Self-Acquaintance, by Wm Cowper

Self-Acquaintance

Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart,
Which of itself complains,
And mourns, with much and frequent smart,
The evil it contains.

There fiery seeds of anger lurk,
Which often hurt my frame;
And wait but for the tempter's work,
To fan them to a flame.

Legality holds out a bribe
To purchase life from Thee;
And Discontent would fain prescribe
How Thou shalt deal with me.

While Unbelief withstands Thy grace,
And puts the mercy by,
Presumption, with a brow of brass,
Says, "Give me, or I die!"

How eager are my thoughts to roam,
In quest of what they love!
But ah! when duty calls them home,
How heavily they move!

Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour's blood,
Transform me by Thy power,
And make me Thy beloved abode,
And let me roam no more.

William Cowper

Word & Spirit

I am reminded of something i heard Tim Keller say once about John Stott's commentary's:
"You read stott and he is so clear and concise and logical--you think--that must be exactly what Paul was thinking when he wrote it."

Here he is commenting on the idea in 1 Thess that the gospel comes to us with both words and power from Spirit.

...with words
we must not acquiesce in the contemporary disenchantment with words. Words matter. They are the building blocks of sentences by which we communicate with one another. And the gospel has a specific content. That is why it must be articulated, verbalized. Of course it can and must be dramatized too. For images are sometimes more powerful than words. Yet images also have to be interpreted by words. So in all our evangelism, whether in public preaching or in private witnessing, we need to take trouble with our choice of words.

...also with power.
Words by themselves are seldom enough, even in secular discourse. Because they may be misunderstood or disregarded, they need somehow to be enforced. This is even more the case in Christian communication, since blind eyes and hard hearts do not appreciate the gospel. So words spoken in human weakness need to be confirmed with divine power. The reference is probably not to external miracles which are normally designated by the plural word ‘powers’ (*dynameis*), but to the internal operation of the Holy Spirit. It is only by his power that the Word can penetrate people’s mind, heart, conscience and will. Paul wrote the same thing to the Corinthian church (1 Cor.2:1-5), and it is from Corinth that he is writing to the Thessalonians. We must never divorce what God has married, namely his Word and his Spirit. The Word of God is the Spirit’s sword (Eph.6:17). The Spirit without the Word is weaponless; the Word without the Spirit is powerless.

The Gospel & The Church

It was natural for Paul to move on in his mind from God’s church to God’s gospel because he could not think of either without the other. It is by the gospel that the church exists and by the church that the gospel spreads.

Each depends on the other.

Each serves the other.

What is the Church?

Paul's delineation of the church in 1 Thess

1.) It is a community beloved and chosen by God in a past eternity,

2.) a community rooted in God and drawing its life from him,

3.) a community exhibiting this life of God in
a faith which works,
a love which labours and

a hope which endures.
4.) it is a community which receives and transmits the gospel.

What stands out of Paul’s vision of the church is its God-centredness. He does not think of it as a human institution, but as the divine society. No wonder he could be confident in its stability!

--Stott

it is the gospel which shapes the church, just as it is the church which spreads the gospel.

it is the gospel which shapes the church, just as it is the church which spreads the gospel. This seems to me to be the underlying theme of the Thessalonian letters.

--john stott

Background on Thessalonica,

When Paul and his companions visited Thessalonica in 49 or 50 AD, it was already a well established city with a long history. It had been founded in the fourth century BC by Cassander, one of Alexander the Great’s army officers. He named it after his wife, Thessalonica, who was Alexander’s half-sister. It occupied a strategic position, for it boasted a good natural harbour at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, and it was situated on the *Via Egnatia* which was the main route between Rome and the East. Thessalonica became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. Lightfoot described it as ‘the key to the whole of Macedonia’, and added that ‘it narrowly escaped being made the capital of the world’. Today as Thessaloniki it is the second most important city of Greece.

more here

Faith, Love, Hope

So comprehensive is the vision conjured up by "your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ" that John Calvin did not exaggerate when he called it ‘a brief definition of true Christianity’. --John Stott

pastoral wisdom--from Stott--again-- dude is so good

1 Thessalonians 1:4 says:
For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that He has chosen you----

very good stuff in Stott's commentary on this text:

