John Calvin—Swiss Reformer, preaching Deuteronomy—observes that prosperity does something insidious. You stop remembering your own wretchedness. You feel exempted. No longer of the common sort. And that kills compassion entirely. You forget what others endure. Some respond by locating a minor inconvenience and suggesting the genuinely suffering simply replicate their heroism. Calvin would not have been impressed.
Nicholas Byfield was a Calvinistic, Puritan minister. Here he speaks of compassion as being a proof of our spiritual state, citing bible passages about generosity, watering other peoples, aiding those needing warmth, visiting orphans and widows. These qualities in us prove that we are true neighbors and good Samaritans
Are you following religious leaders who point to other spiritual metrics at the expense of the biblical ones?
#chistian #puritans #calvinist #biblical #colossians #presbyterian
L'Huffington Post - News, inchieste e approfondimenti HuffPost: La giornata di uno scrutatore
Riflessioni calviniane, andando a votare per il referendum, su che cosa è per noi oggi la politica, come ci cambia, come noi l’abbiamo cambiata: epistemologia e metafisica
The day of a poll official
Calvinist reflections, going to vote in the referendum, on what politics is for us today, how it changes us, how we have changed it: epistemology and metaphysics.
https://www.huffingtonpost.it/cultura/2026/03/23/news/la_giornata_di_uno_scrutatore-21495506/
Anglican Thomas Taylor preached on Christ refusing to turn stones to bread. He noted that certain landlords had essentially mastered this trick anyway — extracting rent from tenants with nowhere to go. His verdict: crueler than Satan, who’d at least have let Jesus eat. One might argue property rights. Taylor would note that scripture doesn’t really offer an opt-out clause.
How do you respond to the hungry?
#christian #rent #calvinist
Richard Younge, a Calvinistic pamphleteer, makes the unsettling point that while grace is free, the presence—or glaring absence—of mercy toward the poor rather suggests something about the state of one’s soul. Not grace plus works, you understand—rather works as the unavoidable fruit. Curious, then, how some fret over prayer minutes yet balk at mercy.
#christian #devotions #grace #sin #blessed #sanctification #calvinist
Calvin teaches that the rich man’s guilt was not theft but indifference: he feasted while Lazarus starved at his gate. To neglect the poor when relief is within our power is, in effect, to destroy life by neglect. Yet how seldom this warning shapes our teaching on giving or charity. The question is not abstract theology but obedience: what suffering near you could already be relieved by your hand?
Andrew Martin Fairbairn notes that Calvin’s Geneva became Protestant Europe’s spiritual Airbnb: refugees arrived from everywhere, discovered a surprisingly orderly church, and then went home—occasionally risking execution—to recreate it. One wonders whether today’s Calvinist strongholds still feel like refuges, or merely meetings.
#sanctuary #refugees #immigration #calvinist #christian #reformed
Richard Younge, a Calvinistic, English tract writer, argues that wealth is not absolute ownership but stewardship. The Master entrusts goods so the whole household may be cared for. Lavish self-spending, while others lack necessities, misuses that trust. This is not a call for coercion, but for conscience: wise, just, charitable use of what we hold. How will you steward what’s been placed in your hands?
Oh jee we mogen niet genieten
In zijn boek Lang zal ik lekker leven toont opiniepeiler Peter Kanne hoe de genotzuchtige Nederlander zich tevreden terugtrekt in zijn eigen wereldje, terwijl hij belaagd wordt door rampspoed en ellende: ‘Mijn generatie staat aan het begin van de verweking die ik beschrijf.’
Greg Johnson
Italian News by RSS
Marco Raaphorst