John Newton in the 18th C. on a 21st C. problem

I asked the Lord that I may grow

in faith and love and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know,

and seek more earnestly his face.

'Twas He who taught me thus to pray,

and He I trust has answered prayer,

But it has been in such a way

as almost drove me to despair.

I thought that in some favored hours,

at once he'd answer my request,

And by His love's transforming power,

Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of that He made me feel

the hidden evils of my heart,

And bade the angry powers of hell

assault my soul in every part.

Nay, more, with His hand He seemed 

intent to aggravate my woe,

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

blasted my gourds*, and laid me low.

"Lord, why this?" I trembling cried,

"Wilt Thou pursue this worm to death?"

"This is the way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith."

"These inward trials I employ

from sin and self to set thee free,

And cross thy schemes of earthly joy

that thou might find thy all in Me."

John Newton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­iv­er, 1779).

Text Source: Treasures in Christ by Jean Oathout (7 July 2015).

Image: "Hymn 36" in A Selection of Favorite Conference Hymns with Historical Sketches of Church History: through every century of the Christian Era, edited by J.A. Burke (Albany, NY: A.N. Sherman, 1829), p.34.

*Alludes to the plant that provided shade in Jonah (4: 6-7, KJV).

Arminian v. Calvinist? Don't think so.....

This afternoon I read this exchange between an elderly John Wesley and a young Charles Simeon which occurred in the mid-1780's. I then found it reprinted online and did a cut and paste. Here Simeon writes of the meeting and refers to himself in the third person.

Wesley  Simeon A young Minister, about three or four years after he was ordained, had an opportunity of conversing familiarly with the great and venerable leader of the Arminians in this kingdom; and, wishing to improve the occasion to the uttermost, he addressed him nearly in the following words:

Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?

No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?

Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?

Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things where in we agree.

Sources: here and there.

Abbot & Costello on Unemployment

The following is one of the clearest explanations I've read of alternative unemployment statistics.  Someone sent me this so I do not know the original source. However I have updated the numbers to reflect the January 2015 unemployment statistics. 

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 5.7%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that's 11.3%.

COSTELLO: You just said 5.7%.

ABBOTT: 5.7% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right, 5.7% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that's 11.3%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 11.3% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that's 5.7%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE! Is it 5.7% or 11.3%?

ABBOTT: 5.7% are unemployed. 11.3% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Congress said you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss the point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment rolls that would count as less unemployment? 

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how it gets to 5.7%. Otherwise it would be 11.3%. 

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like an Economist.

COSTELLO: I don't even know what the heck I just said!

ABBOTT: Oh, now you're thinking like a Politician.

a year of big anniversaries

40 YEARS AGO  we graduated from college, got married and moved across country so I could go to grad school at Virginia Tech.  (The order of the previously listed events is based on chronology, not importance.)

30 YEARS AGO after completing a Fulbright Lectureship at a Nigerian university,  we moved to a little college town in Northern New York.  The Sunday before Labor Day I attended Christian Fellowship Center for the first time.  Despite never having been in a church quite like it, I immediately knew it was home.  It has been ever since.  The next day (yes, on Labor Day) I taught my first class at St. Lawrence University.

20 YEARS AGO I visited a church, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, and experienced the so-called laughing rival (a.k.a., the Toronto Blessing, the Father’s Blessing).  It had a huge impact on me.  I have never, ever since questioned God’s love for me, no matter what has happened in my life. God's love was never an issue, not even during a period of severe depression.

10 YEARS AGO I experienced probably the worst day of my life.  This caused me to seek professional counseling for depression.  After counseling, after living most of my life with the illness, I have been depression free.

ZERO YEARS AGO I now know a great God and I am knowing Him better each day.  I have a great wife as companion and friend and I find her more attractive in more ways each day.  I attend a great church with over-the-top wonderful pastors for whom I am thankful to God each day.  I have a great job (with tenure!) teaching great students at a great small college for which I am more grateful each day.  I live in a great little village in the great undiscovered paradise of New York's North Country and I appreciate living here more each day.

As you can see from the previous great-full paragraph that I am grateful.  I'm not bragging since I cannot really take any credit.  At a minimum, that would assume I thought I knew what I was doing! I have been greatly blessed in a great many ways.  The past decade has literally been the best years of my life and the last two years by far the happiest of those.

I know I deserve none of this and that realization makes me very grateful indeed.

Be blessed!
RB

for christians only (orthodox, catholic, evangelical)

If you consider yourself devoted to Christ, please watch the following short video:

   

Please consider signing the Manhattan Declaration after reading more:

http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/index.html#1

Thank you,
RB

unacceptable! obama's accommodation compromises religious liberty

The official position of the Bishops’ Conference signals that no compromise concerning the HHS preventive care mandate could succeed. It is not the government's role to define or limit the mission of a church or any other religious organization:

Unacceptable

February 27, 2012

The Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an accommodation for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS mandate for coverage (without costsharing) of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (cost free) these same products and services.Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that theterms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.

This so-called accommodation changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It iscertainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance thatcovered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.

It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not paying for this aspect of the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will notpass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform theemployee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying ―five day after pill pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who explains theterms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy covers.

The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.

It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept an assault ontheir religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick. Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches,auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy T2 (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty. The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment.

[Followed by 42 pages of signatures]

Source:

www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Unacceptable-2-27-11am2.pdf

ron paul and michele bachmann are marginal candidates

Jon Stewart and others have wondered why the media is ignoring Ron Paul. It is easy. He is a very marginal candidate with little chance of being nominated. Michele Bachmann is only marginally better as a marginal candidate.

