I am one of those who do not recognize any consideration of the Word of God which is not accompanied by worship. The Bible is not an ordinary book – it is God’s book, and it is a Book about God and man’s realtionship to Him. Therefore, every time we consider or study the Bible we are, of necessity, worshipping. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, p. 1
Author: Josh King
Bible Reading Plans
Zondervan has several for free. Their three year plan has become my most reccommended.
Discipleship Journal has some great plans to purchase although you can download and print a free one with a “do not copy” watermark.
The Discipleship Journal Plan in which you read from four different sections of Scripture is avaliable for free on Bethlehem Baptist Church’s website. You can also download some bookmarks witht he plan on them. This is the plan I will go through this year.
Tolle Lege: Here I Stand
After John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides this was my favorite biography this year. Luther is fun anyway, but Bainton writes in a readable manner such that you understand both Luther and his context. Out of all the reformer’s biographies I have read Here I Stand has been the most fun and rewarding.
[Against opponent Prierias in debate] I am sorry now that I despised Tetzel. [It was Tetzel who was selling indulgencies near Luther sparking the posting of the 95 theses.] Ridiculous as he was, he was more acute than you. You cite no Scripture. You give no reasons. Like an insidious devil you pervert the Scriptures.
For me the die is cast. I despise alike Roman fury and Roman favor. I will not be reconciled or communicate with them. Let them damn and burn my books. I for my part, unless I cannot find a fire, will publicly damn and burn the whole canon law.
Balaam’s ass was wiser than the prophet himself. If God then spoke by an ass against a prophet, why should he not be able even now to speak by a righteous man against the pope?
[In reply to the Papal Bull] I protest before God, our Lord Jesus, his sacred angels, and the whole world with my whole heart I dissent from the damnation of this bull, that I curse and execrate it as sacrilege and blasphemy of Christ, God’s Son and our Lord. This be my recantation, O bull, thou daughter of bulls.
And as they excommunicated me for the sacrilege if heresy, so I excommunicate them in the name if the sacred truth of God. Christ will judge whose excommunication will stand. Amen.
Germany is the pope’s pig. That is why we have to give him so much bacon and sausages.
To balance the quotes above I must say that this is only one side of Luther. The reason he had no fear of man was because of his fear of the Lord swallowed all other fears. Luther was a man gripped by the holiness and grace of God. I present the one side to prod you into reading the book to discover the other which was the source of his radical passion.
Hebrews 9:1-14 & Conscience
The conscience should be both convicted by the word and convicted of the word. To illustrate both I will simply repeat Luther’s words that I shared last night.
I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a great yearning to know what he meant.
Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open door into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven….
If you have a true faith that Christ is your savior, then at once you have a gracious God, for faith leads you in and opens up God’s heart and will, that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This it is to behold God in faith that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart, in which there is no anger or ungraciousness. He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain, as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. – From Here I Stand by Roland Bainton
Afterwards on April 18, 1521 at the Diet of Worms when Luther was asked whether or not he would recant of the errors contained in his books he replied:
Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen. – From The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul
All gloriaDEI Girls PLEASE Inject Yourselves With This!
A girl should get so lost in God, that a guy has to seek God to find her! – Dannah Gresh
HT: Desiring God
Gas, the Weather, & Sin
My attitude toward the weather is like my attitude toward gas prices. Previously 40° was intolerable, now it would be a welcome reprieve. Unfortunately my attitude toward sin often fluctuates in the same way.
Hebrews 8 & Shadows, Copies, and Old
Do you think you can draw near to God via shadows, copies, and the old?
You may say Jesus is the only way but how do you live?
Do you think because you have or do certain things that you are close to God? Or do you think that because you fail to possess or do certain things that you are abandoned by God? The law always leads to despair or pride.
