The worst foes || John Pesebre

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too many beaches
too many trenches
too many bandages
a plot you recount
only to blow yourself up
inside a foxhole

the worst foes are those
that fight with you in the foxhole
who wreck your gun
and pull the pin on you

Pesebre: a poem || John Pesebre

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a dawn of tears melts me
and i see the the sun tarry
to look at a world of pain
and unrequited love

a world that is awake with tears
and asleep in threat of bad dreams
from freaks, ogres & incubi
no rest for the weary

as that li'l babe in the manger
came to this world as King
yet laid not in wool, but hay
asleep not in a crib, but a trough

He came into this world
but His own knew Him not
accustomed to pain, He labored
to call His own with tears and blood.

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* Lucas 2:16 "Así que fueron de prisa y encontraron a María y a José, y al niño que estaba acostado en el PESEBRE."

Important principles when engaging in a discussion || T. Edward Damer

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From T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001), 5-6.

1. The Fallibility Principle

When alternative positions on any disputed issue are under review, each participant in the discussion should acknowledge that possibly none of the positions presented is deserving of acceptance and that, at best, only one of them is true or the most defensible position. Therefore, it is possible that thorough examination of the issue will reveal that one's own initial position is a false or indefensible one.

2. The Truth-Seeking Principle

Each participant should be committed to the task of earnestly searching for the truth or at least the most defensible position on the issue at stake. Therefore, one should be willing to ex­amine alternative positions seriously, look for insights in the positions of others, and allow other participants to present arguments for or raise objections to any position held with regard to any disputed issue.

3. The Clarity Principle

The formulations of all positions, defenses, and attacks should be free of any kind of lin­guistic confusion and clearly separated from other positions and issues.

4. The Burden of Proof Principle

The burden of proof for any position usually rests on the participant who sets forth the position. If and when an opponent asks, the proponent should provide an argument for that position.

5. The Principle of Charity

If a participant's argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.

6. The Relevance Principle

One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to set forth only reasons that are directly related to the merit of the position at issue.

7. The Acceptability Principle

One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to use reasons that are mutually acceptable to the participants and that meet standard criteria of acceptability.

8. The Sufficiency Principle

One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide rea­sons that are sufficient in number, kind, and weight to support the acceptance of the conclusion.

9. The Rebuttal Principle

One who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or the position it supports and to the strongest argument on the other side of the issue.

10. The Resolution Principle

An issue should be considered resolved if the proponent for one of the alternative posi­tions successfully defends that position by presenting an argument that uses relevant and accept­able premises that together provide sufficient grounds to support the conclusion and provides an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or position at issue. Unless one can demonstrate that these conditions have not been met, one should accept the conclusion of the suc­cessful argument and consider the issue, for all practical purposes, to be settled. In the absence of a successful argument for any of the alternative positions, one is obligated to accept the position that is supported by the best of the good arguments presented.

11. The Suspension of Judgment Principle

If no position comes close to being successfully defended, or if two or more positions seem to be defended with equal strength, one should, in most cases, suspend judgment about the issue. If practical considerations seem to require an immediate decision, one should weigh the relative risks of gain or loss connected with the consequences of suspending judgment and decide the issue on those grounds.

12. The Reconsideration Principle

If a successful or at least good argument for a position is subsequently found by any participant to be flawed in a way that raises new doubts about the merit of that position, one is obligated to reopen the issue for further consideration and resolution.
The first three of these principles are commonly regarded as standard prin­ciples of intellectual inquiry. They are almost universally understood as underlying our very participation in serious discussion.

Upon reading Andrew Sullivan's "I Used to be a Human Being" || John Pesebre

The first thing I did
after reading Sully's NYmag piece
was go to our fridge
and take out everything
esp those pieces of cereal
stuck inside the fridge drawer;
then I got a good cloth
and scrubbed the hell out of it,

until the fridge was as dead silent

and clean.

Then I picked all the real food
and slowly put them in
making a mental note where
a potato for example
would direct me to
gratitude


read Andrew Sullivan's "I Used to be a Human Being".

