tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89298542990001444872024-03-12T22:05:11.445-04:00Love Your God With All Your BLOGBenjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.comBlogger720125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-1146341394163047202021-04-26T17:49:00.002-04:002021-04-26T17:49:59.234-04:00The Gospel According to Your Baptism ...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyorZG3IP6KKDY1y_T6a7Qnt55xLs24zvt5x7Dpw-RcbZfaL_kI_BR-NtoDhfDtxcDbh7Fyr3LGTAL_owGiepyx2mf3ItASxxrDo1qmcJzZlpHAMRBiMkqFmv-7Vk08lyDkyyz1i7dcuf9/s512/bethlehem_baptismal_font.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="512" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyorZG3IP6KKDY1y_T6a7Qnt55xLs24zvt5x7Dpw-RcbZfaL_kI_BR-NtoDhfDtxcDbh7Fyr3LGTAL_owGiepyx2mf3ItASxxrDo1qmcJzZlpHAMRBiMkqFmv-7Vk08lyDkyyz1i7dcuf9/w400-h288/bethlehem_baptismal_font.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>"The gospel is our power to know that the death and resurrection of Jesus actually accomplished our own death and our own resurrection. Jesus did not die that I might live. We say that as a wonderful shorthand, but taken by itself, it's not true. Jesus did not die that I might live. Jesus died so that I might die. Jesus was buried so that I might be buried. In Jesus, that's where I left all my guilt; all my shame; all my sins; buried there in that tomb two thousand years ago, abandoned. And if I have died and been buried with Christ, that means I have been raised with Christ. I am no longer beneath the domain of sin; beneath the tyranny of death. I have been raised to new life in Him; with Him."</p><p>- Pastor Joe Carlson</p>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-90614941807577972262021-03-23T17:35:00.006-04:002023-02-01T10:13:26.279-05:00A Meditation with both Palm Sunday and Good Friday in Mind ...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://wildelm.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/miroslav-volf.jpg?w=670" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="670" height="266" src="https://wildelm.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/miroslav-volf.jpg?w=670" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Bitstream Charter", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this ... was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind."</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, "Bitstream Charter", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #999999;">- Miroslav Volf </span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, "Bitstream Charter", serif; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: xx-small;">Exclusion and Embrace pgs. 303-304</span></p>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-11253986910710321922020-05-12T17:42:00.000-04:002020-05-13T12:54:38.004-04:0010 Guidelines for Churches Considering Reopening<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfwuXG2UfD43eZOxmrO035gN4Cwy9xJGox-6DWmXE7VZPRc4VvsujEc8DiOjKWMEFHpzEAIJRf3E6bVQWHnApKJ9588AQLswWWALulxLhg6U0uOWl9SW_1V7rhgXAvJoAs-YLuzwEhkOuV/s1600/Vatican_News_Church_Covid_Attender_photo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfwuXG2UfD43eZOxmrO035gN4Cwy9xJGox-6DWmXE7VZPRc4VvsujEc8DiOjKWMEFHpzEAIJRf3E6bVQWHnApKJ9588AQLswWWALulxLhg6U0uOWl9SW_1V7rhgXAvJoAs-YLuzwEhkOuV/s400/Vatican_News_Church_Covid_Attender_photo.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>1.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Make a full plan and ACTUALLY GET all necessary supplies</u></b> before going public with it. First of all, if you make a good plan, go public with it, and then find that you can’t get any of the gloves or Purell your plan depends on for another four weeks, your good plan just evaporated. Furthermore, if you can’t get masks, then there’s a chance your dentist can’t either. If you can’t get Clorox wipes, then there’s a chance the Dermatology office is also waiting in line. If you can’t find hand sanitizer, then think about the local restaurant owner that you appreciate so much. Only these peoples’ very lives depend on the speed at which they can get back up and running.<br />
<b>2.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Know the plan for <b><u>businesses</u></b>/activities in your area… you are not a modern-day Martin Luther [or MLK Jr] if you have not taken the time to hear the other side. Ignorant antinomianism is not civil disobedience in the cause of justice. Know the criteria that are being used by your Governor, Mayor, or County authorities. Take the time necessary to hear their thoughts and understand their approach. It may not be as crackpot or Draconian as that guy on Facebook made it out to be. Have you done your due diligence? Start with the <a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200417-reopening-guidance-governors.pdf" target="_blank">Johns Hopkins Guidelines to Governors for Phased Reopenings</a>. It’s a great, reasonable resource.<br />
<b>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>Know the plan of other <b><u>churches</u> </b>in your area … don’t be slavishly bound to it, but don’t be too proud to be aware of and informed by what others are doing. Like me, you might learn a thing or two from others in Christ’s body nearby. There is also a strong possibility of an increased testimony from Christian unity as well as potential legal protection if you are able to act in concert with other churches in your local community.<br />
<b>4.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Continue livestreaming </u></b>– it is either disingenuous or unkind or both to give your high-risk folks “permission” to stay home during the uncertain transition-back period, and not continue to livestream for them during that time.<br />
<b>5.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Consider <b><u>Polling</u></b> – finally a good reason for a congregational poll! … I’m almost always against church member polls, but in this case, there is a lot of value that can come to Church leaders by knowing where folks are – how many are comfortable returning? How many would prefer to stay home another month? How many would wear PPE? How many would insist upon it? How many would object to it? This is really good information for those whose planning depends on willing participation from their folks.<br />
<b>6.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Take Attendance</u></b> – if you have multiple services, be specific. The doctors are telling us a ‘cure’ is likely a long way away. If someone in your church tests positive four months from now, it would be helpful to know which service they attended that week and who was near them. For some techie churches, it may be as simple as a mid-service, wide-angle snapshot.<br />
<b>7.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Eliminate high-touch surfaces</u></b> as much as possible. Passing offertory plates or communion trays from row to row, each touched by a hundred hands before making its way into yours… that shouldn’t be happening right now. Consider going to bulletins or a projector as opposed to hymnals and prayerbooks [the traditionalist in me cringes to say it, but as a temporary measure, it’s worth considering.] Put bulletins on chairs, rather than on a common pick-up table/basket. Most churches don’t have automatic doors. Consider propping doors open at start/close of services. Our deacons are forming cleaning teams to wipe down arm rests, door handles, light switches, thermostats, bathrooms, etc. between services. And our facilities manager just purchased an HVAC air purifier. Lots of churches are investing in hand sanitizer dispensers by entry/exit points. Don’t forget trashcans. There will be lots more wipes, tissues, masks, and gloves than normal. Where are these going to end up?<br />
<b>8.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Think in terms of <b><u>households</u></b>. Hey, it’s a category all over the New Testament! :-) Medical guidelines suggest at least 6 feet of separation [more if singing btw] between households, not individual members. The assumption being, everyone in the same household already shares the same level of exposure. They don’t need to be separated from one another. This may or may not help with seating. Many reopening guidelines are based off of seating capacity, rather than a total number anyway. Lots of churches are temporarily resuming service attendance on a sign-up basis. Once the sign up list is full, assigned seating is arranged according to households. A strange but effective approach for this unusual season. Whatever your plan, be sure to have something in mind for those who might show up without signing up first [the same for those who arrive visibly sick or symptomatic.] Even the most callous Calvinists among us would have a hard time turning away visitors at the door. :-)<br />
<b>9.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Children’s ministries </u></b>are in a different category – kids have zero concept of personal space and social distancing. You know this. So do our authorities and policymakers. Kids’ activities are the last to resume. If your church operations are interdependent so that you can’t restart regular worship services without children’s church going simultaneously, reopening will take longer. In other words, the bigger your church, the slower your restart will likely need to be.<br />
<b>10.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><u>Expect big changes</u></b> – Lowes, Walmart, McDonalds have all had to make big changes. So will you. Going out in public feels different now. Church will not be an exception. Remember to manage expectations [theirs and yours] by communicating this.<br />
