The Love of God

This is the last verse from the hymn The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman. When we were singing it the other day I was just struck in the most profound way.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

The Gospel is of First Importance

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. -1 Corinthians 15:3-8

This may be repetitive, but some things need repeating and surely this is one of them. Notice the words that the apostle Paul uses. He says, "For I delivered to you as of first importance..." There were many things that Paul delivered to the Corinthians, and the letters are full of very important things which he had continued to deliver to them, but this was special. This was delivered as of first importance, as the most important. And it was the gospel. It was the fact that Christ died, and not for nothing. No, Christ died for our sins and this was in accordance with the Scriptures, it was not something done spur of the moment or on a whim, it was planned and considered by God throughout the ages. And then Christ was buried and then he was raised. And Paul says that he was raised and appeared to a great number of people and finally, to him. This event is the center of human history and the only hope mankind has to escape death. It is the most important thing which has ever or will ever happen on this planet, period. It is of first importance.

Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion

I finished Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion today (reading along at the site at Princeton Theological Seminary). This thing was immense, but Calvin's writing style is quite readable and far from being dry. Apparently the Princeton Theological Seminary site mentioned above is going to do a year-long reading through the 1541 edition as translated by Elsie McKee in 2010. I'm not sure I want to do another tour through the Institutes just now so I'm not going to follow along for that one.

They Do Not Understand

There is apparently a movie coming out called Legion in which God gets angry at the earth again and, "sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse" (from the synopsis).  In the trailer there are several scenes that show thousands of "angels" flying to do battle with a few humans in a diner. I'm not real sure a "legion" would be necessary, though...

And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. (2 Kings 19:35)

It says, "the" angel. Just one.

Podcasting Sermons

I created a podcast for the church I attend which made for a nice few weekends of fun figuring out how to do it.  The top-level web site is here and the sermon page is here (the RSS feed driving the podcast is linked at the bottom). Here is a direct link to the podcast on iTunes.

A Helpless God?

Any society's greatest expression of power over its citizens is found in its relationship to those it labels "criminal".  For these people their imprisonment, removal of rights and even death is considered a part of the different acceptable actions that a society may take with regard to them once it has them in its power.  Understanding this, it is interesting that the plan of the creator of the universe would involve submitting himself to the ultimate situation of powerlessness in a society - that of a condemned criminal.  And yet it is so characteristic of the God of the Bible to demonstrate that even the greatest strength of men is still weaker than God's greatest weakness.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

Greek and Hebrew Reader's Bible Online

This site is fantastic:

http://bible.johndyer.name