Thankful Thursday

Today, as I shared an avocado with my youngest granddaughter, I remembered how much my mother loved them. They were a rare treat for her, because back then they weren’t stocked year-round in the produce department in Minnesota like they are now, and when they were in stock, they were very expensive, and the budget was tight. But once a year or so, she’d splurge on an avocado, and eat the whole thing with a spoon, just like I eat cantaloupe. She was thankful for each avocado!

I’m thankful for avocados, too—thankful that we can get them year round at a reasonable price so that I can spread them on my sandwiches like mayo. I’m thankful that I could share one today with my granddaughter. I’m thankful for all the fresh fruits and veggies available to me. 

I’m thankful for the late evening light reminding me that summer is on its way, even though the weather today was more winter than spring.

I’m thankful for book—the books I’m reading now, the books I’m using to research some posts I’m writing, and the supreme book breathed out by God so we can know him and his work.

Faith Needs a Solid Rock

From Donald Macleod in the chapter Definite Atonement and the Divine Decree in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective:

[I]f we seek to be accepted by God not per fidem (through faith) but propter fidem (on account of faith) we shall have little peace. Our faith needs a solid rock. It cannot itself be that rock, and when we look at it, our only comfort is that Christ has expiated faith’s own imperfections. Faith cannot look to faith or to repentance or love or obedience. Scarcely conscious of itself, it can look only to the Lord our Righteousness, and to his one great all-accomplishing and all-securing sacrifice.

Previously posted quotes from this book:

• Someone for Some People
• Death Is the Penalty
• Election Is the Spring
• Election Circumscribes the Atonement
• The Circle of Salvation

Theological Term of the Week

mirror reading
Reading a biblical epistle with the assumption that most of what is written by the author reflects a particular problem within the church receiving the letter; the practice of reading statements or assertions in a biblical epistle and attempting to identify the circumstances that elicited the (supposed) response given by the author.

• From Tom Schreiner in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, on the context of 1 Timothy: 

As most commentators agree, a mirror reading of 1 Timothy suggests that in this epistle the apostle Paul confronts some kind of exclusivism heresy. Perhaps Paul’s opponents relied on geneologies to limit salvation to only a certain group of people, excluding from God’s saving purposes those who were notoriously sinful or those from so-called inferior backgrounds (1:4; cf Titus 3:9). Paul writes to remind Timothy and the church that God’s grace is surprising: his grace reaches down and rescues all kinds of sinners, even people like Paul who seem to be beyond his saving grace.1

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