This is the first Lord’s Day of Advent, the year of our Lord, 2005. This is the beginning of the church year, marking annually, as we do, the beginning of our salvation in the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

We are marking our days, building up to one of the great Christian holidays. This is a potent holiday, one that secularists appear to understand better than we sometimes do. They want to stamp out any vestige of the historic Christian faith in this, and their secularist jihad is not irrational. They know how powerful this story is. This being the case, let us make a point of telling the story right, and very loudly.

In the first place, do not fall for the lie that the spirit of Christmas is an ethereal kind of thing. This is the celebration of the Incarnation, when the eternal Logos of God took on a material body, which He still has. Do not, therefore, join in the general lamentations about “materialism.” This is a celebration of God taking on a material body. It is therefore a holiday that should focus on stuff.

By stuff, I mean ribbons, decorations, fudge, wreaths, cider, presents, feasting, toasts, shopping with joy, putting up a tree, sending cards, learning a Christmas piece on the piano, and more fudge.

Of course, we all know how to sin with stuff—we were living in a pretty earthy state of sin before Christ came. But He did not come to whisk us out of this world in order that we might go celebrate some kind of Gnostic holiday in heaven. We are to honor the Lord Jesus with our stuff. So do not drink too much, do not run up your credit cards, and don’t try to buy friends with presents.

But God’s answer to sin begins with the Incarnation. We do not escape from sin by denying, or trying to deny, His method for saving us. Our salvation lies in receiving, resting, accepting, and imitating. And how do we imitate? One thing we must do is use stuff.

– Doug Wilson, 11/27/05

For the common elucidation of our respective perspectives, let us write these on our computer screens with black ink:

• Exordium – Introduction
• Narratio – Statement of facts
• Partitio – Drawing up battle lines
• Propositio – Thesis statement
• Confirmatio – Positive argumentation
• Refutatio – Negative argumentatio
• Peroratio – Conclusion

-Ryan Handermann

For those of you who are doing their Lordship paper on Baptism, HERE is a great resource.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wow, the break’s finally here. The guys can’t wait to see how much stuffing they can eat and the girls… are just glad to be home.

What an awesome college! I know, some of you out there aren’t enjoying it quite so much, the workload is heavy, and the teachers don’t apologize either. Oh well. It’s a riot, IMHO. The perfect complementary education for a Classical Christian education, lots of solid teachers who know and love God and know what they’re talking about, and a lot of fun and laughter from all sides.
And yet… without break I think that much of the freshman class here at NSA would shrivel and die, one by one. Breaks were divinely ordained from the very first week, and so it’s great to see that pattern continued here. Work hard, then relax. And eat. Then work hard again. It’s like running laps – you sprint the first two laps, then jog the third, fourth, and fifth, and then start sprinting again for the last three. The bottle of gatorade you carry with you is Bucer’s and parties. And then after the final stretch, break comes. You stumble over to the sideline, catching your breath and regurgitating all the wisdom you inhaled while running around the academic track like a rabbit with a pencil in your ear.
So what’s the wisdom? Work hard… and then have fun. Without the work, you don’t deserve the fun. And without the fun, you die like a little rabbit with a heart attack.

Ah! non! c’est un peu court, jeune homme!
On pouvait dire. . .Oh!…. . .bien des choses en somme. . .
En variant le ton,–par exemple, tenez
Agressif ‘Moi, monsieur, si j’avais un tel nez
Il faudrait sur-le-champ que je me l’amputasse!’
Amical ‘Mais il doit tremper dans votre tasse!
Pour boire, faites-vous fabriquer un hanap!’
Descriptif ‘C’est un roc!. . .c’est un pic!. . .c’est un cap!
Que dis-je, c’est un cap?. . .C’est une peninsule!’
(keep reading…)

-Cyrano de Bergerac

“Attendu qu’un grand nez est proprement l’indice
D’un homme affable, bon, courtois, spirituel,
Liberal, courageux, tel que je suis, et tel
Qu’il vous est interdit a jamais de vous croire…”

–Cyrano De Bergerac

Click HERE for the pictures from Logos’ play, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”

Here are the links to the handouts for week 4 Lordship:

On the Predestination of the Saints

On the Gift of Perseverance

• Click HERE for some pics from the Reformation Banquet.

Today is Miss Miller’s birthday, so I would like to dedicate this post to her, and say, “felicem diem natalem Miss Miller!”
And you also have the opportunity of seeing a glimpse of all the fun we have in Latin, just click HERE

Now this consecration ought to be such that we should dedicate ourselves both in body and soul to God as temples and spiritual sacrifices, so that our minds should be God’s (to know him), our wills to worship him, our affections to love him, our eyes to contemplate his wonders, our ears to hear his voice, our mouths to celebrate his glory, our hands to do his work and all our members to be instruments of righteousness unto God for his glory. Thus whatever we have either good or honorable or wise or virtuous ought to be devoted to the glory and worship of God.

-Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. II, 183-4

Hey All,
I know its kinda cutting it close for some of you (especially A Latin), but here are the 3rd Edition chapter numbers to correlate with the 2nd Edition numbers in our syllabus.

• As opposed to Ch. 18, 19, 21, & 22. 3rd Edition is: 20, 21, 23, & 24
• And for Friday: EG 44 (46)

Over the weekend (just in case Miss Miller doesn’t have a new syllabus for us) I’ll compile a list for the rest of the term. See you all later today.

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda,

Eric

• Why did he suffer “under Pontius Pilate” as his judge?

That he, being innocent, might be condemned by an earthly judge, and thereby set us free from the judgment of God which, in all its severity, ought to fall upon us.

Such a happy crowd of athiests

It was a great debate! You can get an audio copy of the debate at Canon Press

Time/location changes

• FRIDAYS: Freshmen meet in Augustine Classroom at 1:30 pm with Mr.Nate Wilson
• Beginning Latin, Section B, on Friday only, will meet at12:30 in Calvin

Also, CRF Debate Tonight! (October 18th)

Resolved: Religion and Government Should be Strictly Separate

Dan Barker (Affirmative) and Doglas Wilson (Negative) will be debating this topic at the SUB Ballroom tonight at 7:00 p.m.

• Why is he called Christ, that is, the Anointed One?

       Because he is ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, fully revealing to us the secret purpose and will of God concerning our redemption; to be our only High Priest, having redeemed us by the one sacrifice of his body and ever interceding for us with the Father; and to be our eternal King, governing us by his Word and Spirit, and defending and sustaining us in the redemption he has won for us.

Check out this spoof of a spoof: HERE

Done by “the swede” aka, the Danish Saxon.

note: you need to pause the radio before clicking the link.

Do any you learn by hearing? I recorded myself saying the catechism questions and speeded them up a bit digitally, so if you don’t have your own mic, and would like to listen to the questions, you can hear them HERE.

click HERE to download the NSA windy pics in a zip file, or click HERE to view them in a webpage.

Thank you to George Kong for all the quality pics! (most of mine were pretty blurry)

• Click HERE to view your September 30th Common places.