The Astonishing Love of Christ

John Calvin at the beginning of his commentary on Matthew 26:57-61:

First, in order to remove the offence of the cross, we ought to consider the advantage which we have derived from Christ’s emptying of himself (Philippians 2:7) for thus will the inestimable goodness of God, and the efficacy of his grace, be found to remove by its brightness every thing in it that was disagreeable and shameful. According to the flesh, it was disgraceful that the Son of God should be seized, bound, and made a prisoner; but when we reflect that by his chains we are loosed from the tyranny of the devil, and from the condemnation in which we are involved before God, not only is the stumbling block, on which our faith might have struck, removed out of the way, but in place of it there comes an admiration of the boundless grace of God, who set so high a value on our deliverance, as to give up his only-begotten Son to be bound by wicked men. This will also be a pledge of the astonishing love of Christ towards us, that he spared not himself, but willingly submitted to wear fetters [chains] on his flesh, that our souls might be freed from fetters of a far worse description.

Take Up and Read

Too often we think for a church to grow we must do radical things. There must be great change happening quickly over a short period of time. But the Spirit does not normally work this way. Instead he works slowly, but deeply, through normal ordinary means, especially worship. This article by Terry Johnson explains the benefits and blessing of this type of view of church.

As usual, Pastor Douglas Wilson has a lot of wisdom in his list of ground level tactics for Christian resistance. Christians would do well to study these and begin implementing some of them.

What did Jephthah do with his daughter in Judges 11? Peter Leithart gives us Jonathan Edwards’ answer to that question.

Tim Challies has a  great post  on mistakes we make with email. It was helpful for me. Here is another post of his on six things we should get rid of. Again it is about the internet, phone, email, etc.

In case you missed it the PCUSA decided to leave a hymn out of their new hymnal because talks about God’s wrath. Timothy George has a good article on that decision over at First Things.

Finally, Rachel Held Evans, a feminist blogger wrote a post last week on why millennials are leaving the church. Here is one of the many replies to that article. He makes the point that Christianity has endured so much and yet she lives on. All the doom and gloom is really arrogance dressed up as concern.