To whatever denomination or tradition we may belong, the doctrine of election causes us difficulties and questions. To be sure, it is a truth which runs through Scripture, beginning with the call of Abraham (Gn. 12:1ff.) and later his choice of Israel ‘out of all nations’ to be his ‘treasured possession...a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Ex.19:5-6). This vocabulary is deliberately transferred in the New Testament to the Christian community (E.g. 1 Pet.2:5, 9-10). Moreover, the topic of election is nearly always introduced for a practical purpose, in order to foster assurance (not presumption), holiness (not moral apathy), humility (not pride) and witness (not lazy selfishness). But still no explanation of God’s election is given except God’s love. This is clear in Deuteronomy: ‘The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you...’ (Dt.7:7-8; cf.4:37). Similarly in 1 Thessalonians 1:4 Paul unites the love of God and the election of God (As in 2 Thess.2:13 and Eph.1:4). That is, he chose us because he loves us, and he loves us because he loves us. He does not love us because we are loveable, but only because he is love. And with that mystery we must rest content.
But before we leave this subject, we need to note the assertion made by Paul, Silas and Timothy that they *know* their brothers and sisters in Thessalonica to have been loved and chosen by God. God’s election, however, is essentially a secret known to him alone (2 Tim.2:19). So how could the missionaries possibly dare to claim that they knew it? They tell us. They give two bases for their knowledge, the first in the following verse (5), relating to their evangelism, and the second in the previous verse (3), relating to the Thessalonians’ holiness. Both were evidences of the activities of the Holy Spirit, first in the missionaries (giving power to their preaching) and secondly in the converts (producing in them faith, love and hope), and therefore of the election of the Thessalonians. This shows that the doctrine of election, far from making evangelism unnecessary, makes it indispensable. For it is only through the preaching and receiving of the gospel that God’s secret purpose comes to be revealed and known. --John Stott

Tim Keller weighs in on The Shack

I appreciate the:
Brevity
Generosity
Truthfulness


basically he says Narnia gives you much better picture of the real God of the Bible


link

Frost on the Roof

Parking spots are in

Parking spots are in

Ardently Desire? Do it, Lord!

Anyone who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour must desire ardently that others should share that knowledge and must rejoice when the number of those who do is multiplied. Where this desire and this rejoicing are absent, we must ask whether something is not wrong at the very center of the church's life.


Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, p 142
 

Majic and Kids

I consider the appropriate role of magic in kid lit to be the same as the appropriate role of magic in reality—though it will look different. This is, after all, an extraordinarily magical place. Sunlight makes trees out of thin air (literally), tadpoles turn into frogs, human love turns into children, and you can trick the air into lifting an enormous steel bus full of people up to thirty thousand feet if you know how to curve a wing and harness explosions. And it’s not all cheerful, happy, kittens-in-baskets magic either.

What happens if one of our wizards splits an atom? I think magic in children’s books is at its best when it wakes kids up to the mind-blowing magic all around us—when it overcomes the numbness of modernity and makes them watch an ant war on the sidewalk with all the wonder it deserves. Ironically, Christians, who profess outright to believe in magic (what else is water into wine, resurrection from the dead, calming storms, etc?) are the most upset when you put it into a book, while authors like Pullman (a materialistic atheist who believes reality to be all mechanism as far as I can tell) works with it comfortably and well. It really should be the other way around.

--ND Wilson in an online interview that i'm too lazy to link to at this moment (by the way, let this serve as a not-so-subtle reminder to the future Dr. Addcox to bring me book back to me)

Here is a good start to a question i was asked this week

How Does the Gospel Change Me?

Date	Scripture Reference	Title
02/27/1994		A Reason for Living
02/04/2001	1 Peter 1:3-9	Born into Hope
09/18/2005	Colossians 3:1-14	Christ, Our Life
09/12/2003		How the Gospel Changes Us
04/19/1998	Galatians 5:16-18,22-25	How to Change
05/11/2003	Luke 18:9-14	Inside-Out Living
11/19/2006	Romans 6:1-7;11-18	Perfect Freedom
03/05/2000	Psalm 3:1-8; Genesis 15:1,8	Praying Our Fears
02/27/2000	Psalm 39:12-13; 126:1-6	Praying Our Tears
04/22/2001	Genesis 11:27-12:9	Real Security and the Call of God
10/22/1989	Colossians 3:5-11	Removing Idols of the Heart
11/13/2005	Isaiah 6:1-13	The Gospel and Your Self
04/29/2007	Esther 3:1-6; 6:1-10	The Man the King Delights to Honor
10/28/2001	Genesis 27:18-34	The Problem of Blessing
10/04/1998	Exodus 3:1-10	The Search for God
09/16/2001	John 11: 20-53	Truth, Tears, Anger, and Grace
12/12/2004	Proverbs 11:3; 12:5,15; 15:22; 1	Your Plans: God's Plans

these are a bunch of free sermons by Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian of New York City

here is the link if you like