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Thoughts of a Reforming Pelagian

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      7 Mar 2011

      And another quote from the Confessions

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      I myself was exceedingly astonished as I anxiously reflected how long a time had elapsed since the nineteenth year of my life, when I began to burn with a zeal for wisdom, planning that when I had found it I would abandon all the empty hopes and lying follies of hollow ambitions. And here I was already thirty, and still mucking about in the same mire of indecision, avid to enjoy present fugitive delights which were dispersing my concentration, while I was saying: 'Tomorrow I shall find it; see, it will become perfectly clear, and I shall have no more doubts.'

      Confessions VI.xi.18

      Augustine, being dead 1500 years, still speaks. 

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      19 Nov 2010

      Zeal Oats

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      Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
      Romans 12:11 (NIV)

      Start your day right: with Zeal Oats™.

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      Although several products have already been Christianized, until now there have been few Christian breakfast grains, as they have previously been considered either neutral or the domain of a pagan goddess. That changes with Zeal Oats!

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      Zeal Oats are sure to increase your zeal: preferably for Christ and his Kingdom. (Please use product responsibly and do not misdirect zeal into unprofitable arguments, fruitless diversions, or unwelcome badgering.) 

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      Healthy Christian Flavor: helping displace books from Christian bookstores since 2010. 

       

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      10 Jul 2009

      John Calvin: 500 years

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      Today marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth. Born Jean Cauvin, in a small town in northern France, he became the most well known and influential theologian of the second generation of Reformers.

      As many of my readers already know, Calvin fever is high this year in both popular and scholastic circles. Conferences are running in Geneva (and elsewhere) as many undertake a Protestant pilgrimage. A few new biographies have come out this year (John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life, John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor, etc.) as well as studies, coffee table books (The Piety of John Calvin: A Collection of His Spiritual Prose, Poems, and Hymns, and a historical fiction novel (Betrayal). Undoubtedly, Calvin himself would be embarrassed by this publicity; his will directed he be buried in an unmarked grave.

      However, there is good reason to study John Calvin; he systematized Protestant theology in his The Institutes of Christian Religion; he (along with other Reformers) helped create the 'Protestant work ethic' with his teachings on vocation. Like Luther, he expounded the sovereignty of God in all things and our absolute dependence on grace for our salvation. His definition of justification in his Institutes is classic:

      Now he is justified who is reckoned in the condition not of a sinner, but of a righteous man: and for that reason, he stands firm before God's judgment seat while all sinners fall....Thus, justified before God is the man who, freed from the company of sinners, has God to witness and affirm his righteousness. In the same way, therefore, he in whose life that purity and holiness will be found which deserves a testimony of righteousness before God's throne will be said to be justified by works, or else he who, by the wholeness of his works, can meet and satisfy God's judgment. On the contrary, justified by faith is he who, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and clothed in it, appears in God's sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man.

      Although John Calvin is known primarily as a great theologian, he considered himself primarily a pastor. His letter-writing was prolific, offering godly counsel and practical advice. Likewise, his sermons have also been overlooked. (Fortunately, some previously untranslated sermons are now available in English.) As we remember Calvin, let us not only remember his great contributions to systematic theology or the logic of his description of salvation; let us also remember his piety, his zeal for godliness, and passion to see Christ preached.

      As for myself, I'll read a Calvin biography this year and probably pick up a copy of his sermons on Genesis.

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    A twenty-something confessional Presbyterian writing from Tucson, Az.

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