“Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan’s devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched” (Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices, in The Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1861-1867; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 1:3).

Regarding prayer, “God’s name is not to be a stop-gap to make up for our want of words” (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 58).

“When the Bible uses the word helper, there is a divine context for it. When the word is first introduced in Genesis 2:18 — “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” — it is the same Hebrew word (‘ezer) that is used most often to refer to God throughout the Old Testament. If God, who is obviously and infinitely superior to us, unblushingly refers to Himself as our helper, we should be proud to use the same term” (Carolyn McCulley, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World, 80).

From Carolyn McCulley’s Radical Womanhood (79).

Cohabitation by its definition is anticommitment. A prolonged “maybe” is not a commitment. It’s sad that this is seen as a better option to God’s gift of marriage. What Scripture portrays is a passionate, secure love between husband and wife, where commitment provides the freedom to celebrate one another and not hedge bets:

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with once glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice! (Song of Songs 4:9-10 NIV) 

I recently read the following quote by C. H. Spurgeon:

Young men have flung away all hope of salvation in order that they might be thought to be men of culture; they have abjured faith in order to be esteemed “free-thinkers” by those whose opinions were not worth a pin’s head. I charge you, dear friend, if you are beginning at all to be a slave of other people, break these wretched and degrading bonds.

This thought by Spurgeon struck a chord within me.

I remember struggling through the “intellectual” questions raised during coursework at university. (I was a Religion and Philosophy major.) I remember struggling with how best to reconcile (on the one hand) “faith” and (on the other hand) “intellectual integrity” — e.g., the problem of Theodicy, inspiration of Scripture and the New Testament canon, etc. (I was afflicted with doubts regarding God’s goodness, his existence, the perspicuity and truth of Scripture, etc. Those were dark days, indeed.)

However, I vividly remember when a compelling idea – nay! – it was a conviction – surfaced in my head: it was sometime during my senior year, I realized that “intellectual integrity” for a Christian was a myth, in so far as it is constructed as something that must be reconciled with one’s faith. The fact of the matter is this: “intellectual integrity” for a Christian is part of the warp-and-woof of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for; faith is the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is a Christian’s “intellectual integrity” – faith is a gift from God, and accepting, receiving, clinging to, persevering in that gifted-faith is “intellectual integrity” for a Christian.

So. Genuine-Gratitude is Intellectual Integrity.

However, in general, the Higher-Education/Peer-Reviewed/Tenure-Seeking/”Free-thinkers”/Men-of-Culture Christian-subculture (whose opinions, as C. H. Spurgeon said, are “not worth a pin’s head”) have chosen to disagree. If you have genuine-gratitude, then, as I’ve said before, prepare yourself to be called names. *Shrug*

But the trick is to count it all joy: look beyond the name-calling, look beyond being mislabeled (e.g., Fundamentalist, Anti-Intellectual, etc.), look beyond the complexity of providence, look beyond and lose sight of yourself, and look solely to God who is the author and provider of all.

And if you are looking to God, then you will be able to “respond to each providence in an appropriate way” (see John Flavel’s The Mystery of Providence).

“Dying is one of the two most difficult acts of faith (the other is coming to Christ for the first time). But the dying believer who is able to rehearse the blessings of God’s providence in his or her life will surely know God’s peace” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 177).

“The man who supposes that baptism . . . acts mechanically, like a medicine, and that godly and ungodly, praying and prayerless parents, all alike get the same benefit for their children, must be in a strange state of mind” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 55).

Genesis – Creation

• Genesis 1 – Creation
• 1:28 – Dominion/Cultural Mandate
• Genesis 3 – Fall
• 3:15 – Inception of the Covenant of Grace
• Genesis 6-9 – Flood
• Genesis 10-11 – Nations/Tower of Babel
• Genesis 12-50 – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph
• 15:6 – Abraham believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Exodus – Redemption/Deliverance

• Exodus 3-4 – Moses Called
• 3:13-15 – I AM WHO I AM
• Exodus 7-11 – Ten Plagues
• Exodus 14 – Red Sea
• Exodus 19-40 – Sinai
• 19-24 – Marriage Ceremony (Israel wed to God)
• 20:1-17 – Ten Commandments (Marriage means new rules)
• 25-31 – House (God gives instructions for Tabernacle)
• Exodus 32 – Idolatry – Golden Calf
• 32-34 – Marriage Ceremony #2 (Covenant renewal after idolatry)
• 35-40 – Build House (Israel builds the Tabernacle)

Leviticus – Holiness

• Leviticus 1-10 – Sacrifices
• Leviticus 11-18 – Purity Regulations
• 17:11 – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”
• Leviticus 19-27 – Holiness Laws
• 19:2 – “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.”

Numbers – Unfaithful Israel

• Numbers 1-10 – Promise Land/Preparations
• Numbers 11-25 – Promise Land/Rebel – Thus, Wander in Wilderness
• 11 – Israel wants to eat meat – given meat and judgment
• 13 – Twelve spies scout out the land but ten spies provide evil report
• 21 – Rebellion – judgment by fiery serpents/deliverance by bronze snake lifted up
• Numbers 26-36 – Second Generation: Promise Land/Preparations

Deuteronomy – Covenant Renewal/Second Law

• Deuteronomy 1-30 – Moses Speaks to Second Generation
• 4:2 – “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
• 5 – Ten Commandments reviewed
• 6:4-9 – The Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord…”
• 29:29 – “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
• Deuteronomy 31-34 – Epilogue
• 32 – Song of Moses
• 34 – Death of Moses

“We do not need the authority of personal experience to counsel one another because the Bible is sufficient for this task” (Carolyn McCulley, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World, 75).

In interaction with John Owen’s Communion with God: “The Holy Spirit produces consolation, peace, joy, and hope in believers. The Holy Spirit produces real effects in the experience of believers, experience revolving around Christ as revealed in Scripture. Thus Owen rejected both the rationalists who dismissed the experiential work of the Spirit and the fanatics whose “spirit” disregarded the Word and Christ” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 112).