Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November  20

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 the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. —I Timothy 6:10

Devotional:
We shall find a restraint laid upon us, to keep us from being inflamed with an inordinate desire of growing rich, and from ambitiously aspiring after honors. For with what face can any man confide in the assistance of God, towards obtaining things which he desires in opposition to the Divine word?

Far be it from God to follow with the aid of his blessing what he curses with his mouth.

Battle Lines

The Clash of  Dinosaurs and Innovators

The PPTA--the secondary school teacher union--is revealing itself to be out of touch with its own members, let alone parents and their children.  Our readers will recall that the PPTA has placed a ban upon any co-operation or contact between the new charter schools and any of its members, or even with any government school (which suggests that the union sees itself as actually in de facto control of the government schools, a view presumably based upon reality).  As in the parable of the Good Samaritan, if union members and government schools see a charter school they are to cross to the other side of the street, avert their eyes, and hurry on their way.  So runs the PPTA ban--and they must be obeyed.

Except they are not--at least not by their own members, many of whom, we suspect, are more than  embarrassed by the antediluvian stance of their own union.  One of the soon-to-open charter schools is setting up a middle school, South Auckland Middle School.  According to its manager, in a piece posted on Kiwiblog, they have advertised eight new teaching positions, and had 105 applicants--many of them PPTA members.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 19

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

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

Bible Text:
The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. —Zechariah 12:1

Devotional:
Since then what Zechariah says could hardly be believed, he prescribes to the Jews the best remedy—that they raise up their eyes and then turn them to the earth. The expanse of the heavens constrains us to admire God; for however stupid we may be, we cannot look on the sun and the moon and stars and on the whole bright expanse above without some strong emotions of fear and of reverence.

Since then God exceeds all that men can comprehend in the very creation of the world, what should hinder us from believing even that which seems to us in no way probable?

The Mafia Under Some Pontifical Heat

Crackling Light Sabres

We always follow developments in the Roman Catholic church with interest.  One of the issues which has disturbed us for many years is the alleged corruption of the Vatican bank and the influence of the Mafia on the Vatican.  It seems that Francis, the present pope, is endeavouring to work a reformation in these matters. 

We fervently hope that he will be successful.  The following account has appeared in The Guardian:

Pope Francis's crusade against corruption has made him a target for Italy's all-powerful mafia clans, a leading anti-mob prosecutor has warned.  Nicola Gratteri, who has battled Calabria's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis's attempt to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who do business with corrupt prelates "nervous and agitated".  He told the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano: "Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican.  If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."

There are two issues here.

Letter From America (About the US Monarch)

Thus Spake Obama

The incompetence of our neo-monarchy

By Mark Steyn

National Review Online

November 15, 2013 3:30 PM 

 

 It is a condition of my admission to this great land that I am not allowed to foment the overthrow of the United States government. Oh, I signed it airily enough, but you’d be surprised, as the years go by, how often the urge to foment starts to rise in one’s gullet. Fortunately, at least as far as constitutional government goes, the president of the United States is doing a grand job of overthrowing it all by himself.

On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.

“I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this,” mused former Vermont governor Howard Dean. But he’s obviously some kind of right-wing wacko.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 18

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 the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. —Ezekiel 9:4

Devotional:
This is a remarkable passage, because from it we learn, first, that God effectually threatens the impious, so that he may have attendants always at hand to obey him; then, that even unbelievers make war under the direction of God, and are governed by his rod, and do nothing except at his will.

But, thirdly, we are taught that God never rashly executes his vengeance without sparing his elect. For this reason in the slaughter of Jerusalem he has an angel, who opposes a shield, as it were, to the Chaldeans, lest their cruelty should injure them beyond God's pleasure.

Teacher Unions Vs Charter Schools

Unmasked

We are finding the conniptions of the Teacher Unions over charter schools "exceedingly diverting", as Jane Austen would say. 

The Post-Primary Teachers Association (aka, the secondary school teacher union) has announced a member ban on all members having anything to do with charter schools.  But, like all educational unions, it seeks to control not just its own members, but government schools themselves--telling principals and administrators what they can and cannot do, with the implicit strike-threat if they are foolish enough to disobey.

Letter From Australia (About Pain in the US)

No Cure as Obamacare Gets Worse 

James Morrow
The Daily Telegraph
November 15, 2013 12:00AM

IN politics, leaders live and die by their promises. Julia Gillard effectively wrote her government into the history books when she went back on her assurance that "there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead". 

