The message of the gospel is to be valued, protected, preserved, and proclaimed at all costs.

The means and vehicle of the message are not sacred.

Some good thoughts about the “End of the Spear” contorversy from Sled Dog.  Very worth the read.

Well, mostly.

You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you’re not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.

Chalcedon compliant		100%
Monophysitism		33%
Nestorianism		8%
Apollanarian		8%
Docetism		0%
Arianism		0%
Adoptionist		0%
Donatism		0%
Modalism		0%
Socinianism		0%
Pelagianism		0%
Albigensianism		0%
Monarchianism		0%
Gnosticism		0%

Are you a heretic?
created with QuizFarm.com

I have been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and wanted to share a few things that stuck out to me in this account of the Sermon on the Mount (6.20-49).

First, I am rightly reminded that this discourse is addressed to the disciples (vs 20), even though it is spoken in the hearing of all the people (7.1). This tells re-tells to me that Jesus wants to instruct those whom He calls to follow Him, his disciples. He is fully aware that we don’t really know what we are doing, so He would have us learn from His teaching and become like Him (vs 39-40). Read the rest of this entry

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,

“Revival of Church life always brings in its train a richer understanding of the Scriptures. Behind all the slogans and catchwords of ecclesiastical controversy, necessary though they are, there arises a more determined quest for him who is the sole object of it all, for Jesus Christ Himself. What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us to-day? How can he help us to be good Christians in the modern world? In the last resort, what we want to know is not, what would this or that man, or this or that Church, have of us, but what Jesus Christ himself wants of us.”

From: The Cost of Discipleship

I said,

“Since Christ is the source of life, a revival (by definition) re-awakens us to that source. And once we have tasted and seen that the Lord , the author of life, is good, how could we ever want anythng else?”

Romans 8.26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

“To ask how we are to get our prayers answered is a different point of view from the New Testement. According to the New Testament, prayer is God’s answer to our poverty, not a power we exercise to obtain an answer. We have the idea that prayer is only an exercise of the spiritual life. ‘Pray without ceasing.’ We read that the disciples said to our Lord, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ The disciples were good men and well-versed in Jewish praying, yet when they came in contact with Jesus Christ, instead of realizing they could pray well, they came to the conclusion they did not know how to pray at all, and our Lord instructed them in the initial stages of prayer… after we are born again we became conscious of what Paul mentions here, our utter infirmity– ‘I do not know how to pray.’ We become conscious not only of the power God has given us by His Spirit, but of our own utter infirmity. We Hinder our life of devotion when we lose the distinction in thinking between these two. Reliance on the Holy Spirit for prayer is what Paul is bringing out in this verse. It is an unrealized point; we state it glibly enough, but Paul touches the thing we need to remember; he uncovers the truth of our infirmity. The whole source of our strength is receiving, recognizing, and relying on the Holy Spirit.”

-Oswald Chambers
If You Will Ask, pg 100