The Grace Of Growing Days

          “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)

          Luke’s closing line on Jesus’ youth is quiet, yet it carries a depth that invites slow reading. It gathers years of hidden life into a single sentence, portraying growth that is steady, harmonious, and whole. Nothing here is hurried. Nothing is dramatic. Yet everything is essential. The verse suggests a life unfolding with a grace that is both deeply human and quietly radiant.

          Jesus increases in wisdom, and this growth reflects more than the sharpening of thought. It is the deepening of understanding that comes from living faithfully within the world He Himself sustains. His wisdom unfolds within the quiet fabric of His earthly life, shaped by the steady rhythms of learning, observing, and inhabiting the world He once spoke into being. The mind that will one day speak with unmatched clarity grows here in silence, shaped not by urgency but by the gentle patience of a life fully aligned with the Father.

          He increases in stature, and this simple phrase reminds the reader that the incarnation is not symbolic. Jesus grows as every child grows. His body strengthens, His frame expands, His hands learn the weight of tools and the texture of wood. The physical life He assumes is not a disguise but a genuine participation in human experience. The one who upholds all things by His power allows Himself to be upheld by nourishment, rest, and care. His humanity is not diminished by His divinity, nor does His divinity eclipse His humanity. Both move together in quiet harmony.

          He increases in favor with God and man. This favor is not the result of public miracles or dramatic displays. It is the natural fruit of a life lived in perfect alignment with the Father’s will and expressed with gentleness among others. Jesus becomes someone whose presence draws trust, affection, and respect. His relationship with God deepens in the way a human life can deepen, through prayer, obedience, and love, and His life within the community reflects that deepening. The favor He receives from others is not accidental; it is the earthly echo of the delight the Father has always had in Him.

          Luke’s summary suggests that the most profound preparation for Jesus’ ministry occurs far from public attention. Nazareth becomes the quiet workshop where wisdom, strength, and favor gather in perfect balance. The verse reminds the reader that spiritual formation often happens in seasons that appear uneventful, through the steady faithfulness of ordinary days. In Jesus’ hidden years, divinity does not bypass humanity; it fills it, dignifies it, and reveals its capacity to bear the weight of glory.

The Quiet Architecture Of Grace

        "And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart." (Luke 2:51)

        This text presents a moment of quiet transition, where Jesus returns to Nazareth and embraces the ordinary rhythms of home life. The text notes that He lived in obedience to His parents, a detail that highlights His willingness to inhabit the full reality of human experience. His submission is not portrayed as limitation, but as intentional participation in the life of a household, allowing growth to unfold within the familiar patterns of daily responsibility. This voluntary alignment with His parents’ guidance reveals a humility that stands in contrast to the extraordinary wisdom He displayed in Jerusalem. It shows that His path includes seasons of hidden development, shaped not by public attention but by the steady formation that comes through family and community.

        Mary’s response adds a contemplative dimension to the scene. She holds His words and actions within her inner life, treating them as truths that require patience rather than immediate clarity. Her heart becomes a place where meaning is allowed to mature slowly. She does not force understanding; she preserves what she has witnessed, trusting that time will reveal what she cannot yet grasp. This quiet interior work reflects a faith that listens more than it explains, a posture that allows mystery to remain present without anxiety. Luke’s brief description of her inward attentiveness suggests that spiritual insight often grows in silence, through the steady accumulation of moments that invite reflection.

        Together, these elements create a picture of a household marked by both simplicity and depth. Jesus enters a season of growth shaped by ordinary life, and Mary continues her practice of thoughtful remembrance. The verse captures a harmony between action and contemplation, between the visible and the hidden. It reminds the reader that profound spiritual realities often unfold in places that appear unremarkable, and that understanding frequently develops through quiet endurance rather than sudden revelation.

