8 Favorite Quotes From The Book “Reign; The Church in the Middle Ages” (Luke H. Davies)

Kindly pray for my mother. She had high blood pressure and felt dizzy. We rush to my parents house and check her out. Pray for her full recovery.

Anyways, enjoy these quotes from this excellent book, Reign; The Church in the Middle Ages by Luke H. Davies, published by Christian Focus Publications. Grab it on digital or physical copy here.

“At no point does the Bible define the Church as being under the control of popes and priests. Always we submit to Christ, a people who—as the true church—are chosen for and granted salvation by the undeserved, free grace of Almighty God. The Church is not the Pope’s treasure chamber; it is the assembly of those treasured by Christ as His elect sheep.”

8 Favorite Quotes From the Book “Balik Tayo Sa Church” (Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman)

Happy Monday! Here’s some great quotes I got from a book I recently finished. Balik Tayo Sa Church by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman is published by Treasuring Christ PH and you can get your copy by following this link. Purchasing your copy enables you to support the author, publishing house and ministry to further push the gospel of Christ.

“Gusto ng Diyos na makita tayo ng mundo at maintindihan nila ang pagkakaiba natin sa kanila, para maipaliwanag natin nang lubos ang kagandahan ng ating pananampalataya.“

8 Favorite Quotes from the Book “Bondage of the Will” (Martin Luther)

It’s a month and a half to go till we commemorate the Protestant Reformation. This year would be the 504th year of that world turning event.

To celebrate this event, let’s read some classic stuff. If you haven’t read Bondage of the Will, then this maybe the perfect time. Let these quotes inspire you to read that book written by no less than Martin Luther. You can get this version of the book from Chapel Library. You can download or order it for free by clicking this link.

“If “free will” exists, it does not seem to be able to help men to salvation because it still leaves them under the wrath of God.”

The Freebie Round-Up #28

Hello guys! It’s pay day today and I have hunch that you’ll be at the nearest mall buying stuff. Does visiting your local bookstore and picking up a book in your checklist? What books will you buy then?  If books are not in your shopping list, well check these list of freebies that wont burn your wallet. And if your new here to this post or you missed out other freebie round-ups, check the links to those post at the end of this article.

FREE Hand outs and powerpoint presentations of “Gospel Centered Counseling and Gospel Conversations” – From Dr. Bob Kellermen, his ministry offers this free counseling presentation complete with hand outs. If you scroll down some more, you’ll find other free resources that will equip the church.

FREE “The Wicket Gate” Magazine – Download the current issue and back issues of this magazine for free. The magazine contains interesting lectures, stories, sermons from Dr. Nick Needham and W. J. Seaton.

FREE hand outs and audio downloads of “Why These Books? Introduction to OT and NT Canon” –  It’s a free seminar that tackles questions like “What exactly is a canon?”, “Who pick out the books?” and many others that you might be also thinking. So check this free resource from Christ Cambridge Church and Dr. Greg Lainer.

FREE e-book “Pray For Your Daughter” from Borrowed Light – Mike Leake made a series of these books (for the spouse, purity, church etc.,) and you can find all of it here on this link. But I’ll just focus this one 31 days prayer challenge for your daughter. May this free e-book bless you and your daughter as you pray for her for the entire month.

FREE audio download of “Understanding Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses – Glad to see Credo Courses being generous again, as it brings back the free audio download of the lecture of Dr. Robert Bowman. Get to know and defend your faith with the two leading American religious cult in the world.

FREE video series download of “Foundations: An Overview of Systematic Theology” by R. C. Sproul – Now for something heavy! Ligonier gave us Steve Lawson last week then this one (and another one below). I’m so eager to check this free videos out. Better create an account so you can save it for later use.

FREE e-book “The Prayer of the Lord” by R. C. Sproul – Better get this one because it will expire within 4 days. I’m stoked at what Ligonier is giving away. Looking forward for more in the coming week.

