I found these rhyming ten commandments I penned a few years back while packing boxes. My intention was to create a simple version that would be easy for preschoolers to memorize.
I am the Lord your God; "have no other gods but me."
Don't worship idols - nothing in the earth, sky or sea.
Love God when you say His name; remember it's the best.
Six days a week we may work but Sundays we must rest.
Love and obey your father and mother.
It's wrong to hate and hurt each other.
Love your husband or wife and keep your heart clean.
To take without asking is stealing and mean.
Keep your tongue from evil and don't tell lies
Give thanks for what you have - avoid greedy eyes.
8.30.2006
8.28.2006
Nouth... what?
"The pastor who is nouthetically oriented will tend to become lovingly frank with his people.... he will not mince words or spar around with people. Rather, he will be specific about personal problems and straightforwardly attempt to correct them. His people will discover that he is interested in the real issues, not secondary ones. They will count him to be a man of courage. Because he will not settle for the status quo, some people will be offended, but the majority will be helped greatly and nearly all (whether they agree with him or not) will respect him.... The conservative ministry desperately needs a nouthetic orientation."Nouthetic? You'll have to read the book...
Who's steering this thing?
"My situation was not unique. Negotiating with preexisting staff... was a universal challenge.... Staff is often territorial and quite entrenched in their habits. I learned how personally every suggestion was taken.... My suggestions, I began to realize, were often viewed as tacit criticisms of the way things were being done, and occasionally as personal insults."Once on our aircraft as we returned home from England, my husband mused that every time he would buy himself a pair of Bally shoes, they would vanish. Hussein then noted that his most recent Bally acquisition was remarkably similar to a pair of shoes being worn by a staff member walking past our seats at that very moment, and he complimented the man on his taste. It turned out that the shoes were the very ones Hussein had just bought - passed on to the man by the King's valet, who had reportedly said, 'His Majesty will never wear them.'"
Not that I'm royalty, but I actually can relate. Sometimes you wonder just who the king is...
Look to Your Lord
"The Christian faith is a relationship.... We are covenantally, corporately, collectively God’s daughter-in-law – we married His only Son. We worship Him together now. The Christian faith is not a series of abstractions – it is a covenant with the living God. Look in heartfelt worship to Him, not merely to those true things said about Him."
Doug Wilson
Doug Wilson
8.24.2006
Children of the Covenant
"The influence... of this sorrowful denial of the covenanted rights and privileges of children, has been, and still is, very great. For it has penetrated deeply into the ideas of almost all other branches of the church, until it may be said to predominate over their own original views. Even Presbyterians, in no inconsiderable numbers, have fallen away from the principles of our Confession of Faith, with respect to the children of the church, which are drawn purely out of the Abrahamic covenant; and are powerfully influenced, often without being aware of it, by Baptist ideas and tendencies.
Hence, instead of regarding and treating their children as presumably of the elect, instead of reckoning with covenant assurance upon the regenerating grace of God for them, and aiming thereupon to train them up in the way they should go to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they assume—a fearful responsibility!—that they are not in the church, not “in the way,” not “in the nurture.” How widely this view prevails among us, can be measured by the general currency of the expression, “to join the church,” as applied to baptized children, when they come to their first communion."
Joshua H. McIlvaine, “Covenant Education,” from The Princeton Review (April 1861) 248-249), found at sacradoctrina.blogspot.com.
Hence, instead of regarding and treating their children as presumably of the elect, instead of reckoning with covenant assurance upon the regenerating grace of God for them, and aiming thereupon to train them up in the way they should go to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they assume—a fearful responsibility!—that they are not in the church, not “in the way,” not “in the nurture.” How widely this view prevails among us, can be measured by the general currency of the expression, “to join the church,” as applied to baptized children, when they come to their first communion."
Joshua H. McIlvaine, “Covenant Education,” from The Princeton Review (April 1861) 248-249), found at sacradoctrina.blogspot.com.
Poem of the Day
From "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold:
"The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world."
"The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world."
8.23.2006
Paul and Job
I haven't posted on this in a while, but I am still reading Scripture devotionally with an eye to other-testament connections. When I read Philippians 1:19 just now, both my New Geneva Study Bible and my Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament pointed me to the Greek translation of Job 13:16, which uses the same words: "This will turn out for my deliverance" in Philippians, where Paul refers to his imprisonment. Job 13:16a goes like this: "He also shall be my salvation." (Amazing that those are the exact same Greek words, isn't it? Context is key in translating.)
But what really struck me was Job's context. Here's the whole passage:
"Hold your peace with me, and let me speak,
Then let come on me what may!
14 Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hands?
15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.
16 He also shall be my salvation,
For a hypocrite could not come before Him.
17 Listen carefully to my speech,
And to my declaration with your ears.
18 See now, I have prepared my case,
I know that I shall be vindicated.
19 Who is he who will contend with me?
If now I hold my tongue, I perish."
I thought of Paul in prison, being interrogated, accused and put on trial for believing in Jesus as Christ. I almost think that Paul was thinking of this whole passage, feeling like Job, as he wrote Philippians 1. They also both speak of living in the flesh being in doubt.