Being a Christian is not about voting republican, abstaining from alcohol, keeping your panties on till your married, hating abortion, watching on G-rated / animated Disney movies, owning a Bible and occasionally reading it, regular church attendance, getting Goosebumps during a worship service, holding to a certain creed or confession, listening to mp3 sermons, reading certain authors, wearing a pathetic “Christian” T-Shirt, dressing a certain way, enjoying “clean fun” and potlucks with other Christians, visiting all the cool Christian blogs, writing in a journal and keeping sermon notes, or having walked an aisle and said a formulaic prayer.
No, being a Christian is about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus, it’s always about Jesus, and it’s only about Jesus. Jesus is the only way to draw near. The shadows are only good in pointing toward and helping us understand the reality. The copies are never as valuable as the heavenly realities to which they correspond. And the old has no nostalgic value over the ancient faith which is also new. To have and do without Jesus is to have and do nothing.
Nothing (Without You) By Derek Webb
I’ve got the dress, I’ve got the ring
I’ve got a song that I can sing
I’ve got the bread; I’ve got the wine
But I’ve got the life I left behind
I’ve got everything but I’ve got nothing without youI’ve got the law on my heart
I’ve got your love tearing me apart
I’ve got a vow that I can’t keep
But I’ve got your promise getting me to sleep
I’ve got everything but I’ve got nothing without youI’ve got your works and I’ve got my faith
I’ve got all the wine that you can make
I am the kiss of your betrayer
But I’ve got your grace on every layer
I’ve got everything but I’ve got nothing without you
‘Cause you see it’s all just a show
And you either hate it or you don’t
And only time will tell the difference
If you get it clearly or with interferenceBut I’ve got the race; Got the election
But win or lose I’ve got protection
I found a lobbyist in the devil
And I got salvation in a rebel
I’ve got everything but I’ve got nothing without you
Secret Sin is Social
Sin is social: although it is first and foremost defiance of God, there is no sin that does not touch the lives of others, since by subtly changing me, they change my relations with others. Secretly nurtured lust, for instance, soon affects a man’s or woman’s relations with the spouse and with other human beings. —D.A. Carson in Christ and Culture Revisited
His Suffering and Ours
During the Napoleonic period in Europe some of the emperor’s soldiers opened a prison that had been used by the Spanish Inquisition. There were many dungeons in the prisons, but in one of them the soldiers found something particularly interesting. They found the remains of a prisoner, the flesh and clothing all long since gone and only an ankle bone in a chain to tell his story. On the wall, however, carved into the stone with some sharp piece of metal, there was a crude cross. And around the cross were the Spanish words for the four dimensions of Ephesians 3:18-19. Above was the word “height.” Below was the word “depth.” On one side there was the word “breadth.” On the other there was the word “length.” Clearly, as this poor, persecuted soul was lying in chains and was dying, he comforted himself with the thought that God who in himself contains the breath, length, depth, and height of all things was able to satisfy him fully. – James Montgomery Boice in The Gospel of John Volume 1
Hebrews 7 & Rigmarole
rigmarole ‘ri-gə-mə-rōl · n. 1: confused or meaningless talk 2: a complex and sometimes ritualistic procedure (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
Yes, it’s a real word, I didn’t make it up last night. Is the law just a bunch of rigmarole? It most certainly is complex, intricate, and detailed, but is it confused and meaningless? I’m not asking if it leaves you confused, but is the law itself confused in what it says?
Hebrews like the law at times can be easily dismissed as a bunch of rigmarole. Let’s just go through one of the gospels, Ezra, or Philippians instead right? What does the law have to do with us?
You ever play video games with your dad or friend and not tell them what any of the buttons on the controller do? Ever buy a new board game and not read any of the rules, just try to figure out how the game works as you go? Sure reading the rules and explaining the controls isn’t fun, but it does lead to fun. It may be dry reading at times, but understanding the law deeply and intricately leads to deep joy in knowing and communing with Christ.
So pull out the rule book, the law, and have fun seeing how Jesus is the fulfillment of it all.
No Other Boast 