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One extra – if I may humbly suggest:<br />
<b>11.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Make <b><u>vital mental distinctions</u></b> – Brothers, remember that this is not the Church being persecuted or singled out unnecessarily. Again, read the <a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200417-reopening-guidance-governors.pdf" target="_blank">Hopkins Guidelines</a>. Church activities are being reviewed alongside every other community activity and rated according to very rational criteria for risk vs modifiability. Church services are potential superspreader events. It’s just a fact. Be patient as our authorities try to reopen the right way. Good grief – they are talking about cancelling the NFL. If that doesn’t show you how serious this thing is across the board, nothing will! Be willing to wait in line and recognize that there are lots of folks in line ahead of us whose lives and livelihoods depend on them restarting before we do. We are not being told to stop preaching in Jesus’ name [Acts 4.18]. We are being asked to continue doing so online for some number of weeks more. Recognize that while we are doing this, everyone else around us is sacrificing.<br />
Also, be willing to do the nearly impossible work of mentally distinguishing personal political philosophies you hold from truly Scriptural Convictions based on plain Scriptural Commands [IOW, do not confuse the traditions of men, even good, Conservative, Christian men, with God’s Words and God’s Commands!] As much as we may hold them dear, “don’t tread on me”; “no king but Jesus”; “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; or “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble” are not phrases we got from the Bible. They are political concepts we might hold, I hope for good reason, but I also hope not with the same degree of zeal or affection that we do the tenets of our most holy faith and commands of Scripture. Be self-aware enough to recognize this. And for Pete’s sake – stop the spread of misinformation and specious arguments! There are reasons Walmart and liquor stores are allowed to stay open in times of public crisis while church buildings are closed. It’s textbook civic management. Be patient with your authorities. It is no easy thing to run a city [let alone a county, state, or nation!].<br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: x-small;">photo credit: Vatican News</span>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-14521949524566837652020-02-20T18:01:00.000-05:002020-02-20T18:02:14.722-05:00What is Success?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9xIPtQb4tDBFmV66WFL131EWRsoT9HrwQ5-3QnFaXI1bG_vwhGyjJq-1gExYoaa-9zRyBo5DeixFKnVmgwudBU3e06iBa6NsjtB-7MOsaSqxFSGLtq9Pq0LbS2QV4ccBMHJOL7122cyx/s1600/Malcolm-Gladwell-1280x720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9xIPtQb4tDBFmV66WFL131EWRsoT9HrwQ5-3QnFaXI1bG_vwhGyjJq-1gExYoaa-9zRyBo5DeixFKnVmgwudBU3e06iBa6NsjtB-7MOsaSqxFSGLtq9Pq0LbS2QV4ccBMHJOL7122cyx/s400/Malcolm-Gladwell-1280x720.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"People are successful in my book to the extent that they do something they care about. If you can pull that off, I think you've won."<br />
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- Malcolm Gladwell, on Socrates in the City<br />
<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-84628597555909767482020-02-13T11:16:00.001-05:002020-02-13T11:16:49.462-05:00Autoculturalism <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin7TQ2X3ZKWxIYnU4mjHJZcze-fqOBJ99ImUPgpaRveIOCttsq3BZfTEiLgSNjRMEDmip9zc2Tgsv1-ThAWwOlW49idYlI3_YRly4cp6u0SRBQ72nb32Lxhc1n2aMpqMdxjnc6Ar9gN7sI/s1600/reinvent_myself.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin7TQ2X3ZKWxIYnU4mjHJZcze-fqOBJ99ImUPgpaRveIOCttsq3BZfTEiLgSNjRMEDmip9zc2Tgsv1-ThAWwOlW49idYlI3_YRly4cp6u0SRBQ72nb32Lxhc1n2aMpqMdxjnc6Ar9gN7sI/s320/reinvent_myself.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>
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"The identities we are chattering about today tend to impose a kind of imperative to restlessly reinvent oneself; to construct - what I call - a culture of one. We are less threatened by multiculturalism than by autoculturalism."<br />
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- Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio JournalBenjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-77918580962195417202019-10-02T16:27:00.000-04:002019-10-02T16:27:34.785-04:00An honest word, like a kiss on the face ... <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">"A good
sermon makes a mole hill out of a mountain."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">-my wife</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> [after I preached a particularly long sermon...]</span>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-87183415040527981912019-07-22T18:09:00.000-04:002019-07-22T18:09:19.049-04:00Against Heterosexuality by Michael Hannon [abridged]<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations... </span></em></div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Michel Foucault, an unexpected ally, details the pedigree of sexual orientation in his <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">History of Sexuality</em>. Whereas “sodomy” had long identified a class of actions, suddenly for the first time, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the term “homosexual” appeared alongside it...designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”</em><span style="font-style: normal;">...cementing these categories of hetero- and homosexuality in the popular imagination...Sexual orientation, then, is nothing more than a fragile social construct, and one constructed terribly recently. </span></em>designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”</div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-style: normal;">My own prediction is that we will see this binary thoroughly deconstructed within our lifetimes. But in my view, we proponents of Christian chastity should see the impending doom of the gay–straight divide not as a tragedy, but as an opportunity. More than that, I want to suggest that we should do our best to encourage the dissolution of orientation within our own subcultural spheres wherever possible...</span></em></div>
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<a name='more'></a><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">...the orientation takeover has counterproductively shifted our everyday attention from objective purposes to subjective passions. Young people, for instance, now regularly find themselves agonizing over their sexual identity, navel-gazing in an attempt to discern their place in this allegedly natural Venn diagram of orientations. Such obsessions generate far more heat than light, and focus already sexually excited adolescents on discerning extraneous dimensions of their own sexual makeup. </em><br />
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-style: normal;">...Self-describing as a “homosexual” tends to multiply occasions of sin for those who adopt the label—provoking, in Prior’s words, an unnecessary “dramatization of the temptation.” Whereas the infusion of the theological virtues sets the Christian free, identifying as homosexual only further enslaves the sinner. It intensifies lust, a sad distortion of love, by amplifying the apparent significance of concupiscent desires. It fosters a despairing self-pity, harming hope, which is meant to motivate moral virtues. And it encourages a strong sense of entitlement, which often undermines the obedience of faith by demanding the overthrow of doctrines that seem to repress “who I really am.”</span></em></div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The most pernicious aspect of the orientation-identity system is that it tends to exempt heterosexuals from moral evaluation. If homosexuality binds us to sin, heterosexuality blinds us to sin... </span></em>Of course, we do have a model norm for the evaluation of sexual deviancy. But that model is not heterosexuality. It is Christ Jesus himself, the God-man who both perfected human nature and perfectly exemplified its perfection, “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” </div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-style: normal;">...to take an analogue that we do not have such familiarity with, let’s consider how we would react if a different sort of category worked its way into our cultural vocabulary.</span></em></div>
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<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Slate</em> recently ran an article entitled “Is Polyamory a Choice?” which argued that, in addition to inclinations toward men or women, there may also be innate and immutable fidelity- and infidelity-constituted sexual orientations. Dan Savage must be so proud.</div>
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Imagine if those people who anticipated being most romantically satisfied by committed sexual exclusivity began identifying as “faithfuls,” while those who were usually most excited by the prospect of unbounded sexual promiscuity started identifying as “unfaithfuls.” Would we not find that troubling, especially when Christian men and women began adopting the latter label for themselves, and even offering the fact that they are “unfaithfuls” as a reason not to marry, since they would not be sufficiently fulfilled by the sexual life to which they would be committing themselves via the marital vows?</div>
