Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Sin, Death, Destruction

"No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself-I thought my scheme was good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner, it came as a thief-Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, peace and safety, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me."

Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God

Sin

"Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable."

Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God

Pleasure of God

"There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Core Ideology

" During our interview with Bill Hewlett, we asked him what he was most proud of in his long career. "As I look back on my life's work," he said, "I'm probably most proud of having helped create a company that by virtue of its values, practices, and success has had a tremendous impact on the way companies are managed around the world." The "HP Way," as it became known, reflected a deeply held set of core values that distinguished the company more than any of its products. These values included technical contribution, respect for the individual, responsibility to the communities in which the companies operates, and a deeply held belief that profit is not the fundamental goal of a company."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 193

Perserverence

"When teaching this point, I sometimes use an example from outside my research that perfectly illustrates the idea: The UCLA Bruins basketball dynasty of the 1960s and early 1970s. Most basketball fans know that the Bruins won ten NCAA Championships in twelve years, at one point assembling a sixty-one-game winning streak, under the legendary coach John Wooden.
But do you know how many years Wooden coached the Bruins before his first NCAA Championship? Fifteen. From 1948 to 1963, Wooden worked in relative obscurity before winning his first championship in 1964. Year by year, Coach Wooden built the underlying foundations, developing a recruiting system, implementing a consistent philosophy, and refining the full-court-press style of play. NO one paid too much attention to the quiet, soft-spoken coach and his team until-wham!-they hit breakthrough and systematically crushed every serious competitor for more than a decade."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 171-172

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Perserverence

"'When... Kimberly-Clark decided to go head to head against P&G...this magazine predicted disaster. What a dumb idea. As it turns out, it wasn't a dumb idea. It was a smart idea.' The amount of time between the two Forbes articles? Twenty-one Years."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 169

Perserverence

Ken Iverson and Sam Siegel began turning the Nucor flywheel in 1965. For ten years, no one paid any attention, certainly not the financial press or the other steel companies. If you had asked executives at Bethlehem Steel or U.S. Steel about "The Nucor Threat" in 1970, they would have laughed, if they even recognized the company name at all (which is doubtful). By 1975, the year of its transition point on the stock chart, Nucor had already built its third mini-mill, long established its unique culture of productivity, and was well on its way to becoming the most profitable steel company in America. Yet the first major article in Business Week did not appear until 1978, thirteen years after the start of the transition, and not in Fortune until sixteen years out. From 1965 through 1975, we found only eleven articles on Nucor, none of them significant. Then from 1976 through 1995, we collected ninety-six articles on Nucor, forty of them being major profiles or nationally prominent features."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 167

Fear

"Those who built the good-to-great companies weren't motivated by fear. They weren't driven by fear of what they didn't understand. They weren't driven by fear of looking like a chump. They weren't driven by fear of watching others hit big while they didn't. They weren't driven by the fear of being hammered by the competition."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 160

Change & Technology

"Which brings me to the second incident. Taking a short break from the rigors of writing this book, I traveled to Minnesota to each sessions at the Masters Forum. The Masters Forum has held executive seminars for nearly fifteen years, and I was curious to know which themes appeared repeatedly over those years. "One of the consistent themes," said Him Ericson and Patty Griffin Jensen, program directors, "is technology, change - and the connection between the two."
"Why do you suppose that is?" I asked.
"People don't know what they don't know," they said. "And they're always afraid that some new technology is going to sneak up on them from behind and knock them on the head. They don't understand technology, and may fear it. All they know for sure is that technology is an important force of change, and that they'd better pay attention to it.""