A Son Found, A Mystery Revealed

        "And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them." (Luke 2:48-50)

        The scene is simple, yet it carries a quiet depth. Mary and Joseph arrive at the temple worn from days of searching, and they find Jesus not frightened or lost, but calmly engaged with the teachers. Their amazement is more than surprise, It is the dawning realization that He is already moving in a world they cannot fully enter. Mary’s words come from a mother’s heart, shaped by fear and relief. She speaks from the human place where love becomes worry, and where the safety of a child feels like the center of the universe.

        Jesus’s response is gentle, but it opens a window into something far larger. His question is not a rebuke but a quiet unveiling. He speaks as someone who already knows His identity with clarity. The phrase “I must be about my Father’s business” is simple, yet it carries the weight of necessity. Even at twelve, He is aware of a calling that precedes family expectations and rises above ordinary life. His words are unusual because they come from a child, yet they carry the tone of someone who stands between heaven and earth.

        Luke’s note that “they understood not” is important. It shows that even those closest to Jesus cannot fully grasp Him. Their confusion is not failure. It is the natural distance between divine purpose and human perception. They know who He is, yet they do not yet understand what that means. This moment quietly foreshadows the entire gospel: Jesus will continually reveal Himself, and even those who love Him most will struggle to keep pace with the unfolding of His mission.

        Jesus assumes that His presence in the temple should have been obvious, as though His identity naturally leads Him there. What is clear to Him is mysterious to everyone else. It raises the question of how often divine purpose appears strange simply because it does not align with human expectations. Jesus is not lost; He is exactly where He belongs. It is the world, including His own parents, that must learn how to find Him.

Feodor’s Outer‑Space Monologue And The Argument That Never Lands

          Feodor has since hilariously gone into meltdown mode for failing to save his pseudo-scientific theories about Protestantism:

          https://signmovesreality.blogspot.com/2026/06/jesses-life-of-quiet-desperation.html

          “There are many common deceiving habits performed by the intellectual dilettante…”

          The opening claim is a textbook case of projection. It reads like someone frantically describing his own habits before anyone else can point them out. The reader is treated to a lecture on intellectual rigor from someone who has yet to demonstrate even the most basic form of it: showing that his sources actually support his claims.

          “Jesse's siloed, quietly whimpering blog production in the deep woods…”

          The “deep woods” imagery is pure melodrama, a stage set meant to elevate the speaker as a cosmopolitan oracle confronting a trembling hermit. It is self‑mythologizing of the most transparent kind. Geography is not a counterargument, and invoking it only highlights how little substance is available. When someone starts painting landscapes instead of presenting evidence, it is because the evidence is not there.

          “The IQ of prisons are often higher than the general population…”

          This is a drive‑by insult wearing a fake academic mustache. It is meant to sting, not to illuminate. The reader is left with the unmistakable impression that Feodor hopes a random statistic will distract from the fact that he has not produced a single relevant citation. The argument has already slipped out of his hands.

          “Put briefly, again, is his opening framing of me…”

          The insistence that citing Bainton or MacCulloch “proves his point” is a category error so glaring it practically blinks. The existence of scholarship on Protestant ethics or secularization does not magically transform into proof of a grand causal chain linking Protestantism to every modern Western failure. Scholarship exists; Feodor's thesis does not exist within that scholarship. The leap is his, not the scholars’. The argument is that because books exist, his conclusions must be true, a logic so thin it would not hold up in a freshman seminar.

          “BUT! that IT EXISTS!!”

          This is rhetorical theater at full volume, the intellectual equivalent of shouting “Look over there!” while hoping no one notices the empty space where the argument should be. Max Weber analyzed how religious ethics and institutional discipline shaped modern capitalism, not colonial brutality. Charles Taylor traced the rise of secularity, not a Protestant genealogy of racial hierarchy. The VoxEU studies Feodor cites examine how rules and incentives shape economic outcomes, not theological causation. Milton Friedman wrote about markets and incentives, not grand theories of global domination. And Diarmaid MacCulloch rejects monocausal explanations and treats Protestantism as a diverse, historically varied set of movements, not the monolith Feodor imagines.

          “And what exists is more than a century of expositing the generating effects…”

          What exists is a century of nuanced scholarship. What does not exist is a single historian or sociologist who makes the sweeping causal claims that Feodor attributes to them. The inflation of narrow academic points into a universal explanatory myth is entirely his own construction.

          "The intellectual ferment that Max Weber started has matured far beyond Max Weber. It has folded in historians both ecclesial and secular, sociologists both Christian and secular, theologians and economists both Christian and secular (Diarmaid McCulloch being one of them)."

          Feodor’s rhetorical strategy is to make sweeping claims, invoke big names, pretend that they support him, use their prestige to inflate his own, and browbeat others when they do not accept his narrative. He has fairly low brain power. If a thesis cannot be found in the sources cited, then the thesis is not supported by them.

          “Jesse's massive blindness… pathetic moves of a dilettante…”

          The psychological narrative here is transparent: when evidence cannot be supplied, motives are invented. The reader is invited to believe that disagreement stems from pathology rather than argument. This is not analysis; it is dramatization. It is a tantrum disguised as diagnosis.

          “Given his willful, duplicitous, ideologically shallow and rigid anachronistic puritanism…”

          This is a string of adjectives performing the work that evidence cannot. It is meant to sound authoritative, but collapses under scrutiny.

          “Jesse could not be more like Trump…”

          The comparison is rhetorical venting, not reasoning. It is designed to provoke, not persuade. It reveals more about Feodor’s emotional investment than about the argument at hand. The argument has left the rails and is now being pushed downhill by frustration alone.

          “This isn’t Christian. It’s a latent boy’s fantasy of Nietzsche’s Übermensch.”

          The Nietzsche reference is theatrical flourish, a way to elevate insult into pseudo‑philosophical condemnation. It is a performance of erudition rather than an application of it. The reader is meant to be impressed by the invocation of Nietzsche, but the move is transparent: when one cannot defend a thesis, one reaches for grandiose metaphors. It is costume jewelry worn as if it were scholarship. 

          “btw, it is people like Diarmaid MacCulloch who evidence the reason why I call the Thugs… ‘radical’…”

          MacCulloch’s work does not support the monolithic caricature of Protestantism presented here. He treats Protestantism as diverse, complex, and historically varied. Feodor's attempt to conscript him into a sweeping indictment of Protestantism is an abuse of his scholarship.

          “Let’s see if Oxford professor MacCulloch stays in Jesse’s primitive good graces.”

          This is another attempt at psychological theater, the insinuation that disagreement stems from insecurity or tribal loyalty. It avoids the central issue: MacCulloch does not make the claims attributed to him. The speaker’s self‑mythologizing is on full display: he casts himself as the enlightened interpreter of MacCulloch while dismissing others as “primitive.” It is a performance of superiority, not a demonstration of it.

          “btw2, Jesse's latest quote re puritan sex…”

          Speculation about “intent,” “inference,” or “obsession” is rhetorical filler. It is not argument. It is an attempt to shift the conversation from ideas to imagined motives. When Feodor begins psychoanalyzing strangers in lieu of addressing sources, the argument has run out of fuel and is now coasting on fumes.

          “btw3, I found this funny - because it's so liberal - from a primitive, pre-Enlightenment, radical anachronistic antiquarian protestant ideologue who believes in sola scriptura”

          This guy needs to shut the hell up. His reasoning is beneath even the most forgiving academic standards.

          At this point, Feodor’s bluster grows only because his case does not, and the strain is visible; unfortunately, so is the result. Tone has fully replaced substance, and confidence is now doing the heavy lifting that evidence never supplied. When someone in that posture starts issuing grand judgments about intellect, motives, or education, the gap between performance and authority becomes impossible to ignore. His rant makes clear just how far removed he is from the vantage point required for such evaluations. The louder the performance grows, the more obvious that distance becomes.

          Addendum, nothing truly is necessary to be added here, but we will note one unrelated post of Feodor's just to illustrate his demeanor: 

          https://signmovesreality.blogspot.com/2026/06/when-i-always-agree-with-jesse.html

          There is something almost predictable about the way that Feodor thinks: he takes a straightforward point and immediately elevates himself into the role of theological custodian, smoothing it over with academic phrasing as if the original thought were somehow insufficient. His contribution reads like he is trying to “fix” what was not broken. It is less conversation and more performance, a reflexive need to refine, correct, and re-present whatever someone else says so that he can feel like the more authoritative voice in the room. And honestly, if Feodor manages to get past the pearly gates, I am sure that God can still find a purpose for him, perhaps as a footstool for Jesus or a decorative end‑table tucked quietly away.

Refuting A Nut So Nutty, That He Has The Actual Characteristics Of A Nut

          Our critic keeps digging himself into a deeper hole, and his latest attempt at rebuttal only exposes how little he actually understands:

          https://signmovesreality.blogspot.com/2026/06/jesse-hates-this-sweeping-claim-denies.html#comments

          Feodor does not meaningfully address the substance of the argument he aims to refute. Instead of engaging the reasoning presented, he substitutes confidence for clarity and aggression for analysis. The result is a response that appears forceful on the surface but collapses under examination. What follows is a direct refutation of the central problems in his rebuttal.

          The first issue is the critic’s assumption that merely invoking well‑known thinkers or themes automatically proves his point. He gestures toward broad intellectual traditions as if their existence alone establishes his conclusions. But naming a theory is not the same as demonstrating its relevance, and gesturing toward a body of literature is not the same as accurately representing it. Feodor never explains how the ideas he references actually support his sweeping claim that Protestantism is the root cause of Western fragmentation, colonial violence, racial hierarchy, and modern relativism. Without that explanation, his appeal to intellectual authority is rhetorical rather than substantive.

          Feodor’s argument overextends the scholarship he cites by treating nuanced sociological theories as if they were definitive causal explanations for Western violence, fragmentation, or racial hierarchy. The thinkers he invokes, Weber, Taylor, Friedman, and others, describe how certain Protestant ideas influenced aspects of modern economic rationality or secularization, not how Protestantism generated the moral failures of the West. Converting these limited academic claims into a sweeping indictment is a misuse of sources, a collapse of categories, and a rhetorical leap that the scholarship itself does not justify. Sources such as Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation: A History, Carter Lindberg’s The European Reformations, and Roland H. Bainton’s The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century offer far more reliable and nuanced accounts than anything Feodor could present.

          A deeper flaw lies in his mischaracterization of Protestantism itself. He treats it as a single, unified ideology with a single psychological profile and a single historical trajectory. This is historically indefensible. Protestant traditions differ profoundly from one another, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Anabaptist, Pietist, Evangelical, and others. They diverge on sacraments, authority, hermeneutics, ecclesiology, and political theology. To collapse these diverse traditions into a single causal agent behind five centuries of global history is not analysis; it is caricature. No serious account of the Reformation or modernity treats Protestantism as a monolith.

          Equally problematic is the critic’s confusion of correlation with causation. The fact that Protestant regions participated in capitalism or colonial expansion does not prove that Protestant theology caused those developments. Colonialism was pioneered by Catholic powers long before Protestant states rose to prominence. Racial hierarchy developed through a complex interplay of economic interests, political competition, Enlightenment rationalism, and emerging pseudo‑scientific theories. Modern relativism arose from philosophical movements that were often explicitly anti‑religious. Feodor’s attempt to trace all of these developments back to a single theological root ignores the complexity of history and reduces vast, interlocking forces to a simplistic narrative.

          Feodor's rhetorical method further undermines his position. Rather than addressing the argument presented, he resorts to personal insults and dismissive language. This does not strengthen his case; it reveals the absence of a coherent response. When a rebuttal relies on belittling the interlocutor rather than engaging the reasoning, it signals that the argument cannot stand on its own. Intellectual confidence is not demonstrated by derision but by clarity, precision, and the ability to articulate a coherent chain of reasoning.

          Our critic's argument suffers from a persistent tendency to attribute uniform motives, psychological traits, and moral failures to entire populations. This is not historical reasoning, but essentialism. It replaces analysis with accusation and substitutes sweeping generalization for careful interpretation. The critic condemns others for absolutism while practicing a more sweeping absolutism of his own. He denounces the supposed blindness of entire traditions while exempting himself from the humility he demands of others.

          Feodor's rebuttal does not refute the original critique. It confirms it. His method is not grounded in careful historical reasoning or theological nuance but in rhetorical overreach and conceptual simplification. The confidence with which he asserts his conclusions does not compensate for the weaknesses in his argument. A serious conversation about the Reformation, modernity, or the development of Western power requires attention to complexity, diversity, and context. The critic’s response offers none of these. It should therefore be set aside as an inadequate and misleading account of the issues at hand.

Correcting A Polemic Built On Historical And Theological Misrepresentation

          A piece was recently brought to this author's attention. Given its sweeping claims and serious distortions, it deserves a clear and direct refutation:

          https://signmovesreality.blogspot.com/2026/06/jesse-prefers-ministry-of-condemnation.html

          His central claim, that “Protestant relativism” is the root cause of Western fragmentation, colonial violence, and racial hierarchy, is not supported by serious scholarship. Catholic, Protestant, and secular empires alike engaged in conquest and racialized domination, driven by economic ambition, geopolitical competition, and the rise of pseudo‑scientific racial theories. To reduce these vast and interlocking forces to a single theological thread is not analysis; it is ideological simplification. The certainty with which Feodor advances this reduction only underscores the carelessness of the method.

          His treatment of Reformation theology is equally flawed. Luther did not deny sacramental presence; Calvin did not reduce the eucharist to a disembodied symbol; and Zwingli did not invent individualistic interpretation. These distinctions are well‑established in the history of doctrine. Feodor’s refusal to acknowledge them reveals a willingness to flatten centuries of theological development into crude stereotypes. This is not the work of someone seeking truth. It is the construction of a villain for the sake of a polemic.

          Paul’s contrast between “letter” and “Spirit” in 2 Corinthians 3 concerns the transition from the Mosaic covenant to the new covenant in Christ. It is not a denunciation of Protestant hermeneutics, nor a justification for sweeping condemnations of entire Christian traditions. To wrench this passage out of its historical and theological context and weaponize it against whole communities is a profound abuse of the text.

          Most troubling is Feodor’s habit of attributing uniform motives, psychological tendencies, and moral failures to entire populations. This is not theology; it is essentialism. It is not critique; it is accusation. He condemns others for absolutism while practicing a more sweeping absolutism of his own. He denounces supremacy while constructing a narrative in which he alone stands above centuries of believers, judging them from a self‑appointed height. The inconsistency is impossible to ignore.

          Feodor’s narrative is not a reliable guide to history, theology, or the work of the Spirit. It is a polemical construction, not a serious account of the past. It collapses complexity into accusation, nuance into caricature, and the biblical text into a weapon. Anyone encountering his argument deserves to know that it is built on distortions, not facts; on polemic, not scholarship; and on a posture of contempt rather than discernment. His piece should be rejected with clarity and firmness for both its errors and the corrosive method by which it advances them.

The Catholic Narrative Of Relativism Reconsidered And Refuted

The claim that Protestantism is responsible for the rise of moral relativism rests on a simplified reading of intellectual history and an equally simplified understanding of the Reformation itself. Before one can assess whether Protestantism “caused” relativism, it is necessary to recognize that the cultural, philosophical, and theological conditions that later produced relativistic thought were already developing within medieval Europe long before Luther or Calvin appeared. The Reformation did not invent interpretive diversity, skepticism toward authority, or challenges to institutional uniformity; it emerged within a world where these forces were already active. Any serious historical analysis must therefore begin by situating Protestantism within the broader currents of late‑medieval and early‑modern thought rather than treating it as the singular catalyst for modern intellectual fragmentation.

Protestantism itself did not arise from a desire for subjective interpretation or doctrinal freedom. It emerged as a principled response to the doctrinal confusion, superstition, and institutional abuses that had accumulated within late‑medieval Catholicism. Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin sought to restore theological clarity by grounding Christian teaching in Scripture rather than in the elaborate system of relics, rituals, and mystical claims that had come to dominate religious life. Their insistence on vernacular Scripture, catechesis, and personal engagement with the biblical text was not an invitation to relativism but a rejection of the intellectual passivity fostered by a clerical monopoly on knowledge. In this sense, the Reformation was a movement toward epistemic responsibility, not away from it.

Long before the Reformation, however, the intellectual foundations for later relativistic tendencies were already being laid within medieval Europe. The rediscovery of classical skepticism, the rise of nominalism, and the growing tension between faith and reason in late‑scholastic thought all contributed to a more fluid understanding of knowledge and authority. Figures such as William of Ockham challenged metaphysical realism and weakened confidence in universal categories, while the conciliarist movement questioned the absolute authority of the papacy. These developments created an environment in which appeals to centralized authority were already losing persuasive power. The Reformation did not introduce these dynamics; it inherited them. If anything, Protestantism attempted to stabilize the intellectual landscape by grounding authority in Scripture rather than in the increasingly contested structures of late‑medieval Roman Catholicism.

The Roman Catholic claim to moral consistency is further weakened by its own historical record. Across the centuries, the Roman Church has revised or abandoned positions on issues such as usury, indulgences, and slavery, positions once defended with great confidence. These shifts reveal not an unbroken moral tradition but an institution that has repeatedly adapted to political and cultural pressures. Protestant movements, by contrast, were often the first to champion literacy, civic responsibility, and social reform. The abolitionist movement, the spread of public education, and the development of constitutional government all drew heavily from Protestant convictions about human dignity, conscience, and moral duty. These achievements reflect principled commitments, not relativism, and they demonstrate that Protestantism has often been a catalyst for moral progress rather than moral instability.

The accusation that Protestantism lacks doctrinal stability also ignores the existence of robust confessional traditions. Documents such as the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, and the Thirty‑Nine Articles articulate coherent theological and ethical frameworks rooted in Scripture and reason. These confessions provide structure, boundaries, and continuity across generations. The diversity within Protestantism is real, but it is not evidence of relativism. It reflects a willingness to wrestle with Scripture without appealing to a centralized authority to settle every disagreement. Theological diversity is not the same as moral subjectivity; it can be a sign of intellectual vitality and a refusal to suppress legitimate inquiry. In fact, the existence of multiple Protestant confessions demonstrates that Protestantism has produced stable, enduring doctrinal systems rather than a free‑for‑all of private opinions.

A further point often overlooked is that Protestant decentralization actually limits the spread of error. When a Protestant group adopts an unbiblical teaching, its influence is naturally contained. In contrast, when the centralized Catholic Magisterium errs, as in the defense of indulgence abuses or the historical toleration of slavery, the error becomes institutional and far‑reaching. Decentralization prevents any single authority from defining error as orthodoxy. This structural safeguard is the opposite of relativism; it is a check against the concentration of doctrinal power. The Catholic model, by contrast, risks turning historical contingencies into universal mandates simply because they have been ratified by an authoritative body.

