Good Blog Day
Mar 17th, 2010 by David
Today has been a good day for me, so far, in terms of interesting and engaging blog posts. I wanted to share a couple.
1. St. Patrick:
Dr. Moore has a good post over at his blog on the relevance of Patrick for evangelical (dare I say, Reformed?) Christians tempted to despair by the dour outlook of the times. In reviewing Philip Freeman’s St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, he says
This biography gives contemporary evangelicals more than a pious evangelist to emulate. It also reconstructs a Christian engagement with a pagan culture, in ways that are strikingly contemporary to evangelicals seeking to engage a post-Christian America.
2. St. Patrick Redux:
Mark Driscoll offers very helpful insight into the missionary call of Patrick – with a brief biographical sketch of his life. Mark, I am unashamedly stealing large portions of your post to rework for my Kid’s Club kids tonight! Thanks for a very helpful resource that will let me unpack to my youth that St. Patrick’s day is more than just green drunkenness – but a man called by God to bring Christ to those written off by the “church” as irredeemable. Grace will give me a great landing point tonight with these 2-9 year olds.
In the end, the Roman Church should have learned from Patrick, who is one of the greatest missionaries who has ever lived. Though Patrick’s pastors and churches looked different in method, they were very orthodox in their theology and radically committed to such things as Scripture and the Trinity.
3. R.C. Sproul Jr. & the Census:
I know I’ve run into my share of folks who are advocating bloody revolution over the notion that the Goverment is conducting a census. Is there some merit to the idea that the Government is ‘out of order’ in conducting the census? Sure! Does it equate to the histrionics that are issuing from the usual quarters? Not really, no. Little R.C. is awesome on this:
My conviction, informed by the collective wisdom of almost every Reformed Bible commentator, is that Romans 13 calls us to submit not just to government as it ought to be, but as it is. That means governments whose authority is on shaky grounds, as well as governments whose activity is on shaky grounds, if they are the ones in power, are to be submitted to, unless or until they command us to do what God clearly forbids, or forbid us to do what God clearly commands. The census is a nuisance. It is not authorized by the Constitution. It is one more fruit of the state’s self-aggrandizement, one more affectation to demonstrate that it is God. And I will be filling mine out. I’ve read the whole Bible and no where does God tell us, “Whatever else you do, be sure not to tell the state how many toilets you have.”
Brilliant!
