by Elizabeth | Sep 10, 2012 | Learning Story
One of the many things I love about studying the Bible in community is hearing excellent questions that spur me to turn to scholars for helpful answers. Thursday, the question was raised – did God know Adam and Eve would sin? This is a crucial question, and answering it shows even more of the glory of God. I really liked Charles Spurgeon’s sermon, God’s Foreknowledge of Sin and have pasted several paragraphs here. If you want to read the whole argument, click here.
“Let us here again recall to our minds the fact that all our sinfulness and the development of it, and all the thoughts and evil imagination that went with that development—and all and sundry the aggravations of our sin, whatever they may have been—must clearly have been known to God. Nothing has come out of us which God did not know would come out of us. We have never surprised the Most High! We have never brought Him to such a position that He could say, “I did not know this.” We have never gone into any sin of which it could be said concerning God that He did not know that it would so be worked by us.
Now I think I hear impatient minds enquiring clamorously, “what purpose is there in the preacher’s repeating to us this statement? He puts it over and over again in very simple terms. What is he aiming at? Where is the edification to the people of God?” In the first place, here is the edification. Seeing that this is most certain and sure, I want you to adore the amazing Grace of God! Do you see, then, that knowing and foreknowing, God nevertheless chose us, elected us— though He saw us covered from head to foot with sin! When election’s eye fell upon us we were regarded as the helpless infant in Ezekiel, cast out unwashed and unswaddled to perish in our filth! But then, viewing us as such, the Divine heart loved us! “His great love,” says the Apostle, “wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” We were, as Kent puts it—
“Loved when a wretch defiled with sin, At war with Heaven, in league with Hell, A slave to every lust obscene,
Who, living, lived but to rebel.”
Do you not admire the marvelous Sovereign Grace which could have chosen you in the sight of all this? I can understand God’s choosing me if He had not known my sinfulness, or if He had known only a part of it. But that He should choose me when He had an infinitely clearer sense of my sin than I ever can have is, indeed, wonderful! I do know something of my sins at times, and am horrified at them. Yet I never have had such a clear estimate of my sinfulness as God has, for the least sin is hateful to God and He looks upon it as worthy of the eternal fires of Hell! Yet we, in whom there is not only to be found little sin, but multitudes of great iniquities were chosen from before the foundation of the world!”
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 lin which you once walked, following the course of this world, following mthe prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in nthe sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in othe passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and pwere by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 ButGod, being rrich in mercy, sbecause of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even twhen we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved athrough faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ” Ephesians 2:1-10
by Elizabeth | Sep 7, 2012 | Learning Story
This morning, with heart heavy at what from her many friends’ viewpoint appears to be a tragic and inexplicable death, I offer others’words as a reminder that indeed death has lost its sting, and a beloved woman is with her Lord now. And furthermore, the day will come when there will be no more death.
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
Oh, death, where is your victory?
Death has lost,it’s sting.” I Corinthians 15:55
“he will wipe very tear from their eyes, and death will be no more…” Rev. 21:5
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”
John Donne, Holy Sonnet 10
by Elizabeth | Sep 3, 2012 | Learning Story
“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of
humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one
can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without
overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the
sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from
the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When
one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally
triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and
imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates]
that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of
God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”
― Miroslav Volf
by Elizabeth | Aug 28, 2012 | Learning Story
“The word ‘grace’ remains as part of our religious vocabulary, and we regularly hear it used in public prayer (‘grant us the help of thy grace…’, ‘give us grace that we may…’). But to many it suggests only vague notions of a celestial battery-charge administered through the sacraments, while to more (one fears) it signifies nothing whatsoever. And meantime many practice in the name of Christianity forms of religion which frustrate and deny the grace of God completely. Both the legalism of the Roman Catholic doctrine of depending for salvation on loyalty to an ecclesiastical system, and the moralism of liberal Protestant doctrine that all will be saved who try, even a little, to be good, spring from the same root cause – failure to grasp the meaning of grace. No need in Christendom is more urgent than the need for a renewed awareness of what the grace of God really is.”
by Elizabeth | Aug 27, 2012 | Learning Story
we should note, the threat of heavy oaks falling on house and roads leans in with even a tropical storm
With Hurricane (?) Isaac headed toward our beloved Gulf Coast and hatches all battened – whatever that really means!), it’s impossible (despite the lovely current weather) to remain fully focused on my work at hand, so I browsed through some previous hurricane posts. I re-run this one, thinking of how quiet the house is on this day of school cancellation, the others elsewhere now, and the one child left home, 17, fully occupied with college application endeavors of all sorts. But I run this again for all of you moms who deal with daily disruptions in your agendas, both distempering and disheartening. May we all see the glory of God working in our hearts in his cosmic plan-busters!
