my burg

Photo credit: rruff.info/ribbeite Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.   (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV) In 1987 a newly discovered mineral, dug from the Kombat Mine in Namibia, was named after Dr. Paul H. Ribbe of Virginia Tech.  "Ribbeite" was so named in recognition of Paul's many contributions to mineralogy, especially in his studies of crystal structures and mineral luminescence. Further, in "The Vision of Paul H. Ribbe and the Remarkable Story of Reviews " this was written about his research and editorial work:   Thirty years ago, a small unassuming book entitled Sulfide Minerals appeared. Soft-bound in a bright yellow cover, it was printed at a tiny press in Blacksburg, Virginia. The editor was Paul H. Ribbe, a well-known feldspar mineralogist. The print run was a few hundred, and not m

The following is the Sunday morning prayer offered by Paul Ribbe at the BCF Easter service about four years ago, as recorded by Jason Meyer:   Most exalted and loving Jesus, we bring our praise and worship to you this  morning. You have indeed been raised from the dead! You are alive! What we celebrate today is the crowning miracle of your Gospel, the Good News: It’s the Greatest News ever heard by mankind in all of history! Because of your death on the cross in our place, and your glorious resurrection from the tomb, we are no longer alienated from the Father, dead  and rotting in our sins – Instead, we are completely wrapped in the perfection of your righteousness. We have hope in this life and assurance of the life to come! You will present us – even me, Lord(!) -- to God the Father – holy, and blameless, and  above reproach. And those who have passed away in you, who have “gone to sleep” in you, are today in Paradise with you. Because you, Lord Jesus, have been raised fro

"During a good part of history the philosopher endeavoured to deal with objects which he believed to be of the same exactness as the mathematician’s. Finally Hegel arrived, and if not perhaps the first, he was certainly the most prodigious exponent of emotional systematization, dealing with his emotions as if they were definite objects which had aroused those emotions. His followers have as a rule taken for granted that words have definite meanings, overlooking the tendency of words to become indefinite emotions.  "If verbalism were confined to professional philosophers, no harm would be done. But their corruption has extended very far. Compare a medieval theologian or mystic, compare a seventeenth-century preacher, with any 'liberal' sermon since Schleiermacher, and you will observe that words have changed their meanings. What they have lost is definite, and what they have gained is indefinite. "The vast accumulations of knowledge—or at least of informatio

"For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."  Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?...'"  (John 18:37-38 ESV) One of the main problems in communicating with people today is a lack of clarity regarding what our standard of judgment is.  What framework, what authority, does each of us see as ultimate and binding?  When someone says, "what's wrong with ______ ", there is usually an implied basis for judgment.  It may be what seems "reasonable", or its wide cultural acceptance, or some scientific study which seems to support it.   J. Gresham Machen notes, "The first question in dealing with any difference of opinion is the question what standard of judgment is to be applied to the question at issue."  ( The Christian Faith in the Modern World ) I drew the chart above with spheres of authority.  God's Word i

J. Gresham Machen, Professor of New Testament at Princeton, and later the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, was succinct and lucid in his approach toward critical scholarship and liberalism of last century.  His words in the radio addresses he gave in 1936 are as applicable today as they were then...  Some radicals of the present day are drawing the logical conclusion. Since the supernatural is inseparable from the rest and since they will not accept the supernatural, they are letting the whole go. They are telling us that we cannot know anything at all with any certainty about Jesus. Such skepticism is preposterous. It will never hold the field. You need not be afraid of it at all, my friends. The picture in the Gospels is too vivid. It is too incapable of having been invented. It is evidently the picture of a real person. So the age-long bewilderment of unsaved men in the presence of Jesus still goes on. Jesus will not let men go.  They will not accept His stupend

In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.  (1 Corinthians 11:25-26 ESV) “So the Lord’s Supper was not just the idea of the apostles, not something conjured up by the Church, but it was a solemn command of the Lord. Why did He command them to keep it? Here is a most significant thing. I believe he gave this command in order to preserve the doctrine.  This, you see is an enactment of the doctrine, it is a kind of display of the truth, and our Lord wanted to preserve the truth throughout the centuries until the end of the Christian era. “What a wonderful thing this has been! This table with its bread and wine has often been a terrible condemnation of the pulpit. Men have entered pulpits and said that Jesus was only a man, that he was nothing more than

Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." (Matthew 6:9-10 ESV) But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."  (Matthew 20:25-28 ESV) "The dominion of God is a very different sort of dominion from what we understand by the word in ordinary human relationships. As Jesus pointed out, the nations of the world exercise dominion over one another by force. Had Jesus’ dominion been of that sort, were his kingdom of this world, his disciples would doubtless have used force to protect and extend his kingdom or rule. But the