This blog chiefly seeks to collate materials available elsewhere on the net by or about J Gresham Machen


Wednesday 16 June 2010

Serious humour and tobacco


I have come to the conclusion that the two institutions which Germany most needs are (1) The Sabbath; and (2) American Football.
... What a wonderful aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian fellowship.
“The fellows are in my room now on the last Sunday night, smoking the cigars and eating the oranges which it has been the greatest delight I ever had to provide whenever possible. My idea of delight is a Princeton room full of fellows smoking. When I think what an aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian patience, I have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke.” Stonehouse Biography pp 84, 85, 506

Machen on social betterment

material benefits were never valued in the apostolic age for their own sake, they were never regarded as substitutes for spiritual things. That lesson needs to be learned. Social betterment, though important, is insufficient; it must always be supplemented by God’s unspeakable gift,
J Gresham Machen, New Testament, ed, John Cook, pp 345, 346