Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 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:
And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. —Luke 23:55, 56

Devotional:
Consider what was the courage and constancy of women at the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; when the apostles had forsaken him, how they continued by him with marvellous constancy, and how a woman was the messenger to announce to the apostles his resurrection, which the latter could neither believe nor comprehend.

If he then so honored women, and endowed them with so much courage, think you ,that he has less power now, or that his purposes are changed? How many thousands of women have there been who have spared neither their blood nor their lives to maintain the name of Jesus Christ and announce his reign! Has not God caused their martyrdom to fructify? Has their faith not obtained the glory of the world as well as that of the martyrs?

Obamian Tolerable Religion

Acceptable in Private But Overruled Everywhere Else

The company Hobby Lobby in the US is owned by Christians.  They have self-consciously and deliberately sought to run their business subject to biblical commands, principles and teaching.  This has many implications (see the article below).  One implication is in the health insurance the company provides for staff.  The company's policy excludes coverage for abortifacient drugs and procedures, while covering other contraceptive medical interventions.

The US Federal Government is prosecuting (that is, persecuting) the company for breaching the religious freedom rights of staff, for attempting to force its particular religion upon others, and for being in violation of the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare).  It would be hard to think of a clearer, more egregious examples of  the secular state deciding what kind of Christian religion it will tolerate and of the secularist doctrine of religious liberty.  The only tolerable Christian is one who never seeks to live before and obey God in the public square (unless he happens to espouse causes approbated by the secular state).  The only good Christian is the one who, to all intents and purposes, is a dead one.

Climate Ostriches

Global-warming ‘Proof’ is Evaporating

By Michael Fumento

December 5, 2013
New York Post

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.  Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.

And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 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:
But thou, 0 man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. —I Timothy 6:11

Devotional:
Why are we Christians? Why are we baptized? Why do we call upon God? Is it only to live in this world and to have our pleasures and delights? No, no, but to climb up higher, and to know that we must drive to the kingdom of heaven, knowing that our inheritance is in heaven, whereunto we must run, and pass through this world, not delaying in it at all.

Considering that our condition is such that we have no certain and abiding dwelling place here, but we must go higher, and God calls us daily to come to him; if we be given to covetousness, shall we be excused, I ask you?

If we remain still entangled in these worldly things after God has showed us the brittleness and shortness of our life, are we not worse than mad?

Pseudo-Hagiography

Already Playing Tricks Upon the Dead

Over recent days the world's Commentariat has been agog over the passing of Nelson Mandela.  We are witnessing hagiography in the making before our very eyes.  We wonder whether he will be proclaimed Messiah in the next week or so. 

There are many things to admire in Mendela's life and career.  There are other things to reject and despise.  Fairness and balance requires that we keep both in perspective.  The adulatory ululations have covered over the bad, making him already a quasi-mythical figure.  We find ourselves reflecting on the contrast when Scripture celebrates great men.  Always, in the case of  Scripture, it is a matter of warts and all.  Their sins, failings, mistakes are up front and centre, along with how they repented of evil, turned to the Light, and became faithful to the Lord.  Think David, Moses, Saul/Paul.  This, we suggest, is the model of honest, real hagiography.  The sad thing, in Mandela's case, is that all the evidence suggests that Mandela was repentant over his youthful wrongs, but those have been studiously ignored in the Commentariat's ululating.  By ignoring the obvious--being too polite and politically correct to talk about it--Mandela's actual remarkable achievements are undermined, being disembodied from humanity and history. 

Mandela's struggle against apartheid led him to advocate violent overthrow of the government and the system.

Turning to the Dark Side

Amnesty International is now “Abortion International”

Posted on | December 7, 2013 

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D.

Turtle Bay and Beyond

10th December is the day on which, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It is therefore commemorated as the “World Human Rights Day”. In the days and weeks preceding it, you will frequently meet information stands run by “Amnesty International” (AI), where you can buy candles or similar gimmicks with the organization’s logo (a lit candle with barbed wire around it), or you will be approached by activists asking you for donations. Some of these activists might be idealists who do this in their free time, whereas others are students or low-wage employees who do this for a small salary.

