The UmBlog

WWLD ? what would Luther do with the Lord's prayer? “A Simple Way To Pray” gives some examples of the intercessions Luther was inspired to pray on the basis of The Lord’s Prayer: “ Hallowed be Thy Name. Yes, Lord God, dear Father, Hallowed be Your Name, both in us and throughout the whole world. Destroy and root out the abominations, idolatry and heresy of all false teachers and fanatics who wrongly use Your Name and in scandalous ways take it in vain and horribly blaspheme it…Dear Lord God, convert and restrain them… restrain those who are unwilling to be converted so that they may be forced to cease from misusing, defiling and dishonoring Your Holy Name and for misleading the poor people. Amen. “Thy Kingdom Come. O dear Lord, God and Father, convert them and defend us… so that they with us and we with them may serve You and Your Kingdom in true faith and unfeigned love and that from Your Kingdom which has begun, we may enter into Your eternal Kingdom. Defend us against tho...

that title is an obscure reference to a song from the early 90's or late 80's that wasn't so edifying, sort of like the NPP, the New Perspective on Paul, advocated by, trumpets please, NT Wright , EP Sanders , and Jimmy Dunn. those links are internal that go to external sources. however, the topic has sprung up closer to home, a blogging church near my beloved UConn , and so i'm re-reading and seeing what else is new out there in the blogosphere. it seems most critics are of the Reformed persuasion, and i'm not finding anything yet, other than myself, who is a critic but not Reformed. So who are the critics? John Piper , Reformed Baptist. Kim Riddlebarger , Lutheran. Carson and Moo. Theopedia . i could never read all of wright's stuff. but i can read the Bible, over and over again, and find verses that don't fit into certain theological models. so i might start a series on "the gospel/good news" through the NT. it's all over the place. how does...

v. 13 And mayest Thou not lead us to temptation, but deliver us from the evil, i memorized this in King James' version where evil isn't prefaced with "the." i later learned about "the" and how this could be translated "the evil one," which implies our spiritual adversary, Satan. Matthew uses this construction in the parable of the soils in chapter 13. in verse 19 Jesus explains to his disciples that "the evil" comes and eats the seeds off the road. Mark and Luke confirm "the evil" equals "satan" in their recountings. John uses this construction in 1 John 5:18 and 19. We know that everyone fathered by God does not sin, but God protects the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (NET) It's as if John is amplifying this section of the prayer. We ask Father to deliver us because He protects those he fathered, and we ...

in Greek, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς, but rescue/deliver us... in the ultimate reality, God's kingdom, we realize there are no bootstraps we can pull ourselves up with. all we have are filthy rags. we have no kingdom of our own. we have no will of our own. we can't feed ourselves. we can't avoid indebtedness to God. we can't even tell ourselves "No." we are drowning in need of a rescuer. it turns out ,a rescuer has come to tell good news to the poor, to set captives free, to restore sight to the blind, and to release the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19) this prayer reminds us that the delivering and rescuing is ongoing, just like the forgiving and being forgiven, and the sustaining, and the worshiping. our life is a journey, a pilgrimage, and a walk. we spend our entire lives learning to die. Then He said to them all, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever ...

a new outreach video from "good news for LDS."

great link from the EO As you all know, the gospel is simple: “The just shall live by faith.” There is much, of course, to be unpacked from those six words and the study of their implications and ramifications could consume a lifetime of study. But the declaration remains effectively brief, as Johnson goes on to say: The apostle does not set forth the details of his gospel.’ The interpreter, however, is upon reasonably safe ground in assuming that they are found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5. The gospel is the good news of Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and appearances, together with the apostolic explanation of the doctrinal significance of these great facts. It is that which the apostle expounds in Romans, particularly chapters one through eight . The word euaggelion (AV, ‘gospel’) by New Testament times came to mean good tidings, good news, and it carried with it a note of excitement. ‘Good news’ was and is the type of message one might shout across the street to a friend or neig...