This is not my opinion. It is in the polls and it is what the smart money is saying.

Check the Real Clear Politics poll summary shown above (click image to enlarge). Even though Bachmann is getting all the press, she is way down in the polls at 9.6%, way behind Romney (20.2%) and Perry (18.4%) and even trailing non-candidate Sarah Palin (10.0%). Bachmann is barely ahead of non-candidate Rudy Giuliani (9.3) and the rightfully overlooked Ron Paul (8.8). Ron Paul's support has been in single digits, steady, and not growing. Not a good trend. These folks are the minor candidates with Bachmann at best being the pick of a bad litter.

I do not pay much attention to political polls. If I want a good gauge of what is likely to happen, I go to the prediction markets. These markets are forward looking, in that they show what people bet will happen rather than looking backward to what potential voters were thinking last week. In prediction markets, people are putting their money where their mouths are, rather than just answering the phone and giving their opinion. Prediction polls have a much better track record of predicting outcomes than public opinion polls.

The smart money has Bachmann and Paul as even bigger losers. The bets at Intrade.com predict Perry has a 35.3% chance of winning the nomination with Romney following closely at 31.0%. Sarah Palin is a very distant third at 7.6%. Jon Huntsman is fourth at 5.8% followed closely by Bachmann at 5.3% Where's Ron Paul? At a lowly 4.0% and in sixth place.

You think your know better? Then put your money where your mouth is. If you are so smart then you can make a profit, but only if you are right.

integrity of the scripture: is what we have now, what they wrote then?

I love reasoning tested by evidence. I guess it is part of my training as an economist. That is why I love the following 48 min. video of a lecture by Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary. He is one of the world's leading experts on NT textual studies -- trying to figure which, if any, of the current NT writings are accurate.

This lecture was presented to a lay audience so even I could understand it!

Guest Speaker :: Daniel Wallace from Antioch Church on Vimeo.

not nostalgic for jesus

If you could travel back through time and could visit one historical person, who would that person be? If you are a Christian, you would be expected to say Jesus. As a believer, what historical figure could be more important?

Personally, I would not want to go back in time to be with Jesus. I also think I have Scripture on my side in not wanting to go back to be with him.

[Okay. I think it would be really cool to go back and witness the Resurrection on that first Easter morning. But that would be merely a form of historical tourism. However, I would not want to stay there. I really don’t wish to go back to be with Jesus.]

Think of those who were with Jesus before the Accession, before he in his glorified physical body went to heaven (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9). Those who were closest to him, those who walked with him, they celebrated. Even after they came down from the adrenaline rush of witnessing Jesus disappearing in the clouds, they never looked back.

Something I find interesting is that there is no record of Jesus’ disciplines pining for the time they spent with Jesus in the flesh. Not even a hint of it in any NT writings. In John’s first epistle he starts out by recounting that he heard, saw, and even touched Jesus in the flesh (1 John 1:1-3) but this is just a statement of fact. A witness to something experienced, not something yearned for. Yet John was the apostle closest to Jesus, “the one whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). If anyone would have missed Jesus, it would have been John. Neither John nor anyone else seems to have been nostalgic about having been with Jesus.

Why didn’t they miss the good old days with Jesus? Because they had something better after Jesus ascended. At least they did after a ten-day wait for Pentecost (Acts 2:4). They had the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is better than physically being with Jesus? That is an idea that is very strange to most Christians. This is despite many having read of Jesus actually telling his disciples that it was to their benefit that he leave so that the Holy Spirit could come (John 16:7). What most folks now experience does not seem to come close to being better.

This disconnect between the Word of God and our personal experience is something that should be quite disturbing. Was Jesus lying? Maybe he was hyping the coming of the Holy Spirit so that his leaving earth would be more palatable for his friends and disciples? Jesus isn't supposed to lie so maybe the whole thing is all a lie then?

Maybe these promises were for the first century only and have ceased? Some Christians cite 1 Corinthians 13:8 to support this explanation. However, this only makes sense if the verse is taken out of context. There is nothing in Scripture to indicate the promises of God concerning the Holy Spirit have expired and are not valid anymore.

Rather than something being wrong with Jesus, or that his promises had an expiration date, an alternative explanation may be that that we are missing out. If we are not experiencing what the Bible promises then maybe we are missing out on something God has for us that is really big and incredible? Maybe our expectations for God are much less than what He wants for us? Maybe we should start seeking His gifts?

There are numerous verses concerning the Holy Spirit in NT writings which promise joy, comfort, wisdom, knowledge, personal transformation and more. They are too numerous, or rather I am too lazy, to mention or even cite. There are examples in these writings of people realizing these promises. The historical record since is also replete with such examples.

Maybe we should search the Scriptures for those promises and to seek something better?

Maybe it is time to dump the nostalgia? The good-old days with Jesus may have indeed been good, but they are not supposed to be better. I am grateful for what I have, but if there is more, then I want it. Come Holy Spirit. Come.

Be Blessed!
RB

magic is no blowhard

The usual "analysis" on sports shows includes a lot of yelling and opinions, almost all of it negative. All heat and little light, analogous to blue flame of flatulence ignition.

I watched this ESPN post-game "analysis" of the Mavs winning the NBA championship. It has the usual blowhards looking for someone to blame and put down (as if that takes any analysis). However, Magic Johnson is not the usual ESPN, loud-mouthed blowhard. He actually analyzes what went wrong and offers constructive advice as to how the Heat and James can move forward.

BTW, the Dallas head coach is a North Country boy! Rick Carlisle hails from from Lisbon, New York.