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 154-155

Science & Technology

"In explaining their selection, Time editors wrote: "It's hard to compare the influence of statesmen with that of scientists. Nevertheless, we can note that there are certain eras that were most defined by their politics, others by their culture, and others by their scientific advances.... So, how will the 20th century be remembered? Yes, for democracy. And, yes, for civil rights. But the 20th century will be most remembered for its earthshaking advances in science and technology...[which]... advanced the cause of freedom, in some ways more than any statesman did. In a century that will be remembered foremost for its science and technology... one person stands out as the paramount icon for our age... Albert Einstein."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 154

Discipline

"A culture of discipline is not just about action. It is about getting disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who then take disciplined action."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 142

Dicipline

"Sustained great results depend upon building a culture full of self-disciplined people who take disciplined action, fanatically consistent with three circles."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 142

Discipline

"Whereas the good-to-great companies had Level 5 leaders who built an enduring culture of discipline, the unsustained comparisons had Level 4 leaders who personally disciplined the organization through sheer force."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 130

Stockdale Paradox

"Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 88

Calvin's Eschatology

"Torrance also maintains that Calvin's eschatology is closely tied in with his teaching on the union of the church with Christ, so that what happens to the Head happens also to the members: 'Or, to put it otherwise, eschatology is the doctrine of the Spirit and all that union with Christ through the Spirit involves.'"

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 297

Eschatology- The early church

"The evangelist [John], therefore, is deliberately subordinating the 'futurist' element in the eschatology of the early church to the 'realized eschatology' which, as I have tried to show, was from the first the distinctive and controlling factor in the Kerugma. His theme is life eternal, that is to say, in eschatological language, the life of the Age to Come, but life eternal as realized here and now through the presence of Christ by His Spirit in the Church."

Dodd, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 294 (appendix)

THe New Earth

"At the beginning of history God created the heavens and the earth. At the end of history we see the new heavens and the new earth, which will far surpass in splendor all that we have seen before. At the center of history is the Lamb that was slain, the first born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Some day we shall cast all our crowns before him, "lost in wonder, love, praise.""

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 287

New Earth

"If an endless field of human knowledge and of human ability is now being formed by all that takes place in order to make the visible world and material nature subject to us, and if we know that this dominion of ours over nature will be complete in eternity, we may conclude that the knowledge and dominion we have gained over nature here can and will be of continued significance, even in the kingdom of glory."

Abraham Kuyper, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 286

New Earth

" The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears and everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home."

Edward Thurneysen, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 281

The New Earth

"The work of Christ, therefore, is not just to save certain individuals, not even to save an innumerable throng of blood-bought people. The total work of Christ is nothing less than to redeem this entire creation from the effects of sin. That purpose will not be accomplished until God has ushered in the new earth, until Paradise Lost has become Paradise Regained. We need a clear understanding of the doctrine of the new earth, therefore, in order to see God's redemptive program in cosmic dimensions. We need to realize that God will not be satisfied until the entire universe has been purged of all the results of man's Fall."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 275 

Hell- Eternal Suffering

" The point of the figures, however, is that the inner anguish and torment symbolized by the worm will never end, and that the outer suffering symbolized by the fire will never cease."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 268

Service of Christ

"Here and now the man who gives himself wholeheartedly to the service of Christ knows more of the joy of the Lord than the half-hearted. We have no warrant from the New Testament for thinking that it will be otherwise in Heaven."

Leon Morris, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 264

Faith Evidenced

"It is... faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone."

-John Calvin, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 261

Future Judgement

"What is very clear, therefore, is that men will be judged on the basis of the light they had, and not on the basis of a revelation they did not receive. Those who had many privileges will have the greater responsibility; those who had fewer privileges will have less responsibility. There will therefore be "gradations" in the sufferings of the lost. Jesus indicates this in Luke 12:47-48."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 260

Judgement- Believers (2)

"All his enemies and mine
 he will condemn to everlasting punishment:
 but me and all his chosen ones 
 he will take along with him
 into the joy and the glory of heaven."

Heidelberg Catechism, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 258

Judgement- Believers

" In all my distress and persecution 
   I turn my eyes to the heavens
   and confidently await as judge the very One
   who has already stood trial in my place before God
   and so has removed the whole curse from me."