Trial? the Greek word is PEIRASMON. It's the word used in James 1:2 and 1:12. Old man Strong defines it as, a putting to proof (by experiment (of good), experience (of evil), solicitation, discipline or provocation); by implication, adversity another old man, Thayer , writes more: an experiment, attempt, trial, proving trial, proving: the trial made of you by my bodily condition, since condition served as to test the love of the Galatians toward Paul (Gal. 4: the trial of man's fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy an enticement to sin, temptation, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances an internal temptation to sin 1b of the temptation by which the devil sought to divert Jesus the Messiah from his divine errand of the condition of things, or a mental state, by which we are enticed to sin, or to a lapse from the faith and holiness adversity, affliction, trouble: sent by God and serving to test or prove one's character, faith, ho...

what an unusual way to make a request of Father. Jesus asks us to ask negatively. perhaps He assumes we are already doing the Proverbs 3:5, 6 thing, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight" (meaning successful). perhaps He assumes we are already trying to love Him with all of our hearts and souls and minds. perhaps He expects that we will love our neighbors as ourselves. after that it's all petty i guess. while walking the dog tonight i was thinking, wrongly, that maybe the verse was parsed this way, Lead us, not into trials... but the "not" in the Greek is modifying the verb and not the noun, and its not negotiable. that "not" "MH" in Greek is a verb modifier only. so i had a much better blog post on this verse. but my insight is not good. why doesn't Jesus have us pray for strength in trials? why not pray to be lead into ever gre...

as i drove home from a memorial service i got to thinking about defining forgiveness. once again i had read believers claiming that forgiveness should be given only to those who ask for it. some believers with a lot of calfskin (multi-degreed) hold this view. but my observations are that those who withhold forgiveness only burden themselves and tie burdens onto their souls. immediately after the prayer Jesus teaches that our Father won't forgive us if we don't forgive others. but right before this we ask Father to forgive "us." who am i to ask Father to forgive someone i won't forgive. what is forgiveness? i made up my own definition without consulting dictionaries or commentaries so this could be totally wrong. forgiveness is the relinquishing of my claim to justice. when i relinquish my claim to justice i turn it over to our Father to handle. great article here . see also an article about the effects of unforgiveness and anger and responding to wrongs with bless...

maybe some of my feedreaders already figured this out, but i hadn't until today. here is the feed for the shared items, enough blogs to burst your brain and ruin your productivity, and these are only the ones that stimulated me enough from the 150 posts i read a day.

up to this verse we have acknowledged our relatedness, our Father in heaven, His worthiness, His better reign, His impending return, His provision for us, and our need to take one day at a time. The next line continues to exalt our Father by having us ask for forgiveness for our sins. I reason that since we are asking for our bread daily, it is not unusual to be asking for forgiveness daily also. After reading the rest of the sermon of the mount, I come away with the realization that the sins of the heart are like weeds. Even if the weeds are mowed and can't flower, the roots are still there and still spreading. I can agree with God that my heart is desperately wicked and who can know it. Despite the ugliness He decided to save me and wash my sins white as snow with his blood. It's one thing to say you haven't killed anyone, but special that day will be when i can say i haven't coveted anyone's stuff. Or maybe i'll say someday i've been more concerned with o...

bread. enough for today. our - of us - me and my family and my neighbors/locally, nationally, around the world. some don't have enough bread to eat. some die of starvation. more don't partake of the bread of life and they die the 2nd death in hell, forever. Jesus references the bread metaphor in John's gospel. In 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." (ESV) he continues, 47 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” In 6:56 he says something so offensive it drove away most of the groupies..."Wh...

i found a lot of good stuff this week and added all their links here . unfortunately, one can only view a few of the posts at a time and you'll have to go to the bottom and hit the more link over and over... it is so web 1.0 God is good jpu

give us today/this day... why only today? why doesn't Jesus have me pray about tomorrow's needs or next week's? at the end of chapter 6 in Matthew's gospel Jesus tell us, "So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own." (NET) that's true. i think part of the issue is we are only given today. we are not promised tomorrow. this principle is repeated over and over. James tells us in chap. 4 "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes." talk about getting the reality smack down. by adding one word, "today," Jesus reminds me again of my humble estate. every other word in this prayer reminds me of my weakness and my need and my dependence on my Father....