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“Unfaithfulness” is obviously playing the role of homosexuality in this analogy. But whether we are considering the number of one’s sexual partners or their gender, how can it not shock us when our Christian brethren adopt an identity for themselves that is essentially distinguished from its foil by nothing but a particular brand of temptation to sin? That is the opposite of Christian freedom. Of course, all of us are fallen and tempted and in need of divine assistance. But while we continue to struggle against these sinful temptations, what has been given to us in Christ Jesus is liberation from the shackles of sin that claims us as its own.</div>
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We do not belong to our transgressions any longer. So why create identities for ourselves using sin as the standard? I do not care how attractive promiscuity happens to be to you. You are emphatically <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">not</em> “an unfaithful.” Sure, we could socially construct categories that would make speaking that way appear obvious and connatural. But for the Christian to do so, or for him to participate willingly in such a framework once it has been constructed around him, would be severely mistaken.</div>
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I am not my sin. I am not my temptation to sin. By the blood of Jesus Christ, I have been liberated from this bondage. I will have all sorts of identities, to be sure, especially in our crazily over-psychoanalytic age. But at the very least, none of these identities should be essentially defined by my attraction to that which separates me from God...</div>
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“heterosexual” individuals are not paragons of chastity just because they avoid the unchaste pitfall <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">du jour</em>....</div>
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...we should happily join our voices to those of the poststructuralist queer theorists in their vigorous critiques of the naive orientation essentialists, who mistakenly think “straight” and “gay” are natural, neutral, and timeless classifications...</div>
The Bible never called homosexuality an abomination. Nor could it have, for as we have seen, Leviticus predates any conception of sexual orientation by a couple of millennia at least. What the Scriptures condemn is sodomy, regardless of who commits it or why. And yet, as I have argued throughout, in our own day homosexuality deserves the abominable label, and heterosexuality does too...<br />
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As regards sexual morality, we have reached a point at which it is no longer sufficient for us to criticize modernity’s poor answers. Like our Lord in the gospel narratives, we must also correct its terribly impoverished questions. Rather than struggling to articulate how to live as a “homosexual Christian”—or, for that matter, the even more problematic question of how to live as a “heterosexual Christian”—we should be teaching our Christian brethren, especially those in their most formative adolescent years, that these categories are not worth employing.</div>
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They are recent inventions that are utterly foreign to our faith, inadequate for justifying sexual norms, and antithetical to true philosophical anthropology. The time has come for us to eradicate sexual orientation from our worldview ...</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This article was first published at FirstThings.com, March 2014. See the full essay </span><a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/against-heterosexuality" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-66204479588710483992019-05-23T17:18:00.000-04:002019-05-29T10:52:20.272-04:00The Main Problem with the Media ... [might not be what you think]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWN5OKIGVBEUOw2StXRa75s38DYqONybQoSrtMAAk7LYqG3imDKGdIFeR2UtSAwE4KpkIJBn7lMNH2UlEgO1g5pbU322jABEyo9kDZZY7gqrwBOtvoLHgfRnDpeqGQ1dTpTK3i63fE5Nt/s1600/JDH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilWN5OKIGVBEUOw2StXRa75s38DYqONybQoSrtMAAk7LYqG3imDKGdIFeR2UtSAwE4KpkIJBn7lMNH2UlEgO1g5pbU322jABEyo9kDZZY7gqrwBOtvoLHgfRnDpeqGQ1dTpTK3i63fE5Nt/s1600/JDH.jpg" /></a></div>
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"I think that the main problem with the press is not bias. The complaint of those on the left and conservatives is that it is. I think the main problem with the press, rather, is superficiality. Their inability to go beyond the narrative structure of antagonist and protagonist; who's up and who's down; their inability to understand, frame, and report on issues that are not simply political. The tendency is to force these kinds of cultural issues onto a political frame of reference; to see them only as struggles of power."<br />
<br />
James Davison Hunter<br />
in a Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with Ken Myers [ from 1994!]<br />
<br />
... don't you want to keep reading???? [below]<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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"We're in a situation where the common understandings of public life; the habits and rituals of social interaction; the bonds of community life, have largely weakened, if not disintegrated. This is the process we're seeing. And in societies where this happens, the only thing left to order public life is power. This is why we invest so much into politics. This is why actors on both sides of the culture war are seeking political solutions; seeking to realize their cultural ends and ideals through political means - because the only thing that's left now is politics. <br />
There are no political solutions to a conflict that is - at its heart - cultural. So we need to rediscover the pre-politcal dimensions of public life.<br />
<br />
Right now we've conflated public with political. And we need to realize that they are not the same. And we need to not only realize that, but recognize and cultivate aspects of public life that are not simply political. It's in that context that these Utopian impulses get played out, and why in the final analysis these debates in real life end up polarized and interminable."<br />
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<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-14605774912125304542018-12-22T17:07:00.001-05:002019-05-19T15:32:13.987-04:00Phos HilaronFor our midweek Advent devotionals, we've been looking at several ancient Christian hymns. The following are the notes I used for my favorite along with two videos. Enjoy!<br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">John 14…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="reg" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm"><b><span style="color: #0092f2; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">6</span></b></a><span style="color: #001320; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Jesus answered, </span><span class="red"><span style="color: #a80000; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">“I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
Me. </span></span><a href="https://biblehub.com/john/14-7.htm"><b><span style="color: #0092f2; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">7</span></b></a><span class="red"><span style="color: #a80000; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">If you
had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and
have seen Him.”</span></span><span style="color: #001320; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="reg" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://biblehub.com/john/14-8.htm"><b><span style="color: #0092f2; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">8</span></b></a><span style="color: #001320; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Philip said to Him,
“Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="reg" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://biblehub.com/john/14-9.htm"><b><span style="color: #0092f2; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">9</span></b></a><span style="color: #001320; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Jesus replied, </span><span class="red"><span style="color: #a80000; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">“Philip,
I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who
has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? </span></span><a href="https://biblehub.com/john/14-10.htm"><b><span style="color: #0092f2; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">10</span></b></a><span class="red"><span style="color: #a80000; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Do you
not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to
you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing
His works.</span></span><span style="color: #001320; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="red"><span style="color: #a80000; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: yellow; color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">The word of the
Lord!</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">This evening, with God’s help, I’d like to spend a
few minutes introducing [reviewing] what is the oldest Christian hymn
known in history outside the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">There are apparently ancient Christian hymns actually
INSIDE the Bible – for instance scholars believe that the passage we heard a few moments ago, </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">John 1 – John's “prologue” … was an example of one.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">There are others also.