#neighborology and the other side of the Anabaptists || John Pesebre

While many in recent memory, especially progressivist, postmodern evangelicals have attempted to whip on Protestantism with a moral argument such as this one, these arguments serve as propaganda and characterizations that are ill-informed or even motivated to show the entire picture.

The old Anabaptists were not your typical helpless old widow in one corner.

One of them Thomas Muntzer wrote to Martin Luther, "I would like to smell your frying carcass." Dr. Peter Hammond writes,
"In 1525, Muntzer was successful in rousing up many of the peasants of central Germany in the bloody, so-called Peasants Revolt, which it should be noted attracted several nobles to his side. "Let your swords be ever-warm with blood!" Muntzer exhorted his faithful followers. Muntzer's army of Anabaptists struck terror throughout the countryside, robbing, burning and destroying the property of the faithful, killing many thousands."

In the _Socialist Phenomenon_, Igor Shaferavich writes,
"Armed Anabaptists broke into houses and drove out everyone who was unwilling to accept second baptism. Winter was drawing to a close; it was a stormy day and wet snow was falling. An eyewitness account describes crowds of expelled citizens walking through the knee-deep snow. They had not been allowed even to take warm clothing with them. Women carrying children in their arms, old men leaning on staffs. At the city gate they were robbed once more."

So if ever you would see people such as those belonging to the postmodern wing of Philippine evangelicalism like #neighborology issue a moral argument such as this one, ask him, "Are you presenting the entire picture or are you characterizing based on selective information?"

Also, if one would allege that the Anabaptist deaths were carried out by Protestants, one would have to account why many of them perished under King Ferdinand of Austria who was a Holy Roman Emperor.

In his book Mennonites in Europe (Amazon), John Horsch writes,

[Ferdinand] commissioned a company of executioners to root out the Anabaptist faith in his lands. Those who were overtaken in the highways of fields were killed with the sword, others were dragged out of their houses and hanged on the door posts. Most of them had gone into hiding in the woods and mountains. In a forest near Lengbach seventeen were put to death. 

In the province of Swabia, in South Germany, four hundred mounted soldiers were, in 1528, sent out to put to death all Anabaptists on whom they could lay hands. Somewhat later the number of soldiers so commissioned was increased to eight hundred, and then to one thousand.

In various provinces an imperial provost marshal by the name of Berthold Aichele, with his assistants, put many Anabaptists to death. On Christmas day, 1531, he drove seventeen men and women into a farmhouse in Württemberg and burned the building together with the inmates. 

Three hundred and fifty Anabaptists were executed in the Palatinate before the year 1530.  

At Ensisheim, "the slaughterhouse of Alsace," as it was called, six hundred were killed within a few years. 

Within six weeks thirty-seven were burned, drowned, or beheaded at Linz, in Austria. 

In the town of Kitzbüchl in the Tyrol, sixty-eight were executed in one year.  

Two hundred and ten or more, were burned in the valley of the Inn River. 

The number of Anabaptist martyrs in the Tyrol and Görz, was estimated at one thousand at the end of the year 1531.

for more information on this go to "Were Anabaptists Persecuted for Their Faith" by Dr. William Hammond

Wisdom and modernist instrumentalization || John Pesebre

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"Thus, then, all action originates in purpose,—that is to say, in the choice of means to a given end, not in the mere conception of, or impulse towards that end,—purpose consisting in impulse towards an end, followed by an analysis of that end into its means." Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Yung #neighborology pala kung hindi lang sana nagka blanket disdain at demonization ng modernity ay makakatagpo ng recuperation na organic sa Western thought concerning yung "instrumentalization of reason."

Dito si Aristotle mismo nagsa suggest ng analysis ng end at means. Ayaw nung Frankfurt School na yung "means" ang affair ng "analysis" natin imbes isama yung end (cf Adorno & Horkheimer). Etong neo-marxist critique na ito should be taken seriously, and Christianity is not bereft of solution considering na sa Christian ethics napakahalaga ng "end" ("glorify God," WSC, 1). Instrumentalization kasi napakalaking problema sa Christianity ngayon kaya napaka constant ng gamitan -- even ang Diyos ginagamit as a means, as an instrument.

