Merry Christmas

May we all celebrate Christ's incarnation EVERY day of our lives, I'm sure His people will celebrate it in eternity.

John 1:14-"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (ESV)

A Christmas Prayer

Well, not a specific prayer you can read out, but just what I hope for all of you. Since the only true hope is in Christ it is a prayer as well.

While there is no perfect Church here on earth, I pray that each one of you is either in a faithful, Bible believing Church with good teaching. And if you're not, that either you will find one soon, or you current congregation will become one.

And I pray that not only is your congregation faithful in doctrine, but also in practice. I pray you would see the love of Christ in the people there. And if not--again that your congregation finds that balance so neither doctrine nor practice gets slighted. That they would realize if you have the doctrine right--the practice should follow. And if not, again that you would find one.

I'm not here to boast--but I think the congregation I belong to has both.
For them I thank God. Amen.

Modern Reformation

I can't believe I went this long without a link to Modern Reformation. It's an excellent magazine. They spent 2006 looking at Paul's letter to the Romans. I've added the link to the sidebar. Check it out-they post many of their articles online. It is well worth your time.

Children Taken Into Custody After Drug Busts

Children taken into custody after drug busts
I don't know how long this site leaves the stories up, but go take a look. It's a brief summary, but check if the video link still works.

Police have been cracking down on grow ops, and the common things to look out for are well known-"How to spot a grow op". So the criminals are using families to camouflage the grow op homes. This means children are being exposed to the chemicals and fumes found in grow ops, as well as having access to the drugs. They are also in danger of electrocution (Or electric shocks), as grow op homes usually have the electric meter bypassed, resulting in exposed wires. In at least one of the cases in the link above, exposed wires ran through a child's bedroom.

These are cases of child endangerment and abuse. It shows how greed will cause people to put their own children at risk.

Some may say that if marijuana was legalized these sort of things wouldn't happen. Somehow I doubt it. Those children would have been at risk in some other way. We are all sinful, and the greed that caused these parents to disregard their children's safety would pop up some other way.

May we all realize though, that as sinful humans, we would all be capable of such neglect. May we thank God that He provided His Son to deal with the sin of His people.

"Don't they baptize babies?"

(There is a point here, please bear with me. Thanks.)
A while back I posted a link to a page on baptism on mongergism.com-(This one here.) On that page there are a large number of links to articles on baptism, especially ones defending either paedo (infant/child) or credo (believers) baptism. One of my readers asked about the similarities between the Presbyterian & Roman Catholic views on paedobaptism. I've been working on that, but other things keep coming up and I am not happy with the current state of what I've written. But it is coming.

In writing it I did realize that credobaptists may read it and say, "So what?" From their perspective neither Presbyterians nor Roman Catholics have the correct view. The point of the article is not to defend paedobaptism, but to show the differences between two views on it.

This train of thought reminded me of when I first started attending a Presbyterian Church. My non-Presbyterian Christian friends often seemed amazed or concerned. I would often hear some form of the question, "Don't they baptize babies?" Often the tone of their voice was as if they were asking, "Don't they eat babies?" or some other atrocity. They were often amazed that although, yes, Presbyterians baptize babies, it isn't the cornerstone of their existence, belief and practice. It still happens, and we hear it from visitors.

Yes, Presbyterians do baptize babies. No, it doesn't make us aliens, monsters, or outcasts. We value our credobaptist brothers and sisters, and we share the same gospel, especially with those who are reformed. We learn from them, and they learn from us. Not all who hold to paedobaptism are Christians. Neither are all who hold to credobaptism. What you hold to about baptism may not affect your salvation, unless you tie salvation directly to baptism (for example those who hold to some form of baptismal regenration.) The PCA doesn't require members to hold to paedobaptism. The reason is we don't wish to add conditions to salvation that are not in the Bible.

LOTW December 6, 2006

Here are the new Links of the Whenever (as in whenever I get to them.)

First-
The Geneva Bible was the dominant English translation prior to the King James Bible. (It took about 50 years for the KJV to supplant the Geneva Bible.) King James did not like the Geneva Bible because of the margin notes. Those note were Reformed in theology. It's influenece was far reaching including being the Bible of the pilgrims and puritans who came to North America. It also was the inspiration for original name of The Reformation Study Bible. (It was first called the New Geneva Study Bible.) It originally used the New King James, but now uses the English Standard Version. The notes are also new.

But go here, to check out the original Geneva Bible. The site appears to be a work in progress, but there is a lot to read on it.

Second-
If you've read previous posts you may know I am interested in sports logos and design. A site I think has some excellent work in that regard is Athlantic Design. There you'll find one man's concepts for several teams on a well done template. It's creative. If you enjoy this sort of thing I think you'll enjoy this site.

Links & Such

Just a quick note.
It seems odd that there are others linking to some of my posts, and in some cases recommending others go and read them, but I get very few comments. That's okay if you don't want to comment, but sometimes people will comment on my blog on the other blog, but not mine. Oh well, at least people are stopping by and reading.
Thanks to all who link to this blog.