Good News

"The gospel is the proclamation of good tidings, good tidings from God, good tidings of what God has done, good tidings of what he has promised to do. the passion of missions is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the evangel" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 59).

Liturgical Man and Woman

For many churches, the question will come down to this: If men and women are interchangeable in the garden-sanctuary, why not elsewhere? If the sexes are interchangeable at the center of life, in the liturgy, why aren't they interchangeable everywhere?

Concluding question from a recent post by Peter J. Leithart.

Exclusive Function of Scripture

"Unless we believe that revelation is still in process as it was in the days of the prophets, in the days of our Lord, and in the days of the apostles subsequent to the Lord's ascension, then Scripture occupies for us an exclusive place and performs an exclusive function as the only extant mode of revelation. . . . This is what the finality of Scripture means for us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 19).

Inspiration of Words

"The inspiration of Scripture involves verbal inspiration. If it did not carry with it the inspiration of words, it would not be inspiration at all. Words are the media of communication" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 14).

Why Worship Must Be in Spirit and in Truth

"Without regeneration, the most glorious church service ever conducted is rank superstition, and God hates it" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 180).

Muck Boots As Vestments

"... our discussion of clerical garb should always start with the muck boots" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 178).

Life Is Messy

"There are plenty of born again people who wouldn't call it that, and there are plenty of evangelicals who need to get saved. Life is messy" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 176).

Only Two Types of People

"Everyone who is over fifty is very certain to discover within fifty or so years whether he or she is a sheep or a goat, a wheat or a tare, trusting in Jesus or deluded by the devil" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 163).

Baptism

"Baptism is the sign and seal of that which it represents, and one of the things it represents (and thereby signs, seals, and confers) is regeneration. It does this for all worthy receivers, who are identified as such by their evangelical faith. That faith may not appear for many years after an infant is baptized, which is just fine by the Westminster divines, who maintain that the efficacy of baptism is not at all duct-taped to the time of its administration" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 161).

Death - Gift

"Once converted, everything that used to be "law" is now gift, it is now grace. This includes the grace of dying. The privilege of participating in the cross of Jesus is a privilege, it is a gift. Mortification is grace, it is gift, it is goodness. Mortification is a great kindness (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 144).

Even A "Churched-Up" Reprobate Is Still A Reprobate

"But the natural man, the unconverted man, the unregenerate man, is the same kind of man whether he is inside the covenant or outside it, with the difference that reprobates inside the covenant have greater condemnation" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 143).

Let the Word of God Serve This Generation and This Hour

"Let us learn from our tradition, let us prize our heritage, let us enter into other men's labours; but let us also know that it is not the tradition of the past, not a precious heritage, and not the labours of the fathers, that are to serve this generation and this hour, but the Word of the living and abiding God deposited for us in Holy Scripture, and this Word as ministered by the church" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 22).

Derived Stability

"But the world is only stable because there is no foundation for stability within it. But once you introduce the Words of God, how gloriously stable it becomes! (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 139)

An Excellent Point

"...to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant. This is the capital sin of our generation. . . . But the question for us is: how are we, holding to the sufficiency and finality of Scripture, going to meet the secularism, or whatever else the attitude may be, of this modern man? Here, I believe, we have too often made the mistake of not taking seriously the doctrine we profess. If Scripture is the inscripturated revelation of the gospel and of God's mind and will, if it is the only revelation of this character that we possess, then it is this revelation in all its fulness, richness, wisdom, and power that must be applied to man in whatever religious, moral, mental situation he is to be found" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 21).

Fixed Point

"There can only be one fixed point in the created world, and that is the Word of God" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 137).

Total Dependence

"Our dependence upon Scripture is total. . . . Thus when the church or any of its spokesmen fails to accord to Scripture this eminence, and fails to make it the only rule of faith and life, then the kind of affront offered to Father, Son and Holy Spirit is that of substituting the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God, and human invention for divine institution" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 20).

Do Not Read Hearts... Read the "Story"

"It is not possible for us to read hearts (Luke 8:17), and we ought not to act as though we can. . . . But from these important truths many have concluded (erroneously) that it is not possible for us to read the story we are in. But that is a different thing entirely. . . . We must evaluate the spiritual conditions of those around us, and it is essential for pastors to know how to do this properly" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 125).

Boneyard World. Resurrection World.

"But let us never preach the doctrine of total depravity without also declaring there has been a great earthquake, and that an angel of the Lord has rolled away the stone in front of that imposing doctrine. 'Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more' (2 Cor. 5:16). This is crazy talk, I know. but it is also biblical talk. This whole world, since the sin of Adam, has been nothing but one, vast, pole-to-pole boneyard. Whatever would Jesus do in a world like that? What could He possible do that could transform a world like that? The gospel reply is that He could come back from the dead in it. . . . The sacramental history of the church has consisted of large numbers of people making the same mistake that the Jews here made [see John 8]. Something is given that is wild and heavenly, and we expend all our energies to make it domesticated and earthly. We take the lion of the tribe of Judah--from the upland savannahs of Heaven--and turn it into a tabby cat to keep the bishop's chair warm for him" (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 110, 113).

Finality Means This

"This is what the finality of Scripture means for us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 19).

Criteria to Assess the Infallibility of Scripture

"Unless we assess infallibility in the light of the data with which Scripture provides us, we shall be liable to judge infallibility by criteria to which Scripture does not conform. this is one of the most effective ways of undermining biblical infallibility" (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 14).