Reformed Blogging

So what's with being sick on a Sunday? It should be annoying because I want to go to hear the preaching of God's Word but I'm sick.  I thought about it whenever I go to church and I'm well but one of my church members is sick. I thought of one Sunday where the pastor's son (who was also a pastor) preached the Father's Day service because the pastor was sick. Then I think about that I couldn't go to attend fellowship whether it's the morning or evening service because I'm sick. It's a constant source of frustration for any Christian to be sick on Sundays of all days. Matthew 26:41  Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. There is the frustration that the Christian life's worst enemy is one's self. I don't deny Satan and his demons are my enemies but I can't blame them when I sin. Eve tried to blame Satan but God didn't buy it one bit. If Eve can't blam

People tell me that I should be more tolerant and loving or that all religions are welcome. What I'm seeing right now from this clip is hardly complete tolerance. Douglas Wilson a Presbyterian pastor speaks at Indiana University and you have a couple of people breaking the courtesy rule. I guess such people only appeal to manners and right conduct if it benefits them. So much for saying that atheist morality is superior because it's not. If people have no fear of punishment then what reason would they have not to do anything wrong? If there are no moral absolutes then what's the use of calling Christian propaganda as whatever accusations they have in this video? Here's what I would like to bring up. It still makes me puke how these "liberals" continue to insist that that we should just accept everyone. Then if they should just accept everyone but why are they harassing people who contradict their beliefs? You can see that kind of intolerance when homose

I feel that there's such a time when everything is "perfectly fine" but it gets messed up. God allows trouble in life. I always get taunted by such questions like if God is so good then why am I not having so much worldly wealth. This makes me question why God even allows the wicked to prosper and those who are His to suffer. It makes me think of Psalm 73. That is where David mentions about how often the wicked are allowed to prosper. Many people today are so wicked and yet they live like they have the "perfect life" while I'm stuck with one problem after the other. David declares his ignorance in the same chapter that he was foolish to envy their prosperity. It always had me thinking of why did God give me a weakness. It always had me frustrated to think that it's God's will and that I must accept it. He's in control and He allows the effects of sin to take its place on sinful humanity. God could have just ended it all but He has chosen not

I'm already in reading the New Testament exposition on John Gill. What I admit is that reading the commentary has been no walk in the park. I read through Matthew Henry's commentary a few years ago and it's not much of a challenge. This time, Gill's commentary can be very long and tedious. To read without reflecting is to eat without digesting. That's how I felt when I decided to speed read the long expositions by Gill which contain a lot of meaningful insight. If I shouldn't be speed reading the Scriptures then what makes me think I should speed read any exposition? It's pretty much like eating a delicious meal. If you eat too fast then you can't savor the meal. Eating a meal in a moderate pace helps one appreciate the meal. That's what I feel about Gill's commentary for my spiritual nourishment. I can't enjoy it if I read it too fast. I should take my time to savor the delicious servings of a Scriptural exposition and read it at a modera

I remembered a frustrated discussion I got into an amateur Roman Catholic self-proclaimed apologist (I won't mention his name out loud as to avoid getting personal) concerning the primacy of Peter and Mary as an intercessor. I discussed both verses from the Good News Translation for Roman Catholics. I was discussing Matthew 16:18 and John 2:1-11. The meaning of the verses were clear as day that even a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible couldn't agree with Roman Catholicism. Yet the Roman Catholic apologist stubbornly refuses and refers to erroneous Greek to "make a point". The Scriptures are clear as day but the errors persist. Why is that? You have to remember people can be very stubborn to the truth. The atheist who already sees the evidence for a Creator yet he or she still thinks believing that God exists is for cowards. The same goes for pseudo-Christian cults. The Bible is clear but the errors persist. It's because these cults have their excuse that

There is the statement that says that it doesn't matter how much you know if it's not done in love. Is it wrong for Christians to study science? They are encouraged to know the facts so they could defend the faith. But there is the problem of the atheist who in spite of all the evidence shown upon them that they still choose to mock it. One of the worst arguments is that they can use is that the watchmaker is a human invention while the human body is a product of atheistic evolution. This is really a temptation to get mean towards the atheist especially when they start calling names to the other person or make every form of mockery.  I reflected on how often I fail to remember that it doesn't matter what I know if I don't have love. I could go ahead and do diligent research to defend my stand. I could listen to one expository sermon after the other, I could dig for facts in science, I could just do everything to gather evidence for my faith. But 1 Peter 3:15-17

While the "Our Father" is not something to be repeatedly said but it's definitely a model for prayer. Jesus gave everyone an example of how one should pray and not what to pray. Since today is Father's Day I think of the special relationship that I have with God the Father. I was once a child of Satan but I have been adopted into the family of God.  John 1:13-14  But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. This is the wonderful promise that God the Father adopts those who receives His Son Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is the wonderful promise of adoption. Unsaved people start off as children of the Devil (John 8:44) but this wonderf

I was done with reading John Gill's exposition of the Old Testament a few days ago. The Old Testament exposition was meaningful. Learning about the purpose of the ceremonial law was meaningful such as why God forbade the eating of certain meats. It was indeed set for health reasons to avoid eating anything labeled as unclean especially if one is in the Middle East. I can't get over the exposition of the prophets and I admit it wasn't easy reading through a long exposition. Based on my experience, reading an entire exposition is much heavier than reading through any of the Reformed theology books I've been reading. It's much longer than reading through the several books by John F. MacArthur and R.C. Sproul. There are times I could read several chapters a day but some of the expositions require reflection of one chapter a day. Some of these chapters are very long. It's no wonder you can't contain Gill's exposition of the whole Bible in just one book.

Sigh when will people ever learn? Right now, I'm reading that 2017 now has a lot of Nostradamus' prophecies "coming true" but the question is did he even predict them to start with? I can't think of how stupid people can get based on this simple fact: they don't read their Bible .  Let's take a look at what the Bible says which gives me good reasons not to believe in the "prophecies" of false prophets: Deuteronomy 18:21-22  And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. Matthew 24:36  But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only. Acts 1:7  And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the

I know some of my favorite preachers and fellow brethren aren't King James Only-ists. I can still accept some non-KJV only Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ. I wouldn't necessarily say that NIV readers are automatically not saved. When I was newly saved, I had a New International Version. I was happy to have a Bible but I soon started watching more programs that talked about the modern Bible translations. Nothing was more shocking than to think of the difference between the KJV (which I use now) and the NIV (which I used to use). What made me go from the NIV to the KJV? I was told, "But the King James Bible is too hard to understand." I started doing a side by side comparison and here's the problem of the NIV vs. the KJV. So why are some preachers still teaching sound soteriology but aren't using the KJV only? While I don't support all KJV-onlyists (some end up as cult leaders or fake Baptists) but I just want to plead with brothers and sis