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<a name='more'></a>Listen to some of them: They are
only a few verses long – listen and young people I want you to tell me something
that they are about – what sticks out to you about them.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Phil 2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">5 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">Let this mind
be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">6 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">who, being in the form of
God, did not consider it </span></span><span class="text"><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup></span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29398b" title="See footnote b"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">b</span></sup></a><span class="text"><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">robbery to be equal with God, </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">7 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">but </span></span><span class="text"><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup></span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29399c" title="See footnote c"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">c</span></sup></a><span class="text"><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a
bondservant, <i>and</i>coming in the likeness of men. </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">8 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">And being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient
to <i>the point of</i> death, even the death of the cross. </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">9 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">Therefore God
also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above
every name, </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">10 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and
of those on earth, and of those under the earth, </span></span><span class="text"><b><sup><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">11 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: "helvetica neue";">and <i>that</i> every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ <i>is</i> Lord, to the glory
of God the Father.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Col 1.12-20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">12 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">giving
thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in the light. </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">13 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">He has delivered us
from the power of darkness and </span><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1+&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29479c" title="See footnote c"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">c</span></sup></a><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">conveyed <i>us</i> into
the kingdom of the Son of His love, </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">14 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">in whom we have redemption </span><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1+&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29480d" title="See footnote d"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">d</span></sup></a><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">through His blood, the
forgiveness of sins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">15 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">He
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all
creation. </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">16 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">For by
Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or </span><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1+&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29482e" title="See footnote e"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">e</span></sup></a><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">principalities or </span><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">[</span></sup><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1+&version=NKJV#fen-NKJV-29482f" title="See footnote f"><sup><span style="color: #b34b2c; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">f</span></sup></a><sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 7.5pt;">]</span></sup><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">powers. All things were
created through Him and for Him. </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">17 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">And He is before all
things, and in Him all things consist. </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">18 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">And He is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He may have the preeminence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">19 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">For it
pleased <i>the Father that</i> in Him all the fullness should
dwell, </span><b><sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">20 </span></sup></b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">and by
Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></div>
<h2 align="center" style="background: #DAD0BD; line-height: 16.5pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Heb 1:1-3<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">God Has Spoken by His Son 1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors
in many and various ways by the prophets,2but in these last days he has spoken
to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also
created the worlds.3He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint
of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he
had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">1Tim 3:16<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">16Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: He
was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among
Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #dad0bd; color: #333333; font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; text-align: center;">1Pet 2:21-25</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">21For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered
for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.22“He
committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”23When he was abused,
he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he
entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.24He himself bore our sins in
his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for
righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.25For you were going astray
like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your
souls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Many things stick out from these
Ancient Christian hymns INSIDE the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">The major themes are these: God’s glory – appearing to us by Jesus’ appearing –
and just like in John 1 – this is often described in terms of our experience of
light and brightness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">This is ALSO the theme of the most ancient Christian
hymn OUTSIDE the Bible – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">It is
called, in Greek – Phos Hilaron - </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Φ</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ῶ</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ς </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ἱ</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">λαρόν<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">[Latin: <i>Lumen
Hilare</i>]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">It is written in Koine Greek:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Phos – light<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Hilaron – cheerful, joyful<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">One of the most common English versions puts it this
way: </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt;">“O gladsome light”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Translated by Robert Bridges in 1899. [talk through it in a minute]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">There is an early Church record of St Basil the Great
of Caesarea referring to <i>Phos Hilaron</i> as one of his favorite, old hymns. Our elder brother, Basil, lived and
ministered in the mid to late 300’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">And he considered it an “old” hymn. Just to put that in perspective, the council
of Nicaea from which we get the Nicene Creed – took place in 325. So it is very likely that the Church Fathers
sung this hymn as they met together and forged the lines of the Creed we hold
so precious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">It’s sometimes called “the lamp lighting hymn”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">It is an evening Prayer Song- one that has been used in Eastern
Church liturgies for evening/vespers – at the time when the church candles are
lit – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">So it is an evensong – one that accompanies the daily
rhythm of our lives. For many of us,
there is a quiet ritual when, the lamps of a house are lit. This is a song for when that takes
place. The world is going dark, but
light is brought in, so life and safety can continue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Because it is sung as an evening prayer at the daily
lighting of the church candles in Eastern churches – that means it has very likely been
