Marilyn and I are attending the Desiring God Conference.

We are having a great time at the conference. The speakers are great. We had a humorous interaction. We sat down during a break to drink coffee at the Conference bookstore. Marilyn said, "Bibles are cheap here. I bought a lighter bible for $6 to carry around."
I replied, "Cool, I did too, an ESV for $5! Can I see your new bible?" Marilyn handed me her new bible. I said, "Oh, I didn't know you wanted an HCBS version."
Marilyn replied, "I thought that was a publisher."
I said encouragingly, "It is both. It is a really good translation. I just talked to the guy at their booth."
Marilyn said, "I wanted an ESV." After few minutes she got up quietly, and walked away without saying anything.
After I finished my coffee, I looked for her and then decided to go into the next session. We agreed where to meet earlier. Marilyn came in a few minutes later. She said smiling, "I got a nice ESV for $8."
I queried, "Did you exchange the HCBS?"
She said, "No. Happy Birthday!" She smiled and handed me the HCBS bible.
I just said cool and eagerly opened my new HCBS bible.

Chesterton on Art, Work and Play.

I like collecting quotes about the theology of work. I came across this quote on a Facebook post from the G. K. Chesterton society. As usual, Chesterton writes profoundly with a unique view point. I extended the Facebook quote. They took out the reference to God for some reason. However, the whole paragraph makes much more sense when one puts God into the picture.

God is that which can make something out of nothing. Man (it may be truly be said) is that which can make something out of anything. In other words, while the joy of God be unlimited creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the combination of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, therefore, is to possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet on an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But hacking a sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious business, and making a hero out of an envelope is almost out of the sphere of practical politics. This fruitful strife with limitations, when it concerns some airy entertainment of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions—the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The average man cannot paint the sunset whose colors be admires; but he can paint his own house with what color he chooses, and though he paints it pea green with pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small. G.K. Chesterton: The Enemies of Property (What's Wrong with the World).

Jonathan Edwards on the Disposition of a Minister/Pastor

In his sermon, Charity Contrary to a Selfish Spirit: 1 Corinthians 13:5, Edwards explains how a minister of the gospel that is controlled by Christian love should be disposed to their flock.

A Christian spirit will dispose ministers not to seek their own, not merely to seek a maintenance, aiming to get whatever they can out of their people to enrich themselves and their families, and to clothe themselves with the fleeces of their flock. But a Christian spirit will dispose them mainly to seek the good of their flock, to feed their souls as a good shepherd feeds his flock, and carefully watches over it, to lead it to good pasture, and defend it from wolves and other beasts of prey. (p. 170, Charity and its Fruits).

Compare this attitude to the attitude of TV Preachers.

C. S. Lewis on The Resurrection

In his book, "Miracles", C. S. Lewis makes the following assertion.

The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reports in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences were the "gospel" or good news which the Christian brought: what we call the 'gospels,' the narratives of Our Lord's life and death, were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracles of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it. Nothing could be more unhistorical than to pick out selected sayings of Christ from the gospels and to regard those as the datum and the rest of the New Testament as a construction upon it. The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection. (C.S. Lewis, Miracles. pgs. 143,144).

In the first sermon in Acts, Peter focused on the resurrection.

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. (Acts 2:29-32 ESV)

Paul preached the resurrection so often, his hearers sometimes thought he was talking about two deities:

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection." (Acts 17:17-18 ESV)

Later in Acts 17, as Paul preached, We see some of the philosophers of Athens, like the liberal Christians today, reject the resurrection,
"Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this." (Acts 17:32)

I wrote once on an old website that no one preaches the Resurrection anymore. One person responded that there is nothing about the resurrection to preach. However Paul celebrates the resurrection,

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:19-21 ESV)

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11 ESV)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.(Romans 6:4-5 ESV)

For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God. (2 Corinthians 13:4 ESV)

Understanding the power of the resurrection is key to living a resurrected life.

B. B. Warfield's Defines Vocation

BB Warfield in his great sermon “The Religious Life of Theological Students” defines the doctrine of vocation as the following:

`Vocation'—it is the call of God, addressed to every man, whoever he may be, to lay upon him a particular work, no matter what. And the calls, and therefore also the called, stand on a complete equality with one another. The burgomaster is God's burgomaster; the physician is God's physician; the merchant is God's merchant; the laborer is God's laborer. Every vocation, liberal, as we call it, or manual, the humblest and the vilest in appearance as truly as the noblest and the most glorious, is of divine right." Talk of the divine right of kings! Here is the divine right of every workman, no one of whom needs to be ashamed, if only he is an honest and good workman. "Only laziness," adds Professor Doumergue, "is ignoble, and while Romanism multiplies its mendicant orders, the Reformation banishes the idle from its towns."

Mark 6:48c: He meant to pass by them...

Grudem in the study notes for the ESV Study Bible comments on that strange phrase in Mark 6, "He meant to pass by them."

Mark 6:48 The fourth watch is the time between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. The Sea of Galilee is 696 feet (212 m) below sea level, resulting in violent downdrafts and sudden windstorms (cf. 4:37). Jesus sees their need and walks on water toward them (see Job 9:8; Ps. 77:20; Isa. 43:16). He meant to pass by them, not so that they would fail to see him (in which case he would have stayed farther away from them), but so that they would see him “pass by” (Gk. parerchomai), walking on the water, thus giving visible evidence of his deity (and thus answering the question they asked after he stilled the sea in Mark 4:41: “Who then is this … ?”). The passage echoes the incident where God “passed” before Moses (the same verb, parerchomai, occurs in the Septuagint of Ex. 33:19, 22; 34:6), giving a glimpse of his glory. But it also echoes Job 9, where Job says that it is God who “trampled the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8; the Septuagint has peripatōn … epi thalassēs, “walking on the sea,” using the same words as Mark 6:48, peripatōn epi tēs thalassēs) and then also says, “he passes by me” (Job 9:11, Gk. parerchomai). There is an implicit claim to divinity in Jesus’ actions.

Mark seems to use the same phrasing in Mark 6 as the Septuagint does for several passages identifying God in the Old Testament. God is pleased to give us short glimpses of his glory as He passes by. He does this to encourage us in our struggles as He did for the disciples as they struggled against the waves.