In the US, President Barack Obama is in similar strife over an oft-repeated promise that under his plan to overhaul health care - the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare for short - Americans who liked their GPs and their health care plans would be able to keep seeing their GPs and using those same plans.  Or as he put it in various forms to the American public more than two dozen times: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

The only thing is, it turned out not to be true.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 16

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

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

Bible Text:
Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. —Ezekiel 7:26

Devotional:
In this way he advises the Jews that they should catch at security in vain, as if, at the passing away of one evil, they were already free.

For the wicked, as soon as God withdraws his hand, think themselves escaped from all trouble, and so despise God more carelessly; for they fancy that God has done with them just like a debtor who has paid a small sum to his creditor, and thus has sustained a relaxation and is careless; so the reprobate harden themselves when God grants them some respite; for they think that they have an agreement with him that he should not trouble them any more.

But the Prophet denounces that there would be such a heap of evils that one calamity should have many companions, because God would not cease to add evils to evils. —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.

The Annals of Soft-Despotism

A Fillip to Ivory Poaching and Trafficking

The drive to be as god always lurks the heart of every human being.  That, after all, was the original temptation in the Garden of Eden when our first parents fell into sin.  The serpent hissed that if Adam and Eve were to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would not die at all, but would become like God, knowing good and evil for themselves.  (Genesis 3: 4)  Adam and Eve bought the lie.  We, in our turn, were born into the lie, believing it and yearning to live it.

One of the downstream effects is to believe that power and wisdom are conterminous.  This is why the idolatry of statism has such a powerful hold over our hearts and minds.  We are born believing that, as gods, we should have power and dominion and that when we secure power, we will be wise and effective.  We will make things happen--for good, of course, albeit good-as-it-seems-to-us, according to our lights, since we now think that we know good and evil for ourselves, on our own recognisance. 

Usually, what happens, is that we succeed only in magnifying evil and doing more harm.  Take something as prosaic as the protection of elephants and rhinos against extinction.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Food Libertarian

Posted on Tuesday, November 12, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

From time to time the authorities haul in some renegade cheese maker, and those who love bureaucratized food safety all breath a sigh of relief. This kind of tyranny is heavy-handed enough to get noticed by those who yearn for food freedom — as I do — but not so noticed generally that we can get the food fascists to stop it. Yet.

There are two basic points that need to be made about this. The first is that the government does have a role in food safety — but it is not the role of preventative regulation. Rather, in a realm of food libertarianism, the government would set the definitions and standards. This is what a fluid ounce is, and that is what counts as cleaning a chicken.

These standards would not be enforced by food inspectors before the fact, but would rather be used whenever an action had been brought by a dissatisfied or food-poisoned customer.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 15

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

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

Bible Text:
At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: —John 16:26

Devotional:
"In that day you shall ask in my name." Besides, when Christ is said to intercede with the Father for us, let us not indulge in carnal imaginations about him, as if he were on his knees before the Father, offering humble supplication in our name. But the value of his sacrifice, by which he once pacified God towards us, is always powerful and efficacious; the blood by which he atoned for our sins, the obedience which he rendered, is a continual intercession for us.

This is a remarkable passage, by which we are taught that we have the heart of the heavenly Father, as soon as we have placed before him the name of his Son. —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.

Test-Tube Superstition

Karakia, Anyone?

Intellectual deceit and rampant hypocrisy crowd the modern Western stage.  Unbelief is not just a nasty termagant, it is also replete with intellectual dishonesty.  Take, for example, the militant insistence that New Zealand be a secular nation.  Religion, we are told, is replete with myths, lies, and deceits.  The only truth is secular truth--which apparently means truth which can be observed and experimentally proven in a test-tube.

But at the same time, and out of the same mouths (albeit from the other side) there is an enthusiastic celebration of spirituality.  In our country this has become institutionalised in the employing of Maori to incant and pray at all public events and gatherings.  In fact, it is pretty well acknowledged now that no event would be a happening at all, were it not accompanied by Maori prayers, or incantations (karakia), or traditional animist chants to invoke the Maori pantheon of gods.  No formal school opening, no commissioning of a public project, no opening of a New Zealand embassy anywhere around the world would be the real deal without an effusive display and contribution from Maori spiritualism.

Apparently Unbelieving secularism has fallen prey to the rationalist-irrationalist dichotomy.  In the end, the rationalist becomes the superstitious irrationalist. 

This is not just a New Zealand failing.

