P - Past-Witnesses-File
- JI Packer - Pheobe Palmer - Blaise Pascal - JB PHillips - AM Pitzer - Pope John Paul II -
J.I. Packer
"All devices for exerting psychological pressure in order to precipitate 'decisions' must be eschewed, as being in truth presumptuous attempts to intrude into the province of the Holy Ghost. Such pressures may even be harmful for while they may produce the outward form of 'decision,' they cannot bring about regeneration and a change of heart, and when the 'decisions' wear off those who registered them will be found 'gospel-hardened' and antagonistic."
-A Quest for Godliness, JI Packer
-A Quest for Godliness, JI Packer
“All roads in the Bible lead to Romans, and all views afforded by the Bible are seen most clearly from Romans, and when the message of Romans gets into a person’s heart there is no telling what may happen.”
--JI Packer
--JI Packer
pheobe palmer
Feb 23, 2023: Gospel Coalition: Hearts Strangely Warmed at Asbury
The variety of Wesleyan spirituality endemic to Asbury University is further colored by the Holiness movement here in America. The watchword of the movement is “consecration.” Churches influenced by this tradition usually have an altar rail at the front of the sanctuary. Challenged by preaching and stirred by sung worship, people come up to that altar and offer themselves to God. Phoebe Palmer described this altar theology in the 19th century. Once you notice it, you see it’s widely diffused in American evangelicalism. The old song “Trust and Obey” (written by a Biola faculty member) includes this line: “But we never can prove / The delights of His love, / Until all on the altar we lay.”
The variety of Wesleyan spirituality endemic to Asbury University is further colored by the Holiness movement here in America. The watchword of the movement is “consecration.” Churches influenced by this tradition usually have an altar rail at the front of the sanctuary. Challenged by preaching and stirred by sung worship, people come up to that altar and offer themselves to God. Phoebe Palmer described this altar theology in the 19th century. Once you notice it, you see it’s widely diffused in American evangelicalism. The old song “Trust and Obey” (written by a Biola faculty member) includes this line: “But we never can prove / The delights of His love, / Until all on the altar we lay.”
Blaise Pascal
Aug 27, 2021: Harvard Independent: The Weight of Gold
I thought of 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” he wrote. The pandemic taught me to sit quietly—and though I didn’t enjoy the occasional bouts of boredom, I learned that there’s a subtle power in stillness.
I thought of 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” he wrote. The pandemic taught me to sit quietly—and though I didn’t enjoy the occasional bouts of boredom, I learned that there’s a subtle power in stillness.
"If [God] had wished to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, he could have done so by revealing himself so plainly that they could not doubt the truth of his essence…This is not the way he wished to appear when he came in mildness, because so many men had shown themselves unworthy of his clemency, that he wished to deprive them of the good they did not desire. It was therefore not right that he should appear in a manner manifestly divine and absolutely capable of convincing all men, but neither was it right that his coming should be so hidden that he could not be recognized by those who sincerely sought him. He wished to make himself perfectly recognizable to them. Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not. There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary definition."
--Blaise Pascal
--Blaise Pascal
jb phillips
Quotes from JB Phillips' Your God Is Too Small :
We can hardly expect to escape a sense of futility and frustration until we begin to see what He is like and what His purposes are.
To speak the truth was obviously to Him more important than to make His hearers comfortable: though, equally obviously, His genuine love for men gave Him tact, wisdom, and sympathy. He was Love in action, but He was not meek and mild.
So far from encouraging them to escape life He came to bring, in His own words, "life more abundant," and in the end He left His followers to carry out a task that might have daunted the stoutest heart. Original Christianity had certainly no taint of escapism.
[Some Christians] prevent themselves from growing up. So long as they imagine that God is saying 'Come unto Me" when He is really saying "Go out in My Name," they are preventing themselves from ever putting on spiritual muscle, or developing the right sort of independence quite apart from the fact that they achieve very little for the cause to which they believe they are devoted.
It is refreshing, and salutary, to study the poise and quietness of Christ. His task and responsibility might well have driven a man out of his mind. But he was never in a hurry, never impressed by numbers, never a slave of the clock. He was acting, he said, as he observed God to act - never in a hurry.
All poetry and music, and art of every true sort, bears witness to man's continual falling in love with beauty, and his desperate attempt to induce beauty to live with him and enrich his common life.... Is it the eternal spirit in a man remembering here in his house of clay the shining joys of his real Home?
We can visualize a beautiful thing, but not beauty; a good man, but not goodness; a true fact, but not truth.
It was the motive and attitude of the heart that He called on men to change, for once the inner affections are aligned with God the outward expression of the life will look after itself.