“Blow winds blow! and crack your cheeks!
RAGE! blow! You cataracts and hurricanos, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, the clocks….
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
THAT MAKES INGRATEFUL MAN.” (King Lear, Act 3)
This line from Lear swirled in my head as I began today. Not much time to blog , because the wind is blowing trouble our way. When I heard last night that school had been cancelled for the next two days because of a hurricane that lay some 1000 miles south of us and couldn’t possibly turn into one of the “Big Girls,” I’ll admit — I was just annoyed. I took it as a personal affront to my schedule.
I’ve got lots of work to do this week, God, I pointed out, and now my kids will be home, distracting me. (Yes, I was ignoring the fact that my two teenagers at home are respectful and will not disrupt me while I work! I just wanted the house to myself.) I threw a small temper tantrum in the kitchen, railing against the school gods who make decisions like these, until my 14 year old, in his understated manner, spoke a few gentle words of reprobation, “If I could do anything about it, Mom…” Ouch. It hurt to see how my little fit was raining on his teenage parade of freedom.
And it shut me up. Sent me to the best place to go, my Bible. I discovered Psalm 31, and one verse seemed to say it all: “You have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.” (8) Indeed, with the news of a November hurricane, I was feeling a little pinched. My style was a little cramped. And somehow this verse called me to see that we have lots of ‘wiggle room’ with God. He is good, even in the disruptions he brings. And I began to thank God — that this is a small hurricane, likely a tropical storm by the time it reaches us (we’ve been through big ones), that we live on high ground (and I prayed for all those who do not), that my strong children will be home to help move all the deck furniture inside.
Indeed, “you cataracts and hurricanos spout!” And Jim Cantore, come on down! (If you’re not already on Pensacola Beach:)
by Elizabeth | Aug 21, 2012 | Learning Story
Going through some files, I found this precious paragraph from Nathan Bierma’s book Bringing Heaven Down to Earth…What a challenge to me to think about what the contours of my day might look like:
“As contemporary life grows more and more chaotic and frenzied in a society that devotes too much time and energy to work and transportation and not enough to peaceful rest, quiet, contemplation, and patient, relaxed fellowship we need to follow the model of Christ – who had a mere three years to change the world and yet repeatedly retreated to nap on a fishing boat while crowds clamored for more of his time. Rest, he seemed to suggest, will be an integral part of life on the new earth…
Christ-like rest cuts us down to size a and allows us to practice patience for God to bring about the new earth. It might, after all, take some time.”
![When’s the last time you highlighted your weakness?
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Cor. 12:10
All-Powerful God,
We confess,
we in Western culture
crave power, control, and independence.
The last thing we want
is to seem weak.
And yet, weakness is the way of Christ,
so it must be our way as well.
The apostle Paul understood that,
so in the face of accusations
that he wasn’t an apostle,
he countered the boasting of the “super-apostles”
with some boasting of his own:
“If I must boast,
I will boast of the things
that show my weakness” (2 Cor. 11:30).
And then he mentions how he was lowered in a basket through the window of a wall in Damascus, of all places,
a place he went to persecute Jews only to be knocked down on the road,
struck blind, by his Lord and Savior himself.
Paul shares many other weaknesses in 2 Corinthians,
a book that’s all about weakness as the way
of followers of Christ.
He asked that you would relieve him from a “thorn in the flesh,”
but you did not.
Instead, you said,
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in your weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Lord, we know we really are weak —
[for each of these areas, name any weaknesses you have]
weak in our bodies,
weak in our work,
weak in our wills,
weak in our faith,
weak in our hope,
weak in our love.
We believe
that you your power is made perfect
in and through our weakness.
Help our unbelief.
In Jesus’s name. Amen.
Read 2 Corinthians 11:30-12:10.
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