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Recent Posts
God? Who Needs Him?May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.
It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.
Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Guys, A Potential Wife Is Watching
January 16, 2009
Remember how we used to ask that question, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you. In the case of John Paton's father James, his devotional life caught the attention of his eventual wife Mary.
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. Malachi 2:15
In the early part of the 19th Century in Scotland, young Mary Rogerson was a "bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling and altogether heroic little woman." So says her missionary son John Paton in the story of his time in the New Hebrides.
"For 43 years, she made and kept such a wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory."
"She had gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt, familiarly refered to by all their neighbors as "Old Adam and Eve."
"Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from the "Brig End, "James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation."
"It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's GOSPEL SONNETS, which he could say by heart 60 years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiousity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God."
What a way to fall in love! Of course, they eventually married. And that marriage union produced in their oldest child John a man who stood tall under the most extreme of circumstances. Under constant threat of death, he persevered, until eventually a cannibalistic island in the South Pacific was converted to the One True God, being transformed from darkness into light.
Godly offspring indeed.
In the early part of the 19th Century in Scotland, young Mary Rogerson was a "bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling and altogether heroic little woman." So says her missionary son John Paton in the story of his time in the New Hebrides.
"For 43 years, she made and kept such a wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory."
"She had gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt, familiarly refered to by all their neighbors as "Old Adam and Eve."
"Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from the "Brig End, "James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation."
"It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's GOSPEL SONNETS, which he could say by heart 60 years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiousity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God."
What a way to fall in love! Of course, they eventually married. And that marriage union produced in their oldest child John a man who stood tall under the most extreme of circumstances. Under constant threat of death, he persevered, until eventually a cannibalistic island in the South Pacific was converted to the One True God, being transformed from darkness into light.
Godly offspring indeed.
Newton On Catching A Good Wife
July 7, 2008
A wife of noble character, who can find? Proverbs 31:10
On "Catching" a Good Wife
Sound advice from John Newton
John Newton, in a letter dated July 15, 1777, refers to a common friend who he says "is in town, very busy about that precious piece of furniture called a wife." And since he's on the topic of marriage, Newton muses about the most important decision of who to marry.
"In Captain Cook's voyage to the South Sea, some fish were caught which looked as well as others, but those who ate of them were poisoned; alas; for the poor man who catches a poisonous wife! There are such to be met with in the matrimonial seas who look passing well to the eye, but a connection with them proves baneful to domestic peace and hurtful to the life of grace. i know two or three people, perhaps a few more, who have great reason to be thankful to Him who sent the fish with the money in its mouth to Peter's hook. He secretly instructed and guided us where to angle; and if we have caught prizes, we owe it not to our own skill, much less to our deserts, but to His goodness."
Sound advice from John Newton
John Newton, in a letter dated July 15, 1777, refers to a common friend who he says "is in town, very busy about that precious piece of furniture called a wife." And since he's on the topic of marriage, Newton muses about the most important decision of who to marry.
"In Captain Cook's voyage to the South Sea, some fish were caught which looked as well as others, but those who ate of them were poisoned; alas; for the poor man who catches a poisonous wife! There are such to be met with in the matrimonial seas who look passing well to the eye, but a connection with them proves baneful to domestic peace and hurtful to the life of grace. i know two or three people, perhaps a few more, who have great reason to be thankful to Him who sent the fish with the money in its mouth to Peter's hook. He secretly instructed and guided us where to angle; and if we have caught prizes, we owe it not to our own skill, much less to our deserts, but to His goodness."
