my burg

"The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'"  (John 1:29 NIV) “Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die; another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.”  (Horatius Bonar)  From Sunday's sermon by David Kingston: Before we end let us make sure we understand the implications of John’s statements. There are two major claims that we need to understand and make part of our lives.  There are probably some of you here this morning who are thinking “I would like to become a Christian, to know the forgiveness offered by Jesus. I can see the peace and joy in the lives of Christians that I know, and I want to have this same peace and joy. But how can I know this forgiveness? How can I stand before a holy God and know that my sins are forgiven?”  The apostle John gives us the answer in a nutshell right here at the beginning of the gospel by quoting John the Baptist.

Interesting fact: "Irene" comes from the Greek, eirene, meaning "peace".  The New York Times has a great real-time map here that tracks the storm's progress.

"If a consciousness of the eternal were not implanted in man; if the basis of all that exists were but a confusedly fermenting element which, convulsed by obscure passions, Produced all, both the great and the insignificant; if under everything there lay a bottomless void never to be filled what else were life but despair? If it were thus, and if there were no sacred bonds between man and man; if one generation arose after another, as in the forest the leaves of one season succeed the leaves of another, or like the songs of birds which are taken up one after another; if the generations of man passed through the world like a ship passing through the sea and the wind over the desert—a fruitless and a vain thing; if eternal oblivion were ever greedily watching for its prey and there existed no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches—how empty were life then, and how dismal!  "And therefore it is not thus; but, just as God created man and woman, he likewise called int

This is a very helpful chart, prepared by D. A. Carson, to show how the key themes from the prologue of Gospel according to John (1:1-18) are reiterated in later chapters.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men."  (John 1:1-4 ESV) As I'm studying the prologue of the Gospel of John, I'm impressed that the grand story of history centers upon Jesus, who is the Word, the Logos , God the Son who was with his Father at the beginning of our universe. It all begins and ends with the Lord who was both Creator, and then Carpenter of Galilee.  For our own life stories to make any eternal sense (or significance) they must be embedded within this one, great, central Story, and seen in its context...  "Life is not random and meaningless. God tells us (and shows us) that there is a divine purpose at work behind all that takes place. This desire for meaning and purpose behind our individual stories is wired into us as humans. The

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." (John 14:1 ESV) "He [Jesus] knew what was going to be involved on the cross; he knew he was being made sin for mankind. He knew that when God would lay on him the sins of us all, it would mean a terrible moment of separation from the face of God.  He knew all that, and as he said later on in the garden of Gethsemane, his soul was 'exceeding sorrowful' (Matthew 26:38); nevertheless he turned aside to comfort these unhappy followers of his [John 14:1ff].  He was more concerned about their unhappiness than his own immediate problem, and thus we have this wonderful view that on the very eve of the cross, our Lord gave himself freely in comfort and consolation to others. "How typical and characteristic of him! He did the same thing on the cross itself, you remember, even after they had driven the cruel nails into his hands and his feet. There, dying on the cross, he had time to speak to tha

"Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world. But a blank he cannot be: there are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters." (Thomas Chalmers)

Tim Keller, on preaching in a pluralist culture... About every other week, I confront popular pluralist notions, not with an entire sermon, but with a point here and there. For example, pluralists contend that no one religion can know the fullness of spiritual truth, therefore all religions are valid. But while it is good to acknowledge our limitations, this statement is itself a strong assertion about the nature of spiritual truth. A common analogy is cited—the blind men trying to describe an elephant. One feels the tail and reports that an elephant is thin and flexible. Another feels a leg and claims the animal is thick as a tree. Another touches its side and reports the elephant is like a wall. This is supposed to represent how the various religions only understand part of God, while no one can truly see the whole picture. To claim full knowledge of God, pluralists contend, is arrogance. I occasionally tell this parable, and I can almost see the people nodding their heads in agree

Machen concludes his work, Christianity and Liberalism , with a call for renewed commitment to Christian education, especially within our homes and churches.  Note especially the final paragraph: [T]he most important thing of all--there must be a renewal of Christian education. The rejection of Christianity is due to various causes. But a very potent cause is simple ignorance. In countless cases, Christianity is rejected simply because men have not the slightest notion of what Christianity is. An outstanding fact of recent Church history is the appalling growth of ignorance in the Church. Various causes, no doubt, can be assigned for this lamentable development. The development is due partly to the general decline of education--at least so far as literature and history are concerned. The schools of the present day are being ruined by the absurd notion that education should follow the line of least resistance, and that something can be "drawn out" of the mind before anything