Quickened - In A Cedar Hill, Texas, Wal Mart

John 5
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.

Definition of Quicken From Webster's 1828 Dictionary: 
1. Primarily, to make alive; to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state. Rom. 4.
2. To make alive in a spiritual sense; to communicate a principle of grace to.
3. To hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken motion, speed or flight.
4. To sharpen; to give keener perception to; to stimulate; to incite; as, to quicken the appetite or taste; to quicken desires.
5. To revive; to cheer; to reinvigorate; to refresh by new supplies of comfort or grace.

And So It Began
I was quickened one afternoon, in a Cedar Hill, Texas, Wal Mart, in the 1990's. I bought a paperback NIV Bible. And that evening, for whatever reason, I read every reference to Baptism I could find. And so, my journey began....

Sins of the Father

Lamentations 5
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

Go Figure
Many pay for the sins of the father, born to difficult circumstances related to poverty, race, ethnicity. Then again, some of us receive mostly blessings from our fathers.

Amyraldism Or Four Point Calvinism

Matthew 24
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

This post is about a Calvinist theology that rejects Limited Atonement, one of Calvin's five points.

From Hodge's Systematic Theology:
According to the common doctrine of Augustinians, as expressed an the Westminster Catechism, “God, having . . . . elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.” In opposition to this view some of the Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century introduced the scheme which is known in the history of theology as the doctrine of hypothetical redemption. The principal advocate of this doctrine was Amyraut (died 1664), Professor in the French Protestant Seminary at Saumur. He taught, (1.) That the motive impelling God to redeem men was benevolence, or love to men in general. (2.) From this motive He sent His Son to make the salvation of all men possible. (3.) God, in virtue of a decretum universale hypotheticum, offers salvation to all men if they believe in Christ. (4.) All men have a natural ability to repent and believe. (5.) But as this natural ability was counteracted by a moral inability, God determined to give his efficacious grace to a certain number of the human race, and thus to secure their salvation. This scheme is sometimes designated as “universalismus hypotheticus.” It was designed to take a middle ground between Augustinianism and Arminianism.

From Wikipedia, Amyraldism:
Amyraldism (or sometimes Amyraldianism, the School of Saumur, hypothetical universalism, or Post Redemptionism), also known as "hypothetical universalism" or "four-point Calvinism", primarily refers to a modified form of Calvinist theology. It rejects one of the Five points of Calvinism, the doctrine of limited atonement, in favour of an unlimited atonement similar to that of Hugo Grotius. Simply stated, Amyraldism holds that God has provided Christ's atonement for all alike, but seeing that none would believe on their own, he then elected those whom he will bring to faith in Christ, thereby preserving the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. Named after its formulator Moses Amyraut, this doctrine is still viewed as a variety of Calvinism in that it maintains the particularity of sovereign grace in the application of the atonement. However, detractors like B. B. Warfield have termed it "an inconsistent and therefore unstable form of Calvinism."

I am just not that sure about Limited Atonement, Calvin's fifth point.  The above quote from Hodge is kind of tortured. The Wikipedia treatment of the issue is easier to understand, but I'm not sure Wikipedia is a great source of theology.

Anyway, I still haven't made up my mind on this point of Calvinism. I have no doubts about the other four points of Calvinism. Over the years I've come to agree with them.

Hinom and Tophet

Jeremiah 24
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

Death
I'm not afraid of dying. I'm not afraid of hell. I'm sure Jesus is keeping some space for me, kind of off to the side. But, for some reason, when I read the Bible, I always mark the passages on Hinnom with my pencil...

Who Wrote This on the Second Coming?

Revelations 22
7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

A Quote From Maimonides:
I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry I will still wait for him.

An Odd Blessing From Bible Study
While studying how we came to have the King James Version, I became interested in the medieval Hebrew Commentators. Some of their comments and interpretations really stick with me.

Wisdom And Knowledge - 183 Bible Doctrines

Proverbs 3
19 The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:
22 so shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck.

Chafer, in his Systematic Theology, includes a volume that concisely describes each of 183 Bible doctrines. Reading it is life changing, and overwhelming. Here's the list:

Chafer's 183 Bible Doctrines

This, I guess, is the complete list of the categories of God's wisdom and understanding. And with these doctrines we can "keep sound wisdom and discretion."

Idolatry

Ezekiel 23
1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:
3 and they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.
4 And the names of them were Aho'lah the elder, and Ahol'ibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aho'lah, and Jerusalem Ahol'ibah.
30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

From John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible:
In this chapter the idolatries of Israel and Judah are represented under the metaphor of two harlots, and their lewdness. These harlots are described by their descent; by the place and time in which they committed their whoredoms; by their names, and which are explained.

This is a Tough Chapter
I'll pass on further quotes. A strange mix of sin, lust, idolatry. Here, Judah and Israel are the harlots. Compare to the whore of Babylon in Revelations.

Hebrew Feasts

Deuteronomy 16
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.
10 And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God, according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee:
13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine....

Dear Jesus. Pray that my daily Bible study compensates for my lack of participation in feasts. Also, pray that my daily Bible study compensates for my lack of contact with the body of Christ....

A-men....

Google Sukkot.