Written by R.C. Sproul |
Thursday, May 19, 2022
It’s the New Testament that says, “There is no other name under heaven through which men may be saved, except that of Christ.” It’s the New Testament that says, “To whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life.” It’s God who says, “This is My only begotten son.” And again, and again, and again, the New Testament reiterates either through the lips of Christ or through the writings of the Apostles this theme that Jesus is uniquely the Redeemer of mankind.

I was taking a course in English literature. I was a second-semester freshman at the time, and I had become a Christian the first semester of my freshman year. And I did not keep my Christian commitment a secret on the campus. And there were some faculty members at the college where I attended that were very hostile towards Christianity. And the person who at least manifests the greatest amount of hostility of all the faculty happened to be the professor of this English literature course I was taking. The teacher was a woman. She had distinguished herself as a journalist and as a war correspondent during World War II prior to taking on the task of collegiate teaching. I think out of her background in the war effort, she was kind of a hardened person, and she had a very great ability to intimidate students.
In the middle of a class one day, she called on me, and she said in front of the whole class, “Mr. Sproul, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?” I thought, Of all the questions to be asked in front of the whole class, she had to ask me that one. And I went through a very severe moral crisis at that point because I knew if I answered what I believed that that would be very unpopular. But if I knew also that if I denied what I believed, I would be guilty of committing treason to Christ. So very weakly and very meekly I said to her, “Yes, ma’am. I do believe that Jesus is the only way to God.” But when I said that in that classroom, she absolutely exploded. And she started to dress me down right in front of the whole class. And she said, “That’s the most conceited, that’s the most arrogant statement I’ve ever heard from the mouth of a student.” And I offered no defense; I offered no rebuttal. I just tried to sneak down in my chair as far as I could go while she carried on in front of the whole class about how narrow-minded, conceited, and arrogant that that was.
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Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Monday, January 1, 2024
One of the foremost themes of the Magnificat is that of humility. Since God was humbling Himself to knit together for Himself a human nature in the womb of the virgin Mary, it is fitting that Mary, from the outset of this Christian Psalm, would touch upon the theme of humility. The reason why Mary sang a song of humility is because she was focusing on what God was doing to provide the Savior she needed. Mary had been waiting on God to fulfill the promises that He had made throughout the Old Testament era. Mary doesn’t speak of herself or her privileges because Mary was focused on her need for redemption.

Hadel’s Messiah is one of the greatest musical compositions ever written. A three part redemptive history development of Isaiah’s prophecy. From the coming Redeemer to the reign of Christ, Handel captured the magnificence of what we celebrate during advent. It should come as no surprise to us these are some of the most beautiful and majestic songs ever composed, since the narratives surrounding the birth of the Savior are themselves full of profound redemptive-historical reflections. One such song is that which Mary sings when she is visits her cousin Elizabeth. The result of this trip was an unparalleled redemptive-historical composition that has been commonly denominated, the Magnificat.
What would compel a young, pregnant teenage girl to make an arduous journey in order to stay with her older cousin? Perhaps it was the shame that her parents felt having her in the town in which they lived. After all, their neighbors would most certainly conclude that she had fallen into immorality. Or, maybe she just wanted to talk to someone she knew about what it would be like to mysteriously have a child. Her cousin wasn’t supposed to be able to conceive at her old age; but, the Lord had done the impossible for both Elizabeth and Mary. Whatever the case, the mother of the Savior went to Elizabeth. 
Mary, unlike Zacharias (Luke 1:20), believed the word of the Lord that came to her through the angel Gabriel. She took God at His word when he told her that she, though a virgin, would conceive and bear a son. Elizabeth, together with Mary, believed and gave God great glory for this indescribable gift. Elizabeth praised Mary for the faith that she had in God’s promise. She exclaimed, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). It is the grace of believing God’s word that we are to most admire in other believers and for which we ought to be praising God.
When Mary entered the home of Elizabeth with a greeting about the conception of Christ, the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth and her unborn son (the forerunner of the Messiah). The babe lept in the womb when he heard the greeting of the virgin. The news about the Redeemer is the cause of the greatest rejoicing in the souls of believers. Mary also broke out into song—praising God for the salvation that He was bringing to her (Luke 1:46) and to all people (Luke 1:50; 55-56).
Like Handel’s Messiah, there is a three-part division to the Magnificat. She gives us an anatomy of God—that which God considers with His eyes (Luke 1:48), what He does with His arm (Luke 1:51) and what he declares with His mouth (Luke 1:55). She acknowledged what the birth of the Savior meant for her as a sinner (Luke 1:46-50), what it meant for men of low and high degree (Luke 1:51-53) and what it meant for the rest of the covenant people of God (Luke 1:54-55).
Mary’s Magnificat is an example of what it looks like for someone to be saturated in God’s word. She was hoping in the fulfillment of God’s promises made to Abraham. This song is full of references to Old Testament passages and redemptive historical epochs. Mary is a covenant theologian.
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It is God who distributes; it is the LORD who lifts up and casts down, the LORD who brings dark and light, rain or shine, and all as He sees fit. The idea that society is the source of the distribution of goods is the deification of society. This is why socialist countries always have some of the highest wealth disparities; the masses must worship it’s god.

Secular sociologists occasionally borrow from Scripture. Robert Merton did. He discovered in the realm of science a law of inequality. A law with a direct correlation with the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:29, “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Economists often call this the Pareto principle, but for you and I, in simple terms, we can call it The Matthew Principle.
The Matthew Principle (that is, the Pareto Principle) is the idea that inequality is natural. For example, 20% of salesmen produce 80% of the sales for any given company. And the top 20% of the the top 20% produce the 80% of the sales for that bracket. This applies to consumption as well as production. 20% of people who own shoes, for example, own 80% of the shoes. So, too, can this be applied to the products we sell. 20% of our products or services account for the majority of our actual sales.
One writer believes that this principle is precisely what Adam Smith wrote about in his defense of the free market. Why, then, do so many people think equal distribution is natural and just? Perry Marshall writes:

It is a law that almost nobody ever gets taught in school. In fact, our current educational system trains most of us to be blind to it, ignore it when we do see it, and even fight it as our enemy, instead of embrace it as our friend.

The Matthew Principle

This Matthew Effect, or Matthew Principal, was initially used to describe how fame and glory attracts more fame and glory in a disproportionate degree. For example, famous scientists continually get credit for the, sometimes better, work of non-famous scientists. The same holds true in broader academics; famous works are cited disproportionately, even if they are equal or even slightly inferior to obscure works.
Again, this is not the only sphere in which the Matthew Principle applies. It applies to virtually every sphere of reality.
For example, 20% of donors donate 80% of donations, while 80% of donors only donate about 20%. As again Perry Marshall explains:

Almost nobody reads simple election statistics that ’14 percent of the voters turned out at the polls in this election’ or ‘5 million people donated at least $5 to the election campaign’ and translates it into a vivid, meaningful picture of those people, all they way from casual interest to rabidly passionate and addicted.
Few people ever even consider that a tiny minority of the donors give almost all the money. And that the one million smallest donors gave less money than the top ten.

Men do not shop equally, work equally, or even give equally.
This law shows up even in technology; network hubs that initially have a greater number of links continue to grow at a multiplicative rate. The Matthew Effect is evident in the sphere of education as well. Those who struggle to read will cumulatively fall behind. Those who quickly learn to read well increase at a multiplicative rate.
Consequently, there is truth to the idea that initial failure leads to more failure, and initial success brings more success. Our pasts define us more than we care to admit.
In short, economic equality is a mythical unicorn. It is nowhere to be found. Not in nature, at any rate.

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