My advice to you is: do not buy their candles, do not give them one cent. Instead, if you are not in a hurry, tell them – politely but clearly – why you think that “Amnesty International” is not worthy of support.
The reason why Amnesty International should not be supported is that it no longer is the organization it used to be.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 10

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:
Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; —I Timothy 1:1

Devotional:
"God our Savior and Jesus Christ our hope." True it is that this word Savior is often ascribed to the Son of God, because it is he who has fulfilled and perfected whatever was requisite to our salvation.

He shed his blood, to the end that we should be washed and made clean from our filth and loathsomeness; he abolished the curse that was upon us; he delivered us and set us at liberty from the slavery of death; he utterly put sin to flight. We see then that we must seek our salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ and that with good reason he is called our Savior.

But still it is not without good cause that Paul gives God the Father this title; and why? Let us see whence Jesus Christ came to us. He was sent us from God his Father, for so the Scripture witnesses; God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, delivering him to death for us (John 3: 16, I John 4:9).

Therefore, whenever we see our salvation in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must come to the very head and fountain from which he came to us, that is to say, from this love which God had for mankind.

New Model Colonies

Nineteenth Century Changes to Colonisation

In his book Fairness and Freedom, historian David Fischer provides some interesting insights into the world-view in Great Britain which shaped the colonisation of New Zealand in the nineteenth century.  He notes that the New Zealand experience was different from what occurred in the British imperialist and colonial experience up until that time. 

The Colonial Office was run by Sir James Stephen for much of the first half of the nineteenth century.  He took a particular interest in New Zealand.

Stephen summarized his purposes [for New Zealand] in a single sentence: "The two Cardinal points to be kept in view in establishing a regular colony in New Zealand are, first, the protection of the aborigines, and secondly the introduction among the colonists of the principle of self-government, to the utmost extent in which that principle can be reconciled with allegiance to the crown."

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Conceit on Stilts

Posted on Wednesday, December 4, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

Yesterday the president showed defiance on the Obamacare question, although, it must be said, it was an anemic kind of defiance. He said, in a calm and listless sort of way, that Obamacare would not be repealed “as long as [he was] president.” In this, he has, yet again, mistaken the actual position of affairs. The debate is no longer whether the law will be repealed. Rather, we are all wondering how deep the crater is going to be, and how thick the column of smoke will be afterwards.

I keep thinking of another great victory, that time when Napoleon invaded Russia, captured Moscow, and lived in posh surroundings for a considerable number of weeks. What a victory that was! Those were the times!

But let us extend this metaphor a bit, and come up with something to represent health care realities, economic realities, and web site construction realities. Let’s call that cluster of realities something like “Russian winter,” and let us also pretend that the president is (for some reason having to do with the machinations of the Koch brothers) unable to produce an adequate supply line for hundreds of thousands of troops merely by signing an executive order. And we may envision the defeated and humiliated Republicans as pursuing Cossacks, picking off stragglers, and not acting very defeated at all.

Thanks to Mike Lee and Ted Cruz the opposition to Obamacare is now in a position to stand back and do nothing by way of repealing Obamacare.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 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:
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. —Isaiah 53:10

Devotional:
And furthermore, each one of us ought to apply this to himself and not doubt that, although we may trail our wings and be still held captive under sin, God will nevertheless deliver us from our captivity, and will perfect what he has begun in us and correct what is still at fault. And how?

We must come to our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is he who puts his hand to the work since the charge of it has been committed to him and he has received this office from God his Father. So let us be satisfied that because he is ordained the minister of our salvation, there will be nothing lacking or unaccomplished by this means, seeing it is thus determined.

Keeping Business Honest

Industry Groups and Associations Represent Conspiracies

It may come as a surprise to some to learn that business owners and capital investors are evil people--not in any specific or particular sense (as Marxists believe) but in the general sense of universal human depravity shared by all human beings, born and unborn.  This general truth is at the core of the Christian faith, being explicitly declared in Holy Writ, (Romans 5:12-14) and professed in its creeds and confessions (for example, ". . . all mankind descending from him [Adam] by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression."  [Shorter Catechism, Question 16].

