Here’s 5 things I’ll be clarifying in week 1 – “Total Depravity”:

• TD doesn’t mean that every sinner is as totally corrupt in his actions as it’s possible to be. Unbelievers can do ‘worldly good works’.
• TD does mean that corruption extends to every part of a man i.e. his mind, his will, etc.
• ‘Total Inability’ is a better label than TD – it better expresses the point that no man is capable of turning to God of his own volition…
• Thus, the doctrine of TD refutes the popular idea that man has ‘free will’.
• Everyone, even the cutest newborn baby, is born in bondage to sin.

It paints a pretty bleak picture, eh? But that’s only one side of the story. Like the other 4 points of TULIP, TD steers us away from man-centred self-glorification, and reveals a sovereign God who is worthy of our worship.

Good resources on TULIP can be found here.

For those of you who are striving to nail-down more regular, disciplined devotional habits, here’s some great advice from John Piper and the ESV Online Study bible.

In addition to this, you can try what I’ve been doing…

Every morning my alarm assaults me at 6am. I plan to get straight out of bed, stumble along the hallway to my Den, sit down on my reading couch, and start the day in prayer and Bible study. I want to do this because I think it’s vital to my survival in ministry, marriage, faith…

BUT. Occasionally I fail and sinfully hit the snooze, and hit the snooze, and hit the snooze……..

So I’m trialling (my hero) Charles Simeon’s method to encourage early morning obedience:
Moule writes:
[Simeon planned to rise every morning at 6am]… Early rising did not appeal to his natural tendency to self-indulgence, however, especially on dark winter mornings. . . . On several occasions he overslept, to his considerable chagrin. So he determined that if ever he did it again, he would pay a fine of half a crown to his “bedmaker” (college servant). A few days later, as he lay comfortably in his warm bed, he found himself reflecting that the good woman was poor and could probably do with half a crown. So, to overcome such rationalizations, he vowed that next time he would throw a guinea into the river. This (the story goes) he duly did, but only once, for guineas were scarce; he could not afford to use them to pave the river bed with gold.

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.

The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne’s question “What if this present were the world’s last night?” is equally relevant.

Frantic administration of panaceas to the world is certainly discouraged by the reflection that “this present” might be “the world’s last night”; sober work for the future, within the limits of ordinary morality and prudence, is not.

For what comes is Judgment: happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years hence from some great evil. The curtain has indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against White Slavery or Governmental Tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were at your post when the Inspection came.

C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, (1952)

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” (1952)

Churches do not give a married minister two salaries, one for the husband and the other for the wife; but, in many cases, they look for the services of the wife, whether they pay for them or not.
The Pastor’s wife is expected to know everything about the church, and in another sense she is to know nothing of it; and she is equally blamed by some people whether she knows everything or nothing. Her duties consist in being always at home to attend to her husband and her family, and being always out, visiting other people, and doing all sorts of things for the whole church!
Well, of course, that is impossible; she cannot be at everybody’s beck and call, and she cannot expect to please everybody. Her husband cannot do that, and I think he is very foolish if he tries to do it; and I am certain that, as the husband cannot please everybody, neither can the wife. There will be sure to be somebody or other who will be displeased, especially if that somebody had herself half hoped to be the minister’s wife!
Difficulties arise continually, in the best-regulated churches; and the position of the minister’s wife is always a very trying one. Still, I think, that if I was a Christian young woman, I would marry a Christian minister if I could, because there is an opportunity of doing so much good in helping him in his service for Christ.
It is a great assistance to the cause of God to keep the minister himself in good order for his work. It is his wife’s duty to see that he is not uncomfortable at home; for, if everything there is happy, and free from care, he can give all his thoughts to his preparation for the pulpit; and the godly woman, who thus helps her husband to preach better, is herself a preacher though she never speaks in public, and she becomes to the highest degree useful to that portion of the Church of Christ which is committed to her husband’s charge’.

I couldn’t agree more with this!
I thank God that we belong to a church that isn’t too demanding when it comes to the expectations placed on Pastor’s wives, but bloody hell, it can be tough for them!

My wonderful wife Renee expressed her exasperation recently, “I just don’t know what my job is (at church)!” I was quick to tell her that she didn’t have a job at church – just a calling to be my helper.
I wonder if some churches (not yours or mine!) deliberately make the role of Pastor’s wife ambiguous because it means that they can load the lady up with more duties than they would otherwise get away with…?

Spurgeon: He’s the Man.