Etong section na ito sa Nicomachean ay Book 6 on "intellectual virtue." A good deal ng Book 6 asserts yung ina assert lang din ng New Testament na word and deed, o yung sabi ni James na wag daw maging hearers of the Word but doers. Basically ang sabi ni Aristotle dito is that reason has to have an end at yun ang virtue, hindi lang abstraction. Yan ang ultimate end niya na sa atin ay immediate lang pero we don't devalue that.

Recall that para sa Judeo-Christian religions merong dominant na Hebrew concept called "chokmah" (wisdom; skill) na may outworking sa practical. The nearest NT Greek word is "phronesis." Eto ang term ni Aristotle for practical wisdom.

So contrary to #neighborology's claims to rescue Christianity from the pits of modernity, it is actually doing her disservice by alienating her sa thought tradition niya at papalitan ito ng illusory progressivist thought na naka angkla sa postmodernity. Gusto ng mga proponents niya to disentangle us from a tradition na hindi perfect but already has a self-critical mechanism.

Anti-Duterte Intellectuals' Meltdown || John Pesebre

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Nang manalo si Duterte at nagkaroon ng malaking following si Mocha Uson, may tumipak sa realidad ng public discourse -- eto yung bukod sa nawala na ang kapangyarihan sa mga intellectual elites ang pag create (or manufacture) ng narrrative, they are also running the show on the periphery.

Kumbaga yung mga nasa hegemonic status dati, nasa periphery na. Na subvert.

At mukhang ngayon nangangapa pa rin sila sa kung saan sila magsisimula ng phenomenolohiya nila. Gusto nilang mag analyze ng consciousness ng ibang tao, kasi tila yata hindi nila alam kung paano nila ia-analyze ang consciousness nila.

So heto ngayon ang application nyan:

1) when they engage yung katunggali nila, sasabihin nila na mga "baliw," "dutertards," "brain damage." Yan ang analysis nila malimit. Tandaan ninyo ha, mga intellectuals yan.

2) dahil ayaw nilang i-subject ang consciousness nila kasi nga nakakahiya kasi intellectuals sila na natalo, they will stick with their old post-EDSA tactic of upholing their moral uprightness and intellectual virtues. Tulad ni Randy David at mga Inquirer opinion makers, ang reference na naman ay yung Martial Law. na istak na ang taktika doon kasi nga akala nila sila yung nagpanalo doon at yun yung LAURELS nila.

to summarize in one word yung dahilan kung bakit napaka-mediocre ng diskurso nila: NAWALAN NA SILA NG KAPANGYARIHAN TO CONTROL NARRATIVES.

Apologetics as intellectual virtue || John Pesebre

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If apologetics is a branch of theology, then Wollebius is on point --

Theology consist of both contemplation and action. It is both wisdom and prudence; wisdom in that it apprehends principles through divinely illumined intelligence and reaches conclusions from them through knowledge; and prudence, in that it guides the human soul in its actions.*

All too often IMHO Christians think that apologetics rests solely as a theoretical discipline and should just stay there. From time to time we see that apologia, if we follow the direction of Aristotle's categories of intellectual virtues, journeys from "theoria" to "phronesis" (practical wisdom) as is the case in 1 Peter 3:15.

If I were to write a manifesto on apologetics for the Philippine evangelicalism I will emphasise that with apologetics you weave a life that insists on a human trait that is not only necessary for right thinking but for right action.

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* Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae_, Reformed Dogmatics, 8

Without any cheering support from the blood of Christ: On spiritual self-flagellation || John Pesebre

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Oh God of unsearchable riches,

Before thee I am nothing but vanity, iniquity, perishing;

Sin has forfeited thy favour,

stripped me of thy image,

banished me from thy presence,

expos. ed me to the curse of thy law.

From the Valley of Vision

A Christian's very being is found in the Being of God. Such realization is not a realization of utility, but of necessity. Holiness also has a being rooted in that identity; when we sin, our holiness creates an incidence in our consciousness as we reflect on our being because that sin is incidental to our actions -- it is directly connected. My identity is directly connected to that sin but I must alienate myself from it through the grace of repentance that God mercifully given as a spiritual duty that will alienate myself from that sin. Without this grace of repentance, we will take matters into our own hands. Without the grace of repentance we will meander to "worldly sorrow [that] brings death" (2 Cor. 7:10)

Why do we have remove ourself from this sin?

