The Two Johns On Old Testament Faith

John Newton and John Owen were two very different Christians but they were united in their view of how Old Testament believers were saved and what their faith was in.

John Newton taught that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was revealed immediately after Adam and Eve’s first sin and became the object of faith from that moment on.

The Lord Jesus was promised under the character of the seed of the woman, as the great deliverer who should repair the breach of sin, and retrieve the ruin of human nature. From that hour, he became the object of faith, and the author of salvation, to every soul that aspired to communion with God, and earnestly sought deliverance from guilt and wrath (Works, Vol. 3, p. 3).   Continue at David Murray

This first weekend of 2014 affords many of us an opportunity to hit “pause” on this busy opening week and to reflect, backward and forward, on our own lives. 

 

Essential at the beginning of every new year is to set aside time to reflect on life, according to eighteenth-century slave-ship-captain-turned-pastor John Newton (1725–1807). This practice was embedded into his personal disciplines, and it emerged as a hallmark of his pastoral work. He penned new hymns and sermons and personal letters every year to urge his friends to take time at the unveiling of a new year to stop and reflect on life.

Past, Present, Future Grace

 

Newton’s most famous hymn “Amazing Grace” is the best example of this reflection. The hymn was first unveiled in his church on New Year’s Day (1773), and it’s a reflection on the new year: a look back on his past deliverances, a look around on his present deliverances, and a look forward to his future deliverances in Christ. Continue at Tony Reinke

US Physics Professor: 'Global Warming is the Greatest and most Successful Pseudoscientific Fraud I Have Seen in my Long Life'

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

Anthony Watts describes it thus:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

It's so utterly damning that I'm going to run it in full without further comment. (H/T GWPF, Richard Brearley).

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time.  Keep Reading >>>

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Spiritual Depression: An Interview with John Newton

John Newton wrote a number of valuable letters on the high marks and the low points of the Christian life. One of those letters was originally to a pastor. But as you will soon see, it has application for every Christian, especially on the topic of spiritual depression (see Psalm 42:1–11).

For this entry in the series I’ve chosen to reformat one letter into an interview. We’ll see how it goes.

Rev. Newton, thanks for your time today. Let’s begin discussing the topic of how spiritual depression affects pastors. You have many years of pastoral experience yourself. Does God preserve pastors from undergoing spiritual valleys? Do pastors get a special divine favor and higher proportion of comforts in life to better serve their local churches?

Give me leave to ask pastors: What would you do if you did not find yourself occasionally poor, insufficient, and stupid?

Are you aware of what might be the possible, the probable, the almost certain consequences, if you always found your spirit enlarged, and your frames lively and comfortable? Keep Reading...

When Humility Is Pride

Rev. Joshua Symonds (1739–1788) was the pastor of a church in Bedford, England who suffered from frequent afflictions, temptations, and what we might call depression—“family cares and severe bodily affliction sometimes cast a gloom over his spirit and led him to take desponding views of himself” [1]. Symonds’s despondency and sense of personal worthlessness engrossed his life, which is made clear in the letters he exchanged with his friend John Newton.

Symonds was aware of his own depravity and spiritual barrenness. But the bigger problem in Symonds’s life was not in thinking too lowly of himself, but in thinking too lowly of the Savior. He was sliding into legalism. He was aware of his own sinfulness, but unable to appreciate the all-sufficiency of the Savior. Continue Reading>>>

Wise Counsel for Anyone Bummed by an Apparent Lack of Spiritual Growth

The Active and Passive Obedience of Jesus Christ...Clothed with His Perfect Righteousness

See also John Bunyan on Justification by Imputation

Precious Bible, What A Treasure!