To Whom Shall We Go?

From Frank Thielman's comments on Phillipians 1:21 in his commentary on Philippians in the NIVAC series: Paul's relationship with Christ was so close that his entire existence derived its meaning from his Lord (emphasis added). Lord Jesus, may I grow that close to you as well!

According to T. D. Alexander in the book From Eden to the New Jerusalem : By living in obedience to Christ, his disciples participate in the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. This kingdom is not restricted by national boundaries, but is gradually expanding to fill the whole earth. Yet, although this divine kingdom continues to grow, with more and more people acknowledging the supreme sovereignty of God, many of the earth's inhabitants defiantly refuse to enthrone God as their Lord.

I thought this was a super helpful description of humanity's #1 problem: sin. From T.D. Alexander's book From Eden to the New Jerusalem : To appreciate the necessity of atonement, we must grasp clearly that God is not indifferent to our moral thoughts and behaviour. On the contrary, his holy nature is deeply offended by such things. As a perfect God, he cannot ignore anything evil. The smallest lie is offensive to the One who is truth. The tiniest feeling of animosity towards another person is repulsive to the One who is love. Due to his holy and perfect nature God cannot turn a blind eye to perverse human behaviour as if it does not matter. We also need to appreciate that due to our own perversity, we do not realize fully how objectionable our imperfections are to God. If we contemplate our shortcomings and failures at all, we merely dismiss them as something natural; this is part of our human nature--we are all like this. Yet, in truth, our imperfections are anythin...

I was humbled to get to serve my church this morning by preaching 2 Corinthians 1:3-11. Click here for the audio .

This is a very instructive quote from Charles Hodge (1797-1878) when he explains why Paul's personality shines through in 2 Corinthians: The grace of God in conversion does not change the natural character of its subjects, but accommodates itself to all their peculiarities of disposition and temperament. And the same is true with regard to the influence of the Spirit in inspiration. It is an illuminating quote because many who doubt the trustworthiness of Scripture say that there is no way it can be God's words when there is so much "human-ness" all over it. Yet Hodge asserts that God uses the particular "disposition and temperament" of each author to say exactly what He wants to say.