“Preachers of the gospel must also be students of the culture they are sent to. A minister must be a student of the Word, but he must also be a student of men. He must study them—not just men generally, but the men of his own era, the men to whom he is charged to bring the gospel. When the Lord speaks to each of the angels of the seven churches of Asia, the message for each church is different. Same gospel, different sins, and so a different message applying that gospel.”More on the militant stance of the church:
“There are no pacifist traditions left. All worthy traditions must be militant in order to survive this time of upheaval.”On adversaries:
“You want to be God’s adversary, then simply make friends with the world.”Another point he underscores: Expect criticism while you’re alive; praise after you’re safely dead and everyone is reaping the fruits of your labor. The Church is founded on scandal:
“Now the Christian Church is unique kind of community in that it is a community built up around scandal. Scandal blows most communities apart, but scandal—the scandal of the cross—is the foundation of all true Christian fellowship. Christ was crucified by all the respectable authorities, and His followers were instructed to tell the story of how that happened down to the end of the world.”I wish he would take this thinking a little further. The Church does not operate according to the logic of the world, so we should measure success differently than the world does. Christ Church has adopted the Westminster Confession not because the members are required to affirm it, but because it describes their doctrinal stance on many things:
“What this tells us is what doctrinal framework the saints can expect to hear from the pulpit. It does not tell them what they are required to affirm. They are bound to affirm nothing until and unless they see it in the text of Scripture for themselves—but after that, of course honesty requires them to affirm it.”Individualism is the temptation of the modern church, not conformism. On likemindedness:
Allow me the privilege of translating all of this into modern American English for you. Drink the Kool-Aid. Join the cult. Surrender your independence. Swallow the party line. Go baaa like a sheep. Strive for the nirvana of acquiescence.DW reminds us that love is law written on the heart:
It means to treat them lawfully from the heart. Note that this excludes a mere ticking of boxes. The emphasis needs to be on the heart. Jesus teaches us this explicitly. “Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also” (Matt. 23:26).A typically Doug metaphor describing covenant bonds:
If you go down in the basement of a house, you will likely be able to find cold concrete in straight lines. Let us call it cold covenant concrete—a bunch of very unsentimental concrete. Then go up into the living room, and you will there find curtains, warm colors, cushions, sofas, carpet, and so on. This is where you live, and it is what makes living there enjoyable, but it cannot be the foundation of the house. Roll up the carpet, mound all the cushions, throw the curtains on top of it, and then try to situate a stud wall on top of that.The three governments. I need to track down the source of this idea. A. A. Hodge on public education:
It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or agnostics may be. It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of Atheism which the world has ever seen.More on Christian education:
God requires His people to bring up their covenant children in an environment dominated by the Word of God. When we walk along the road, when we lie down, when we rise up (Deut. 6:4-9). Christian fathers are instructed to bring their children up in the paideia of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). And if man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4), then it follows that boys and girls need to be instructed in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. These things are not optional.More: Education is one of the central instruments given to us by God for the establishment and perpetuation of a culture. More: Heavenly minded folks do much earthly good:
“According to Scripture, a spiritual man is one who walks in step with the Spirit in this material world (Gal. 5:16). A spiritual man is not an ethereal man, or a wispy man, or a semi-transparent man. A spiritual man is never a worldly man (1 John 2:15), but he most certainly is a down-to-earth man. Worldly and practical are not the same thing. While there have been people who were so heavenly-minded they were no earthly good, it generally runs the other way. The people who have done the most earthly good have often been the most heavenly-minded. How could deep and intelligent love for ultimate wisdom incapacitate a person? “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men” (Prov. 22:29). “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men” (Prov. 22:29, esv).”#Wilson