Calvinists, Arminians, and fast food

Anthony provides a little humor and levity for us today as he shares a recent epiphany. His post begins:

I was dining at the Golden Arches yesterday with the lovely Mrs. when it occurred to me that right before my eyes was a theology lesson on a brown plastic tray.“Honey,” I began, “John Calvin would eat here.”

“What?” she said, fully aware that I had been dangerously left to think on my own again.

“…John Piper would eat here too.”

“What are you talking about?” (A question and look from her with which I am very familiar.)

“Actually, so would John MacArthur…but not A.W. Tozer and certainly not John Wesley.” Then I upped the ante on my thesis: “I think those guys would go to Burger King.” With her usual blue-eyed gaze of love and pity, Mrs. Russo just looked at me, smiled, took another bite of her double-cheeseburger, and waited for my explanation. (She knows me so well!) Here’s what I told her: . . . .

Find out how here he came to this conclusion. Funny.

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Does familiarity breed contempt?

“And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. [an ever decreasing, more restricted, more personal group of people””(Mark 6:4).  Jesus uses a well-known maxim among both Jews, Greeks and Romans.  Very similar to our phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” which is an incorrect statement really. How dare we would apply that to say a good marriage? Familiarity doesn’t bred contempt.  What breeds contempt is familiarity with contemptible people and things.

Familiarity may breed contempt with everyone else who has inconsistencies and foibles and blind spots. But it never should with Jesus who is perfect in every way.

No town on earth had the privilege this town did.  30 years with the Son of God  and virtually no belief. It warns us how apt we are to devalue familiar things.

The people of Nazareth were much like the tourist who was  eager to see everything in the art gallery, and so fled from picture to picture, scarcely noticing what was in the frames. “I didn’t see anything very special here,” he said to one of the guards as he left. “Sir,” the guard replied, “it is not the pictures that are on trial here―it is the visitors.”

The primary application here is to an unbelieving world, many of whom are familiar with the gospel message and reject Christ.  But it can also subtly occur in our lives: the dulling of our hearts to the glorious truths and the serious demands of our faith.  Sacred words get tossed around and we grow desensitized to who Christ is:  His incarnation, exaltation, grace, resurrection!  All beautiful and mysterious truths.

Let’s ever guard our hearts to devaluing familiar things here friends:  The Scriptures, the gospel, the ordinances, the privilege of prayer, witness.

You read or listen to more of “That’s Amazing”, a sermon I recently preached.

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I hear the rolling thunder: supercell!

Did you see this incredible pic?

A Supercell Thunderstorm Cloud Over Montana
Credit & Copyright: Sean R. HeaveyFound bigger here.

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Stars of wonder, stars of light!

Click here for the third annual Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar. Keep checking this page – every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the Hubble Space Telescope, some old and some new.  You can also view the last two years of pictures.

Speaking of stars, did you hear that now some scientists think there might be three times as many stars than currently estimated.  Wow!

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Don’t waste your youth!

Go and ask believers now, and I think many will tell you: “Oh that I could live my young days over again!” He will most likely say, “Oh that I had spent the beginning of my life in a better way! Oh that I had not laid the foundation of evil habits so strongly in the springtime of my journey!”

Young men, I want to save you all this sorrow, if I can. Hell itself is truth known too late. Be wise in time. What youth sows, old age must reap. Do not give the most precious season of your life to that which will not comfort you in the latter days of your life. Sow to yourselves rather in righteousness: break up your hard ground, don’t sow among thorns.

~ J.C. Ryle

Thoughts For Young Men, [Moscow, ID: Charles Nolan Publishing, 2002], 17. (HT: Rylequotes)

 

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Lord, increase our vision and passion!

Two videos here about what God is doing on the largest populated island in the world.  Two pastors passionately plea for the church in America to lift up its eyes to see the harvest and for us to be a seed that dies in the ground so that it can bear much fruit.

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