Archive for October 2022
The Beginnings
By Robert Louis Stevenson. Hat tip: Steven Wolfe
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.They were not easily moved,
They were icy willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
Metábasis eis állo génos (3-25)
The future turns into the past. But also the past turns into the future.
The word ekklesia appears in the gospels. Fortunately Jesus spends a great deal of time defining this surprising new word for his puzzled disciples. This is how we learn that the church is a new kind of noncorporeal body (TM), whose primary nature is invisible rather than visible, and which excludes children from membership. The word covenant isn’t entirely new to the disciples, however. Jeremiah first introduces us to it: “This is the covenant that I will make with some of the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my grace in some of their minds, and write it on some of their hearts; and I will be the God of some of them, and some of them shall be my people. . . Some of them shall know me, from the middlest of them to the greatest of them.”
Joseph understands Girard and Friedman. Families and churches must guard against quarrels even during the best of times:
So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.” (Genesis 45:24, NKJV)
Kuyper’s got it all: Christian individuals, Christian families, Christian businesses, Christian art and music, Christian localism, Christian nationalism, even Christian cosmos. So: baptize your babies, sing Psalms against tyrants, and raise a glass to the king of kings!
Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. (Numbers 18, NKJV)
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14, NKJV)
Thus, paedocommunion! Thanks to Michael Burdge for this connection.
I gotta have my orange juice. 