A Reminder

My name is the Lord! I won’t let idols or humans share my glory and praise. – Isaiah 42:8

Reminder: Disasters Don’t Work Repentance

Rev 9:20f — But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Your Bible Study Group…

Isn’t a Bible study group if the book you’re studying isn’t the Bible.  It’s a book club.  Please call it a book club and not a Bible study.  K? Thanks. Bye.

Calvin Writes About his Future Wife…

Such a romantic soul…  He wrote, on May 19, 1539,

“Remember what I expect from one who is to be a companion through life. I do not belong to the class of loving fools, who, blinded by passion, are ready to expend their affection on vice itself. Do you wish to know what kind of beauty alone can win my soul? It is that in which grace and virtue, contentedness and suavity are united with simplicity; and I can hope that a woman with these qualities would not be negligent of my general well-being.”

I’m sure he made the womenfolk swoon with talk like this…

‘Cancel Culture’: An Observation

The so called ‘cancel culture’ is populated by the same people who, as children, threw temper tantrums in the middle of the grocery store if they didn’t get the sugar based cereal they wanted.  And their mothers gave in, thus teaching them that if they whined long enough and loud enough it didn’t matter, they got what they wished.

And now, as ‘adults’, they want the entire world to listen to their tantrums too and give them what they want, or else…

Just don’t.

Quote of the Day

“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “Therefore by their fruits you will know them. “Not everyone who says to Me,`Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. “Many will say to Me in that day,`Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ “And then I will declare to them,`I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matt. 7:18-23)

A Schlatter Gallery

This gallery contains 9 photos.

In Memoriam Adolf Schlatter

Adolph Schlatter died on the 19th of May, 1938.  I am unashamed to say that I think him one of the smartest exegetes of the 19th or 20th centuries.  He knew the text and it shows on every page of every commentary he wrote.  And he wrote one on every book of the New Testament.  Indeed, several New Testament books were treated more than once!  Sadly, very few of his works have been translated into English, which means he is essentially unknown in the non-German speaking world.

But he also wrote an introduction to the Bible (as a whole), dogmatic, and philosophical works.  He was well read and very learned, as even a cursory glance at his biography will show.

He has been accused of antisemitism by his detractors, and he may well have suffered a bit of it in his last years.  His little piece titled Wird der Jude über uns siegen?  Ein Wort für die Weinachtszeit, which he published in 1935, is more an encouragement to Christian fidelity to the standards of the faith and the uniqueness of Christianity than an attack on Judaism.   Yet, it is more than a little discomfiting.  Especially when Schlatter writes Der Jude haßt- Jesus nimmt dagegen jedem, den sein Wort erfaßt, den Haß aus der Seele.  I sure wish he hadn’t.  But I also wish Luther hadn’t written what he did about the Jews.

Yet the memory of neither Luther nor Schlatter should be controlled by one ill conceived idea when the vast majority of their work was positive and beneficial.  People shouldn’t be remembered only for their mistakes (though of course this is often what happens- in some cases deservedly admittedly).

In memoriam Adolf Schlatter…