Because sin attempts to be an autonomous theory of identity for you. It puts itself into your narrative, to create an estrangement from your real identity in God. The Psalmist cries out to be estrangemed from this sin,

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice let thine ears by attentive to the voice of my supplications. (Psalm 130:1, 2)

John Owen reflects on this verse saying,

The moral use of the word, as expressing the state and condition of the souls of men, is metaphorical. These depths, then, are difficulties, or pressures, attended with fear, horror, danger, and trouble.

Our initial impulse in this estrangement is to get rid of it, just as we would get rid of a tumor. But we get rid of it with a feeling of shame, guilt and self-loathing. This might be what you will expect a true believer to do: to rend his heart and not his garments (Joel 2:13) -- a picture of tingling pain that sin creates. We expend all our efforts to rid oursves of it. Being destitute of the Gospel, we will self-flagellate.

Owen puts it this way, "[The soul] plunges itself into the curse of the law and flames of hell, without any cheering support from the blood of Christ."

Thus for our succour, we continue with the prophet Joel and read the entire verse --

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

A Christian might self-flagellate himself after sin because sin has exposed him to the curse of the law and would like to forge a debilitating sense of estrangement and separation from the shame and emptiness of that sin. It is at this point that sin secures us in its grip. It is a consciousness destitute of the grace of God in forgiveness and mercy.

"Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:1

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Suggested Puritan reading
John Owen, The Soul in the Depths of Sin
Ralph Venning's The Sinfulness of Sin

Death penalty in current Philippine discussions || John Pesebre

One of the ways the the democratic discourse takes an unfortunate turn is when those against the death penalty characterize those who are in favor as idiots and blood thirsty orcs from Lord of the Rings. I have seen a number of this social rhetoric in social media and heard a few conversations.

This statement quoted above from the book Is Death Penalty Just? by Carla Mooney gives you an idea that your pro-death-penalty opponents are also after justice and an efficient justice system in the country.

It is all too common in democratic discourse dito sa Pinas to see people present CHARACTERIZATIONS rather than ARGUMENTS. You characterize when you just portray a dissenting view (and oftentimes dismiss him/her as lacking intellectual virtue); you argue when you present conclusions based on premises.

The great French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne said,

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.

I do not for a moment affirm that there are no trolls and irritants. Of course there are. However, I hope it is not the case that we imbibe the vices of our opponents and then start a domino effect -- displaying our rage as the end-all-be-all of our existence for people to see despite the presence of competent counter-argument.

The award-winning American writer Neil Stephenson, author of the critically acclaimed novel Cryptonomicon where he humors us with this,

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.

John Hendryx on the affections || John Pesebre

Sheep following their shepherd. (Credit)

True religion consists, in large part, in the affections ... and this begins with the initial step of saving faith all the way through to final perseverance. But how can the natural man, who "loves darkness" (John 3:19), work up any affections or desire for God? or apprehend His beauty and excellence? We know that human reasoning is never free from the effects of sin, and that people deny God, not because they lack evidence, but because their hearts are rebellious. So the unbelievers' problem is ethical first and then intellectual and thus he/she requires a supernatural work of God to understand and apprehend spiritual truth as revealed in Scripture. Those who know facts, therefore, are not the same as those who forsake sin and come to love God. We must therefore appeal to the entire person and not merely their intellect. God is hidden from man because he loves sin and remains in hostile rebellion against God. This antagonism for the gospel is seated in the affections, not because we lack data or are not smart enough. So we appeal to the heart because God is not just a precept or an axiom as found in mathematics. To come to faith in Christ one must first desire Christ, perceive and take delight in His unmatched beauty, and have a love for Him that is greater than a love of sin. Faith will never "just happen' out of thin air but actually requires that we desire Him, for we only choose that which we most desire. But to be sure, the Scriptures teach that these holy affections are not produced by our unregenerate human nature (Rom 8:7; 1 Cor 2:14). And since the root of faith cannot be indifferent or neutral, a full orbed gospel is not merely a list of impersonal propositions for our intellectual assent, but it is proclaiming the full person of Christ in His love for sinners shown in His life, death and resurrection. Words are not enough, however, to persuade those bent on rebellion because spiritual knowledge, which is relational, requires a new sense of God's unsurpassed excellence ... and this is possessed only by the regenerate. Paul, when speaking to the Thessalonians makes this clear when he says, "for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction..." (1 Thess 1:5).