Do you want more freebies? Check out these past blog post:

Freebie Round-Up #27

Freebie Round-Up # 26

Freebie Round-Up # 25

Freebie Round-Up # 24

Freebie Round-Up # 23

Freebie Round-Up # 22

Freebie Round-Up # 21

Freebie Round-Up # 20

Freebie Round-Up # 19

Freebie Round-Up # 18

The Freebie Round-Up #17

The Freebie Round-Up #16

The Freebie Round-Up #15

The Freebie Round-Up #14

The Quotable Round-Up #89

Howdy! It’s a great day to sit down, chill and sip your favorite drink! And while at it, add some awesomeness in your day by reading our latest collection of quotes.  This time we are featuring fresh quotes from the books “Know the Creeds and Councils” by Justin Holcomb and “The Potter’s Freedom” by James R. White. And if you got stoked with these quotes, please get the books at your nearest Christian bookstore or on Amazon.

“A catechism is a book or document giving a brief summary of the basic principles of Christianity in Q&A form. Catechisms represent the practical, “on-the-ground” application of the main teaching agreed upon at church councils and expressed through creeds and confessions. The word “catechism” comes from the Greek word katechein, which means “to teach” or “to instruct.” Catechisms are basic outlines of the teachings of the Christian faith, set forth in a way that those unfamiliar with doctrine can easily understand.” — Justin Holcomb

“Because creeds are bare-bones structures (the outlines of the sketch), it makes sense that the earliest statements of the church are creeds, while later statements of particular denominations are confessions. Creeds distinguish orthodoxy from heresy (or Christian faith from non-Christian faith). Confessions distinguish denominational distinctives (or one type of Christian faith from another type of Christian faith.” — Justin Holcomb

“Creeds aren’t dogmas that are imposed on Scripture but are themselves drawn from the Bible and provide a touchstone to the faith for Christians of all times and places.”– Justin Holcomb

“Christians of the past were no less concerned with being faithful to God than we are, and they sought to fit together all that Scripture has to say about the mysteries of Christianity — the incarnation, the Trinity, predestination, and more — with all the intellectual power of their times. To ignore these insights is to attempt to reinvent the wheel, and to risk reinventing it badly.”
— Justin S. Holcomb

“Grace is a wonderful word that speaks of God’s freedom and God’s power. I cannot earn grace, merit grace, purchase grace, or force grace. It is free or it is not grace. Yet the grace of God that brings His elect safely into eternal rest is not merely some persuasive power that may or may not accomplish the ends for which God intends it. Grace is no servant of man, dependent upon the creature for its success. No, saving grace is God’s own power. Saved, and kept, by grace. That is the Christian’s hope.” –James R. White

“Arminians teach that God sends his grace to “persuade” men to believe, but they deny that God can actually raise a man to spiritual life without his assistance and agreement. They deny that there is an elect people, based solely on the choice of God, to whom God will infallibly apply the benefits of Christ’s atonement. Grace is limited to being effective on the “willing,” i.e., it is submitted to the power and will of man and his decisions. It becomes a mere “wooing” force. The Reformed Christian who has sought to share the gospel of grace with Roman Catholics recognizes that this is the same view of grace found in the Roman communion, and it is deeply troubling to find it expressed within what is called Protestantism.” –James R. White

“The question is, Who, ultimately, is responsible for my union with Jesus Christ? God is both the one who is the origin and source of salvation in general, and the one who powerfully, purposefully, and perfectly draws His elect people into blessed union with Jesus Christ.” –James R. White

 

The Quotable Round-Up #88

Howdy! It’s a great day to sit down, chill and sip your favorite drink! And while at it, add some awesomeness in your day by reading our latest collection of quotes.  This time we are featuring fresh quotes from the book “Know the Creeds and Councils” by Justin Holcomb. And if you got stoked with these quotes, please get the book at your nearest Christian bookstore or on Amazon.

“We are born in sin. We are naturally enemies of God and lovers of evil. We needed to be made alive (regenerated) so that we could even have faith in Christ. All of this is grace that we don’t deserve. Because we didn’t earn or attain this grace, we cannot lose it. God graciously preserves us and keeps us. When we are faithless toward him, he is still faithful.”

“We can stand before God only by his grace as he mercifully attributes to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ and attributes to him the consequences of our sins, which were judged on the cross. Declaring sinners righteous based on the work of Christ is called the doctrine of “imputed righteousness” — God declares a believer to be good, and even though the believer is not good in reality, this declaration is all that matters.”

