All Things Supercinski

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” – Jesus as recorded in Matthew 5:13

“Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians. The twentieth-century temptations that really sap our spiritual power are the television, banana cream pie, the easy chair and the credit card. The Christian wins or loses in those seemingly innocent little moments of decision.” Ray Ortlund H/T

These are some links for October 27th.

• Touchstone Archives: Baby Pew Sitters -
  “Worship is not simply a rational, intellectual exercise appealing to the hearing and understanding of adults. Nor is it a postmodern, emotional, narrative experience that, well, also appeals to adults.It is an encounter with the Triune God, which does not depend upon our own mental faculties (or lack thereof) or upon our emotional backgrounds, baggage, or preferences. The Word of God works, despite our sin, despite our cognitive ability, despite our age and experience.”
• One-Issue Politics, One-Issue Marriage, and the Humane Society :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library -
  “No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.”
• Touchstone Archives: Tired of Life? -
  “There has been a steady campaign by some Christians who regard themselves as orthodox and conservative to persuade the rank and file of their Christian brothers and sisters to rethink their predictable support for political candidates who are pro-life. They bring other issues to the fore—war, torture, taxes, education, health care, and poverty—in an attempt to undermine the claim that conscientious Christians must always support pro-life candidates. They imply that such “single-issue” pro-life voting is unsophisticated, often in lockstep with the mostly uneducated “religious right,” and perhaps not even very moral in the long view.”
• The Corner on National Review Online -
  “The question is whether enough Americans understand what’s at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.”

From Andrew Sullivan @ The Atlantic Monthly (The Daily Dish)

(emphasis mine)

… the deeper reason to support Ron Paul is a simple one. The great forgotten principles of the current Republican party are freedom and toleration. Paul’s federalism, his deep suspicion of Washington power, his resistance to government spending, debt and inflation, his ability to grasp that not all human problems are soluble, least of all by government: these are principles that made me a conservative in the first place. No one in the current field articulates them as clearly and understands them as deeply as Paul. He is a man of faith who nonetheless sees a clear line between religion and politics. More than all this, he has somehow ignited a new movement of those who love freedom and want to rescue it from the do-gooding bromides of the left and the Christianist meddling of the right. The Paulites’ enthusiasm for liberty, their unapologetic defense of core conservative principles, their awareness that in the new millennium, these principles of small government, self-reliance, cultural pluralism, and a humble foreign policy are more necessary than ever – no lover of liberty can stand by and not join them.

He’s the real thing in a world of fakes and frauds. And in a primary campaign where the very future of conservatism is at stake, that cannot be ignored. In fact, it demands support.

Go Ron Paul!

Learn more about Ron Paul at www.ronpaul2008.com

Here’s just one glimpse:

Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna asks the age old question What’s for dinner? In our modern world, that question isn’t nearly as easy as it used to be. After reading this book, our thoughts about food and ‘food systems’ have been informed, challenged, and changed dramatically. In the next two weeks, we’ll be taking a glimpse into Read more »

Josiah loves to stand up. He would stand up all day if he could just get himself upright without our help. However, he also thinks it is great fun to fall backward. He likes to do trust-falls. We did not teach him this, he just does it all the time. A few times he has done it while looking at me, knowing that I am not behind him, he just falls backward. It’s not that he can’t stand or doesn’t want to, he just falls. Like this:

I find it amazing how much trust he has in us that we won’t let him fall, except the few times that I wasn’t there (after the second time, he doesn’t stand unless one of us is behind him.) Some might say that he needs to learn to fall, but I disagree. I think his trust in us catching him is a beautiful thing that I’ve been reflecting on all week. The Bible says that God loves me like a father loves his children. Josiah’s trust-falling into our arms is a wonderful picture of how much I can trust my heavenly father implicitly. I pray that I do.

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” –Matthew 7:9-11

In the post below, from last year, Jollyblogger (via challies.com) makes some important observations about Reformation Day.  It’s okay if you celebrate Halloween, but why not celebrate the Reformation all the more?
JOLLYBLOGGER: A Reformation Day Meditation

But even the vast majority of those from protestant traditions, who believe that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, have little, if any, appreciation for the Reformation. Here in America these same folks will celebrate national holidays like the 4th of July or Memorial Day or Veterans Day with the gusto they deserve while neglecting to remember the Reformation. This is a shame because the things that transpired at the time of the Reformation were world shaping events, whereas the national holidays that people from countries around the world usually have particular significance to particular nations and peoples. The Reformation has a significance that transcends national concerns.But more importantly, the Reformation has a spiritual significance which transcends these lesser matters of life, like the affairs of nations. This is because the Reformation marked the recovery of the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. It marked the recovery of the gospel. While it is true that these things are taught in the Scriptures and that no reformer or other human being should be given credit for the doctrines themselves, it is also true that these precious truths had been all but lost before the time of the Reformation. In His providence, God chose certain men at a certain time in history to recover the very gospel itself. It is this gospel by which we are saved. And we who confess the evangelical faith in our day are remiss in forgetting this important aspect of our history.

Touchstone Archives: Real Hard Cash

Perhaps if Christian churches modeled themselves more after Johnny Cash, and less after perky Christian celebrities such as Kathy Lee Gifford, we might find ourselves resonating more with the MTV generation. Maybe if we stopped trying to be “cool,â€? and stopped hiring youth ministers who are little more than goateed game-show hosts, we might find a way to connect with a generation that understands pain and death more than we think.

Perhaps if we paid more attention to the dark side of life, a dark side addressed in divine revelation, we might find ourselves appealing to men and women in black. We might connect with men and women who know what it’s like to feel like fugitives from justice, even if they’ve never been to jail. We might offer them an authentic warning about what will happen when the Man comes around.

What are your thoughts?

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By the way, since you couldn’t tell, this is the description for the Holy Word of God (NKJV) in the latest CBD Bible Catalog.

Ridiculous.

Al Mohler at Southern takes a look at trends in modern wedding vows, By Their Vows You Shall Know Them. We attended a wedding this past weekend in which the couple used the vows we wrote for our own ceremony, in fact, requesting them by our name. We were flattered, honored, and again challenged to depend on Him to help us keep them. Thanks Sander and Whitney. For the record, here are our vows.

I, Thomas, receive you Rachel as my wife
before God who brought us together.
Above all, I promise to follow our LORD, Jesus Christ.
I promise to be faithful to you and to never divorce you.
To honor you as a fellow heir of the grace of life
to love and cherish you
as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.
I promise to lead you as I am lead by the Holy Spirit,
to share all of life’s experiences with you
as we follow God through them
until He takes me home.
That by His grace
we may grow in the likeness of Christ
and that our family may please and glorify Him.

I, Rachel, receive you Thomas as my husband
before God who brought us together.
Above all, I promise to follow our LORD, Jesus Christ.
I promise to be faithful to you and to never divorce you.
To honor you as a fellow heir of the grace of life
I promise to submit to you as I submit to the LORD,
to share all of life’s experiences with you
as we follow God through them
until He takes me home.
That by His grace
we may grow in the likeness of Christ
and that our family may please and glorify Him.