Selected Reading

I read  these this week and recommend them to you.

Theology

Does Jesus Have One or Two Wills?
This question came up in a Twitter poll this week. I can’t find the poll anymore, but the last time I checked, the results were fairly evenly divided. Here’s why the correct answer is “two.”

How God’s Wrath Equals and Reveals God’s Worth
Probably the best thing I’ve read online recently: “To say that Adam’s sin should not have resulted in death; to say that our sins do not result in God’s wrath; to shy away from mentioning God’s wrath in private or public; to say that penal substitution is overly obsessed with legal categories or overemphasizes the role of God’s law; to say that the significance of Christ’s death is diminished by bringing it into the realm of the law court; to say that the demands of God’s law do not have to be satisfied; to declare a forensic declaration of ‘righteous’merely a ‘legal fiction’; to caricature the Son’s propitiation of the Father’s wrath as ‘divine child abuse’—all this is to miss the role of God’s law in protecting and declaring the worthiness of God; and therefore it is to belittle his ineffable worthiness and glory, like trampling on a precious flower times infinity.” 

Christian Theology: A Working Definition
Luke Stamps give us his definition of “theology.” He packed a lot in there!

I quite like it. What do you think?

Bible

The Servant Songs of Isaiah
A bird’s-eye view of Isaiah’s Servant Songs. 

Biographical Sketches

Women Every Christian Should Know: Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatly died young, and there’s a lot we don’t know about her very difficult life. But we do know she loved Jesus. 

Ten Baptists Everyone Should Know: Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller was, it seems, on the right side of several debates. 

Theological Term of the Week: Westminster Shorter Catechism

Westminster Shorter Catechism
The shortest of two catechisms produced by the Westminster Assembly, completed in 1647, designed to educate lay persons in matters of doctrine and belief, and often used by parents to teach their children.

• The first (and probably most well-known) question and answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: 

  1. Q. What is the chief end of man?
       A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

• From Reformed Confessions Harmonized by Joel Beeke and Sinclair Ferguson:

The most notable and famous feature of the Catechism is the brilliance of its first question and answer: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.” But equally important, if less often recognized, is its stress that this is to be accomplished by conformity to the Word and will of God. Hence careful attention is given to the exposition of the Decalogue (questions 41-81). Far from being an indication of actual or incipient legalism, the Westminster divines themselves regarded this as an essential lesson in Christian living. For them the knowledge of God’s will lay largely in living for Christ in the power of the Spirit in order to fulfill the will of the heavenly Father revealed in Scripture.

• From Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile? by Benjamin. B. Warfield: 

No doubt it requires some effort whether to teach or to learn the Shorter Catechism. It requires some effort whether to teach or to learn the grounds of any department of knowledge. Our children - some of them at least - groan over even the primary arithmetic and find sentence-analysis a burden. Even the conquest of the art of reading has proved such a task that “reading without tears” is deemed an achievement. We think, nevertheless, that the acquisition of arithmetic, grammar and reading is worth the pains it costs the teacher to teach, and the pain it costs the learner to learn them. Do we not think the acquisition of the grounds of religion worth some effort, and even, if need be, some tears?

For, the grounds of religion must be taught and learned as truly as the grounds of anything else. Let us make no mistake here. Religion does not come of itself: it is always a matter of instruction. The emotions of the heart, in which many seem to think religion too exclusively to consist, ever follow the movements of the thought. Passion for service cannot take the place of passion for truth, or safely outrun the acquisition of truth; for it is dreadfully possible to compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, to find we have made him only a “son of hell.” This is why God establishes and extends his Church by the ordinance of preaching; it is why we have Sunday schools and Bible classes. Nay, this is why God has grounded his Church in revelation. He does not content himself with sending his Spirit into the world to turn men to him. He sends his Word into the world as well. Because, it is from knowledge of the truth, and only from the knowledge of the truth, that under the quickening influence of the Spirit true religion can be born. Is it not worth the pains of the teacher to communicate, the pain of the scholar to acquire this knowledge of the truth? How unhappy the expedient to withhold the truth - that truth under the guidance of which the religious nature must function if it is to function aright - that we may save ourselves these pains, our pupils this pain!

Learn more:

1. A Puritan’s Mind: Shorter Catechism with Scriptural Proofs
2. Ligonier Ministries: The Westminster Shorter Catechism with Sinclair Ferguson
3. Theopedia: Westminster Shorter Catechism
4. 5 Minutes in Church History: 5 Things Everyone Should Know About the Westminster Standards
5. Wayne Sparkman: The Westminster Shorter Catechism
6. Andrew Conway: Five Reasons You Need the Westminster Shorter Catechism
7. Bob Burridge: Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

Related terms:

• Augsburg Confession
• Belgic Confession
• Canons of Dordt
• catechism
• Heidelberg Catechism
• London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
• Second Helvetic Confession
• Westminster Confession of Faith
• Westminster Larger Catechism

Filed under Creeds and Confessions

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Sunday's Hymn: There Is No Name So Sweet on Earth

There is no name so sweet on earth,
No name so sweet in heaven,
The Name before his wondrous birth
To Christ the Saviour given.
 

Refrain:

We love to sing around our King,
And hail him blessed Jesus;
For there’s no word ear ever heard
So dear, so sweet as Jesus.

And, when he hung upon the tree,
They wrote this Name above him;
That all might see the reason we
For evermore must love him.

So now, upon his Father’s throne,
Almighty to release us
From sin and pains, he gladly reigns,
The Prince and Saviour Jesus.

To Jesus ev’ry knee shall bow,
And ev’ry tongue confess him,
And we unite with saints in light,
Our only Lord to bless him.

 Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven at The Happy Wonderer
• In God’s Time at Tried With Fire
• I’ll Let This Hymn Speak For Itself at The Outspoken Tulip