Heidelberg Catechism, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 257

Millennial Views- Revelation 20:4-6

"The anomaly confronting us here is that one can read the whole Bible without discovering an inkling of this doctrine [the doctrine of two resurrections separated by a thousand years] until he arrives at its third from the last chapter. If, on coming to that chapter, he shall give a literal interpretation to one sentence of a highly symbolical passage, he will then find it necessary to retrace his steps and interpret all the eschatological teachings of the Bible in a manner agreeable to this one sentence. The recognized rule of exegesis is to interpret an obscure passage of Scripture in the light of a clear statement. In this case, clear statements are being interpreted to agree with the literal interpretation of one sentence from a context replete with symbolism, the true meaning of which is highly debatable."


George L. Murray, The Bible & The Future -- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 242

Man of Lawlessness

" ... This man is not merely a pre-eminently godless individual, but... in him the humanity hostile to God comes to a definitive, eschatological revelation.... The figure of the 'man of lawlessness' is clearly intended as the final, eschatological counterpart of the man Jesus Christ, who was sent by God to overthrow the works of Satan."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 160

Parousia is impending

" Live as though Christ died yesterday, arose this morning, and is coming again tomorrow."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 136

John & The second coming

"If believers like John the Baptist could have problems of this sort with predictions about Christ's first coming, what guarantee do we have that believers will not have similar difficulties with predictions about Christ's second coming? We are confident that all predictions about Christ's return and the end of the world will be fulfilled, but we do not know exactly how they will be fulfilled."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 133

Christ as King

"First Advent of Christ, no one knew exactly how these prophecies would be fulfilled until Christ had actually come: "Christ was indeed a king, but no such king as the world had ever seen, and such as no man expected; He was a priest, but the only priest that ever lived of whose priesthood He was Himself the victim; He did establish a kingdom, but it was not of this world."

Hodge, The Bible & The Future-- Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 132

Certain Types of Dispensationalism

"The first point to be considered [in the interpretation of prophecy] is the true design of prophesy, and how that design is to be ascertained. Prophecy is very different from history. It is not intended to give us a knowledge of the future analogous that that which history gives us of the past."

Charles Hodge, The Bible & The Future--Anthony A. Hoekema, Pg. 132

Eschatology- Being Ready

"The word translated 'watch' in these several verses [verses like those just quoted] does not mean 'to look for' but 'to be awake'. It does not denote an intellectual attitude but a moral quality of spiritual readiness for the Lord's return. 'You must also be ready' (Luke 12:40). The uncertainty as to the time of the parousia means that men must be spiritually awake and ready to meet the Lord whenever he comes."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 121

A Christian Death

"Our present life is actually a being away from the Lord, a kind of pilgrimage. Death for the Christian, however, is a homecoming. It is the end of his pilgrimage; it is his return to his true home."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible & The Future, Pg. 108

Friday, October 24, 2008

Faith

"Author of Da Vinci Code:

Are you a Christian?

Yes. Interestingly, if you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as absolute historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the points where we entiresly miss the obvious--that is, that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and we're each following our own paths of enlightenment. I consider myself a student of many religions. The more I learn, the more questions I have. For me, the spiritual quest will be a life-long work in progress."

Repentance in the Church

"I firmly believe that the church of God will have to confess her own sins, before there can be any great work of grace. There must be a deeper work amond God's believing people. I sometimes think it is about time to give up preaching to the ungodly, and preach to those who confess to be Christians. If we had a higher standard of life in teh Church of God, there would be thousands more flocking into the Kingdom. So it was in the past; when God's believing children turned away from their sins and thier idols, the fear of God fell upon the people round about. Take up the history of Israel, and you will find that when they put away their strange gods, God visited the nation, and there came a mighty work of grace... The judgement of God must begin with us.

If... confession of sin is deep among believers, it will be so among the ungodly also. I never knew it to fail. I am now anxious that God should revive His work in the hearts of His children, so that we may see the exceeding sinfulness of sin."