“In Augustine’s scheme, grace is not a divine nudge but a power that frees people to love God for who he really is. It is this God-empowered love that destroys the rule of sin and bestows the ability to choose to sin or to choose not to sin (posse non peccare — “able not to sin”). However, until this grace is given, people cannot choose goodness. Though we might be in the grip of an evil power that we do not understand, we are still responsible for spending our time and energy on the things that we do wrong.”

“The Christian faith is not only a matter of the heart, an exercise in sentimentality, for “Christian faith is a matter of the mind as well as the heart and the will, and as thinking persons we must give intellectual expression to our faith.” Still it does not demand blind acceptance to empty propositions. It is concerned with the direction of our souls.”

“The Definition of Chalcedon described Christ’s descent as a true incarnation of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, while denying that a man was converted into God or that God was converted into a man. There was no confusion or absorption between the divine nature and the human nature of Christ; the two remained distinct. Similarly, the incarnation was not merely a divine indwelling of a human nor a connection between two persons. Instead, Chalcedon asserted that there was a real union between the divine and human natures that existed in one personal life: the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who was the eternal Logos.”

“If Christianity had agreed with Arius that Jesus could be a lesser god — if it had failed to defend monotheism, if it had fallen into the trench of professing three unrelated deities — it may have dissolved into the religion of Rome and its pantheons of false gods. If the early Christians had lost their nerve and conceded the “lesser divinity” of Jesus, whatever that might mean, then the work of God in Christ for our salvation would have been rendered meaningless. No mere man, nor half god, could possibly intervene to save fallen and sinful humanity, let alone restore all of creation. Only the Creator can enter creation to fix its brokenness and redeem its original, latent purpose.”

“The Nicene Creed is perhaps the most famous and influential creed in the history of the church, because it settled the question of how Christians can worship one God and also claim that this God is three persons. It was the first creed to obtain universal authority in the church, and it improved the language of the Apostles’ Creed by including more specific statements about the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit.”

The Quotable Round-Up #87

Howdy! It’s a great day to sit down, chill and sip your favorite drink! And while at it, add some awesomeness in your day by reading our latest collection of quotes.  This time we are featuring fresh quotes from the book “The Potter’s Freedom” by James R. White. And if you got stoked with these quotes, please get the book at Calvary Press or on Amazon.

“The religions of men, Roman Catholicism, and Arminianism, all share one thing in common: the deep desire to maintain the ability of man to control the work of God in salvation and always have the “final say.” The blunt assertion of Christ refutes this error. The fact is, outside of the divine action of drawing the elect to Christ none would come to Him. It is beyond the capacity of the fallen man.”

“All men would be left in the hopeless position of “unable to come” unless God acts, and He does by drawing men unto Christ. Outside of this divine enablement no man can come to Christ. No man can “will” to come to Christ outside of this divine drawing.”

“Why is one man raised to eternal life and another left to eternal destruction? The Scriptures offer an answer that is satisfying to the believer, but insufficient for the person unwilling to trust in God’s goodness. What is the basis of God’s act of predestination? It is “according to the kind intention of His will.” Each word is important. It is His will, not our will. And remember, this is speaking not of some general plan to “save” so that it is God who “initiates” but man who actuates. This is the specific predestination of individuals to sonship. The basis of this specific decree is God’s will. No mention is found of man’s will.”

“Synergism is the hallmark of man’s religions: monergism the mark of the biblical gospel.”

“When the Scriptures say that men are spiritually dead, we are not to understand this to mean that they are spiritually inactive. Men are active in their rebellion, active in their suppression of the truth, active in their sin. Instead, spiritual death refers to alienation from God, the destruction of the positive, active desire to do what is right in God’s sight, and most importantly, the ability to do what is good and holy.”

“Reformed theologians insist that for one to be free as a creature then one must have first and foremost a sovereign Creator. God is the free and sovereign Creator and acts freely in that realm that is His: we are mere creatures, never sovereign, never autonomous (i.e., without law, without a superior authority), but responsible within the realm of our createdness.”