sung, every single day, by Christians across the world, for over 1,700 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br />
That is a staggering fact!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">It is worth noting that Biblically speaking, and in
the Eastern Church from what I understand, this is understood, the sunset marks
the beginning of a new day, not the end of an old day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">According to Wikipedia, the original melody in the
Greek liturgy is still sung in the Orthodox Church, but “</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">is considered taxing on the voice as it spans almost two
octaves, with the voice peaking on the words "Heavenly" and "the
Father"”.</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Our tune version comes from two men who were hired as Church musicians by John
Calvin, himself! Louis Bourgeois, a
French Calvinist hymn composer from the 1500s most famous for the doxology
tune. The harmony is by Claude Goudimel,
another French Calvinist hymn composer who has given us many of our favorite
Genevan tunes [62 hymn tunes in the Cantus Christi are attributed to him]. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">The translator is Robert Bridges, Britain’s Poet
Laureate from 1913 – 1930, close personal friend of Gerard Manley Hopkins [the
reason we have Hopkins' poems].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">He translated Ah, Holy Jesus, how hast thou offended;
Jesus, best and dearest; Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring; O Splendor of God’s Glory
Bright [Ambrose]; and When Morning Gilds the Skies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Let’s look at the words and then we’ll sing through
once together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">O gladsome light, O grace Of God the Father's face,</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br />
<i><span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">The ‘eternal</span>
splendour wearing; Celestial, holy, blest,</i><br />
<i>Our Saviour Jesus Christ,Joyful in thine appearing.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Now, ere day fadeth quite,We see the evening light,</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br />
<i>Our <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">wonted</span> hymn
outpouring;Father <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">of might
unknown</span>,</i><br />
<i>Thee, his incarnate Son,And Holy Spirit adoring.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">To thee of right belongs All praise of holy songs,</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br />
<i>O Son of God, Lifegiver; Thee, therefore, O Most High,</i><br />
<i>The world doth glorify, And shall exalt forever.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">*note – wonted means habit or regular. This is a daily prayer, sung while turning on
the lamps or lighting candles [something we do a lot in our old house with very
few ceiling lights].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Our Lord is described here as the light, radiating
from the Father’s face. In the beginning
of this service, we heard Psalm 4, a prayer that God would shine the light of
His countenance upon us and give us His peace and protection through the
night. This is the same idea contained in
the beautiful Aaronic benediction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">That God would shine the light of His face upon us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Our Lord’s birth is the answer to this prayer, prayed
thousands upon thousands of times. The
Christchild in the manger was the fulfillment of that benediction, pronounced
thousands upon thousands of time. In
Jesus, the light of the Father’s face has shown upon us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sVkd1l9RWcY/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sVkd1l9RWcY?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-70582876927727051642018-07-04T14:39:00.000-04:002018-07-04T14:39:14.598-04:00The Bipolar Life of Ministry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH5tr0eMkYrSY7400jcav-qXbnJ56sL2UGESfO5SY_uG_E9RP2_OT9oEq4f_V__h-b325cXoIp98C8ofoqxdcr8v8Ju81Y9ksgFnOCx9tK_MjKybrjCSJ3FFDmdQgtq1JmfjfSbyf_oRUx/s1600/Paul_Mosaic_Palatine_Chapel_Palermo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="703" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH5tr0eMkYrSY7400jcav-qXbnJ56sL2UGESfO5SY_uG_E9RP2_OT9oEq4f_V__h-b325cXoIp98C8ofoqxdcr8v8Ju81Y9ksgFnOCx9tK_MjKybrjCSJ3FFDmdQgtq1JmfjfSbyf_oRUx/s640/Paul_Mosaic_Palatine_Chapel_Palermo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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"<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">To identify with Paul's experience we do not need to be
shipwrecked or imprisoned or lowered in a basket from a city wall. Even without
the physical dangers of Paul's career, anyone who throws himself into the work
of Christian ministry of any kind with half the dedication of Paul will
experience the weakness of which Paul speaks: the times when problems seem
insoluble, the times of weariness from sheer overwork, the times of depression
when there seem to be no results, the emotional exhaustion which pastoral
concern can bring on - in short, all the times when the Christian minister or
worker knows he has stretched to the limits of his capacities for a task which
is very nearly, but by God's grace not quite, too much for him. Anyone who
knows only his strength, not his weakness, has never given himself to a task
which demands all he can give. There is no avoiding this weakness, and we
should learn to suspect those models of human life which try to avoid it. We
should not be taken in by the ideal of the charismatic superman for whom the
Holy Spirit is a constant source of superhuman strength. Nor should we fall for
the ideal of the modern secular superman: the man who organizes his whole life
with the object of maintaining his own physical and mental well-being, who
keeps up the impression of strength because he keeps his life well within the
limits of what he can easily cope with. Such a man is never weak because he is
never affected, concerned, involved or committed beyond a cautiously safe
limit. That was neither Jesus' ideal of life nor Paul's. To be controlled by
the love of Christ means inevitably to reach the limits of one's abilities and
experience weakness."</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">- Richard Bauckham, <i>Weakness - Paul's and Ours</i> </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #004080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i> </i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-37147110577705025952018-02-27T14:21:00.002-05:002018-02-27T14:24:19.861-05:00Scripture Ought to Make You a More Interesting Person<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Why do the gospel writers read Israel's history in ways that look funny to modern sensibilities? Is the notion of the fulfillment of Old Testament texts intellectually implausible? The gospel writers summon us to a conversion of the imagination. They summon us to become more interesting readers... the gospel writers are trying to make us more interesting people. They are trying to make us more interesting readers who are not locked into this modernist literalism about everything. I want to suggest to you that we will learn to read Scripture well only if our minds and imaginations are opened up by learning to read the Scriptural texts by learning to read in the 'figural' ways that the four gospel writers actually read Israel's Scripture. The gospels teach us how to read the Old Testament. And at the same time the Old Testament teach us how to read the gospels. There is a circle of interpretation."<br />
<br />
Richard Hays, "<i>Do the Gospel Writers Misread the Old Testament?</i>"<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Another great quote from this lecture:<br />
"I'm a New Testament scholar, a lot of what I do is spend a lot of time explaining to other New Testament scholars things that are largely obvious to most ordinary Christians in the pew."<br />
<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-42207522000227928782018-02-07T12:21:00.000-05:002018-07-04T14:41:24.386-04:00An Unsatisfying Hermeneutic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dr Abraham Juruvilla of DTS is a gifted and passionate Biblical scholar and teacher. In preparing for an upcoming sermon, I reviewed his study of the story of Abraham's call to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22. I can honestly say that I benefited greatly from many of Dr Juruvilla's insights, but found a deep dissatisfaction with his zealous refusal to read any Christological perspective from the New Testament back into Genesis. Dr J eschewed such attempts as confusing and actually quoted a passage from Calvin to warn against hasty redemptive-historic allegorizing.<br />
<br />
At the end of his study, Dr J repeated his insistence that we must read the Old Testament narratives as they were written by both their author and capital-A Author to find their purpose for writing, rather than imposing symbolic meanings from the New Testament. He then went on to say that such strict interpretation actually leads to good preaching because the capital-A Author's purpose in O.T. narratives is "always to make us more Christlike."<br />
As much as I appreciate his point that redemptive-historical preaching can fall short in application or imperative instruction [which it can!], I was left quite befuddled how the Author always intended for us to become more Christlike as a result of our reading, but never intended for us to find Christ in what we read.<br />
<br />