Business owners and capital investors share, along with all men, the blight of universal human depravity.  Therefore, it is a reasonable expectation that given half a chance they will take any opportunity to advance their own position, wealth, and well-being at the expense of  fellow men.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Dear XYZ

Posted on Monday, December 2, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

An open letter to black Reformed rappers, in light of the recent dust-up.

Dear XYZ,

I hope you don’t mind receiving a letter like this, coming, as it does, out of the left field bleachers. To begin with a confession of the perfectly obvious, I am not naturally part of that demographic that buys, listens to, or is otherwise conversant in, the work you do. You might say it is not my cup of T. At the same time, I do follow cultural trends widely, and sometimes deeply, and have been aware of your active presence in the Reformed world for some years now. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

So I want to ask you to think of this letter as the work of an appreciative and affectionate and somewhat distant Dutch uncle . . . although I am not Dutch. I believe you have been called to a very important task, and I want to urge you to honor God in that work. The reason for this letter is that I believe that the importance of your labor is such that it is going to generate a great deal of trouble for you, and I believe that I do know something about handling that, whether we are talking about causes or consequences.

As I observe the work you do, I wanted you to know that there are three things that I am very thankful for, and which I would urge you to guard and protect. There are also four things to be wary of, four traps, four snares.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 07

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 there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. —Job 32:8

Devotional:
If it is God that gives special understanding to men to understand the things that pertain to this fleeting life, what is to be said of the Gospel and of true religion? Have we these by nature? Can we purchase them by our own labor? Alas, we must fall far short.

If a man should be a good schoolmaster to teach children, or a good lawyer or physician, or a good merchant in a city or a good laborer in the country; it is the Spirit of God that accomplishes all these things. One man needs to be sharp-witted in one thing more than in another; as sometimes mechanical arts require greater skill than merchandising.

Now then, when we come to the doctrine of the Gospel, there is a wisdom which surmounts all of man's understanding, and is wonderful even to the angels. The very secrets of heaven are contained in the Gospel, for it concerns the knowledge of God in the person of his Son.

Letter From Australia (About State Education)

Getting Value For Money

The problems with NZ government schools are not unique to this country.  A similar pattern can be discerned in Australia.  Here is a piece in The Telegraph by Piers Akerman.

The big error lies in believing money is the sole answer to educational problems.  In the past decade the education budget has increased by 40 per cent but results have declined in real terms across every subject. Australian taxpayers pay $42 billion a year for shocking results.

The Abbott government has been faced with the choice of continuing to fund bad policy and fail our children or trying to help them gain from their schooling. Given that the federal government doesn't own any schools or employ any teachers, the choice seems simple. 

Give the states and territories some guidance on curricula, replace the hideously ideological literacy program, for instance, with the universally accepted and proven phonics method of teaching reading,

Green Energy and Dirty Money

A Good-News Story

As we read the account below, we could barely repress a chuckle.  They say that necessity is the mother of invention and it appears to be true in the UK.  A recession, coupled with a desperate need to restrain wasteful, profligate, debt-driven public spending have forced the government to turn to the private sector to fund much needed infrastructure spending.  At the edge of the dark cloud is a burnished silver lining.

This from the Telegraph:

Breaking Stereotypes

John Piper’s New Poem and Video: “The Calvinist”

Dec 03 2013 9:09 am CT 
Justin Taylor

Calvinism, they say, is making a comeback. But poetry? We rarely hear traditional poems today, apart from rhyming couplets in songs or greeting cards or spoken-word pieces with a beat. So I am thankful to hear and watch this robust, life-giving poem from John Piper—read by Piper with the help of friends Matt Chandler, R. C. Sproul, D. A. Carson, Thabiti Anyabwile, Alistair Begg, and Sinclair Ferguson—showing that Calvinism is not an arcane point of theology but a tough-and-tender approach to all of life before the face of God. You can watch it below or read it here.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 06

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:
For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. —Romans 14:8

Devotional:
If the account I have heard of the death of your good brother and mine have been the occasion of joy to me, as, indeed, there was good reason for it, you who have known better the whole matter, have, assuredly, far more ample matter for rejoicing, not for that you wished to be deprived of so excellent a companion, on which account both you and I have good ground for regret—all the more that the number of those who in the present day walk constantly in the fear of God is so small and rare, but because of the singular grace which God had conferred upon him, of perseverance in the fear of his name, the faith and patience which he has manifested, and other tokens of true Christianity.

