Peter is 53% done with The Minutemen and Their W

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:37:48 -0700

Peter Bringe is 53% done with The Minutemen and Their World.

Peter is 30% done with The Minutemen and Their W

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 20:52:13 -0700

Peter Bringe is 30% done with The Minutemen and Their World.

Peter is currently reading 'The Minutemen and Their World'

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 06:48:38 -0700

Peter is currently reading The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross

Peter added 'New England's Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817'

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 20:07:10 -0700

Peter gave 4 stars to New England's Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817 (Hardcover) by John R. Fitzmier
bookshelves: history

Peter added 'Out of the Silent Planet'

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 20:17:30 -0700

Peter gave 4 stars to Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, #1) by C.S. Lewis
bookshelves: stories-poetry

Peter is currently reading 'Plans for Holy War'

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 13:57:31 -0700

Peter is currently reading Plans for Holy War by David C. Noe

Peter is currently reading 'Out of the Silent Planet'

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:01:01 -0700

Peter is currently reading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Peter added 'Christ the Educator'

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 14:06:18 -0700

Peter gave 5 stars to Christ the Educator (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series) by Clement of Alexandria
bookshelves: applied-theology, theology
This is a lively and practical book on Christ as the Educator, written around AD 190 by Clement of Alexandria. I liked it both for its historical value and its instructional value. It is helpful for seeing what it was like to live as a Christian in the midst of a pagan Greco-Roman culture. Some of it is simply interesting, even if not directly applicable. And even although I wouldn't agree with Clement on everything, there is a good deal of wisdom and helpful instruction in it, including instruction on practical matters not always covered in books today (like gluttony). He can be a bit extreme at points, although he often (not always) moderates his position as he continues.

In this book, Clement speaks of Christ as the Educator and of how he trains us for our good in our whole course of life. “As for deeds, walking and reclining at table, eating and sleeping, marriage relations and the manner of life, the whole of a man's education all become illustrious as holy deeds under the influence of the Educator.��

He writes, "Just as the general directs a line of battle with the safety of his soldiers in mind, and as the helmsman pilots his ship conscious of his responsibility for the lives of his passengers, so the Educator, in his concern for us, leads His children along a way of life that ensures salvation. In brief, all that we could reasonably ask God to do for us is within the reach of those who trust in the Educator of little ones. Again, just as the helmsman does not always sail with the wind, but sometimes when there is a squall, sets his prow head on against it, so, too, the Educator never falls in with the winds sweeping through this world, nor does He suffer His children to be driven like a ship into a wild and unregulated course of life. Rather, assisted only by the favorable breeze of the Spirit of truth, He holds steadfastly to the rudder, that is, the hearing of His children, until He brings them safely to anchor in the port of heaven."

He writes about the right use of food and drink. “God has provided food and drink for His creature, I mean man, not for his dissipation, but for his welfare.�� A little later on he adds, “At any rate, he who always offers up thanks will not indulge excessively in pleasure.�� (John Calvin makes the same point about giving thanks in his comments on 1 Timothy 4:3, “Now, there can be no thanksgiving without sobriety and temperance; for the kindness of God is not truly acknowledged by him who wickedly abuses it.��)

What he writes of joking and laughing could be applied to many things - not to forbid it, but use it rightly: “We need not take away from man any of the things that are natural to him, but only set a limit and due proportion to them. It is true that man is an animal who can laugh; but it is not true that he therefore should laugh at everything.�� And also: “We should be pleasantly witty, but not clowns.��

Here is how Clement wrote about the blessing of children: “Begetting children is the goal of those who wed, and the fulfillment of that goal is a large family, just as hope of a crop drives the farmer to sow his seed, while the fulfillment of his hope is the actual harvesting of the crop. But he who sows in a living soil is far superior, for the one tills the land to provide food only for a season, the other to secure the preservation of the whole human race; the one tends his crop for himself, the other, for God. We have received the command: ‘Be fruitful,�� and we must obey. In this role man becomes like God, because he co-operates, in his human way, in the birth of another man.��

Peter is currently reading 'New England's Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817'

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:14:36 -0700

Peter is currently reading New England's Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817 by John R. Fitzmier

Peter added 'John Witherspoon's American Revolution'

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:50:00 -0700

Peter gave 3 stars to John Witherspoon's American Revolution (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture) by Gideon Mailer
bookshelves: culture, history

Peter's Updates