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

Working Around Jesus

This article talks about the Obama administration vetting the prayers given at presidential events.  Putting that aside, one quote from the article really got my attention.  One of the pastors who gave a prayer decided to "self-censor" his prayer by removing the word "Jesus" from it.  He gives this as his reason:

"For some strange reason, the word Jesus is like pouring gasoline on fire for some people in this country," he said. "You learn how to work around that."

No, this reaction is not limited to "this country."  The name Jesus will always be "like pouring gasoline on fire for some people" but the Christian is not called to "work around that."  How could you, after all?

Do Not Fear

Sometimes it is difficult to read the Bible and remember that these people had similar hopes and fears to us. It is easy enough to see their humanity but sometimes too easy to condemn there what is obvious to us so far removed and reading about their deeds as breathed out by the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah 7:1-2 we read:

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. When the house of David was told, Syria is in league with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

God tells Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah, "Be careful, be quiet, do not fear and do not let your heart be faint" but Ahaz, according to the account in 2 Kings 16 Ahaz did not trust in God and instead sent the silver and gold from the house of the Lord to the king of Assyria and asked for his help, something that is condemned in the Bible but yet is a very human thing to do. Wouldn't it be a frightening thing to have your city besieged by an invading army? Isn't that a sign of a real problem? And yet, in Isaiah 8:11-15 we read:

For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.

Consider that in this passage the Lord tells Isaiah, "Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread." This sentiment is applicable to us today but it is easy to believe that we have real problems and they didn't, that we have things to fear whereas they did not. This is odd as there is no invading army waiting to kill us outside our town or city. No, these people had real problems but their very real God wanted their full faith and trust. Their problem was a lack of faith, which is the same problem that we have today when we fear the machinations of men.

There are many things happening now that are making people afraid but the church should let the Lord be its fear and its dread. It should not call conspiracy all that the world calls conspiracy, and it should not fear what the world fears for God is our strength and our sanctuary.