For all that is as a mirror in which we may contemplate the strength wherewith our kind heavenly Father assists his children, and most of all, out of their greatest difficulties. Then, also, we may conclude that his death was indeed happy and blessed, in the face of him and of all his angels.

National Education Charades

Ticking Crocodiles In The Real World

The chattering classes of the Commentariat are presently discombobulated over an OECD report showing that New Zealand's performance is waning in educational matters.  Government schools, it would seem, are a sunset industry.  This from Stuff:

New Zealand's education ranking has fallen from seventh to 18th in science, from 13th to 23rd in maths, and from seventh to 13th in reading, according to a report released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last night.  The figures in the report were based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Just over 4000 15-year-old Kiwi students took part in the assessment, which is done every three years.

These results need to be considered against the backdrop of taxpayer funded lavish largesse being poured out upon government schools in a Noahic deluge over the past ten years. [Sound trumpets . . . ]

Budget 2013 delivers $901 million in the current year and over the next four years for operating initiatives to lift educational achievement at every level of the system – from early childhood, to primary, to secondary, and into training for work, Education Minister Hekia Parata says.  “We are increasing spending on education – for the fifth Budget in a row. The Government’s total investment increases to over $9.7 billion for the 2013/14 financial year.  “New Zealand’s total education investment sits at 7.2 per cent of GDP – well above the OECD average of 5.8 per cent,’’ Ms Parata says. [NZ Government Press Release]

The present government, and a litany of  previous governments, have succumbed to the fallacy that more government spending will generate better educational outcomes.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Rap Tide

Posted on Thursday, November 28, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson

Blog and Magblog

There has been a goodish bit of Internet response to this short video. A number of men were asked for their take on Reformed hip hop artists, and their response was overwhelmingly negative.

In that negative response, there were some fair points — the cult of perpetual immaturity that cool always tends to foster, the need to make a clean break with the rebellion that birthed the genre, the truth that musical forms matter, and so on. But surrounding the decent takeaway points, there was an overall failure to make appropriate distinctions, with the end result that the body of the criticism falls flat. A better and more thoughtful interaction by Russell Moore can be found here, which you probably ought to read if you want my comments below to make any sense.

What is rap for? What are the rules of the genre, and what is being attempted? I would argue that the natural form of rap is that of prophetic denunciation — the jeremiad.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 05

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 Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? —John 18:11

Devotional:
"Shall I not drink the cup which my Father hath given to me?" In the same manner we, too, ought to be prepared for enduring the cross. And yet we ought not to listen to fanatics, who tell us that we must not seek remedies for diseases and any other kind of distresses, lest we reject the cup which the heavenly Father presents to us.

Knowing that we must once die (Heb. 9:27), we ought to be prepared for death; but the time of our death being unknown to us, the Lord permits us to defend our life by those aids which he has himself appointed. We must patiently endure diseases, however grievous they may be to our flesh; and though they do not yet appear to be mortal, we ought to seek alleviation of them; only we must be careful not to attempt anything but what is permitted by the Word of God.

In short, provided that this remain always fixed in our hearts, "Let the will of the Lord be done" (Acts 21: 14), when we seek deliverance from the evils which press upon us, we do not fail to drink the cup which the Lord has given us. —Commentaries

---

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 Hard Despotism

Withering on the Vine

We use the term "soft-despotism" to refer to the smothering embrace of the Western nanny state, driven by the demands of perverted consciences, riven by pseudo-guilt and self-righteous pity.  The alternative to soft-despotism is hard-despotism.  China is a nation with a hard-despotic system.  China is attempting to change, we are told, and we are sure there is truth in it.  But the social consequences of decades of hard despotism will take generations to work through and out.

