In my usual, "too gung-ho for my own good", on top of everything else I've added my church's Friday morning men's study to my list of events, along with Steven J. Lawson's Thursday morning study. The cup overfloweth.
We're going through Acts in the Friday study, today's examined 1:12-26, touching on qualifications and election of church officers. We even delved into the PCA Book of Church Order and touched on lots of implications of the process. It was a pretty edifying conversation and actually bolstered my conviction that the presbyterian form of church government has a lot of good qualities that act as guard rails for everything from the local church to the top of the organizational ladder. I'm still a little iffy on the idea of covenant paedobaptism without subsequent regenerate dunking baptism - but that's not necessarily a deal breaker.
May your weekend be blessed. I just brewed some Death Wish Coffee medium roast in a french press, and it looks like motor oil, just how I like it. We'll see if it lives up to its name. Hooray for the Kroger 50% off bargain shelf!
Once I get some other situations sorted out, I hope to be able to start acquiring coffee from sources I'd prefer to support, such as Reformed Roasters: Coffee that Chooses You and Life Over Coffee (once they get their store up selling their beans).
Matthew Henry:
God laid righteousness to the line and judgment to the plummet, and dealt with them according to their sins. Severity is a word that sounds harshly; and I do not remember that it is any where else in scripture ascribed to God; and it is here applied to the unchurching of the Jews. God is most severe towards those that have been in profession nearest to him, if they rebel against him, Amos 3:2. Patience and privileges abused turn to the greatest wrath. Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the sorest; for of these he is here speaking, Romans 11:8.
17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
