Together, we have faith

 God's Word is our strength

Personal Bible Journal

 Bible Study Tools
DAILY DEVOTIONAL 
By Carl Shank March 22, 2025
"Only the facts. Ma'am!" I recall that phrase said over and over again on TV as a kid watching the old TV series, "Dragnet." Dragnet was an American crime drama television series starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan which ran for four seasons, from January 12, 1967, to April 16, 1970. This very famous and dour saying was Jack Webb's cryptic remark to interviewed witnesses of a crime. He did not want superfluous or extraneous or personal opinions to cloud the real "facts" of the crime or situation at hand. A current public radio program claims that they are following "only the facts," that they report only factual events as they really took place. They claim to be free of bias and not "progressively oriented" in their reporting. Consequently, a recent show on abortion offered the scientific "fact" of an unborn baby, or fetus, achieving "life status" at so many weeks of gestation. This was said in response to a conservative caller who phoned in citing other "evidence," including the Bible's take on conception, as the beginning of life. The public radio station claimed that the caller was wrong and cited "scientific facts" about the "real" beginning of life. This is an instance and example of what modern society, especially anti-Christian society, considers as "factual" and therefore worth reporting and worth our time. There are actually three problems with what are called "facts" today even when claiming to be fair and unbiased. The definition of what is "factual" has shifted, first of all, over time and history. Hillsdale College publishes speeches in a format called "Imprimis" ( https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/ ) This very conservative institution offers excellent and gifted speakers who go against the tide of "progressivism" in the country. While they and their invited speakers are often dismissed and ignored by most public and social media today, they offer another look at American culture that is Constitutionally based. One of those speakers noted that in the court system today, progressive constitutional thinking has replaced and overtaken original constitutional mandates. This can actually be traced in the history of the court system. "Facts" seen as such years ago are now replaced by "real" facts, modern facts, today's facts. This is part of the problem of a public radio station purporting to only report the "facts" of a situation today. In the second place, reporters and journalists today have been schooled and educated by liberal elite to discard "old" ways of thinking, especially conservatively based thinking, and report things as they "see" them. And this is the problem. How we process what we see is often, whether consciously or unconsciously, biased in favor of a liberal, anti-Christian way of thinking and seeing. Rather than admit such presuppositional flavoring to "factual" reporting, the modern way is seen as the "only" way to see and process everything. Scientific reasoning, crafted by liberal theologians and philosophers of the Enlightenment, has replaced and driven out any hint of truthful reporting that takes into account biblical truth. And, of course, "religious" truth has been replaced by "scientific" truth, as if humanity's way of reasoning trumps God's revelation. Third, American individualism, copying the French Revolution, has defined American "freedom" today. This requires some explanation. Os Guinness in his Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom has Become Its Greatest Threat (InterVarsity Press, 2018), has carefully cited historical "facts" that link the 1789 French Revolution and the American Left — "The former struggled for "liberté" and "egalité" the latter for "liberation" and "social justice." The former won through violent revolution, whereas the latter seeks to win through a cultural revolution, after which the elite imposes its will through administrative and bureaucratic procedures (regulative bodies and the law courts). And both are characterized by their reliance on the state, their open hostility toward religion, their radical separation of religion and public life, their attempt to control language in order to control reality (French and Soviet "Newspeak," "doublespeak," and American "political correctness"), their unashamed espousal of power, their egalitarian appeal to envy rather than liberty, and their naive utopianism that the removal of repression will mean fulfillment of freedom." (51) He says that American has rejected its covenantal/constitutional heritage of freedom as a republic surrendering to those supoposedly "democratic" forces that redefine our "facts" and our heritage. "Only the facts, Ma'am!" has taken on a new meaning, a new way of thinking and processing, and an anti-Christian, anti-biblical, anti-religious cast that we cannot even see or take into account in our reporting of the "facts."
Show More

Oct 13, 2025

Week #41 — Day 2

The Extraordinarily Ordinary


Q. 91. How do the Sacraments become effectual means of salvation?

A. The Sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.

1 Pet. 3:21; Matt. 3:11; 1 Cor. 3:6-7; 1 Cor. 12:13.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.


Q. 92. What is a Sacrament?

A. A Sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.

Gen. 17:7, 10; Ex. 12; 1 Cor. 11:23, 26.


“We are much closer to the mark if we think of the sacraments as mystery, not magic. The Reformed conception of sacraments is in one sense much more understated than the Roman Catholic.. . . Additionally, there is no blessing in the mere partaking of these two sacraments, as though they intrinsically carry with them the benefits of the gospel. . . . While the elements themselves might be ordinary, they do extraordinary things. We believe that when received by faith, the sacraments give us nothing less than “Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant.” 


Excerpt From Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Boekestein & Cruse & Miller)


Extraordinarily ordinary. While not magic, or inherently supernatural, the sacraments of baptism and communion are God-ordained means of grace and support for the Christian believer. In this way, they are glorious markers of God’s special presence with believers to be received by faith and hope. Many Protestant bodies of believers underestimate and understate the benefits of these two sacraments. While the Catholic Church supports seven such sacraments, and Reformational Protestants support only the two, we need to give full weight to what they are and what they do for the believer. This is what we uncover this week in these devotions.


A Puritan Prayer —

“O GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT,

That which I know not, teach thou me,

Keep me a humble disciple in the school of Christ,

learning daily there what I am in myself,

a fallen sinful creature,

justly deserving everlasting destruction;

O let me never lose sight of my need of a Saviour,

or forget that apart from him I am nothing, and can do nothing.

Open my understanding to know the Holy Scriptures;

Reveal to my soul the counsels and works of the blessed Trinity;

Instil into my dark mind the saving knowledge of Jesus;

Make me acquainted with his covenant undertakings

and his perfect fulfilment of them,

that by resting on his finished work

I may find the Father’s love in the Son,

his Father, my Father,

and may be brought through thy influence

to have fellowship with the Three in One.

O lead me into all truth, thou Spirit of wisdom and revelation,

that I may know the things that belong unto my peace,

and through thee be made anew.

Make practical upon my heart the Father’s love

as thou hast revealed it in the Scriptures;

Apply to my soul the blood of Christ, effectually, continually,

and help me to believe, with conscience comforted,

that it cleanseth from all sin;

Lead me from faith to faith,

that I may at all times have freedom to come to a reconciled Father,

and may be able to maintain peace with him

against doubts, fears, corruptions, temptations.

Thy office is to teach me to draw near to Christ with a pure heart,

steadfastly persuaded of his love,

in the full assurance of faith.

Let me never falter in this way.”


Excerpt From

The Valley of Vision

Edited by Arthur Bennett



"We must unquestionably receive its [the Bible's] statements of fact,  bow before its enunciation of duty, tremble before its threatenings, 
and rest upon its promises." – B.B. Warfield


Send us a Message