This Week in Housekeeping

I cleaned up these theological term posts this week.

decretive will

• Added will of God’s good pleasure as an alternate term. I was unfamiliar with it, but it’s used in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her.

preceptive will

• Added expressed will and signified will as alternate terms. These, too, are used in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her.

love

• Fixed the link to Don Stewart’s Is God Love?
• Added related terms common grace, goodness, grace, and mercy.
• Added Filed under God’s Nature and His Work.

manuscripts

• Updated the link to Don Stewart’s Aren’t There Mistakes in the Various Copies of the Bible?
• Added related terms autographs, inerrancy of scripture, inspiration of scripture, textual criticism.
• Added Filed under Scripture.

Marcionism

• Updated the links to Justin Holcomb’s Know Your Heretics: Marcion.
• Fixed the link to related term modalism.

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