments tells us not to covet stuff we have no claim to whatever — and it is still a most necessary reminder. No commandment trips us up like this one does.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 4

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: —I Corinthians 1:30

Devotional:
He who imagines that in order to obtain righteousness he must produce any works, however small, can fix no limit or boundary, but renders himself a debtor to the whole law. Avoiding, therefore, all mention of the law, and dismissing all thought of our own works, in reference to justification, we must embrace the Divine mercy alone, and turning our eyes from ourselves, fix them solely on Christ.

For the question is not how we can be made righteous, but how, though unrighteous and unworthy, we can be considered as righteous. And the conscience that desires to attain any certainty respecting this must give no admission to the law.

More Academic Anti-Three-Strikes Pablum

Just a School Yard Bully

Some time ago, we posted a piece on the "three strikes" approach to crime and punishment, here.  We argued that the fundamental concept is inherently just, consistent with Biblical truths on crime and the courts.  On the other hand we argued that it is possible for "three strikes" jurisdictions not to focus upon serious crimes against persons and property, only upon convictions for any crime, however minor. Such applications of the "three strikes" approach we believe eventually produce punishment that is inherently unjust (such as being jailed for life for painting graffiti).

We approve New Zealand's version of "three strikes" which reserves its application for more serious criminal offending by having its application restricted to a list of aggravated crimes which count as "strikes".    No-one in this country has yet been convicted of their third strike, although we understand there are about eighty or so on their second strike so it is only a matter of time before we register our first "third strike" incarceration.

Criminologists and academics are largely opposed (with some notable exceptions).  The underlying idee fixee of these folk appears to be that all crime is at root a social construct.

A Letter From Calvin College Professor (About Praise Bands)

An Open Letter to Praise Bands 

Monday, February 20, 2012

James K. A. Smith

 

Dear Praise Band,

I so appreciate your willingness and desire to offer up your gifts to God in worship. I appreciate your devotion and celebrate your faithfulness--schlepping to church early, Sunday after Sunday, making time for practice mid-week, learning and writing new songs, and so much more. Like those skilled artists and artisans that God used to create the tabernacle (Exodus 36), you are willing to put your artistic gifts in service to the Triune God.

So please receive this little missive in the spirit it is meant: as an encouragement to reflect on the practice of "leading worship." It seems to me that you are often simply co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its rationale, its "reason why." In other words, it seems to me that you are often recruited to "lead worship" without much opportunity to pause and reflect on the nature of "worship" and what it would mean to "lead."

In particular, my concern is that we, the church, have unwittingly encouraged you to simply import musical practices into Christian worship that--while they might be appropriate elsewhere--are detrimental to congregational worship.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 3

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. —Ephesians 6:12

Devotional:
But you know the admonition which Saint Paul has given on that score, that is, that we have not to fight against flesh and blood, but against the hidden wiles of our spiritual enemy. Wherefore let us not waste our energies upon men, but rather let us set ourselves against Satan.

Therefore, forgetting and pardoning the faults of those whom you may conceive to have been your enemies, apply your whole mind to repel his malice who thus engaged them to their own destruction in setting themselves against you to seek your ruin. This magnanimity will not only be pleasing to God, but it will make you the more loved among men; and I do not doubt that you have such regard to that as you ought.

The Holy Catholic Church

A Shame We All Must Bear

The Apostles Creed is arguably the most universal of all Christian creeds and confessions.  It is an organic creed, by which we mean that it was not written or constructed by any ecclesiastical body or one author or group of authors.  Very early in the history of the New Covenant, church congregations, separately and also co-operatively, developed what was called a rule of faith.  A rule was a summary of the salient points of Christian doctrine  and understood to be an accurate reflection of apostolic teaching.

It turned out that the the rules, as developed and used in churches from Italy, to North Africa, to Persia were pretty much all the same.  Over time the rules became the Rule--a commonly held statement of faith,  authenticated not so much by any ecclesiastical body, but by universal acceptance and use.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

June 1

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for 1 shall never be in adversity. —Psalm 10:5, 6

Devotional:
There is a very great difference between a despiser of God, who, enjoying prosperity today, is so forgetful of the condition of man in this world, as through a distempered imagination to build his nest above the clouds, and who persuades himself that he shall always enjoy comfort and repose—there is a very great difference between him and the godly man, who, knowing that his life hangs only by a thread, and is encompassed by a thousand deaths, and who, ready to endure any kind of afflictions which shall be sent upon him, and living in the world as if he were sailing upon a tempestuous and dangerous sea, nevertheless bears patiently all his troubles and sorrows, and comforts himself in his affiictions, because he leans wholly upon the grace of God, and entirely confides in it.

True Witness

A Clear, Pure Sound

Daily we are confronted with man's inhumanity to man--whether it be the image of a baby flushed alive down the toilet in China, or killing late term aborted babies who survived the horror of the "doctor's" ministrations, or the sectarian violence amongst Muslims in the Middle East, or a thousand other manifestations large and small.  It was the same in the Roman Empire. 

Against this tide of ethical degradation stood the Christian Church.  In the middle of the third century yet another plague struck, decimating cities.  The way Roman society treated the sufferers was deplorable, but expected.  Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, writing around 250AD, described how the populace responded to the plague in that city: