Feb
8
“Your baby is getting her organs,” he whispered into my ear. A phrase that both stopped and started everything.
I rushed to finish ICU rounds, and our bleeding, orange baby blew kisses at us and waved to her people from the confines of her glass room. “It’s my day!” she seemed to say, giggling, and burring her face in her mom’s blood-stained top.
Feb
7
One last gem from this week’s sermon prep, again, from Jonathan Edwards, addressing both the highness and lowliness of Christ – I was sorry I couldn’t work it into my sermon:
What a meeting of infinite highness and low condescension do we see in the Person of Jesus Christ! We see in many of our experiences what a tendency that a high position or station with men will make them quite the contrary in their disposition.
If one worm be a little exalted above another, by having more dust, or a bigger dunghill, how much does he make of himself! What a distance does he keep from those that are below him! And a little condescension is what he expects of other men below him and for his position to be acknowledged as important and powerful!
Yet Christ condescends to wash our feet, even the feet of sinners who think so highly of themselves!
Feb
6
Spurgeon’s application of the excellency of Christ described in Colossians 1.15-23:
O thou despairing sinner, there is as much consolation in Christ to-day as when he said to the woman, “Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” His grace has not diminished. He is to-day as great a Savior as when Magdalen was delivered from seven devils. Till time shall be no more he will exercise the same infinite power to forgive, to renew, to deliver, to sanctify, to perfectly save souls.
Shall not all this make us praise Christ, since all fullness is permanent in him? Let our praises abide where the fullness abides. “All thy works praise thee, O God, but thy saints shall bless thee;” yea, they shall never cease their worship, because thou shalt never abate thy fullness. This is a topic upon which we who love Christ, are all agreed. We can dispute about doctrines, and we have different views upon ordinances; but we have all one view concerning our Lord Jesus. Let him sit on a glorious high throne. When shall the day dawn that he shall ride through our streets in triumph? When shall England and Scotland, and all the nations become truly the dominions of the great King? Our prayer is that he may hasten the spread of the gospel, and his own coming as seemeth good in his sight. O that he were glorious in the eyes of men!
Feb
5
Note: NBC runs a very brief commercial before the video starts.
Feb
4
The Rev’d Dr. Kendall Harmon talks a bit about Augustine’s life in his opening remarks at St. Paul’s Theological Centre’s new course – Great Theologians.
Feb
4
This from Virtue Online – a good history of the litigation between All Saints, Pawleys, the Diocese of South Carolina/the National Church and the implications for all involved – and uninvolved:
If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the All Saints Pawleys property case, The Chancellor of All Saints Pawleys Island believes the Dennis Canon will be overturned freeing thousands of church properties from the clutches of The Episcopal Church (TEC) (as well as the Presbyterian and Methodist churches who have their own “Dennis Canons”).
Dr. Ross “Buddy” Lindsay, 59, a trust attorney and canon lawyer, told VOL in an interview that the recent SC Supreme Court decision in favor of All Saints Pawleys insures, once and for all, that neither TEC nor the Diocese of South Carolina have any claim to their property or to the property of any other Episcopal Churches in South Carolina.
continue reading "Will the U.S. Supreme Court Overturn the Dennis Canon?"
Feb
4
Tebow’s Super Bowl ad isn’t intolerant; its critics are
From Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: I’ll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won’t endear me to the “Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep,” otherwise known as DOLL, but I’ll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.
Life – An Ode To Wrinkles
How do you call it? The way time shows in your face. The way the years take your skin as a canvas, and create.
Kurt, We Hardly Knew Ye
Peter King of SI writes: The five things I consider particularly amazing about the Kurt Warner Story: 1. It’s the most amazing story in football in a half-century. I don’t say that lightly.
Hijacking the Brain – How Pornography Works
From Al Mohler: We are fast becoming the pornographic society. Over the course of the last decade, explicitly sexual images have crept into advertising, marketing, and virtually every niche of American life. This ambient pornography is now almost everywhere, from the local shopping mall to prime-time television.
Christianity Lite
From First Things: Once in a while comes an historical event so momentous, so packed with unexpected force, that it acts like a large wave under still water, propelling us momentarily up from the surface of our times onto a crest, where the wider movements of history may be glimpsed better than before.
Kingdom Centered Prayer
Tim Keller: People are used to thinking about prayer as a means to get their personal needs met. However we should understand prayer as a means to praise and adore God, to know Him, to come into his presence and be changed by Him. We need to better learn how to pray, repent and petition God as a people.
US Air Flight 1549’s Icy Days in Hudson River
Time-lapse footage of US Airways Flight 1549 submerged in the icy waters of the Hudson River, awaiting the barges and cranes that would eventually lift it up and take it away.
Google’s Geographies of Religion
Following up on the earlier discussion of the user-created geographies of religion, the following maps simultaneously display all four religious references (Allah, Buddha, Hindu, Jesus) in order to visualise distinct religious cyberscapes.
Justice Department Looking into College Football BCS System
From Sports Illustrated: The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review.
Feb
3
I’m preaching on Colossians 1.15-23 this weekend (click here for February preaching schedule/series). Reading some of the great minds of the church on the text, not the least of which, Jonathan Edwards. His sermon, The Excellency of Christ, is wonderful. You can feel the passion Edwards has for Christ and his vocabulary to describe the delights and excellencies of Christ is beautiful.
There do meet in Jesus Christ infinite highness and infinite condescension. Christ, as he is God, is infinitely great and high above all. He is higher than the kings of the earth for He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is higher than the heavens, and higher than all the highest angels of heaven.
So great is Christ, that all men, kings and princes, are as worms of the dust before him…He is so high, that he is infinitely above any need of us. He is above our reach, that we cannot profitable to him, and above our conceptions that we cannot fully comprehend him. Christ is the Creator and great Possessor (owner) of heaven and earth. He is sovereign Lord of all. His knowledge and wisdom is without bounds. His power is infinite, and none can resist him. His riches are immense and inexhaustible. His majesty is infinitely terrible (awesome or awful).
And yet Jesus is one of infinite condescension.
None are so low or inferior, but Christ’s condescension is sufficient to take a careful notice of them. He condescends graciously not only to the angels, humbling himself to behold the things that are done in heaven, but he also condescends to such poor creatures as sinful men- -even to those who are of the lowest rank and degree, such as those commonly despised by their fellow creatures- – yet Christ does not despise them (1 Cor. 1:28).
Christ condescends to take notice of beggars (Luke 16:22) and people of the most despised nations of men (Col. 3:11). He that is thus high, condescends to take a gracious notice of little children (Matt. 14:14). What is even more significant, is that Christ takes a gracious notice of the most unworthy, sinful creatures, those that have no right to ask anything of God, and those that have infinitely offended God’s holiness and character by living sinfully and selfishly, a law unto themselves.
And yet so great is Jesus’ condescension.
What a meeting of infinite highness and low condescension do we see in the Person of Jesus Christ!
Feb
3
We kicked off our St. Paul’s Theolgocial Center last night. Kendall was the guest lecturer in our “Great Theologian’s” track. He presented on St. Augustine. He was wonderful. The framework through which he examined Augustine’s work was threefold: 1) Church order & structure; 2) Human freedom, choice and sin; and, 3) Eschatology. Very helpful handholds for the participants to grasp the greater work of the great saint. Addressing eschatology Kendall dropped this sublime quote from Augustine, speaking of heaven:
There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.