It is also necessary to situate modern moral relativism within broader intellectual developments that extend far beyond Protestantism. The rise of Enlightenment rationalism, the spread of secular humanism, and the later emergence of postmodern philosophy have each contributed to the erosion of shared moral frameworks in the West. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty advanced critiques of objective truth, universal morality, and stable meaning that bear no genealogical connection to Protestant theology. Secularization, scientific naturalism, and the decline of institutional religion have likewise played decisive roles in shaping contemporary relativism. To attribute these vast cultural shifts to the Reformation is historically untenable; the intellectual roots of relativism lie primarily in modernity’s rejection of metaphysical authority, not in Protestantism’s return to biblical authority.

Relativism has often flourished within Catholic contexts themselves. Late‑medieval Catholicism was marked by a patchwork of local practices, folk beliefs, and contradictory devotional customs that varied widely from region to region. The Reformation confronted this inconsistency by calling people back to Scripture as a universal standard. If relativism is defined as a lack of stable, shared norms, then the Reformation was a corrective to relativism, not its cause. The Protestant insistence on the clarity of Scripture perspicuity was an attempt to establish a common foundation for belief, not to dissolve doctrinal unity.

Roman Catholic apologists often assume that truth requires a single institutional interpreter, but this assumption is philosophically and historically questionable. Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the early Christian communities all maintained doctrinal identity without a centralized, infallible teaching office. Protestantism stands in continuity with this older model of communal discernment, where Scripture, reason, and conscience work together to guide the church. This approach does not lead to relativism. It reflects confidence that truth can be recognized without coercive authority. Moreover, the Catholic claim that the Magisterium prevents relativism presupposes that institutional authority is immune to cultural influence, a claim that historians widely reject.

Finally, the Catholic critique overlooks the fact that Protestantism introduced a new model of intellectual accountability. By encouraging literacy, biblical study, and public preaching, Protestantism created a culture in which theological claims could be evaluated, debated, and tested. This is not relativism but a form of disciplined inquiry. The Reformation’s emphasis on conscience before God established a moral seriousness that resists both authoritarianism and subjectivism. If relativism is the abandonment of objective truth, then Protestantism is not its source but one of its most persistent opponents.

True Humanity And God’s Commandments

"Nowadays, some will maintain, in the name of Humanism, that the “Puritan” sexual morality of the Bible is inimical to the attainment of true human maturity, and that a little more license makes for richer living. Of this ideology we would only say that the proper name for it is not Humanism, but Brutism. Sexual laxity does not make you more of a man, but less so; it brutalizes you, and tears your soul to pieces. The same is true wherever any of God’s commandments are disregarded. We are only living truly human lives just so far as we are laboring to keep God’s commandments; no further."

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 103

Feelings Without Knowledge Are Null And Void

"All the Puritans regarded religious feeling and pious emotion without knowledge as worse than useless. Only when the truth was being felt was emotion in any way desirable. When men felt and obeyed the truth they knew, it was the work of the Spirit of God, but when they were swayed by feeling without knowledge, it was a sure sign that the devil was at work, for feeling divorced from knowledge and urgings to action in darkness of mind were both as ruinous to the soul as was knowledge without obedience. So the teaching of truth was the pastor's first task, as the learning of it was the layman's."

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 70

The Psychology Of Image Veneration

The pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of His deity, His victory on the cross, and His present kingdom. It displays His human weakness, but it conceals His divine strength; it depicts the reality of His pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of His joy and His power. In both these cases, the symbol is unworthy most of all because of what it fails to display. And so are all other visible representations of Deity.

Psychologically, it is certain that if you habitually focus your thoughts on an image or picture of the One to whom you are going to pray, you will come to think of Him, and pray to Him, as the image represents Him. Thus you will in this sense “bow down” and “worship” your image; and to the extent to which the image fails to tell the truth about God, to that extent you will fail to worship God in truth. That is why God forbids you and me to make use of images and pictures in worship.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 41-42