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#puritan — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #puritan, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Robinson—English Presbyterian minister—observes that wealth confers a particular capacity poverty does not: to relieve prisoners, feed the hungry, ransom captives. He frames this as mercy from God, an opportunity rather than mere possession. One notes that considerable contemporary wealth appears directed at the opposite project: persuading the rest of us to feel less compassion for those being imprisoned or starved. Same resource. Rather different application.

    #presbyterian #puritan #blessing

  2. Hildersham—Puritan, expounding Psalm 51—identifies reluctance to give to the poor as a faith problem. If you genuinely believed God’s promises, giving would present no difficulty. Preachers regularly deploy “if you truly believed, you would” for tithing and attendance. Curiously rarely for the poor. Hildersham would have found that selective.

    #puritan #values #faith #presbyterian #giving

  3. Sibbes—Puritan, encouraging the backslider—offers a self-check for election. Colossians 3:12: put on bowels of mercy toward the fatherless and needy. That’s how you demonstrate you’re one of the elect. Modern conservative Christianity has developed different assurance criteria. Mercy toward the needy as evidence of election has been quietly retired. Sibbes didn’t get that memo.

    #puritan #grace #presbyterian #empathy #compassion #salvation

  4. Edward Reynolds was at the Westminster Assembly. Here he offers a charge to rich people. The backs of the poor, the bellies of the hungry, are the bank of heaven. God has promised reward to those who put clothing on the backs of the poor, and give food to the hungry.

    There you go.

    #christian #gospelmessage #helpwhereyoucan #puritan #followjesus