on March 14 1794 Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin. cotton bale production increased almost 700 fold over the next 60 years mostly by the ease of this machine and the labor of enslaved Africans. from wiki The invention of the cotton gin allowed for the large-scale harvest of cotton. The cotton gin allowed the fluff around the seeds to be more easily and cheaply extracted in large numbers than could be done by hand, and made the practise an extremely profitable one. In the Southern United States, because the cotton gin only required unskilled labour, slaves were often employed in its operation. This led to an increase in the use of slaves in the South and increasing reliance on a plantation economy, leading to a greater divide between the North and the South that would culminate in the American Civil War.

in dec 2005 it was worth 500 bucks, now i'm ready to sell... My blog is worth $55,889.46 . How much is your blog worth?

i've lived such a comfortable life that i've never had a day where i questioned whether i had enough for today. yet i still pray this line. first of all, i am confident that all that i have comes from our Father. every few years when layoffs are announced at my company i find solace in knowing that this job is only a means that God uses to make me productive and provide for us. if i'm laid off i know he will continue to provide for us by some other means. who is "us?" me and my family and the missionaries i send money to every month and a child i sponsor in India and then all those who are helped by the regular offering i make at my church. we are connected. one of the challenges we had in house hunting 10 years ago was that i wanted the mortgage to not interfere with the regular giving we do. Father has provided enough for me to share with the family. when i pray this i am acknowledging His provision for us. i take no credit. everything i have has been given to ...

the sermon i gave last month on 1 Peter 3 is streaming from my church's website...

yesterday i had planned to write on "give us today our daily bread" but some other blog posts extolling NT Wright's interpretation of the gospel/good news and my reading Sunday morning has brought me back to God's kingdom. I'm power reading through the Bible. Since January, i've been reading 18 pages a day and i finished the Old Testament on Saturday, March 10th. Sunday i started the NT. i'm reading Reese's chronological Bible so the Gospels are harmonized. Mark 13:14-15 After John was put in prison, Jesus went in to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (NIV) What is the good news? That the Kingdom of God is near. What is the response to the good news? Repent and believe, aka, convert. is that a fair aka? Matthew 4:17, 23 From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."...Jesus went throu...

since i'm focusing on the Lord's Prayer series all the blog articles that i normally would like to are now here . i just want to give all the RSS readers a link every week. surprisingly, the series hasn't knocked down my average hits. i'm really surprised. thanks for reading, i hope its good for you. its been good for me. biking update: 10F this morning. the mile wide river iced over. a record setting low. i made the 5 mile ride. the temperature should triple by the time i ride home. spring temps expected tomorrow and next week. my knees aren't sore like they were after monday's ride. that's good.

how is His will done in heaven? we can guess from the opposite of our current reality that when His will is followed things have got to be much better. we only have a couple glimpses into heaven in the scriptures, the beginning of Job and the Apocalypse. Both of those use royal court motifs. And the person sitting on the throne, who's decrees are not contradicted, is God the Father, our Father. when kings were defied in Bible times, they were not out of bounds to put down such rebellion quickly and usually mortally. the will of the king was absolute. it was the will of His people. that's how it is in heaven. what is God's will then? that the wicked repent so that none should perish. to separate the sheep from the goats. eventually the kingdom will come and the last book of the Bible, the apocalypse, tells us that there will be plenty of wicked opposers to the reign and the will of God. so He will take his bride to heaven for a wedding banquet while he unleashes hell on eart...

hopefully the temperatures and wind chill will get above 0F next week and i will ride it to work.

where is His Kingdom? Jesus told us when we gather together, even just 2 of us, he's with us. he also told us the kingdom is within us. he also kept proclaiming the Kingdom is near. so is it here or isn't it? i guess it depends on what kind of day we are having. some days we think heaven is on earth. most days resemble hell on earth. those heavenly days remind us what we are anticipating. something so good, so right, so joyous that our longing only increases. i've usually prayed this in terms of my heart. let your kingdom invade my wicked heart. it does. i've prayed it for my poor, drug-infested, prostitute-trodden, kid-filled street. it has. i've prayed it for church relations torn by strife. it has. and then i've prayed it for the world. especially after i learned that there are more Christians per capita now than there has been in history. Christianity used to be a minority religion. Now its the major religion. the kingdom is coming! i know i came to this rea...

