This past Saturday was a beautiful, crisp fall day. I dressed Anna Ruth in her overalls and we went outside to walk around. Anna Ruth loves to walk with someone holding her hands. She thinks she's actually walking, and so gets very excited. So we decided to get some footage of this for y'all who aren't here to witness these milestones. Some other new developments are that she waves, points, says "Dada", "Mama", "baby", and "Bye-bye". She also has started pulling up, but is still perfecting that one. Tune in later for more footage as we catch it all on video.
This dress was sent to Anna Ruth by Grandma H. She felt like a princess in it. Here's a snapshot of her modeling it for you.
One of the advantages of our new abode is living right down the street from the zoo. However, if one of these ferocious cats ever got loose, we’d be doomed. I’m not lyin’!
We also live right across the street from the famous (and free) Birmingham Botanical Gardens, where Liv and I have visited once already.
While we were gone, Anna Ruth laid back, chilled out, and watched the tube. What a couch potato!
"I'm not so sure about all that white stuff outside."
"So it's a snowball fight you want, huh?"
"That was fun, but I'm glad to be back inside where it's warm!"
Here is more (though on a slightly different subject.)"What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the Epistle to the Galatians? To the modem Church the difference would have seemed to be a mere theological subtlety. About many things the Judaizers were in perfect agreement with Paul. The Judaizers believed that Jesus was the Messiah; there is not a shadow of evidence that they objected to Paul's lofty view of the person of Christ. Without the slightest doubt, they believed that Jesus had really risen from the dead. They believed, moreover, that faith in Christ was necessary to salvation. But the trouble was, they believed that something else was also necessary; they believed that what Christ had done needed to be pieced out by the believer's own effort to keep the Law. From the modern point of view the difference would have seemed to be very slight. Paul as well as the Judaizers believed that the keeping of the law of God, in its deepest import, is inseparably connected with faith. The difference concerned only the logical -- not even, perhaps, the temporal -- order of three steps. Paul said that a man (1) first believes on Christ, (2) then is justified before God, (3) then immediately proceeds to keep God's law. The Judaizers said that a man (1) believes on Christ and (2) keeps the law of God the best he can, and then (3) is justified. The difference would seem to modern "practical" Christians to be a subtle and intangible matter, hardly worthy of consideration at all in view of the large measure of agreement in the practical realm. What a splendid cleaning up of the Gentile cities it would have been if the Judaizers had succeeded in extending to those cities the observance of the Mosaic law, even including the unfortunate ceremonial observances! Surely Paul ought to have made common cause with teachers who were so nearly in agreement with him; surely he ought to have applied to them the great principle of Christian unity. "
As a matter of fact, however, Paul did nothing of the kind; and only because he (and others) did nothing of the kind does the Christian Church exist today. Paul saw very clearly that the difference between the Judaizers and himself was the difference between two entirely distinct types of religion; it was the difference between a religion of merit and a religion of grace. If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God, to determine whether we have really done our part. And thus we groan again under the old bondage of the law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief, Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all.
"Paul certainly was right. The difference which divided him from the Judaizers was no mere theological subtlety, but concerned the very heart and core of the religion of Christ". (Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism, New York: Macmillan, 1923, p. 23-25.)
If you are wondering what this is about, I will attempt to give a short explanation. Salvation is by Christ alone, and we gain that salvation from him by faith alone. But the promises of God to save are made only to those who are in covenant with him. Those outside the covenant of grace cannot be saved. All those within must have faith to be saved; they must trust in those promises God makes.
Baptism, according to the Bible, is the initiation into the covenant God has made with his people, and the beginning of the faith journey, the life of discipleship. In the Bible, children are not viewed as autonomous individuals, but, if their parents are believers, they are disciples of Christ. If one grows up to be an unbeliever, it is an act of covenant breaking, for they were in the covenant as a child, in God's sight.
Not only does Baptism enter one into the covenant, but in it, God also signs and seals his promises to his people. Baptism, as a sign, pictures the work of God, in cleansing his people of their sin, granting them his Holy Spirit, and uniting them to Christ, in whom is salvation. As a seal, Scripture speaks of baptism as gracious thing; it not only pictures grace, but through it, God also gives grace to his people, though this grace is not necessarily given at the same time that the baptism is administered, and it is only given to those who believe.
That was my attempt at brevity. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