DTS has a long history of hermeneutical struggle. Founded as a conservative and dispensational seminary, they are working to oppose liberal interpretations on the one hand, while also resisting covenantal interpretations on the other. This is a hard task, no doubt. My own alma mater came out of a similar origin, but I sense a movement and growth toward in better directions. I hope this is what Dr Juruvilla's work represents also and that time will make it all the more apparent.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dr Juruvilla is author of Genesis: A Theological Commentary for Preachers. He has also written systematically about interpretaion in his 2013 textbook: Privilege the Text! A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching. He teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary.Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-10902496816903947412018-01-16T14:26:00.000-05:002018-01-16T14:26:06.974-05:00Deep Gospel-infused Beauty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Bach is inseparable from the words that he uses. He's a religious composer and his outlook on life is told to us in the cantatas. And even in the secular music, one has to embrace his worldview. No matter how the voice leading it is so wonderful or the counterpoint is so wonderful, it goes beyond itself. It tries to tell us a message and that message is usually complicated. It's not quite simple. So I think there's a lot more to Bach than the surface."<br />
<br />
- Murray PerahiaBenjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-56147165817058700062017-11-25T16:05:00.001-05:002018-07-24T17:55:18.357-04:00The Banality of Evil<div class="MsoPlainText">
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In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses his considerable genius to express the abhorrent beauty of absolute evil... It's true that lady Macbeth and Macbeth are never more
alive than when they contemplate killing the king. They thrill with vitality and excitement. But as soon as they commit the act, they're oppressed with the banality of evil. And I'm not just talking about guilt. To be sure they are both tormented by guilt. But even more afflicting that Macbeth's guilt is his ennui. His awesome will to power, magnificently manifested in Duncan's murder, gives way to an all-consuming listlessness.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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He'll murder many more times, but each time it becomes more mechanical, more tiresome, more wearisome. What really wears on Macbeth is the tedium of evil. In his wickedness he cannot find contentment or joy or even desire. There's
nothing but this: tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow creeping at its petty pace to
the last syllable of recorded time. And perhaps this is the ultimate truth of
the tragedy. When decency and goodwill give way to wickedness and evil, life loses its meaning. It can be no more than a tiresome monotony. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
signifying nothing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Professor Kent Lehnhof</div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-47387642225395925002017-07-06T20:12:00.000-04:002017-07-06T20:12:35.198-04:00What Punishments of God are not Gifts?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: #444444;">This from a </span></i><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #444444;">GQ</span></i><i><span style="color: #444444;"> interview. Stephen Colbert describes the plane crash that suddenly killed his father and brother when he was 10 years old.</span></i></div>
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“ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that’s why. Maybe, I don’t know. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”…</div>
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I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien’s mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">everything</em> with gratitude. It doesn’t mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”</div>
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He was 35, he said, before he could really feel the truth of that. He was walking down the street, and it “stopped me dead. I went, ‘Oh, I’m grateful. Oh, I feel terrible.’ I felt so guilty to be grateful. But I knew it was true.”</div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-50762266668525740842017-01-25T12:52:00.000-05:002017-01-25T12:52:16.761-05:00Modern English Translations by Word Count<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg4gQUpcGq1edZJ-q5_INgc6GCQIjljPOQNfIaQoKQNpONl59qX0ytD6R4Md_4T7GZK0PfdMKczsK-6BiiBTJa8gvO08TRuwkg1GzZousdtc0Gmm33Dfyad10H6nbX7RME0UIPMmWz8bLE/s1600/Bible_Translation_wordcount_graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg4gQUpcGq1edZJ-q5_INgc6GCQIjljPOQNfIaQoKQNpONl59qX0ytD6R4Md_4T7GZK0PfdMKczsK-6BiiBTJa8gvO08TRuwkg1GzZousdtc0Gmm33Dfyad10H6nbX7RME0UIPMmWz8bLE/s640/Bible_Translation_wordcount_graph.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-21084101291522472672017-01-23T15:16:00.000-05:002017-01-23T15:17:56.138-05:00Prayer to End Abortion on the 44th Anniversary of Roe v Wade<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Heavenly
Father, rise up to protect </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">every unborn child in our land. W</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">e pray to you for them with confidence </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">and firm trust knowing that it
is your Holy Will to remove the scourge of abortion from off the face of Your </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">earth. Thank you that, on this, the 44th anniversary of our Supreme Court’s
infamous decision about these </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">things, You have helped Your people and given
many victories in defense of unborn life since then.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Continue </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">these victories by Your mercy.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Change
the minds and melt the hearts of all who promote this evil, or who </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">seek
abortion as a remedy for the troubles of their lives, which troubles are – for
many – very great. Make </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">us – in our lives – a testimony of sexual purity; those
who cherish human life, love and help our neighbors,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> guard and adopt the
fatherless and unwanted, honor Your holy image wherever it is found in mankind,
and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">willingly sacrifice of ourselves, our comforts and possessions, so that we
might truly be your servants and in practical ways, bring about Your Kingdom
and Your righteousness. Heavenly Father, we ask you this in the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">name of Jesus,
Your Son. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Amen.</span></div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-44136765424754072172017-01-04T16:06:00.002-05:002017-01-04T16:06:50.483-05:00Holy Week Timeline Visualized<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jCD1_cHpKV0o6j-y1w1wotbaT7zo59cVkA4MPxYGJhsrmtSrYexJEXa2xyKJTwAVV4Mbf0SKrMkCZyXKi8Rd1kVU31NWwqfrxi5n91v5xXmQItrMnc5m4UCXbbHI8b41NClRbTjXILBb/s1600/holy-week-timeline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jCD1_cHpKV0o6j-y1w1wotbaT7zo59cVkA4MPxYGJhsrmtSrYexJEXa2xyKJTwAVV4Mbf0SKrMkCZyXKi8Rd1kVU31NWwqfrxi5n91v5xXmQItrMnc5m4UCXbbHI8b41NClRbTjXILBb/s640/holy-week-timeline.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://bg3-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/holy-week-timeline2.png" target="_blank">Check it out! </a>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-8888170452224526072016-11-19T11:37:00.003-05:002016-11-19T11:37:46.457-05:00The Givenness of Things<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="aj8df" data-offset-key="6vel2-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6vel2-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="6vel2-0-0">"There is no freedom except when what we are, and do, corresponds to what has been given to us to be and to do."</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="684l2-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ae3e0-0-0">-Oliver O'Donovan, <i>The Desire of Nations</i></span></div>
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Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-53100794989740543852016-11-07T11:09:00.001-05:002016-11-07T11:18:50.381-05:00Why NOT to pray and fast on Election Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3HLowtK8zdMXayHHkH4PK87da5gVGYLr-tZE9HRBZ0tfTN_0liSVu_oy2iJZhzzNSSD-ZQuUzJqTFNzQR_eBmxwDYz3DWy6ZIG8ffSL4Fl3IdcI5Zy8EoxsmOQlJ1cTh1kMlgJaAd94XT/s1600/vote_doodle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3HLowtK8zdMXayHHkH4PK87da5gVGYLr-tZE9HRBZ0tfTN_0liSVu_oy2iJZhzzNSSD-ZQuUzJqTFNzQR_eBmxwDYz3DWy6ZIG8ffSL4Fl3IdcI5Zy8EoxsmOQlJ1cTh1kMlgJaAd94XT/s320/vote_doodle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Yesterday I preached what was probably the hardest sermon of my ministry career. I told my congregation that - while I am all for things like prayer and fasting - I think there are important reasons NOT to do so tomorrow, in attachment with election day. That was a shocking comment, and not one I made lightly. I attempted to explain it and would like to elaborate here.<br />