- Dwight L Moody (Repentance Begins in the Church)

Contemporary Pentecost

"What I hear from people today is an agnosticism about the Holy Spirit. Not disbelief, but an aching, 'I just don't know' - and a longing to understand who He is and how to live in the flow of His power... The greatest longing in the church today, stated both directly and indirectly, is teh quest for soemthing more than dull religion. People are in need of the intimacy, inspiration, and impelling power of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to live the Christian life without the indwelling Spirit... The greatest need in the church today is for contemporary Pentacost."


- Lloyd Ogilvie

Politics

"... Theological conservatives have tended to respond to the demans of politics in one of two ways. At worst, they have shunned politics as a dirty, worldly, and humanistic endeavor alien to the concerns of the gospel. At best, they have regarded politics as a legitimate enterprise only when placing it at a level of secondary importance to the "church's primary task of preaching the gospel." What both groups of conservatives have failed to see is that the gospel itself is, among other things, a gospel of political redemption. Conservatives have so often spiritualized the gospel as to be guilty of practicing a modern form of Gnosticism-surely a heresy no worse than the humanism of the theological liberals. Theological conservatives must recognize that political concers are not simply incidental to the message of the gospel, but integral to the very meaning of the gospel itself.

Conservatives have virtually immunized themselves from recognizing the political dimensions of the gospel. They are almost blind to the fact that the birth, life, and death of the Messiah were interpreted among his contemporaries in political terms. Conservatives have emphasized the priestly function of the incarnation at the expense of the prophetic and kingly functions which were all to be united in the Messiah."

Paul B. Henry (Son of theologian Carl F.H. Henry)

Ray Ortlund Jr. on the Importance of the Local Church

“. . . the church of the living God, the pillar and buttress of the truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15

The church is suffering massive loss of prestige in our time. This may be the most salient and abiding mark of our generation. Does it matter? Why fight to re-dignify the church? What is at stake here?

“The church of the living God." A church is where the idols of our culture can be clearly discredited and the living God rallied around, rejoiced in, worshiped, studied, loved and obeyed. If the church is dead, God’s own appointed testimony to his living reality powers down. The felt reality of God in the world today is at stake in our churches.

“The pillar and buttress of the truth.” A "pillar" holds something up high for all to see. In this world, the one truth that will not only outlast America but will outlast the universe needs to be put on clear display rather than submerged under all the stuff that’s demanding our attention week in and week out. A church can make the gospel obvious and accessible through preaching, teaching, memorizing, catechizing, blogging, etc.

A "buttress" firms something up, makes it strong. For many, the gospel does not feel strong. Other things hold them together. A church buttresses the gospel by showing that it really works. Not only does the gospel create the church, but a church also buttresses the gospel. The gospel starts feeling solid and believable and urgently needed as our greatest resource in all of life.

By divine appointment, the church makes the real God seem real, it shouts the truth loudly enough that busy people actually start paying attention, and it embodies living proof that the gospel is a saving power for real people living real lives today.

The church matters. Your church matters. God bless you this Sunday.

- Ray Ortlund Jr. (blog post)

The Hammer of the Gospel

"Beloved, if we want to have fruit in our ministry, if we want to see sinners
converted, we must preach up Christ’s death. As the blacksmith strikes the
hot iron upon the anvil, we must keep the hammer of the gospel at work
upon this great foundation truth, “Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures.” It is no talking to men upon other topics in the hope that it will
lead to their conversion. The great soul-quickening agency is “Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.” Whoever will come and trust in the God-appointed
Substitute for sinners shall be eternally saved, for life comes only through
his death. The salvation of sinners is not even by preaching the great and
glorious truth of Christ’s second Advent, nor by preaching about Christ’s
millennial and eternal glory, but by incessantly pointing to Christ lifted up
upon the cross. There is the grain of wheat that, put into the ground, brings
forth much fruit; and we must keep to that theme beyond all others."

- C.H. Spurgeon