Many of those consequences arise out of China's hard despotic attempt to control its population growth--something which the current leaders are now starting deeply to regret we suspect.  It is a startling lesson in what happens when a culture institutionalises and enforces atheistic rebellion against the Living God.  The curses of God's covenant fall--and they are exacting, hard, and remorseless.  Deep remorse, turning away from Unbelief, returning to the Creator and Redeemer and walking along a new road, His road, are the only ways of genuine escape.  Traditional Chinese pragmatism will not suffice.  The societal damage is too severe.

A recent article in the Telegraph succinctly presents just some aspects of the burgeoning social dislocation and economic disruption facing China as a result of the One-Child Policy.

Christmas Carols

Drumming Glory

The Christmas season is approaching. We always need reminding that the core focus of Christmas for us, His people, is to be worship, with great joy. Here is a rendition of The Little Drummer Boy, using the greatest of musical instruments--the human voice. 

This particular piece is a reminder that worship of the God who is now amongst us clothed in human nature, who is bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh, warmly accepts the worship of children, and that it is the adoration of children which provides us jaded adults with a tutorial in worship. 

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 04

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:
Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth. —Isaiah 40:26

Devotional:
"Lift up your eyes on high." We ought to observe that we are so wicked and ungrateful judges of the divine power, that we often imagine God to be inferior to some feeble man. We are more terrified frequently by the empty mask of a single man than we are strengthened by all the promises of God.

Not in vain, therefore, does the Prophet repeat that God is defrauded of his honor, if his power does not lead us to warm admiration of him; nor does he spend his labor in what is superfluous, for we are so dull and sluggish that we need to be continually aroused and excited.

Men see every day the heavens and the stars; but who is there that thinks about their Author? By nature men are formed in such a manner as to make it evident that they were born to contemplate the heavens, and thus to learn their Author;

Drugs as a Health Issue, Not a Crime

Assume the Position

We reproduce below a piece on a serious problem--the over representation of blacks and hispanics in US jails.  This has led to an unfortunate consequence of police profiling of blacks and hispanics in poor neighbourhoods, which in turn has many deleterious additional unintended consequences.   A major contributor to this vortex of bad consequences is the policy of drug prohibition and criminalisation.

H. David Schuringa is  the president of Crossroad Bible Institute, an international discipleship and advocacy agency for prisoners and their families, with headquarters in the United States.  Crossroad Bible Institute is active in New Zealand prisons providing educational material, Bible studies, tutoring, and other support to prisoners. 

Dr Schuringa wrote the following piece in a US blog:

The Annals of Soft-Despotism

It's Unique, So It's Gotta Be Good

A government which sets forth to care for everybody becomes an inevitable soft-despotic monster.  But the monster is incompetent, bumbling, and stupid.  Irremediably so.  The only solution the monster can proffer to overcome its bumbling failures is to throw millions more of "good money" after bad.  It's only solution is to double down on folly. 

Now this is not to say that private (non-state) enterprise is always efficient.  Far from it.  But private enterprise has an enforcer, a ruthless, take-no-prisoners punisher of business incompetence and failures.  Mr Competition is relentless in punishing and driving the bumbling incompetent out of business.  But the soft-despot has no competitors.  It is a despot after all, protected by law. 

We offer yet another illustration of the follies and self-destructive pathogens of a bumbling  soft-despotic government: the Obamacare website.

Obamacare: 500M Lines of Code, $500M, 60% Complete, No Surprise

by John J. Xenakis  

30 Nov 2013, 9:59 PM

Breitbart

The historic IT disaster known as the Obamacare web site has been of intense interest to me, since I've been a Senior Software Engineer for decades, and I have personally participated in, witnessed, and reported on (as a technology reporter) a number of IT disasters. But even so, the size of the Obamacare web site catastrophe on October 1 still takes my breath away.