The propositions, Christ is Lord and Christ is Savior are obviously understood intellectually by anyone who reads or hears Scripture. The words are written down on the page of the Bible making it an item of knowledge that is objective. But this knowledge would appear to lack an affective element wherein the subject reading the text actually takes delight in or desires it. So true spiritual knowledge only comes as the truth is desired by the subject, a knowledge which subjectively participates in the truth of the propositions and Person of Christ presented. This means illumination and regeneration are required, because prior to conversion a person is incapable of perceiving spiritual knowledge (1 Cor 2:14, 1 John 4:2, 14, 5:20). Instead, humanity willfully attempts to suppress and pervert true knowledge (Romans 1:18). Thus we can see there is no lack of capacity to believe, nor are humans intellectually ignorant, rather it is because sinful rebellion rules their hearts that men refuse to believe. So the difference between the regenerate and unregenerate is the relationship each has with the Holy Spirit. Both know God, one as an enemy and the other as friend ... and only the Spirit can confer spiritual knowledge which the subject delights in. This knowledge is found in the Word of God but is only apprehended through the regenerative work of Holy Spirit. Hence spiritual knowledge is communicated by the Spirit via revelation which is the only way one can be enabled to see the beauty, harmony, truth and excellence of the Scriptural Text. John Calvin, describing this spiritual work said,

"Indeed the Word of God is like the sun, shining upon all those to whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect among the blind. Now, all of us are blind by nature in this respect... Accordingly, it cannot penetrate into our minds unless the Spirit, as the inner teacher, through his illumination makes entry for it." (Calvin's Institutes 3.2.34.)

Taken from "Biblical Regeneration and Affectional Theology."

Ate Jojie's prayers for me, Prayer 2 || John Pesebre

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NOTE: Ate Jojie Miranda, a cancer survivor sends me these very nice prayers every week. These are just beautiful prayers from a heart consumed by trust and adoration in God. I come back to these prayers from time to time and remember the spiritual struggles and joys of my life when I received them.

Smiling Saturday to you!

The majestic grace of our Father God be upon you and your family with the joy of Jesus our Lord! Amen!

May our Lord Jesus raise you up today with His mighty arms and bless you with strength to begin and finish your day in victory!

I pray that your heart be energized with His assuring grace, embracing you with comfort and mercy.

I pray that your needs ne met today and that our God give you more so you could share to others!

I ask that our Jehovah Rophi heal you and your whole family from all kinds of sicknesses, in Jesus's name.

I speak blessings and favours cover you and your family, and our God be glorified in you all.

With gratefulness I pray these for you in the name of *JESUS CHRIST OUR EVER FAITHFUL SAVIOUR AND LORD!* Amen!

Grow and glow, & go...
read *Psalm 86*

Verse for you: v.13
"For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."

Ate Jojie's prayers for me, Prayer 1 || John Pesebre

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NOTE: Ate Jojie Miranda, a cancer survivor sends me these very nice prayers every week. These are just beautiful prayers from a heart consumed by trust and adoration in God. I come back to these prayers from time to time and remember the spiritual struggles and joys of my life when I received them.

Inspiring Tuesday to you!

Jesus loves you more than you can ever know!  His grace flows to you like His anointing oil, His compassion for you covers you like the morning due over the mountains!

I lift you up to our Abba God and your family today that His grace inspire you to conquer and receive your rewards today!
I pray that the Holy Spirit fill your heart with His wisdom to lead you and guide you to happiness,  success, and significance! Hallelujah!

May each person in your home be completely healed and be favoured in God's eyes.

I pray that you dance in your love for God and you sing Him praises of how much faithful He is to you!

