“From Genesis to Jesus, from prophets to Paul, Bible writers sprinkle thorn imagery throughout Scripture to emphasize their message of punishment, worthlessness, and nonproductivity” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 865).

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XV, Section V. “Men ought not to content themselves with general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent his particular sins, particularly.”

Confession of sin begins with the sin that is in you. Confession of sin begins when you take a plain account of your own life. There is a saying, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” This is true in business, marketing, sales, but it is also true of spiritual things. How do you know what sins need to be confessed unless you are actively identifying and measuring where the sin is in your own life?

The tragedy is that oftentimes we are too lazy to take a plain account of our sin. How can you set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth (Col. 3:2) if you are too lazy to know what earthy things, i.e., sins, have your affections wrapped around their sticky fingers? Oftentimes we don’t confess sins because we’re just too plumb lazy.

The Devil, methinks, rejoices over this type of laziness. Why do I think that? Well, because oftentimes if we lazily handle our own life it is because we are too busy attempting to handle the lives of other folks, e.g. we spend our time pointing out how other folks have this or that “sin” issue that they need to attend to. Sin is the alphabet soup that fallen man swims in. What we need is some wisdom by way of a cliche saying: “To begin, mind your own sinful P’s and Q’s” (Matthew 7:1-5). Confession of sin begins with the sin that is in you.

“Marriage was designed by God to bring blessing and order to his creation. Together with the creation ordinances of work and Sabbath rest, marriage would provide a rhythm to life. Therefore, we must affirm that he ordained foundational principles not only for the natural order but also for the moral order of creation” (Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader At Home, 19).

“The health and wholeness of our human relationships find their source in the wholeness of our relationship with the Lord through Jesus. I might add that strength, wisdom, and love for others are fueled by the vitality of our life in the Lord” (Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader At Home, 19).

“The gospel is the proclamation of good tidings, good tidings from God, good tidings of what God has done, good tidings of what he has promised to do. the passion of missions is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the evangel” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 59).

For many churches, the question will come down to this: If men and women are interchangeable in the garden-sanctuary, why not elsewhere? If the sexes are interchangeable at the center of life, in the liturgy, why aren’t they interchangeable everywhere?

Concluding question from a recent post by Peter J. Leithart.

“Unless we believe that revelation is still in process as it was in the days of the prophets, in the days of our Lord, and in the days of the apostles subsequent to the Lord’s ascension, then Scripture occupies for us an exclusive place and performs an exclusive function as the only extant mode of revelation. . . . This is what the finality of Scripture means for us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 19).

“The inspiration of Scripture involves verbal inspiration. If it did not carry with it the inspiration of words, it would not be inspiration at all. Words are the media of communication” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 14).

“Without regeneration, the most glorious church service ever conducted is rank superstition, and God hates it” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 180).

“… our discussion of clerical garb should always start with the muck boots” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 178).