Oct 27, 2022
I have been working on a book about Bible doctrines for a while now. It is called Bible Doctrines by P.C. Nelson. I grew up in a Pentecostal environment and then radically gave myself to God and got born again in college. I’m not sure if it calmed me down from my upbringing or revved me up :). But now I am known by God. I’m learning about a lot of these ideas in this wonderful book. Many of the doctrines and staples of the New Testament are outlined, defined, and thought through, with Scriptures abounding all along the text. The ideas in the book are about the person of Jesus Christ, the authority of the Word of God, the place of identity in the believer, Baptism, Communion, and other ordinances of the church. Right now, I’m at the section about the Holy Spirit’s power, and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Though there will be much more to muse on and explain once the book is finished, Here are some stellar quotes that although in eloquent language, do clearly bring forth some good ideas if you can grasp the meaning of the words. I have learned so much (and glad my husband told me to read this book) and here are the quotes:
I plan on copying it word for word off the page in the book. There is a quote by an A. Maclaren which through light research, I believe is Alexander Maclaren, who did expository writing and discovery of great truths in the word of God. Here is the quote of the reading directly off the book’s page, which is really his (A. Maclaren’s) quotes. I felt in the last few days this passage selection was relevant and appropriate for me, so I hope someone can get something out of it.
(Page (70) Halfway Down the Page)
“A. Maclaren: “The fire of God’s Spirit is not a wrathful energy, working pain and death, but a merciful omnipotence, bringing light, and joy, and peace. The Spirit which is fire is a Spirit which giveth life…Christ comes to kindle in men’s souls a blaze of enthusiastic Divine love, such as the world never saw, and to set them aflame with fervent earnestness, which shall melt all the icy hardness of heart, and turn cold self-regard into self-forgetting consecration” (Sermon Bible).
In his Exposition of Holy Scriptures, the same writer says: “Here is the power that produces that inner fervor without which virtue is a name and religion a yoke. Here is the contrast, not only to John’s baptism, but to all worldly religion, to all formalism, and decent deadness of external propriety. Here is the consecration of enthusiasm – not a lurid, sullen heat of ignorant fanaticism, but a living glow of an enkindled nature, which flames because kindled by the inextinguishable blaze of His love who gave himself for us, ‘He shall baptize you in fire.’ “
Rebekah's Reflections 