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The entire sermon was an attack on the ways we make an idol of politics. My community is a military community and we, of all people, in our closeness to the activities of the state, are tempted in the direction of political idolatry. I fear that I made too little of the anguish that my parishioners feel as they watch our country arrive at this new low point. Many of them have given their lives in service to our nation, and the heartache that is their current portion is significant and warranted. It was not my intention to make light of it.<br />
But where that heartache means total despair, it reveals the presence of an idol. This is what I find so alarming about the way American Christians are calling for prayers and fastings in association with the voting process. On the very day when the impotence of our idol is being exposed, we still cling to it with our eyes tightly shut refusing to acknowledge the judgment and truth. We can pray and fast and hope it ain't so. But there it is. Our politics cannot save us. We are not going to vote ourselves out of this mess. <br />
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Politics is very limited institution, mostly negative in it's power of enforcement and authority. Law brings guilt, as the Apostle says, not life. To look for solutions or lifegiving power from a political swordbearer is to put our trust and hope in a prince, which Scripture famously warns against. It is like giving a farmer a hundred plowed acres, but only allowing him to use pesticide and a machete while expecting a bumper crop. These are tools of excision, not growth. <br />
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A call to fast and pray is usually regarded as a call to repent. Yet, at the top of the list of the sins we need to repent of nationally, are our political idolatry and our childish hunt for quick fixes to profound problems. Yet, paradoxically, connecting a call to pray and fast with a political election will mostly likely simply reinforce and perpetuate both of those sins!<br />
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Our nation is like a morbidly obese man who is seeking relief from a peddler of pills. The problem is that his own living throughout the decades of his life is what is killing him, and no pill will cure him of his own behavior.<br />
Furthermore, I fear that calling for prayer and fasting on the day of elections is like that obese man calling his family to pray and fast on the day of his doctor's examination. But the damage has already been done. He ought to call them to pray and fast as he is driving to the grocery store, or as he is looking to join the membership of a gym, or pulling into the parkinglot of a buffet. On the morning of the doctor's exam, it is too late. Abraham told Dives, your time is up. You had your fun. The season of prayer has come to an end.<br />
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And this gets at the point. Civil Government is not intended to solve our problems. So stop praying that God would use it in that way. We need to repent of thinking that our social problems have political solutions. <br />
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If you want to pray and fast for our country on a level that matters and on the day that counts - pray and fast on the first day of Christian school year - and then on the first day of summer break. Pray and fast when your children are baptized or when a church building is under construction or when a neighbor moves in next to you, or a nursing home closes. Pray and fast during Advent, Lent, and Holy Week - and repent of your own sins with the same zeal that you bring to bear when discussing taxation policies, illegal immigration, or gun rights. <br />
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Further thoughts ...<br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">An election is simply a time when we get back the results
from the people about what they want and where they want to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">So to put it in perspective – and I don’t know the exact
answers to these questions … but you can go home and if you have the heart
and/or stomach to do so – look up the answers – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">In America … over the past few years, what were the top selling novels?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Top movies?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Top selling video rentals?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Top selling video games?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Top ranking TV shows?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">top billboard songs … can you even read the titles of these
outloud in polite company or are they too explicit?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Now … with that in mind … ask yourself – what is so magical
about a voting booth that the same group of people who made all those songs and
movies blockbusters … and they feed their souls on all these TV shows every
night … what is so magical about a voting booth that this same people group, when standing inside of it, is
going to suddenly care about virtue, self-sacrifice, and acting in accord
with nature and nature’s God?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">What reasonable person would expect this? An election is just the results coming
in. It is like hoping that the bone will
be healed by the x-ray developing improperly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">So … one way to summarize my sermon is – <i><span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">Don’t worry, America’s problems are much deeper than you probably
thought.</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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...<br />
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Our current situation reminds me of a chess match ... caught in a fork. Our finger is off the piece. We are facing a loss. With the next move, we will lose either our rook or bishop and while, in a vacuum, one is ranked above another, in this situation, it is hard to know which is worse. <br />
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...<br />
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">As C S Lewis’s Screwtape observed - </span><i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Satan’s trick is getting God’s people to reach for their
fire extinguishers just as the flood waters are arriving</span></i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Christians all over
America are worried sick that Hillary is going to be elected and make it
illegal for them to read their Bibles. But if they were honest - they
would have to admit that because of Netflix and the NFL Network, a law like
that would be largely unnecessary and a huge waste of time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">We read <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">Bradbury’s
<u>Fahrenheit 451</u></span> in which a tyrannical dictator outlaws all books
and burns them up, and last week, we commemorated the brave stand of Reformers
within the Church who faced oppression and whose books were burned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">But I want to call you to acknowledge that the real
danger we face isn’t from some outsider somewhere who is going to swoop in and
confiscate all our copies of Calvin’s Institutes. Our real danger is that
we’re going to spend all our spare minutes on Facebook or playing Video games or
shopping for new shoes or hanging out with our friends in some club - and our precious
Bibles and the great classics of the Christian Reformers will never do anything
but collect dust on our shelves - hidden in plain sight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">We are here together at the table of our Lord Jesus. So let’s be honest with one another. What is actually going to keep you from
reading your Bible this year? A tyrant? Political persecutions? Or a hundred, happy little pleasant distractions everyday? Your own self-indulgent and lack
of discipline [SELF GOVERNMENT]?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Let’s be honest - what’s going to actually keep you from
making it to worship on Sunday morning? A law? A tax penalty? A
government watch list? The threat of a terrorist attack? Or
buy-one-get-one-free mojitos to go with the late Saturday game at your favorite
waterfront restaurant?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Let’s be honest with one another before the LORD - these are
the most clear and present dangers we face as American Christians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Now, I in no way want to belittle the very real problems we
face as a nation and the valid place that politics has. I simply want to put politics back in its
right and limited place in your thinking and remind you that you cannot vote a
culture back to life. And I want to
remind you that our biggest problems as a Church are not forced down upon us
from Washington DC. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Our biggest problems as a Church come from places much
closer, and much deeper, and much more painful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-33566829623359515672016-09-29T11:50:00.001-04:002016-09-29T11:52:55.768-04:00Our Hitler; Our Holocaust<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There has been a lot said from both sides about the importance of the current election cycle. There has been a lot said from both sides about the similarities of Trump to Hitler. To be honest, I don't believe these are unfounded. He strikes me as an obviously ego-centric, unstable, and generally untrustworthy person. He certainly does remind one of the Furor and make one shudder to wonder what sort of holocaust might follow his election as a worst-case scenario. <br />