Shout victory over yourself! Declare life over your body! Command power over your heart and mind in Jesus' name!
I claim this verse for you in Exodus 33:17 - *And the Lord said to (you), “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”*

I pray that the Holy Spirit wash you with His pure water and you rise above brightly shining His glory in Jesus' name!

I pray these for you in great expectations in the name of *JESUS CHRIST OUR GOOD AND GENEROUS LORD!* Amen!
Read and bask in *Psalm 2*

Verse for you: v.8 *Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.*

Three levels of interaction between science and philosophy || Mariano Artigas

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The question about the intelligibility of science can be partly translated into the question about the impact of science on philosophy. Indeed, empirical science aims to provide a knowledge which can be submitted to empirical control, and philosophy deals with problems about meaning and intelligibility; therefore, we will obtain a good insight into the intelligibility of science if we determine which is the impact, if any at all, that scientific knowledge has on philosophical matters.

Empirical science consists of three inter-related levels: it is a human enterprise directed towards well defined goals; it employs some characteristic methods in order to achieve these goals; and it produces results that are the objective contents of scientific knowledge. I will consider the impact of science on philosophy in these three levels, that roughly correspond to anthropology (goals), ontology (contents) and epistemology (methods). I will argue that, in each level, science is grounded on some philosophical presuppositions and that, in its turn, has a feedback on them, so that it retro-justifies, refines and enlarges them.

Presuppositions in empirical science can be scientific, if they belong to a discipline and are used as a presupposition of another one, or philosophical, if they are considered as a basis of the entire scientific enterprise. *(1) I will focus on the second kind. Furthermore, it should be noted that a philosophical presupposition is not a part of the concrete scientific knowledge as it is expressed in an explicit way; therefore the study of such presuppositions is a philosophical task. We can consider them as conditions that are necessary for the possibility of the scientific activity as such, although they can be ignored by particular scientists. The judgement about their scientific retro-justification, refinement and enlargement obviously requires philosophical insight.

There are general and particular presuppositions in science. Particular or specific presuppositions are, for instance, those related with the use of instruments, the choice of languages, or the frameworks and models of a theory. I will focus on general presuppositions, which are involved in the entire scientific enterprise and are rooted on ordinary and philosophical knowledge. *(2) And I will concentrate on those presuppositions that serve to show that scientific progress provides a hindsight about knowledge and truth (epistemological level), nature and natural order (ontological level), and human activity (anthropological level).

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The outcast: epilogue to Sibbes' Bruised Reed

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Some of us don't get far
Coz we just get tired;
But we don't coz we can't.
We are not big trees;
We are seeds
Stuck in a plaid of earth
With no grand tales,
Seem cursed and wan.
And as the great oaks
Ache to touch the sky,
We seeds stretch to tear
Our skin and bleed
For the first leaf to sprout
Weak and pale to look up,
To start a life of grief
and of pain and then

Gain.

We go on and do great things
With the li'l that we have.

Being towards hope || John Pesebre

[J]ust as Christian came up with the Cross, 

his Burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back

Dear Christian, guard your affections from the enticement and snare of sin by your vigorous and lively desire for God.

* * *

Dear Christian

A new Christian believer received the actualization of the election of God as Christ let's you share in His inheritance from the Father. It is a long journey from the covenant of redemption to the application of justification to his poor wretched soul.

It is a new beginning not only because he is now conscious of the balm of mercy poured out for him, but also and most importantly, because he now realizes that his real beginning started not on his throwness into this world but by the covenant of Jesus' thrownness into this world in the pactum salutis.

Indeed, a new Christian believer is someone who has found a new beginning. How he found that new beginning is a work of grace, through the ministration of the Holy Spirit. In this new beginning he has a new sense of personhood who understands that his life has changed since he believed the gospel. He knows that he is in a new faith. He understands the brevity of his life but has that reflection with a sanctified consciousness. He still recognizes the voices of people, but now has an ear for the voice of God. He leaves people's chatter which he previously pursued vigorously, only to find himself in the private room of prayer and spiritual meditation. He is a new being.

