User:Aaron Shafovaloff

From Theopedia

Grace and peace to you!

I'm first and foremost a Christian. I'm an evangelical and I love the sovereignty of God and I'm banking on the fact that God justifies the ungodly like me.

I'm the founder of this site and a board member of the Christian Web Foundation (site coming soon). I live with my beautiful wife Stacia in Midvale, Utah.

John Piper is one of my big heroes. I named my first-born son, John Caleb, born July 12th, 2006, after him!

I named my adopted daughter, Lydia, born May 16th, 2008, after the woman that God graciously saved in Acts 16. "The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul." (Acts 16:14) Besides that, the name is pretty :-)

I'm a wretched, wretched man---I have sin issues and pride and laziness and numbness to worship--, but Christ will save me from this body of death.

To do on Theopedia

• Gospel of John commentary - I think once some decent commentary is available on John here that others will follow suit with other books of the Bible.

A special thanks to Jordan Barrett, Jim Ellis, and Tom Major

Jordan and Jim are primarily responsible for the building of the foundation for this wiki, and I extend a hearty thanks to them for all their time and efforts and e-mails and writing and moderation. Tom has helped greatly with the technical side of things. Though I am the founder, these three are the real guys to thank for the edifying results of the project. Grace and peace in Christ, my brothers!

Contact Me

E-mail and Google Talk: aaronshaf[@t]gmail[d0t]com

Skype: aaronshaf (My primary text/voice messaging client)

Quotes my heart say "YES!" to

Augustine

• "Laziness pretends to yearn for rest, but what sure rest is there except in the Lord? Luxury would gladly be called plenty and abundance, but You are the fullness and unfailing abundance of unfading joy. Promiscuity presents a show of liberality, but You are the most lavish giver of all things good. Covetousness desires to possess much, but You are already the possessor of all things. Envy contends that its aim is for excellence, but what is as excellent as You? Anger seeks revenge, but who avenges more justly than You? Fear shrinks back as sudden change threatens the way things are and fear is wary of its own security, but what can happen that is unfamiliar or sudden to You, O God? Or who can deprive You of what You love? Where is there unshaken security except with You? Grief longs for those delightful things we've lost because it wills to have nothing taken from it, just as nothing can be taken from You." -Confessions, Book 2
• "As we must often swallow wholesome bitters, so we must always avoid unwholesome sweets. But what is better than wholesome sweetness or sweet wholesomeness? For the sweeter we try to make such things, the easier it is to make their wholesomeness serviceable. And so there are writers of the Church who have expounded the Holy Scriptures, not only with wisdom, but with eloquence as well; and there is not more time for the reading of these than is sufficient for those who are studious and at leisure to exhaust them."
• "During all those years [of rebellion], where was my free will? What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to your easy yoke . . .? How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose . . ! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, ...you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. . . . O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation." -Confessions, Chapter 9
• "For not only does the authority of the divine books declare that God is; but the whole nature of the universe itself which surrounds us, and to which we also belong, proclaims that it has a most excellent Creator, who has given to us a mind and natural reason, whereby to see that things living are to be preferred to things that are not living; things that have sense to things that have not; things that have understanding to things that have not; things immortal to things mortal; things powerful to things impotent; things righteous to things unrighteous; things beautiful to things deformed: things good to things evil; things incorruptible to things corruptible; things changeable to things changeable; things invisible to things visible; things incorporeal to things corporeal; things blessed to things miserable. And hence, since without doubt we place the Creator above things created, we must needs confess that the Creator both lives in the highest sense, and perceives and understands all things. and that He cannot die, or suffer decay, or be changed; and that He is not a body, but a spirit, of all the most powerful, most righteous, most beautiful, most good, most blessed." (On the Trinity, 15, 4.6)
• "How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure." (Augustine)

Charles Spurgeon

• "If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies, and if they perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go there unwarned or unprayed for."

C.S. Lewis

• "It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from."
• "If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all."
• "Certain things, if not seen as lovely or detestable, are not being correctly seen at all."
• "Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat."
• "The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe."
• "No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'"
• "Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it."
• "We must learn the language of our audience. And let me say at the outset that it is no use laying down a priori what the plain man does or does not understand. You have to find out by experience... You must translate every word of your theology into the vernacular. This is very troublesome... but it is essential. It is also of the greatest service to your own thought. I have come to the conclusion that if you cannot translate your own thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts are confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood your own meaning."

See more C.S. Lewis quotes

John Piper

• "Doing missions when dying is gain is the happiest life in the world."

• "The debt of love that we have to unbelievers and believers is not because they have done anything for us. The debt is because Christ has done everything for us when we did not deserve it any more than the world deserves our love. When Christ loves us freely, when he gives his life for us, when he takes away all our sin and guilt and condemnation, and guarantees for us everlasting joy in him--and all of this when we were his enemies--we become debtors to all men."