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But what if we're getting the analogy wrong? What if the holocaust has already long-since begun? What if we are already living with it and our Goerings, and Goebbels, and Eichmanns are nothing more than mainstream politicians reasonably proposing to maintain the status quo? What if - for over a full generation now - the incinerators have been quietly humming in our midst and we - like so many nice German people - have turned a blind eye to them, refusing to believe that atrocities like these could ever actually be taking place in a land such as ours? <br />
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How then should we vote?<br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-size: x-small;">[photo: www.wsj.com] </span>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-87783640212189878222016-08-25T13:09:00.002-04:002016-08-25T13:09:49.277-04:00A Communion Hymn Meditation: How Sweet and Aweful is the Place<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k569RWq4_rU/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k569RWq4_rU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">In a few moments we’re going to sing together a
favorite <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Isaac Watts hymn</span>
“How Sweet and Aweful is the Place. It’s
a hymn about this great parable – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">He opens the first verse by describing the great and
admire-able feast of Christ’s Kingdom – It is a feast that is sweet and full of
awe … and one that displays the choicest foods from His stores.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">And when we join together for that great feast, from
our hearts, we will cry out to the Lord – <i>“Why
am <u>I</u> a guest? Why did <u>I</u>
hear Your voice inviting me here when so many others choose to starve outside?”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Watts gives us the correct answer. The Lord replies – “<i>The same sweet love that spread this feast drew you here. Without it, you also would have refused and
perished</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">So Watts finishes the hymn with a prayer for us to
sing together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">And it is the application of this Kingdom parable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">After confessing that the only reason we’ve been
invited into the Kingdom feast was the sweetness of God’s love toward us, we
pray and ask Him to have compassion on the nations and to extend the call of
His sweet love to all the earth. We ask
Him to constrain or draw strangers to their true home and to make His Word
victorious, that it would triumph in our world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The fact that unworthies such as we have been invited
to Christ’s great banquet-feast fills us with longing to see all of His
churches filled with people to join us in singing from our hearts with one
voice the hymn of His redeeming grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Why did Israel receive the immeasurable blessings of
the Covenant? Why have we received the priceless
blessings of the Kingdom?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Not because we earned it. Not because God knew He’d get a good return
on His investment. In fact, as we’ll see
– God-willing – later this season when we get to Lk 17, when we have done
all we can, we will still have failed to return God any profit for what He spent
on us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: #262626; mso-style-textfill-fill-colortransforms: "lumm=85000 lumo=15000"; mso-style-textfill-fill-themecolor: text1; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 217;"><span style="background-color: white;">By inviting us to His feast, Christ has been gracious
to those who can never repay Him, just as He has called us to do. And so the Father has exalted <i><u>Him</u></i> and will yet still reward Him
at the consummation of all things – the resurrection of the just and the
wedding feast of the Lamb.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-17263737113649988932016-05-30T12:26:00.000-04:002016-06-19T18:09:06.571-04:00Francis Schaeffer on Punk Rock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihb7UiYjL7iK7SKblrUP6MGQ3WaKQa_Gd5ZqAiDOYCA3hwg0x3bgYDafbJkbjGe20OJ5za2dfb7Qv6AD5r5hHxZMqPVn8E64ywsui1QoeabQ9lYzXa5zTqaULoB3bbmM6k9ktMeGuBN0G/s1600/F_Schaeffer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihb7UiYjL7iK7SKblrUP6MGQ3WaKQa_Gd5ZqAiDOYCA3hwg0x3bgYDafbJkbjGe20OJ5za2dfb7Qv6AD5r5hHxZMqPVn8E64ywsui1QoeabQ9lYzXa5zTqaULoB3bbmM6k9ktMeGuBN0G/s320/F_Schaeffer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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"Why does human life have any value at all? Not only are you going to die individually, but the whole human race is going to die. Someday the world will grow too hot or cold and all you people will not only be individually dead, but the whole conscious life on this world will be dead and nobody will see the birds fly. As you know, I don't speak academically, shut off in a scholastic cubicle. I have lots of young people come to us from the end of the earth. And they have gone to the end of this logically. They realize what the situation is. They can't find any meaning to life. It's the meaning of the words "punk rock". I must say that on the basis of what they're being taught in schools, that the final reality is only this material thing - they're not wrong; they're right."<br />
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- Francis SchaefferBenjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-86562568000186625022016-04-02T08:42:00.001-04:002016-04-07T08:21:24.038-04:00What does Baptism Mean?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFpAQlNQe3aZCpWIu7o5Zblc_n1mWmr4B6-86ARZY5BPJXEU9vd_TGi1viFaJwGaSrfSVSENp5OfJeeWx0qR5ZpKwkondEqcnaLnOC_56HEPVcQziYyFidNMLdRWdeVUBgTqJYRsBSgxe/s1600/Bapstism_b%2526w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFpAQlNQe3aZCpWIu7o5Zblc_n1mWmr4B6-86ARZY5BPJXEU9vd_TGi1viFaJwGaSrfSVSENp5OfJeeWx0qR5ZpKwkondEqcnaLnOC_56HEPVcQziYyFidNMLdRWdeVUBgTqJYRsBSgxe/s400/Bapstism_b%2526w.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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1 Corinthians 12 talks about the kind of body that the Church is. And the kind of body that the Church is is the kind of body where the weakest members - the members who are least honorable - are afforded and given more abundant honor. That's the kind of community the Church is. And every Christian wants the Church to be that kind of community that honors the weak. The question is: does our practice of baptism actually express that? Or does the practice of baptism imply that only the strong need apply? Does the practice of baptism imply that the weak need to get stronger before they get in? Or are we saying that the weak in their weakness are incorporated into this body that is the body of Christ?<br />
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<b><span style="color: #666666;">- Peter Leithart</span></b>Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929854299000144487.post-62394701689114827952016-01-26T11:51:00.001-05:002016-01-26T11:54:04.973-05:00Epiphany Prayer<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7WJvLbEvTC-psCwdWs_gHjNgeYTNOsZFwfPKIXbBVTsGOMgEP-HmuTSH6swNtGGrRDA40khg-3cLxKV0fk8EgWzz0lNcd8gSvnIGFg0MEGJt8PEldfKr204SeBa1cHTLMOeRXx9YT8uE/s1600/Magi_Mosaic_Basilica_of_Saint_Apollinare_Ravenna_Italy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="481" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp7WJvLbEvTC-psCwdWs_gHjNgeYTNOsZFwfPKIXbBVTsGOMgEP-HmuTSH6swNtGGrRDA40khg-3cLxKV0fk8EgWzz0lNcd8gSvnIGFg0MEGJt8PEldfKr204SeBa1cHTLMOeRXx9YT8uE/s640/Magi_Mosaic_Basilica_of_Saint_Apollinare_Ravenna_Italy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Gracious Father,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Your Son is the desire of every nation. To Those who hunger for love, He is the Bridegroom rising like the morning sun;</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">To those who yearn for economic prosperity, He is the Creator who turns water to an overflow of finest wine;</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">To those in search of justice and righteousness, He is the King who brings the incomplete cleansing of the Law to its glorious fulfillment in grace;</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">To those who long for sacred purpose and devotion, He is the God Who calls many and when they have sacrificed all to come, He provides for them lavishly especially in the times when it appears that they have given up so much just to arrive at a dead </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">end.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">For those who long for social equity, He is the Lord Who blesses rulers and masters by drawing their servants closest to Himself, so that they are the only ones given to </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">see His miracle as it is performed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">O Christ, You are the joy of man’s desiring; the One for Whom our hearts always </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">hunger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Even our sinful desires are just twisted impressions of the God-shaped void within us. And our hearts are always restless until they find their rest in You.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">So shine the light of Your face upon us and bless us to draw us under the shadow of Your wing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Set our feet to walk on Your path in Your steps, Lord Jesus, and fill us in our emptiness with your Holy Spirit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Amen.</span></span></div>
Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03902591231178985573noreply@blogger.com0