Further, many people who have a vague childish affection for a half-remembered Jesus, have never used their adult critical faculties on the matter at all. They hardly seem to see the paramount importance of His claim to be God. Yet if for one moment we imagine the claim to be true the mind almost reels at its significance.
But let a man once see his God down in the arena as a Man, suffering, tempted, sweating, and agonized - finally dying a criminal's death, he is a hard man indeed who is untouched.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7 ESV) - He knew very well, for example, that the followers of His own day would very quickly collapse when the support and inspiration of His own personality were removed by death. He therefore promised them a new Spirit who should provide them with all the courage, moral reinforcement, love, patience, endurance and other qualities which they would need.
We can hardly expect to escape a sense of futility and frustration until we begin to see what He is like and what His purposes are.
To speak the truth was obviously to Him more important than to make His hearers comfortable: though, equally obviously, His genuine love for men gave Him tact, wisdom, and sympathy. He was Love in action, but He was not meek and mild.
So far from encouraging them to escape life He came to bring, in His own words, "life more abundant," and in the end He left His followers to carry out a task that might have daunted the stoutest heart. Original Christianity had certainly no taint of escapism.
[Some Christians] prevent themselves from growing up. So long as they imagine that God is saying 'Come unto Me" when He is really saying "Go out in My Name," they are preventing themselves from ever putting on spiritual muscle, or developing the right sort of independence quite apart from the fact that they achieve very little for the cause to which they believe they are devoted.
It is refreshing, and salutary, to study the poise and quietness of Christ. His task and responsibility might well have driven a man out of his mind. But he was never in a hurry, never impressed by numbers, never a slave of the clock. He was acting, he said, as he observed God to act - never in a hurry.
All poetry and music, and art of every true sort, bears witness to man's continual falling in love with beauty, and his desperate attempt to induce beauty to live with him and enrich his common life.... Is it the eternal spirit in a man remembering here in his house of clay the shining joys of his real Home?
We can visualize a beautiful thing, but not beauty; a good man, but not goodness; a true fact, but not truth.
It was the motive and attitude of the heart that He called on men to change, for once the inner affections are aligned with God the outward expression of the life will look after itself.
Further, many people who have a vague childish affection for a half-remembered Jesus, have never used their adult critical faculties on the matter at all. They hardly seem to see the paramount importance of His claim to be God. Yet if for one moment we imagine the claim to be true the mind almost reels at its significance.
But let a man once see his God down in the arena as a Man, suffering, tempted, sweating, and agonized - finally dying a criminal's death, he is a hard man indeed who is untouched.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7 ESV) - He knew very well, for example, that the followers of His own day would very quickly collapse when the support and inspiration of His own personality were removed by death. He therefore promised them a new Spirit who should provide them with all the courage, moral reinforcement, love, patience, endurance and other qualities which they would need.
A.M. Pitzer
"There is a growing impression among eminent private thinkers that Christianity is losing its hold upon men, and that the Church is a waning power; that the religious world is drifting from its moorings, and faith is becoming atra-dition of the past."
The above quotation is from an editorial in the most popular newspaper published at the Capital of the United States. If the faith of the Church is to stand in the wisdom of men, then it will be the sport of every wind of doctrine, and bedriven hither and thither, according to the course of the popular tide; and if the Church has no better anchor than the wisdom of this world, then, indeed, will it drift from all its moorings, and be tossed continually upon the seas of ceaseless speculation. But if faith is to stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, in the sure Word of Truth that liveth and abideth forever, then, like its Divine Author, it is and will be the same yesterday, today, and forever. If faith be founded upon the Word of Eternal Truth, then the Church has an anchor sure and stedfast, entering into that within the veil. One prophecy of Daniel is fulfilled: "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased". The world has never witnessed a period of such incessant and intense mental activity." AM Pitzer; The Wisdom of this wordl; [c]1912
The above quotation is from an editorial in the most popular newspaper published at the Capital of the United States. If the faith of the Church is to stand in the wisdom of men, then it will be the sport of every wind of doctrine, and bedriven hither and thither, according to the course of the popular tide; and if the Church has no better anchor than the wisdom of this world, then, indeed, will it drift from all its moorings, and be tossed continually upon the seas of ceaseless speculation. But if faith is to stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, in the sure Word of Truth that liveth and abideth forever, then, like its Divine Author, it is and will be the same yesterday, today, and forever. If faith be founded upon the Word of Eternal Truth, then the Church has an anchor sure and stedfast, entering into that within the veil. One prophecy of Daniel is fulfilled: "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased". The world has never witnessed a period of such incessant and intense mental activity." AM Pitzer; The Wisdom of this wordl; [c]1912
pope john paul ii
“The only true freedom, the only freedom that can truly satisfy, is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to his plan.”
--Pope John Paul II
--Pope John Paul II