Musings of a Snickerdoodle

 "True spiritual illumination comes from Scripture,  which is 'profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for every good work' (2 Tim. 3: 16-17).  As the man of God is equipped for every good work, we see that Scripture is not only indispensable, but also sufficient.  No other supposed sources of truth need be consulted to receive the spiritual illumination necessary for salvation. "  Victor Kuligin The Language of Salvation: Discovering the Riches of What it Means to be Saved Find more quotes on my quotes blog: http://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

"If any man in the world needs the special presence of God with them and His blessing in order to succeed, certainly ministers do.  For what is the design and end of their ministry? Is it not to open the eyes of sinners to turn them from darkness to light?  And from the power of sin and Satan to God and Christ? And who is sufficient for these things? In a work of this nature, what can ministers, of themselves, do? Verily, they may preach even to paleness and faintness, until the bellows are burnt, until their lungs and vitals are consumed, and their hearers will never be the better; not one sinner will be converted until God is graciously pleased, by the efficacious working of His Spirit, to add His blessing to their labors and make his word, in the mouth of the preacher, sharper than any two-edged sword in the heart of the hearer.  All will be vain, to no saving purpose, until God is pleased to give the increase. And in order to do this, God looks for their prayers, to c...

Christian Mission: A Concise  Global History by Edward Smither is a book gives the history of the spread of the Gospel by professing Christians.  It follows it spreading down through the years through various continents.  Each chapter deals with different time periods of its spreading: "Mission in the Early Church", "Mission in the Medieval church", "Mission in the Early Modern Church"…etc.  It was quite interesting to learn about various people God used in its spread it.  I also loved the maps, they were very interesting in and of themselves, Maps showing the Roman Empire, Territories and Voyages of the Vikings, and one showing the colonization of Africa after the "Berlin Conference of 1884"" I didn't realize that European countries had control of pretty much the whole of Africa as one map showed the colonization of Africa by Europe, France, Belguim..etc. I found it very interesting that some   of the early missionaries were...

Made for the Journey by Elizabeth Elliot is an account of her first year as a missionary to Ecuador.  I've read it before as it was previously published as These Strange Ashes.  Elliot started her missionary full of excitement and triumphal expectation.   She was heading out the jungle to attempt to learn the Colorado Indian language in order to reduce it to writing and translate the Bible into that language. There is a note of underlying criticism throughout of the 'traditional' missionary way of doing things. Having started her work, she fights to have success in even figuring out the language.   She combats laziness in herself, but does start making some progress with the language.   Then everything falls apart.   People die, in tragic ways, including her main language informant.   She has difficulty continuing the study, but does have a good amount of language information to leave with those who would stay while she moved on to differen...

The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church by Roland Allen is a rather short but very thought provoking book.  In it, he somewhat implicitly asks the question, Who builds the Church? Leading to that thought, he critiques our method of Evangelization, are we doing it right? Do we need to organize the expansion of the church?  Do we need to establish mission stations, do we need missionaries who depend upon appeals for money for their support.  Will the Gospel spread if we don't purposefully come up with a plan to spread it? Allen warns that what we are trying to do in our methods is to organize the work of God, to dictate where people will get saved and a time period in which their salvation must happen.   But as Allen points out, " For spiritual work spiritual organization is necessary; but can we create a spiritual organization of spiritual forces?   Only a divine intelligence can do that.   But we attempt to do the work of that divine intelligence;...

Fool's Talk:   Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion by Os Guinness is quite a convicting book, a book that really makes you   think about how serious we really are about evangelism/apologetics.   It provokes the question:   how much thought do we really put in our conversations (or even our small-talk) with unbelievers?   Do we hold back on saying anything related to the Gospel because we are ashamed of being considered foolish because of our belief in God's Word?   Or if we do evangelize, are we just sticking with simple pre-contrived evangelization questions like, "If you were to die today and stood before God and He asked you why He should let you into Heaven, what would you say?"   Are we willing to truly put thought into persuading someone of the truth of Christianity, giving answers to their questions, and asking thought-provoking questions ourselves, rather than merely turning to someone else's pre-designed method of evangelism.   D...

The Evangelism Study Bible is intended to help with Evangelism.   It has a lot of footnotes, commenting on the relevance of many verses to evangelism.   It also contains various charts explaining/expounding on certain topics, like the fruit of the spirit, the whole armor of God…etc.   There are many 'commentary' boxes, discussing various evangelism related topics, that are inserted throughout the Bible as well.   One in particular I appreciated dealt with the question, "Do You Have to Know the Date You Were Saved?", and it deals with the source of our assurance of our salvation being Christ, " …when Scripture speaks of salvation, it goes back to a fact, not a date.   If you are trusting in Christ alone, you are saved, regardless of when the divine transaction took place…..The one who saved us gives us security, not the 'when' of our salvation." I also appreciate that many of the footnotes remind us that, though we are privileged to serve God by gi...