John Milton, Standing, Waiting, and Serving

The Greatest Sonnet in the English Language

 

Justin Taylor

 

Leland Ryken writes that John Milton’s “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is to him “the greatest sonnet in the English language.” During the middle phase of Milton’s life (1640-1660) he focused on supporting the Puritan cause and largely set aside his poetic vocation. By 1654, at the age of 55, he had gone completely blind, and probably composed this sonnet around this time.

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state

Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

[Grand encouragement for those whose afflictions appear to render them useless to God, in God's Kingdom. Ed]

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 14

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

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

Bible Text:
Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, —Psalm 40:7

Devotional:
"Then said I, Lo! I come." Here David indicates his readiness to yield obedience, as well as the cordial affection of his heart and persevering resolution. His language implies that he cordially preferred the service of God to every other desire and care, and had not only yielded a willing subjection, but also embraced the rule of a pious and holy life, with a fixed and steady purpose of adhering to it. This he confirms when he says that the Law of God was deeply fixed in the midst of his bowels.

It follows from this, first, that however beautiful and splendid the works of men appear, yet unless they spring from the living root of the heart, they are nothing better than a mere pretence; and, secondly, that it is to no purpose that the feet, and hands, and eyes, are framed for keeping the Law unless obedience begin at the heart.

What Webs We Weave

No H8? -- Bombshell Book: Matthew Shepard Tortured, Murdered by Gay Lover

 

by Austin Ruse 14 Sep 2013, 10:07 AM PDT TheBlaze

[Philosophies and faiths can in general be known by their fruits.  Our Lord has instructed us to know people by their fruits--for good or ill.  The promotion of homosexuality is an ideological faith, part of an aggressive religion, which promotes the institutionalisation of human sexual lusts.  On the political front, one of the oft seen fruits of the movement to promote and normalise homosexuality is a love of lying and deceit to promote the cause.  This takes a variety of forms.  One is to allege that celebrities or public figures are secretly closet homosexuals.  Another is to engage in vicious personal vilification of ideological opponents.  The pivotal reason why truth telling is of little importance to the homosexual rights movement is due to it having no normative ethical standards by which it judges itself.  There are no moral absolutes in homosexuality, only situation ethics ("love" overrides all else) and utilitarianism (the end justifies the means). Of course these amoral ethical positions are not peculiar to the homosexual rights movement, but in our opinion they do typify it.

In 1998 a young homosexual male in Laramie, Wyoming was brutally murdered.  The general homosexual political narrative was to identify it first as a homophobic hate crime and second to use this horrible event as a cause c'elebre for the promotion of homosexual demand rights.  It is now being alleged that the homosexual propaganda network deliberately and knowingly distorting the truth, for the sake of the cause.  It would appear that the murder was actually a homosexual-on-homosexual hate crime and also a meth addict on addict crime.  That one homosexual would kill another is not the point.  That the homosexual lobby would lie and deceive the public about it is.  By these fruits we can assess the homosexual rights movement.  Ed.]

Almost everything you think you know about the Matthew Shepard narrative is false.

Matthew Shepard was the winsome young homosexual in Laramie, Wyoming who in October 1998 was tortured, killed, and left hanging grotesquely from a fence. He was discovered almost a day later and later died in the hospital from his horrific wounds.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Not Really Luther

Posted on Thursday, November 7, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

We confess to referring to the quotation attributed to Luther, which urges Christians to defend the truth of God at the point at which it is facing attack.  But, according to Douglas Wilson, it would seem that Luther did not make that observation at all.  Someone else did.  It turns out the original statement is even more compelling.  [Ed]

There is a famous Luther quote that he actually didn’t say, and which my son-in-law Ben Merkle recently tracked down. Here is the quote, and it is a hummer.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 13

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

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

Bible Text:
And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. —Isaiah 39:2

Devotional:
"And Hezekiah was glad." This is a remarkable example; and it teaches us that nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity. It proves also the truth of the old proverb, that "it is more difficult to bear prosperity than adversity." For when everything goes on to our wish, we grow wanton and insolent, and cannot be kept in the path of duty by any advices or threatenings. When this happened to Hezekiah, on whom the Prophet had bestowed the high commendation, that "the fear of God was his treasure" (Isa. 33:6), we ought to be very much afraid of falling into the same dangers.

Unintended Consequences

Prohibition Works Out Well for Criminal Gangs

It is universally acknowledged that Prohibition was a failure in the United States in the 1920's.  Not only did it fail in preventing access to alcohol, it proved a boon for criminal gangs which were able to prosper significantly manufacturing and selling contraband alcohol.  But, as we are well aware, those who do not learn history's lessons are condemned to repeat them.  Consequently, we find many voices clamouring for prohibitions of various kinds in our day.  Dumb and dumber.