When I first heard, shortly after October 1, that there was 500 million lines of code in Healthcare.gov, I quickly rejected that figure, because it's impossible.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 03

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:
Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way. —Psalm 119:128

Devotional:
Assuredly when we see that the ungodly mock God with such effrontery, at one time rising up audaciously against him, and at another perverting every part of the law, it becomes us to be more inflamed with zeal, and to be the more courageous in maintaining the truth of God. The extreme impiety of our age especially demands of all the faithful that they should exercise themselves in this holy zeal.

Profane men strive to outdo each other in scornfully aspersing the doctrine of salvation, and endeavor to bring God's sacred Word into contempt by their derisive jeers. Others pour forth their blasphemies without intermission. We cannot, therefore, avoid being chargeable with the crime of treacherous indifference, if our hearts are not warmed with zeal, and unless we burn with a holy jealousy.

The Prophet not merely says that he approved of God's law wholly and without exception, but he adds that he hated every way of lying, or every false way. And, undoubtedly, no one subscribes in good earnest to the law of God, but he who rejects all the slanders by which the wicked taint or obscure the purity of sound doctrine. —Commentaries

Copyright © 2013, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. All Rights Reserved. 

Freedom For the Privileged

Virginian Heresies

Much negative commentary has been issued on the New England Puritan settlements in the seventeenth century.   Most of it is misleading.  Much less negative commentary has issued forth on the English settlements in Virginia.  This is surprising in some respects, but on the other hand, maybe not unexpected.  After all, if one had to compare the two settlements: New England and Virginia, why the latter would be superior in every respect. 

It is true that they were different.  The New England Puritan settlements (and the Quaker settlements in what later became Pennsylvania) were animated by principles of freedom from persecution and oppression.  Virginia's animus, however, was a replication of royal prerogative and aristocratic privilege.

Thanksgiving

G.K. Chesterton on Thanksgiving

Justin Taylor
November 28, 2013

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”—G. K. Chesterton

“The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.”—G. K. Chesterton

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”—G. K. Chesterton

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”—G. K. Chesterton

“When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?”—G. K. Chesterton

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 02

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:
Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. —John 13:8

Devotional:
"Thou shalt never wash my feet." Hitherto Peter's modesty was excusable, though it was not free from blame; but now he errs more grievously, when he has been corrected, and yet does not yield.

And, indeed, it is a common fault that ignorance is closely followed by obstinacy. It is a plausible excuse, no doubt, that the refusal springs from reverence for Christ; but since he does not absolutely obey the command, the very desire of showing his respect for Christ loses its beauty.

The true wisdom of faith, therefore, is to approve and embrace with reverence whatever proceeds from God,

Anti-Human

Reactionary Greenist Nonsense

Readers of Contra Celsum will know that we do not have much respect for Greenism.  One reason is its persistent anti-intellectual stance.  A second is its admixture of reactionary luddite philosophy, mixed with idolatrous nature worship.  A third is its serial ignorance of economics, trade, and markets.  It's not just that Greens tend to despise these things, it's that they appear to have a profound ignorance of them and how they operate.  

Finally, Greenism has a pathological hatred of wealth and economic prosperity, for in the Greenist world view, economic prosperity amounts to destruction of the environment.  But it is always "other people's prosperity" that Greenism is fixated upon rejecting.  Greenism appears satisfied with economic deprivation and poverty as a morally superior position to a modern, industrial economy. 

Whilst it is true that Greens sometimes talk about "green jobs" they struggle to define precisely what a "green job" is, let alone how such "jobs" might actually come into being and be perpetuated.  So, their reflex is always causation by government.  It is the state which must promote, subsidise and protect these "green jobs" if they are to exist at all.  But what this demonstrates is a persistent despite toward humanity and human endeavour, enterprise, creativity, and ingenuity.  The Greenist version of economic development always proceeds by force and compulsion.

In a nutshell, Greenism shows every sign of hating the human race.  It's environmental "activism" appears more driven by collective self-loathing of the human species, rather than genuine, meaningful ecological protection. As such, Greenism is anti-Christian. 

Below is Rodney Hide's take on the NZ Greens.  There is a lot of truth in his telling.