“The Christian heart is glad to confess, “Salvation is of the Lord.” All of it. In completeness. In perfection. The God who decrees all things saves perfectly. Salvation is a divine act, a divine work. It is centered upon God, not upon man. It is God’s glory, not man’s, that is at stake. The God-centeredness of the gospel is what makes the biblical teaching so fundamentally different than all the religions of men.”

The Quotable Round-Up #86

Howdy! It’s a great day to sit down, chill and sip your favorite drink! And while at it, add some awesomeness in your day by reading our latest collection of quotes.  This time we are featuring fresh quotes from the book “Good News: The Gospel of Jesus Christ” by John F. MacArthur Jr. And if you got stoked with these quotes, please get the book at your nearest Christian bookstore or on Amazon.

“The message of the gospel is the message of reconciliation. The alienated sinner can be reconciled to God. That’s what we pray for, it’s what we teach, and it’s why we live. Some even die for it. It is the unparalleled message of reconciliation with God through the work of Christ. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation.”

“The only reason God has kept us in the world is for the work of evangelism. Yes, we’re saved to worship, but God tolerates our imperfect worship on this side of eternity for the sake of adding to His kingdom. We’re also saved to be sanctified, but God tolerates our inadequate, incomplete sanctification to keep us here to evangelize. He endures all our consistent errors and failures because He has work for us here that we cannot accomplish in heaven.”

“The notion that God is a loving and compassionate Savior contradicts the core doctrines of the world’s religions. If you study the history of religion, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a savior god among them. When men and demons design gods, that’s simply not how they design them. Demonic religious systems don’t concoct deities anything like the God of the Bible. Instead, they generally range from indifferent to severely hostile.”

“We need to understand that reconciliation does not start with the sinner, or some cosmic cry that God responds to. We don’t have to ask God to accept the sinner—we don’t have to coax Him into it through pressure or praise. He is not reluctant to save. Reconciliation begins with God—it’s woven into His glorious nature.”

“We don’t sit in judgment of God’s judgment. The question is not, why did God send bears out of the woods to destroy a group of boys who yelled “bald head” at a prophet (2 Kings 2:23–24)? The question is not, why did the ground open up and swallow people whole for violating Old Testament law (Num. 16)? The question is not, why did God displace and destroy the idolatrous Canaanites? The question is not, why did God destroy the globe and preserve only Noah and his family? Those questions are easy to answer: the wages of sin—no matter how great or small the sin might seem to us—is always death (Rom. 6:23).”

“True reconciliation requires God’s forgiveness. The only way reconciliation can occur is if the offended party is willing to forgive and remove the barrier sin creates. The sinner cannot reconcile himself to God. Only the Lord can effect reconciliation by choosing not to count our trespasses against us.”

“We ought to cling to the vital doctrine of God’s sovereignty. But don’t ever let your view of sovereignty overwhelm or obscure the fact that sinners have a responsibility to respond to God—and we have a responsibility to beg them to do so. God accomplishes His reconciling work through—not in spite of—the obedience of faith from those He calls to be reconciled.”

 

The Quotable Round-Up #69

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Hey people here’s your favorite post. Hot and fresh quotes from the book “Long Before Luther” by Nathan Busenitz . If you enjoyed these quotes, please buy the book at your nearest Christian bookstore or on Amazon. Feel free to share this post over your social media. God bless you and enjoy your week!

“The church fathers speak of the sinner’s need for a righteousness that cannot be found in either his own merits or the law. Speaking of the unattainable standard of God’s perfect righteousness, Origen explains that to be justified before people is different from being justified before God. “In comparison with other people,” he writes, “one person can be deemed just if he has lived relatively free from faults; but in comparison with God, not only is a person not justified, but even as Job says, ‘But the stars are not pure before him.’” Origen explains that while we may seem pure in comparison to other people, and vice versa, we can never be pure in comparison to God, who is perfectly pure.”

“The forensic nature of justification in the patristic literature can be seen in at least two ways: through the use of law court terminology and through the contrast drawn between justification and condemnation.”