As with the Prohibition movement early last century, there are always plenty of social evils to garnish the argument for prohibiting whatever the evil substance du jour  might be.  Tobacco is the biggie at the moment.  New Zealand has a diverse bunch of wowsers who have publicly committed to making New Zealand "smoke free" by 2025.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

The Problem With Smart People

Posted on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

The real problem with smart people is that they so frequently aren’t.

The confusion — of which we have many examples, alas — is between having a car with a really high rpm, and having a car that is on the right road. The two need not be the same thing at all.

Look at the Obamawheezer. That baby was designed, crafted, invented, implemented, promoted, urged, and force fed to us by a bunch of really smart people. And by “smart people,” I mean high rpm people on the wrong road. This does not exclude the possibility of some dumb people on the wrong road, doing their part, but in the main these were people who had briefcases in junior high school, with SAT scores that looked like they came from people like that.

Napoleon was smart, and he attacked Russia when it wasn’t springtime. So apparently this is a thing.

The trap that gets these people is the pride that wells up in them when, like Steppenwolf, they get their motor running.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 12

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

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

Bible Text:
Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. —Zechariah 10:1

Devotional:
The prophet no doubt includes here, under one kind, all things necessary for a happy life; for it is not the will of God to fill his people in this world as though they were swine; but his design is to give them by means of earthly things, a taste of the spiritual life.

Hence the happiness of which Zechariah now speaks is really spiritual; for as godliness has the promises of the present as well as of the future life (I Tim. 6:8), so the purpose of God was to consult the weakness of his ancient people, and to set forth the felicity of the spiritual life by means of earthly blessings. —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.

Heads Must Roll

Pam Corkery's  Calls For a Committee of Public Safety

Pamela Corkery, opinionated provocateur, has chosen an unfortunate turn of phrase writing about a hot public controversy presently incandescing the pages of our newspapers.  Some under-age girls have been allegedly date-raped by young men.  The police have not yet charged anyone.  Pamela has called for "heads to roll", apparently oblivious of the historical reference to the horrendous Reign of Terror. 

Maybe Pamela  forgot the connection.  Or maybe she does not care.  Or maybe she is ignorant.  Or maybe like a true people's demagogue she finds nothing offensive, unjust, or distasteful in seeing innocent heads roll from the guillotine blades into the tumbrels? 

Whatever the case, it does seem that Pamela has chosen to overlook the minor matter of evidence, witnesses, and proof beyond reasonable doubt in matters criminal and judicial.

Letter From America (About Drifting)

The Drift toward Despotism

Too many of our rulers and their enforcers reflexively see the citizenry as a threat.

By Mark Steyn

 

November 8, 2013 4:45 PM

National Review Online

 

At a time when over 4 million people have had their health insurance canceled, it’s good to know that some Americans can still access prompt medical treatment, even if they don’t want it. David Eckert was pulled over by police in Deming, N.M., for failing to come to a complete halt at a stop sign in the Walmart parking lot. He was asked to step out of the vehicle, and waited on the sidewalk. Officers decided that they didn’t like the tight clench of his buttocks, a subject on which New Mexico’s constabulary is apparently expert, and determined that it was because he had illegal drugs secreted therein.

So they arrested him, and took him to Gila Regional Medical Center in neighboring Hidalgo County, where Mr. Eckert was forced to undergo two abdominal X-rays, two rectal probes, three enemas, and defecate thrice in front of medical staff and representatives of two law-enforcement agencies, before being sedated and subjected to a colonoscopy — all procedures performed against his will and without a valid warrant.

Alas, Mr. Eckert’s body proved to be a drug-free zone, and so, after twelve hours of detention, he was released.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 11

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

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

Bible Text:
Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. —II Timothy 2:22

Devotional:
"Flee the lusts of youth." It is not as though he were a young man of twenty years, for he had been exercised in preaching the word of God now a good while; he was a doctor, not only of one church, but of the country round about him; as we know that Saint Paul had appointed him not only to preach in one place, but also to have an eye afar off, to warn the bishops and all that were in like charge as he was. So then he was a man of some maturity and ripe years; on the other hand, God chose him from among others; yes, and he had received singular gifts; there was not only doctrine and prophecy in him, but his life was of like quality and he had great zeal to advance the honor of God.

In short, he was an example to all men. Yet he has need to be humbled and to have some warning from Paul to the end that he not allow himself at some time to stray from the path and show the follies of youth. At what age? He must have been more than thirty years old.