But what really struck me was Job's context. Here's the whole passage:
"Hold your peace with me, and let me speak,
Then let come on me what may!
14 Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hands?
15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.
16 He also shall be my salvation,
For a hypocrite could not come before Him.
17 Listen carefully to my speech,
And to my declaration with your ears.
18 See now, I have prepared my case,
I know that I shall be vindicated.
19 Who is he who will contend with me?
If now I hold my tongue, I perish."
I thought of Paul in prison, being interrogated, accused and put on trial for believing in Jesus as Christ. I almost think that Paul was thinking of this whole passage, feeling like Job, as he wrote Philippians 1. They also both speak of living in the flesh being in doubt.
Cell Phone vs. Bible
What would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones.
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we traveled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?
What if we placed calls, left messages and knew that even if we didn't get through at first, our message would be heard and answered in due time?
And what if we had the mentality that we should always have it with us because at any given time, an important message could arrive from it?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we traveled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?
What if we placed calls, left messages and knew that even if we didn't get through at first, our message would be heard and answered in due time?
And what if we had the mentality that we should always have it with us because at any given time, an important message could arrive from it?
8.22.2006
Life Together
"The desire we so often hear expressed today for... 'authoritative personalities' springs frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive. There is nothing that so sharply contradicts such a desire as the New Testament itself in its description of a biship (1 Tim 3:1ff).... The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren....
"Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word." (Pages 108-109).
"Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word." (Pages 108-109).
What is Communion all about?
My friends posted this quiz at their blogs.
Eucharist, by the way, is Greek for thanksgiving. It is a term for the Lord's Supper used most by Anglicans and Lutherans.
I also had to laugh at how Calvin is interpreted by the obviously Lutheran author of this quiz. "Nestorian" always comes up, which means us Calvinists separate the divinity and humanity. This must be true, since Jesus' body is in heaven, and not in the bread/wine, those pesky Lutherans say. But then, Lutherans must also separate our Lord's two natures, since they confine His humanity's presence to being around the bread/wine, and not everywhere else - Jesus' divinity is everywhere else, isn't it?
And "you call this [presence of Jesus] 'real.'" Putting it in quotes, spurning the idea that the spiritual presence of Jesus in Communion is real. So something that is not physical but only spiritual isn't as real? Like the Holy Spirit? Is the Spirit less real than the Son? There is a real difference between Zwingli and Calvin here, even if Lutherans refuse to see it.
I wonder what I said to make me more Zwinglian than Lutheran. I'd hope for a balance between the two. The sacrament is more than a mere symbol/picture, but does not involve the physical body of Jesus.
I also note that, for being one who tends to like the Federal Vision people, I am only 6% "on the road to Rome," as their critics like to say.
Eucharist, by the way, is Greek for thanksgiving. It is a term for the Lord's Supper used most by Anglicans and Lutherans.
 | You scored as Calvin. You are John Calvin. You have a Nestorian Christology and separate the Divinity and Humanity of Jesus. You believe only those who have faith are united to Christ, who is present spiritually, yet you call this "Real."
Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com |
I also had to laugh at how Calvin is interpreted by the obviously Lutheran author of this quiz. "Nestorian" always comes up, which means us Calvinists separate the divinity and humanity. This must be true, since Jesus' body is in heaven, and not in the bread/wine, those pesky Lutherans say. But then, Lutherans must also separate our Lord's two natures, since they confine His humanity's presence to being around the bread/wine, and not everywhere else - Jesus' divinity is everywhere else, isn't it?
And "you call this [presence of Jesus] 'real.'" Putting it in quotes, spurning the idea that the spiritual presence of Jesus in Communion is real. So something that is not physical but only spiritual isn't as real? Like the Holy Spirit? Is the Spirit less real than the Son? There is a real difference between Zwingli and Calvin here, even if Lutherans refuse to see it.
I wonder what I said to make me more Zwinglian than Lutheran. I'd hope for a balance between the two. The sacrament is more than a mere symbol/picture, but does not involve the physical body of Jesus.
I also note that, for being one who tends to like the Federal Vision people, I am only 6% "on the road to Rome," as their critics like to say.
8.21.2006
Poem of the Day
I'm really liking my poems of the day lately. Get one short poem to your email each day here. Here are selections from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence."
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent....
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet Delight.
Some ar Born to sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro' the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to Perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in the Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent....
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet Delight.
Some ar Born to sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro' the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to Perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in the Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.
8.19.2006
Fiber Festival
Today was the Michigan Fiber Festival, held in Allegan, MI on the fairgrounds. I've been looking forward to this all summer (Steve probably wasn't), but we piled the 6 of us into the van and made the hour trek.
We've never been to something like this, and didn't really know what to expect. I think we all had fun!
There were many, many sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits to entertain the kids. Our family's favorites were watching the sheep shearings the fuzzy angora rabbits. I also enjoyed the similarities between the topknot on the alpacas' heads to our son Isaiah's curly hair cut. The boys were most impressed with the antique tractors, and Steve, well, I think he was glad he didn't have to buy a spinning wheel!