“The Reformers recognized that Jesus did not actually become a sinner on the cross; yet God punished Him as if He were a sinner so that, in Christ, believers might be treated as if they were righteous. The sins of believers were imputed to Christ at the cross so that, because He bore the punishment for those sins, His righteousness might be imputed to those who believe in Him.”

“The Reformers taught that justification occurs at the moment of salvation, which means the believer is immediately declared righteous and restored to God’s favor. Sanctification, by contrast, takes place progressively over a believer’s entire life, and results in his or her growth in personal holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit. The regenerated heart, having received new life in Christ, is able to respond in obedience. to God and grow in godliness.”

“When justification and sanctification are confused, the inevitable conclusion is that the believer’s personal holiness contributes, at least in part, to his or her right standing before God. This legalistic notion was something the Reformers passionately sought to guard against.”

“Melanchthon and Calvin give us two clear examples of a Reformation understanding of the forensic nature of justification. In the court of heaven, sinners are guilty and worthy of condemnation. Even their self-righteous works are like filthy rags in the sight of a holy God (see Isa. 64:6). Yet by grace through faith in Christ, sinners are pardoned by the heavenly Judge and declared to be righteous. Being justified, therefore, means to be acquitted of sin and accepted by God as if we were righteous, because we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ.”

“Most Roman Catholics viewed justification as a formative process that involved sinners being “made righteous” over the course of their entire lives. Consequently, in the Roman Catholic view, believers contributed to their justification through the acts of penance and good works they performed. The Reformers rejected that notion, arguing instead that justification is an immediate change in the sinner’s status before God, to which believers contribute nothing. It is entirely a work of God.”

The Quotable Round-Up #68

Photo by Nonsap Visuals on Unsplash

On this edition of “The Quotable Round-Up”, we commemorate the 500th year of the Reformation. The following quotes are from the book “A Little Book on the Reformation” by Nathan Busenitz. What’s cool is that you can get the book for free just by following this link: https://www.tms.edu/reformation-ebook-giveaway/. But before you download the book, enjoy some snippets from the book:

“Fueled by their study of the Bible, the Reformers proclaimed the truth that salvation is not based on good works. Rather, it is the free gift of God, given to undeserving sinners by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola de), on the basis of the nished work of Christ alone (solus Christus). Recognizing that believers can take no credit for their salvation, the Reformers responded to the wonder of redemption by giv ing God all of the glory. Soli Deo gloria summarizes the triumphant cry of sinners who recognize they are saved solely by grace.”

“The Reformers contended that, because Christ is the Head of the church, His Word is the final authority for the church. Papal decrees and church traditions must be subjected to the authority of Scripture alone (sola Scriptura), not the other way around. is commitment to biblical authority led the Reformers to boldly denounce the works-based sacra mental system of medieval Catholicism, recognizing that the true gospel ran contrary to the so-called gospel of the Roman church.”

“Why did Catholic authorities at the Council of Constance condemn John Huss as a heretic? Why did they deem him worthy of death? e answer to those questions revolves around the issue of authority. Based on his study of Scripture, Huss boldly proclaimed that Christ alone is the head of the church, not the pope.”

“It was ignorance of Scripture that made the Reformation necessary. It was the recovery of Scripture that made the Reformation possible. And it was the power of the Scripture that gave the Reformation its enduring impact, as the Holy Spirit brought the truth of His Word to bear on the hearts and minds of individual sinners, transforming them, regenerating them, and giving them eternal life.”

“Tyndale lived at a time when those who dared to translate the Word of God, and thereby unchain it from its Latin coffin, faced the possibility of being burned alive. But the seeds of Protestantism, im planted in English soil a century-and-a-half earlier by John Wycliffe, had come to sprout green shoots that gave fruit in the form of Tyndale’s Bible. For his efforts, the gifted linguist would suffer greatly for the sake of Christ, being thrown into a dungeon and put on trial for his life.”

“There is no part of our life, and no action so minute, that it ought not to be directed to the glory of God.” Those words, penned by John Calvin in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, aptly summarize the life and ministry of this notable Reformer. For Calvin, soli Deo gloria was more than a slogan. It was the primary goal of his life.”