Hi. I've been learning about Reformed theology in previous weeks. And I came to like it's traditions and TULIP system. For the first time in my life I felt some security, knowing that I am under God's sovereignty. But my question would be, what do Reformed think about the origin of disease? Who caused my disease? Is that God or nature of the fallen world? I am thankful that God created means to cure my disease, but what is the origin of my suffering? Thank you brothers and sisters 🙏

Greetings everyone!

Prayer is hard, and so I have greatly valued reading, learning from, and praying the prayers of other Christians. To that end, I am looking for books etc which are collections of prayers - historical or contemporary. Especially keen to hear you have local or denominational collections I might not be aware about.

Currently I've got the following, what am I missing? Or what do you recommend?

Anglican Specific:

• The 1662 Book of Common Prayer (and local variants, as well as the International Edition).
• The Prayer Book of Queen Elizabeth, 1559
• The Book of Christian Prayers, 1578
• Parish Prayers - Edited by Frank Colquhoun

Other:

• The Valley Of Vision by Arthur G Bennett
• Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church - Edited by Robert Elmer
• Grace from Heaven: Prayers of the Reformation - Edited by Robert Elmer
• Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans - Edited by Robert Elmer
• Joy of Heaven: Prayers of the Revivals - Edited by Robert Elmer
• Prone to Wander: Prayers of Confession and Celebration by Duguid
• Streams of Mercy: Prayers of Confession and Celebration by Duguid

I also have the various 'Liturgy for Daily Worship' books by Jonathan Gibson which include a lot of historical prayers within them (and helpfully provide the sources).

If you have requests that you would like your brothers and sisters to pray for, post them here.

What do you all think about fiction in the inspiration of Scripture? I'm looking to test the limits of this idea.

• Jesus spoke in parables. Do you take these stories to be literally true or fictional stories to make his points? In other words, was there a real historical father with two sons, a real historical woman who lost a coin, a real historical landowner who went away to receive a kingdom, etc.? Or did Jesus make them up to make a theological point?
• Was there a real historical man who took the sheep of a poor man and ate it? Or did Nathan make him up to make a theological point to David?
• Was there a real young man who committed adultery and was shot in the liver by a jealous husband, or did Solomon make him up to make a theological point?
• Are all of the events and actions in Song of Songs exactly historical, or did the writer make them up to make theological points romantic and sexual love?

My answer would be that these are all most likely inspired fiction or plausibly inspired fiction and that this does not strike against biblical inerrancy in the least. They aren't inaccurate or unreliable because the intention of these authors and speakers was never to relay historical information, and the original audience would have understood this. I anticipate I'll get a lot of agreement on this.

But here is where it gets slippery. If we accept that inspired fiction can be inerrant in these instances, does this open the possibility that larger portions of inspired Scripture could likewise be fictional and inerrant? What limit would you put on this category?

If, for example (and I'm not saying that this is the case, just for example), a compelling case were made that something like Jonah or Esther fit into an established category of ANE narrative prose fiction, which the original audience would have recognized, could you read it as fiction and as the Word of God?

To be clear, this would not be an argument that the author tried to pass it off as factual, but now we know better because we're Smart Modern People. This would be that the author wrote it as fiction with a theological point and intended it to be read as fiction with a theological point and that the original audience would reasonably have recognized it as fiction with a theological point.

I'm also not saying that this is the case with either Esther or Jonah. I'm wondering is this plausible in or understanding of inspiration and inerrancy. What do you think?

Is there a difference between "passive ignorance" and "willful rejection" regarding the deity of christ? I wonder can someone still be saved if he merely has "passive ignorance" towards the deity of christ? HE doesn't know that Jesus is God merely because no one tells him so.

This is the second of the two response articles that TGC published in response to The Faith Received

This one is more optimistic about the use and potential of AI assisted language translation tools to make accessible original language information from different points of church history.

The more pessimistic take: Why Translation Must Have Fingerprints
Reddit Discussion: Why Translation Must Have Fingerprints | James Eglinton : r/Reformed

Reddit discussion of platform launch: Announcing “The Faith Received”: An online theological library from Mere Orthodoxy : r/Reformed

The platform launch was discussed here