Mediate Regeneration

Stuart Olyott's article on the subject of mediate regeneration in the December 2009 issue of the Banner of truth Magazine, sounds a timely warning to those of us who think that our 'performance' is what counts. Onee of the most precious times for me as a preacher is the pre-service prayer meeting where the church presents my weaknesses to God and petitions the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts.

I wonder, however, if in arguing for a distinction between the influence of the Spirit and the influence of the word, he over-exegetes the Greek of Acts 16:14, by writing "in Greek this verse reads like this: 'And a certain woman named Lydia ... was hearing us, whose heart the Lord opened by a single act, with the result that she heeded to the things being spoken by Paul.' I see nothing wrong with it as a possible translation but wonder if Luke intended us to analyse him so closely. He tells us nothing about the opening of her heart, whether it was a single short act or a single long act (she was it would seem a God-fearer) beyond that the Lord did it. I am also reminded that from the beginning God accomplished his work by his word ' By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all their host by the breath of his mouth.' (Psalm 33.6)>

Calvin and worship

‘Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a God according to its own capacity …’ (Inst. 1.11.18)

‘The depravity of the human mind is such that it obscures the divine majesty, and places above it those things which ought to have been subject to God.’(Isaiah III. 221)