Jason Mccool > Recent Status Updates

Fascinating story about two of the truly big names of the Puritan age that is also very instructive for our time. Cooper does a good job of getting past the dry, bare facts to show why two people, who were both Christians supposed to live in brotherly love & unity & who generally should've checked all the same boxes, disliked each other intensely. He really brings out the personality conflict involved.

Just finished the Heidelberg Catechism and started the Westminster Larger Catechism. Good stuff!

Going through the Heidelberg Catechism now. Beautiful document, although there have been a few questions where the answer was a little lacking in scriptural support. Question 44 on why the Apostle's Creed added "He descended into hell" was exemplary of the answer not really answering the question & the referenced scriptures supporting the unrelated answer about suffering instead of the question about hell.

Just finished the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689 & starting on the catechisms now with the Heidelberg Catechism up first. I'm really enjoying reading these. More Protestants, particularly non-denominational congregants, should read these classic doctrinal statements and Q&A's (catechisms). I think there'd be a lot less people calling themselves Christian when they don't accept basic Christian doctrine.

Mr. Brooks pus into words what I didn't know how to express. He definitely writes from painful experience and "gets it." Very good so far.

Really good so far. I thought Piper's development of the concept of risk was particularly insightful.

Through with the Westminster Confession of Faith and into the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689 now. WCF is generally well-written and biblically grounded, but they went oddly off the rails with their paedobaptist belief (i.e., infant "baptism", or rather sprinkling) with no good verses to back that up. Good example of eisegesis. The London Confession at least corrects that.

I think more Christians should read the creedal statements of our faith. I think there's a lot of people who consider themselves Christians who would probably reject much Christian doctrine in their current condition if they read it, being really heretics without even knowing it. Know what you believe and why you believe it. And always ground it in the Bible.

Of course, all of these individual texts are all readily available online for free, but there's something about a physical book, particularly a classy one like this, that invites reading. Each text also has a nice intro at the beginning that's been helpful for me with ones from other traditions that I wasn't part of. Really nice to have so many creedal statements collected in one volume to compare.

I'm surprised to see so many bad reviews on Goodreads. I enjoyed the movie when it came out and was curious how the book was since they are usually better. It IS a unique premise, and I've rather enjoyed her writing style so far, and I thought she had several clever bits of wordplay. Different from the movie, but both good in their own ways.

A lot of good points so far about the exhausting problem of living without margin. Been there, done that - mainly why I got the book.

Good stuff so far.