He also discovers that he is towards something. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for" as the writer of Hebrews puts it. There is a new kind of He sees a new emplotment for his life. An emplotment is "[t]he assembly of a series of historical events into a narrative with a plot."

This new knowledge brought about by his faith, builds itself up towards a moral-practical knowledge structure. Christians oftentimes talk about word and deed, or walk the talk. It's the James 1:22 admoniition, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only."

But the Christian not only has a new direction, this new direction has a consummation, or what John Owen calls as gospel hope which can "no longer rise any further." This gospel hope is eschatological as Owen explains,

The especial object of hope is eternal glory (Col 1:27; Rom 5:2). The peculiar use of it is to support, comfort, and refresh the soul in all trials, under all weariness and despondencies, with a firm expectation of a speedy entrance into that glory, with an earnest desire after it. Wherefore, unless we acquaint ourselves by continual meditation with the reality and nature of this glory, it is impossible it should be the object of a vigorous, active hope, such as whereby the apostle says “we are saved.” Without this we can neither have that evidence of eternal things, nor that valuation of them, nor that preparedness in our minds for them, as should keep us in the exercise of gracious hope about them.

And as such our consciousness of our true eternal beginning, our thrownness into this world, the trajectory of our journey, out mettle as we our confronted with our death and our eternal glory all because of the Grace of God proves that our very being we owe to God who deserves our glory. As such, our consciousness should continue to be towards the celebration in our minds about these things. It is to this the Puritan Thomas Watson gloriously put it,

They have married into the crown of heaven, and by virtue of the conjugal union all Christ's riches go to believers: "communion is founded in union." Christ communicates his graces (John 1:16 ). As long as Christ has them, believers shall not be in want. And he communicates his privileges - justification, glorification. He settles a kingdom on his spouse as her inheritance (Heb. 12:28). This is a key to the apostle's riddle, "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (2 Cor. 6:10). By virtue of the marriage union, the saints have an interest in all Christ's riches. [here]

And so dear Christian, it is no wonder that the enemy of our souls would want us to denounce these gems in place of dung so that Satan can make a mockery not only of you but of God.

It is to our joy however that Benevolent Grace carries out His Goodness far above the actings of Satan. The very reverend Richard Sibbes puts it this way,

See the gracious way he executes his offices. As a prophet, he came with blessing in his mouth, `Blessed are the poor in spirit' (Matt. 5:3), and invited those to come to him . . . `Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden' (Matt. 11:28) . . . He is a meek king; he will admit mourners into his presence, a king of poor and afflicted persons. As he has beams of majesty, so he has a heart of mercy and compassion. He is the prince of peace (Isa. 9:6). Why was he tempted, but that he might `succor them that are tempted' (Heb. 2:18)? What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5) who took our nature upon him that he might be gracious? He is a physician good at all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart. He died that he might heal our souls with a plaster of his own blood, and by that death save us, which we were the procurers of ourselves, by our own sins . . . The lion of the tribe of Judah will only tear in pieces those that `will not have him rule over them' (Luke 19:14). He will not show his strength against those who prostrate themselves before him.

Such is framed the hope of our lives in the midst of Satan's desire to lay us bare.

Yet in Psalm 141:8 we see a different picture in the laying bare of God's children. The Psalmist was to God not to intervene but to stop. The Hebrew word for destitution which means "to lay bare" a euphemism for strip naked, is the word te'ar which is not in its ordinary verb stem the Qal, but is in its intensive stem the Piel. In Filipino, it would be the difference between, pinakitanggal ng damit at hinablot ang damit na namy nuance of wrath. One would arguable be correct to transliterate this as, "Wag niyo na pong hubaran palagi ang kaluluwa ko." God is sovereign.

Richard Sibbes, talks about this divine action of nakedness with a trope of "bruising,"

The bruised reed is a man that for the most part is in some misery, as those were that came to Christ for help, and by misery he is brought to see sin as the cause of it, for, whatever pretences sin makes, they come to an end when we are bruised and broken. [here]

LORD OF ALL BEING, There is one thing that deserves my greatest care,that calls forth my ardent desires,That is, that I may answer the great end for whichI am made —to glorify thee who hast given me being.