Naming of Fathers in the Bible

“Now the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, he put before the tabernacle of the Lord.” 2 Chronicles 1:5a

I wonder if the reason the names of the father and grandfather of Bezalel are given is because they raised Bezalel and thus indirectly share in the credit for what he did. 

Perhaps this is true in other cases where fathers are named. It is a testimony God wants to give of their wisdom in raising their children, or, in cases of disreputable children, it is an admonition.

Not true, of course, in all cases, as some sons of good parents may go bad. 

Depend on God

Covet to live a life of daily dependence upon God. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme... You may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord's care, in the fullest assurance that all their times and yours are in His hand.

Octavius Winslow, Jan. 26, Morning and Evening Thoughts

The Trinity - An Old Analogy with a Twist

There is an old explanation for the Trinity that compares it to water. Just as a unit of water can be in three forms, liquid, solid, or vapor, so can God be in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, that unit of water cannot be in these three forms at the same time, which is a weakness in this analogy. However, God created time; he is beyond time, outside of time, therefore this objection is not valid in the case of God. He can be all three at the same time.

Great Thoughts: Heaven and Earth

Our duty as Christians ... is always to keep heaven in our eye and the earth under our feet.

Matthew Henry, commenting on Genesis 1. 

Hypocrisy as a Tribute

An interesting observation:

“Wherever there is genuine coin, it will be likely to be counterfeited; and the fact of a counterfeit is always a tribute to the intrinsic worth of the coin - for who would be at the pains to counterfeit that which is worthless? The fact that there are hypocrites in the church, is an involuntary tribute to the excellency of religion.”

FB Meyer in his book, John the Baptist

Great Thoughts: Religion and Politics in Early America

From Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, speaking of the Puritans. I'm not sure this is still the same today.

One would think that men who had sacrificed their friends, their family, and their native land to a religious conviction would be wholly absorbed in the pursuit of the treasure which they had purchased at so high a price. And yet we find them seeking with nearly equal zeal for material wealth and moral good, -- for well-being and freedom on earth, and salvation in heaven. They moulded and altered at pleasure all political principles, and all human laws and institutions; they broke down the barriers of the society in which they were born; they disregarded the old principles which had governed the world for ages; a career without bounds, a field without horizon, was opened to them: they precipitate themselves into it, and traverse it in every direction. But having reached the limits of the political world, they stop of their own accord, and lay aside with awe the use of their most formidable faculties; they no longer doubt or innovate; they abstain from raising even the veil of the sanctuary, and bow with submissive respect before truths which they admit without discussion.

Thus, in the moral world, everything is classified, systematized, foreseen, and decided beforehand; in the political world, everything is agitated, disputed and uncertain. In the one is a passive though a voluntary obedience; in the other, an independence scornful of experience, and jealous of all authority. These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from conflicting; they advance together, and mutually support each other. Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man, and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.

Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, -- as the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law, and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom ...

Great Thoughts: What People Believe

I read the following in an old commentary by Albert Barnes on the Book of Job (Job 22) and thought how helpful Barnes' comments could be to today's political discourse. Here it is, slightly edited:

How common it is to charge a man with holding an opinion that we infer - from something which he has advanced - he must hold, and then to proceed to argue as if he actually held that opinion.

The philosophy of this is plain. He advances a certain opinion. We infer at once that he can hold that only on certain grounds, or that if he holds that he must hold something else also. We can see that if we held that opinion, we should also, for the sake of consistency, be compelled to hold something which seems to follow from it, and we cannot see how this can be avoided, and we at once charge him with holding it. But the truth may be, that he has not seen that such consequences follow, or that he has some other way of accounting for the fact than we have; or that he may hold to the fact and yet deny wholly the consequences which legitimately follow from it. Now we have a right to show him by argument that his opinions, if he would follow them out, would lead to dangerous consequences, but we only have a right to charge him with holding an opinion that he professes to hold. He is not answerable for our inferences; and we have no right to charge them on him as being his real opinions.

Every man has a right to avow what he actually believes, and to be regarded as holding that, and that only.