The Annals of Soft-Despotism

"We Know What's Best For You"

When governments would be as God to their people, and when the people think the government speaks with a divine voice, foolishness and stupidity rapidly bud and bloom on the vine.  That's why President Reagan is alleged to have said the most terrifying sentence in the language was, "I am from the government, and I'm here to help."  Governments that pretend to be omni-competent end up being profoundly incompetent, dumb, and stupid, which when coupled with oppression, become very hard to bear indeed. 

Take the much vaunted roll-out of universal, government run, healthcare in the United States--aptly coined "Obamacare".  We are not referring just to the government designed and run websites purportedly allowing folk to research and purchase health insurance--which are proving to be a spectacular failure, with more bugs than a Florida swamp in summer. That's bad enough.  But everyone with half a brain, and with even a very basic idolatry-meter, knows that this is just the beginning. 

Blogger Patterico explains that the bad news is going to keep coming.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Why Children Matter

Posted on Saturday, November 2, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

Nurture and Admonition in the 21st Century I

Introduction
A family is a divinely-ordained community. It is a set of defined relationships, with obligations and privileges assigned by God accordingly. It is not an arbitrary collection of individuals, and it is not something that we get to define. God created the family—it was not invented by us in the first place, and so we do not get to reinvent it. For this reason, parents must beware of treating the family as an “assemblage” that results from “techniques” developed by “experts.”

Young parents should therefore come to the Scriptures with a true hunger and openness. This is particularly true of those young parents who didn’t see a good model growing up—God is the God of new beginnings. He breaks the cycle, blessing to a thousand generations, and cutting off disasters after three or four. Be encouraged.

The Text:
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1, ESV).
“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

Summary of the Text:
The juxtaposition of these two passages is intended to make the foundational point that, as God treats us as His children, so also we, in imitating Him, must seek to be like Him in our treatment of our own children. As He deals with us, so also must we deal with our own children.

God has created us as reflective and imitative creatures. We become like what we worship. Idolaters do this (Ps. 115:4-8), and worshipers of the true God do it (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the way human beings are. There are few places where the ramifications of this are as important as they are in child-rearing.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 09

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

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

Bible Text:
And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. —Isaiah 42:16

Devotional:
"And I will lead the blind." It is often advantageous to us also to have no way open to us, to be straitened and hemmed in on every hand, and even to be blinded, that we may learn to depend solely on God's assistance and to rely on him; for, so long as a plank is left on which we think that we can seize, we turn to it with our whole heart. While we are driven about in all directions, the consequence is that the remembrance of heavenly grace fades from our memory.

If, therefore, we desire that God should assist us and relieve our adversity, we must be blind, we must turn away our eyes from the present condition of things, and restrain our judgment, that we may entirely rely on his promises. Although this blindness is far from being pleasant, and shows the weakness of our mind, yet, if we judge from the good effects which it produces, we ought not greatly to shun it; for it is better to be "blind" persons guided by the hand of God, than, by excessive sagacity, to form labyrinths for ourselves. —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.

The Authentic Bard

Performing Shakespeare’s Plays in the Original Accent and Pronunciation

This is rather neat.

  Hat Tip: Justin Taylor

Privileges and Pride

'One Ring to Bring Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them'

Beware the man whose fundament for truths and morals rises no higher than himself or his kind.  Such a person is apt to oppose most vehemently all Christians, whose fundaments rest on a Being infinitely higher and wiser than mankind.  The vehemence rests of two planks.  Firstly, the frustration that arises from being uncloaked, being exposed as resting opinions, truth, and ethics on wishful thinking, not metaphysical substance.  Secondly, the frustration of having to discourse with one whose God does not and will not bow to the "wisdom" of a creature.

But worse, often the one whose fundamental belief is that Man is the measure of all things, is not just filled with hatred for the contrary view.  He also has a love of power, secretly lusting to rule over others, controlling them so as to reinforce his ideas.  As philosopher Bertrand Russell once said: "Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."  Quite so.

As Jonah Goldberg put it:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

In a Perfect World . . .

Posted on Friday, November 1, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens” (Ex. 18:21).

In a perfect world — because it is an imperfect world — political rulers should have three fundamental characteristics. They should fear God, be men of truth, and hate coveteousness. We live in a time when the fear of God must not exist or, if it does, it must not be acknowledged, when candidates manufacture lies deliberately, and loving covetousness usually functions as the foundation of their proposed economic plan.

But those are the requirements that Scripture sets forth, and so that is what we should be laboring for. That happy result may not happen in the next election, but that is where we are seeking to get.