Discussions and sharing

This is the disturbing legacy of the 1960s and 1970s. A generation brought up on guitars, choruses, and home group discussions. Educated, as one of them put it to me, not to use words with precision because the image is dominant, not the word. Equipped not to handle doctrine but rather to “share.” A compassionate, caring generation, suspicious of definition and labels, uneasy at, and sometimes incapable of, being asked to wrestle with sustained didactic exposition of theology. Excellent when it came to providing religious music, drama, and art. Not so good when asked to preach and teach the Faith.

- Michael Saward, As quoted in Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided ( Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust: 2000), p. 254.

See How Great A Love

John 13:34,35 - The new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. . . The more we recognize the depth of our own sin, the more we recognize the love of the Saviour; the more we appreciate the love of the Saviour, the higher his standard appears; the higher his standard appears, the more we recognize in our selfishness, our innate self-centredness, the depth of our own sin. With a standard like this, no thoughtful believer can ever say this side of the parousia, 'I am perfectly keeping the basic stipulation of the new covenant.'

-- D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John

The condemnation of affirmation

Romans 1:32 - "And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things (see 1:18-31) are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

John Murray observes, "However severe has been the apostle's deliniation of the depravity of men, he has reserved for the end the characterization which is the most damning of all. It is that of the consensus of men in the pursuit of iniquity. The most damning condition is not the practice of iniquity, however much that may evidence our abandonment of God and abandonment to sin; it is that together with the practice there is also the support and encouragement of others in the practice of the same.

"To put it bluntly, we are not only bent on damning ourselves but we congratulate others in the doing of those things that we know have their issue in damnation. . . Iniquity is most aggravated when it meets with no inhibition from the disapproval of others and when there is collective, undissenting approbation."

[The New International Commentary on the New Testament. . . The Epistle to the Romans]

On pride of fearing man

Isaiah 51:12, 13 - I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies; and the son of man who is made like grass; that you have forgotten the LORD your Maker. . .