i am struggling to write on this part. i don't feel i understand it well enough. the harder you meditate on the things of God the less you know. hAGIATHETW TO ONOMA SOU: let it be exalted, the name of yours the verb is the first word. its tense is aorist (kind of like a past tense but also the typical tense to write in), its a command, but a passive one, in the 3rd person singular. we are telling God, don't hold back the exaltation of your name, phrased in the active tense. we translate derivatives of this word into "holy" and "saints" and "set apart" and "sanctify." This is another facet of not taking His name in vain. His name is set apart. It's the name of the only being in the universe worthy of worship. Devotion and adoration to any other deity is not acceptable. Only His name is set apart. His name is found in His words to us, in His Scripture, proclaimed by His Son who claimed that those who see him have seen the Father. What i...

hO EN TOIS OURANOIS - hoe en toys ouranoise - the in the heavens one "Our Father who art in heaven" in Greeklish is "Father of us, the in the heavens one..." why does the Greek language speak of heaven in the plural? i guess they looked up and saw the sky and knew about the stars beyond it. birds fly in one heaven and comets fly in another. and God is not earth bound, nor is he sky bound, nor space bound. So although he is all about us he abides in heaven and that's the place Jesus went to to fix us up some rooms or mansions (John 14) for our arrival. Our Father is not of this world. He is not stained or crippled or marred or made dysfunctional by this world. He is the one in the heavens. He has adopted me and sends his Spirit to live in me as a deposit on the promise of eternal life with Him in his abode. As an adopted child I also gain a passport not of this world which proves my citizenship is elsewhere. Heaven is one place where the guarantee stands that the...

i'm trying to focus on the Lord's Prayer series, so anything i get in my feeds i'm throwing straight onto the shared articles here . also i added an update on the bike spill/skunk commute and how God did me a favor.

Our - hEMOWN- hay-moan - of us... Jesus brings us into the relationship he has with God, Father. He invites us to become part of the family. Part of his family. He invites us into adoption. We can begin what he has eternally had, a perfect relationship with someone who loves and oversees and knows us. David's Psalm 139 comes to mind. Additionally, not only do we pray with Jesus, we pray with each other. All too often my prayers are done alone. Around this prayer in Matthew 6 Jesus does advise to pray without show and even in a closet. Prayers alone are good. Jesus prayed alone on mountains and through the night. But prayer together is also good. Both should be happening with similar frequency. When i pray this alone i am aware i'm praying with Jesus and also with the saints around the world who are praying at the same moment. This prayer is worded for community prayer. Community prayer is good for me. Have i confessed my inadequacy as intercessor? i am inadequate. If i'm si...

this guy is awesome and kudos to the church for brining him on to reach those who might be overlooked.

02/28/2007: Militants Attack GFA Bible College About 500 anti-Christian radicals attacked a Gospel for Asia Bible college in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on Wednesday evening, February 28. Gospel for Asia leaders in the area report the mob, which was mobilized by a Hindu nationalist group, systematically attacked the approximately 300 students and staff members present on the campus. Five students and the women's dorm director were seriously injured. All have been hospitalized, and one student is in critical condition. The rest of the student body and staff remain inside the dormitories. Local and reserve police have arrived on the scene, but have found it difficult to control the crowd, and the situation remains tense. The attackers also disconnected the electricity and ransacked the campus, destroying the roofs of many of the school buildings. "The magnitude of this attack is unlike anything we've ever seen," said Gospel for Asia President K.P. Yohannan. ...

i'm still riding my trek hybrid 7200 . rode it yesterday. rode it this morning, at 5:30 AM, before dawn. i can't remember the last time i rode in the dark. temps in the 20s F. i had a blinker on my backpack. and i had an LED headlight strapped on my head, under the helmet. anyway, things went pretty smoothly for the first half of the ride. birds were chirping. cars were sparse. headlamp worked well. ice spots were visible. except for that spot under the big bridge. coming off the bridge the bike path wraps tightly underneath it and it isn't plowed too well. so i cut the corner through the snow, which went fine except i came out onto a black ice patch and totally wiped out. my shoulder is a little sore. but that wasn't the worst part. i got off the patch and got on the bike and started off right into the view of a small skunk ambling down the path. the skunk turned around and started walking away from me. i wanted to be far away from the skunks rear end so i stopped rid...

i strongly recommend these highly enjoyable presentations by Gayle Erwin on the nature of God. update link 03/36/09 Thanks Renee