Weekly Roundup: Reading the Bible, the Best Productivity, Facing Death, and Sacramental Confession
When Christians just don’t read the Bible, the best way to be productive, facing death with help from Dr. David Powlison, and the foolishness of requiring confession to a priest.
Resources
When Christians Just Don’t Read the Bible | Tim Challies
Over the past few years, I’ve found the most common prayer request from the people I shepherd is that they would be faithful in personal devotions, and this has been my constant prayer on their behalf: “Lord, I pray that she would simply open her Bible and read even a small portion today. I pray that he would close his eyes and pray, even for just a few minutes.” While I receive some requests about difficult circumstances and advanced matters of obedience, the most common by far are the simplest: Pray that I would read and pray.
Why Reading Your Bible is the Best Way to Be Productive | Reagan Rose | Redeeming Productivity
Do you have trouble reading your Bible every day because you think, “There is so much to do, and I just don’t have time!”? Then this (mercifully short) article is for you.
He Taught Me How to Face Death: A Tribute to Dr. David Powlison | Lee Lewis | Biblical Counseling Coalition
I had never read anything by David Powlison before he died, but God used him to shape the field of biblical counseling tremendously. This article gave me an insight into a life that he impacted while he was still alive.
I read, and save, more articles that I’m able to post in the Weekly Roundup. To see all of the articles I’ve saved over the years, see my Evernote collection.
Quote
Calvin critiques the teaching of required confession to priests:
By this ruinous procedure, the souls of those who were affected with some sense of God have been most cruelly racked. First, they retook themselves to calculation, proceeding according to the formula given by the Schoolmen, and dividing their sins into boughs, branches, twigs, and leaves; then they weighed the qualities, quantities, and circumstances; and in this way, for some time, matters proceeded.
But after they had advanced farther, when they looked around, nought was seen but sea and sky; no road, no harbor. The longer the space they ran over, a longer still met the eye; nay, lofty mountains began to rise, and there seemed no hope of escape; none at least till after long wanderings. They were thus brought to a dead halt, till at length the only issue was found in despair. Here these cruel murderers, to ease the wounds which they had made, applied certain fomentations.
Every one was to do his best. But new cares again disturbed, nay, new torments excruciated their souls. "I have not spent enough of time; I have not exerted myself sufficiently: many things I have omitted through negligence: forgetfulness proceeding from want of care is not excusable."
Then new drugs were supplied to alleviate their pains. "Repent of your negligence; and provided it is not done supinely, it will be pardoned." All these things, however, could not heal the wound, being not so much alleviations of the sore as poison besmeared with honey, that its bitterness might not at once offend the taste, but penetrate to the vitals before it could be detected. The dreadful voice, therefore, was always heard pealing in their ears, "Confess all your sins," and the dread thus occasioned could not be pacified without sure consolation.
Here let my readers consider whether it be possible to take an account of the actions of a whole year, or even to collect the sins committed in a single day, seeing every man's experience convinces him that at evening, in examining the faults of that single day, memory gets confused, so great is the number and variety presented. I am not speaking of dull and heartless hypocrites, who, after animadverting on three or four of their grosser offenses, think the work finished; but of the true worshipers of God, who, after they have performed their examination, feeling themselves overwhelmed, still add the words of John: "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things," (1 John 3:20); and, therefore, tremble at the thought of that Judge whose knowledge far surpasses our comprehension.
— Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin. Book Third, Chapter 4, Section 18. Copied from https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/calvin-institutes-christianity/book3/chapter-2.html on August 3, 2019.