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Showing posts from December, 2009

Some things never change...

From the First Oration of Gregory Nazianzen (St. Gregory the Theologian), in 379 A.D. (found here [PDF], p.24) [There are] persons who in the theatres perform wrestling matches in public, but not that kind of wrestling in which the victory is won according to the rules of the sport, but a kind to deceive the eyes of those who are ignorant in such matters, and to catch applause... And now you know why I don't watch Pro Wrestling. :P

Perseverance of the Saints: Part 2

This is going to be quite short, since no less a luminary than John Calvin himself has already addressed this (which I discovered after posting Part 1). His commentary can be found here .

The Sincere Milk of the Word

Preaching today has become, for an alarming portion of the church 1 , a circus. Preachers have the attitude that if they don't out-entertain everyone else, people will not listen. (This is largely true, if the "people" in question are unregenerate, which is, unfortunately, the case for the majority of people in "churches" nowadays. But I digress.) In the circles in which I personally ran (until recently), a solid exegesis of Scripture is almost unheard of. In fact, in that society, the more a preacher can manipulate the crowd's emotions through jokes, "tear-jerker" stories, etc., the more accolades he receives. (Off-topic: preachers should not be looking for accolades.) A couple of months ago (at the initial time of writing), I had the opportunity to converse with with a well-known (in his religio-social group) pastor over lunch. He is popular for his funny, upbeat, topical messages. I asked him why he preaches mostly topical sermons. His re