• "If in his own light he shines forth as a Being of infinite worth, then he is the star of glory that we were made to admire and cherish. If God opens the eyes of our hearts to see all that, then our desires are captured by the surpassing glory of God over every thing that the world has to offer..."

• "I would like to try to persuade you that the chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. Or to put it another way: the chief end of God is to enjoy glorifying himself." [1]

• "Sin has power by promising a better tomorrow (or at least a better this evening) and by promising superior satisfactions. But true faith is of such a nature that it severs the root of sin by embracing a better future and providing a deeper satisfaction." [2]

Others

• “[Eternal life is] the life of the age to come, experienced now even if consummated only later (cf. 5:20-21, 25-26; 17:2)… This does not collapse the notion of [future] judgment into present, spiritual experience, since the future judgment remains (5:28-29). Rather, it is in line with the New Testament insistence that the age to come can no longer be set off absolutely from the present age, now that Jesus the Messiah has come. Believers already enjoy the eternal life that will be consummated in the resurrection of their bodies at [Christ’s second coming]; unbelievers stand under the looming wrath of God that will be consummated in their resurrection and condemnation…” – D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, p. 214

• “In the Synoptic Gospels, the ‘Son of Man’ title is most commonly used by Jesus either in connection with his sufferings or in connection with his coming in glory. Here the two are fused, not only because Jesus’ death (vv. 24, 32) is the first stage on his way to receiving glory (v. 16), i.e. on his way to returning to the glory he had with the Father before the world began (17:5), but also because Jesus’ death was itself the supreme manifestation of Jesus’ glory… It is not just that the shame of the cross is inevitably followed by the glory of the exaltation, but that the glory is already fully displayed in the shame.” – D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, p. 437

• "Paul refuses to circumcise Titus, even when it was demanded by many in the Jerusalem crowd, not because it didn’t matter to them, but because it mattered so much that if he acquiesced, he would have been giving the impression that faith in Jesus is not enough for salvation: one has to become a Jew first, before one can become a Christian. That would jeopardize the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus. To create a contemporary analogy: If I’m called to preach the gospel among a lot of people who are cultural teetotallers, I’ll give up alcohol for the sake of the gospel. But if they start saying, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I’ll reply, “Pass the port” or “I’ll think I’ll have a glass of Beaujolais with my meal.” Paul is flexible and therefore prepared to circumcise Timothy when the exclusive sufficiency of Christ is not at stake and when a little cultural accommodation will advance the gospel; he is rigidly inflexible and therefore refuses to circumcise Titus when people are saying that Gentiles must be circumcised and become Jews to accept the Jewish Messiah." - D.A. Carson, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, p. 145.

• “The ‘race set before us’ is an uncommon foot race, for the victor’s wreath of life that we pursue is the life that already courses through our mortal bodies by God’s Spirit (Romans 8:11). This is not the rhetoric of a sports commentator reporting on the marathon at the Olympics: ‘The runners are already empowered by the gold.’ It is much more than desire for the gold that invigorates runners in this uncommon race. For we are affirmed that although eternal life is God’s prize of salvation that we pursue with eager hope, eternal life is also the gift of grace that already invigorates us with the resurrection life so that we run the race with perseverance. Eternal life is the reward that we trust God will give to us who faithfully endure to the end of the race. Yet eternal life is also the very breath of heaven that already fills our hearts by God’s Spirit and enlivens our ‘feeble arms and weak knees’ (Hebrews 12:12) to ‘run the race set before us’ (Hebrews 12:1).” - The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance, by Ardel Caneday and Thomas Schreiner, p. 88

• “God is the ultimate musician. His music transforms your life. The notes of redemption rearrange your heart and restore your life. His songs of forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, truth, hope, sovereignty, and love give you back your humanity and restore your identity.” - Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC; New Growth Press, 2007), 145.

• "In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some, and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For that is what produces, viz., our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are, in different respects, wholly passive, and wholly active. In the Scriptures the same things are represented as from God and from us. God is said to convert, and men are said to convert and turn. God makes a new heart, and we are commanded to circumcise our own hearts; not merely because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is our act and our duty. These things are agreeable to that text, 'God worketh in you both to will and to do.' (Philippians 2:13)There is a necessary connection between divine grace and human act, but it is a question of moral, not natural, necessity. Rather than being an external force which moves man's faith as a lifeless object, grace is the divine gift which operates within the living, willing human subject." - Jonathan Edwards, Works of President Edwards, Volume 2 (reprint of the Worcester Edition), 580. Quoted in Reformation and Revival Magazine, Spring 2003, p. 24