I have never seen so many bags of wool in my life. Mountains of it. And I have never seen so many beautiful hand spun and hand dyed yarns. Gorgeous. I really appreciate all the work that goes into spinning such beautiful yarn, but I don't think I need another hobby. Not now, at least. There was plenty of handsome knitting on display, too. My eyes were drawn to the many fine lace shawls and fair isle socks.
So what did we take home? Believe it or not, nothing with animal fibers! Two deep coral-colored skeins of a silk/linen/cotton blend were my birthday present to myself. Super silky and soft with a luster like rubies. I think it'll become a stole or shawl. And the kids scored a favorite library book, "Sheep in a Jeep."
We've never been to something like this, and didn't really know what to expect. I think we all had fun!
There were many, many sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits to entertain the kids. Our family's favorites were watching the sheep shearings the fuzzy angora rabbits. I also enjoyed the similarities between the topknot on the alpacas' heads to our son Isaiah's curly hair cut. The boys were most impressed with the antique tractors, and Steve, well, I think he was glad he didn't have to buy a spinning wheel!
I have never seen so many bags of wool in my life. Mountains of it. And I have never seen so many beautiful hand spun and hand dyed yarns. Gorgeous. I really appreciate all the work that goes into spinning such beautiful yarn, but I don't think I need another hobby. Not now, at least. There was plenty of handsome knitting on display, too. My eyes were drawn to the many fine lace shawls and fair isle socks.
So what did we take home? Believe it or not, nothing with animal fibers! Two deep coral-colored skeins of a silk/linen/cotton blend were my birthday present to myself. Super silky and soft with a luster like rubies. I think it'll become a stole or shawl. And the kids scored a favorite library book, "Sheep in a Jeep."
8.18.2006
Fan into Flame
I had the privilege last night of hearing Dr. Sinclair Ferguson speak at the installation of the new minister at a wonderful PCA congregation nearby. He spoke on 2 Timothy 1:1-14, noting 5 principles for ministry.
1. A heart for ministry (vs 6)
You can have the gift, and have it confirmed by others, but still not use it. Fan it into flame. Don't withhold your heart from God's people. Paul made himself a servant of the church (2 Cor 4:5).
2. Unashamed fidelity (vs 8)
Being unashamed may mean suffering, even within the church. Will we draw back, even if it means suffering. Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of Jesus, and not of Paul, either. Why Paul? Because standing with Jesus results in standing with His people. "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these... The poor, disadvantaged and tedious, must all be loved. Don't imagine you are reconciled to Christ if you are alienated from a fellow church member.
3. A life of holiness (vs 9)
Seldom do we hear other believers referred to as holy, anymore.
4. Guard and love orthodoxy (vs 12-14)
The ancient church fathers said that martyrdom can't hurt your soul, but false teaching can!
We must love the truth. Paul uses wedding language here: guard it, hold it, cherish it.
5. A life without hypocrisy (vs 5)
Hypocrite was an actor. Behind the mask, he could be anything. We don't necessarily parade our piety today, as Pharisees did, but we don't come out from behind the mask, either.
Your pastor is the real deal. You will accept him gratefully, or stay behind the mask and try to deflect or push him away, as his preaching convicts you.
1. A heart for ministry (vs 6)
You can have the gift, and have it confirmed by others, but still not use it. Fan it into flame. Don't withhold your heart from God's people. Paul made himself a servant of the church (2 Cor 4:5).
2. Unashamed fidelity (vs 8)
Being unashamed may mean suffering, even within the church. Will we draw back, even if it means suffering. Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of Jesus, and not of Paul, either. Why Paul? Because standing with Jesus results in standing with His people. "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these... The poor, disadvantaged and tedious, must all be loved. Don't imagine you are reconciled to Christ if you are alienated from a fellow church member.
3. A life of holiness (vs 9)
Seldom do we hear other believers referred to as holy, anymore.
4. Guard and love orthodoxy (vs 12-14)
The ancient church fathers said that martyrdom can't hurt your soul, but false teaching can!
We must love the truth. Paul uses wedding language here: guard it, hold it, cherish it.
5. A life without hypocrisy (vs 5)
Hypocrite was an actor. Behind the mask, he could be anything. We don't necessarily parade our piety today, as Pharisees did, but we don't come out from behind the mask, either.
Your pastor is the real deal. You will accept him gratefully, or stay behind the mask and try to deflect or push him away, as his preaching convicts you.
8.17.2006
From America to Jordan
Also picked this up at the local library for a quarter. Queen Noor is an American born, part-Arab, part-Swede, who married King Hussein of Jordan, who died about 4 years ago. She wrote this after his death, and a friend recommended it as a good moderate Muslim perspective on things.
In the Presence of My Enemies
I'm storing some books for a friend while he's away. Now that we're moving I suddenly have to read them all before I have to give them back!Here's one. Martin Luther plants a left uppercut squarely on the jaw on the very first page:
"The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)