Things related to faith

Note reflections are not theological study Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today starts with: Deuteronomy 33:29 Deuteronomy 33:29 (LEB): 29 Blessed are you, O Israel. Who is like you, a people who is saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, and who is the sword of your triumph, and your enemies, they shall fawn before you, and you shall tread on their backs.” What is it to be saved by Yahweh? It is to be blessed… Material blessings are the cheapest understanding of this idea… Danger I feel such a strong need to even say that, in any of my public reflections to try to caveat every statement that someone hostile to my faith might say while reading, or get ahead of a bad idea a less mature Christian might hear me say without enough context… but ultimately these reflections are not deep study, and when I acknowledge that ’to be saved by God is to be blessed’ I don’t need to follow it up with “but not necessarily with money and possessions”… No, the truth of God flows from the Word and thro…

From Morning and Evening today, Spurgeon has thoughts on Romans 3:26. I need more context personally, so here’s a newer translation of 3:25-26 Romans 3:25-26 25God put Jesus forth as the place of mercy, through faithfulness, by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his covenant justice, because of the passing over (in divine forbearance) of sins committed beforehand. 26This was to demonstrate his covenant justice in the present time: that is, that he himself is in the right, and that he declares to be in the right everyone who trusts in the faithfulness of Jesus. Goldingay, J., & Wright, T. (2018). The Bible for Everyone: A New Translation (Ro 3:25–26). SPCK. NPP I’m not here to debate “faith in Jesus” vs “faithfulness of Jesus”… I feel so beyond debating semantics when either way it’s Jesus who gives you faith and chooses in the first place Spurgeon’s meditation certainly resolves around Penal Substitutionary Atonement, a doctrine I have come to mostly reject, but I have pl…

Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” today is about the freedom we have in Christ. Freedom is a core concept of Christianity, and one no doubt bastardized and warped by modern progressive culture (like Ancient Greek modern, not 2010s modern). Freedom is not the ability to do whatever I want without consequence… it’s not even the ability to do whatever I want! What a nightmarish hell the world would be if each one of us could (and especially did) act on every desire that comes into our hearts… Isle of Dreams It’s like the Island of Dreams in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader… The seaman are all excited about their “dreams” (long lost lovers, money, etc) but the man they rescue makes it clear to them it’s not the place where daydreams come true… but dreams…. think of the scary dreams you’ve had, or you’ve heard your kids have… With that context you probably don’t want to go to the Island of Dreams So, this childish anti-view of “freedom” should immediately be rejected by any well-reasoned…

I’ve been really buggin out about a project I’m working on and nearly forgetting to spend meaningful time during the day/mornings on reflection. Thankfully a 60 second Bible Project video offered me a short framework this morning to think about the land God created… The video is a minute long, you can find it on the Bible Project website When I think about Bible stuff, especially anything related to Old Testament or Creation (which is actually literally everything) I have a hard time stopping my mind from jumping to being critical of my brothers and sisters in Christ who adopt naieve or mainstream ideas about my Ancient Faith and King. One of the things my spiritual family largely misses is the cosmic nature of the creation account…. In this case of erets, which shows up on page 1 of the Bible, the Western mind reads “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” and we go “oh, the globe, the planet, God made the planet, obviously” And the thing is… ya, he did… but that’s no…

At some point in the recent history of my country, political tensions began increasing exponentially between our 2 parties, and I had hardly cared until right around 2021/2022. There were policies and patterns emerging in the public sphere that were troubling to me, and I’ve sense developed some hard opinions. A man was just murdered for holding opinions openly that are not much different than mine - at least as far as the innate divisive nature of the opinions… I want my country to be safe, I proudly fly the American flag, Jesus saves me every day and although America isn’t a Christian nation I feel blessed that God put me in this country, I value open-debate, and I’ve just so happen to come to hold fairly right-leaning social positions… and they killed this guy for it Charlie Kirk was murdered for daring to challenge college kids around the country to think critically about what narrative they are force-fed through media and school The political landscape of America isn’t Left vs Rig…

Passage # Romans 7:7–7:13 (ESV): 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Reflection # As I was dimwittedly workin…