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High School AP English in I.F.

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Every year in Idaho Falls, high school juniors are exposed to a small slice of the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards.

The discussion then tends to gravitate toward the negative.

I read the full sermon today.

I would enjoy discussing with teenagers the Puritans and Jonathan Edwards.  By reading only The Scarlet Letter and a paragraph or two from the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, I fear that our young people in the I-15 Corridor are not being exposed properly to the richness of a historical and literary depth in our American heritage.  When it comes to the Puritans and Jonathan Edwards, go further.  Go deeper.  I think you will be very surprised by what you find.

AP teachers ought to give the teens bonus points for reading The Admiral Conjunction of Diverse Excellencies in Christ Jesus by Edwards.  The title alone invokes a rhetorical analysis.  I chuckle.

What do you think?

At least, read what Edwards wrote as a late teenager:  70 resolutions (modern English).  Teens, by internalizing these resolutions by grace, you could be used to start a new movement in Idaho Falls.

Confession
Around 480 years ago, William Tyndale translated from the Greek into English, “If we knowledge our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” –  I John 1:9
To confess is to spread the issue before the Lord and agree with Him on the sin in your life as you hunger to walk in the light.
The following words are from Robert Candlish, a man who lived in the 1800’s.  I have applied some of his words on I John to our scene in Southeastern Idaho.
The sinner prays:
“I thank thee, O my God, O my Father, for that most precious word in season:  “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”  Yes? it is “a word in season to the weary.”  For I am weary; weary of darkness in which I have been trying to hide or paint deformity, and get up some specious semblance of decency and beauty; weary of all impostures and all lies; the poor and paltry lies especially of my self-deluding, or scarcely even self-deluding, self-righteousness; weary of all attempts to take advantage of the darkness for making evil seem a little less evil, and some show of good look a little more like reality.  I would fain step forth from the darkness into light; into thy light, O God!”
The Father responds to the broken sinner in this city:
“For, be thy guilt ever so deep and thy heart ever so black, the blood of Jesus Christ my Son cleanseth from all sin.  He has answered for all thy guilt.  He has purchased for thee a new heart.  The fountain filled with his atoning blood is ever freely open and full to overflowing.  Wash in all that fountain and be clean.  Enter into the victory of light over darkness which that blood secures.  Let all compromise take end; compromise is a work of darkness.  I invite thee to have fellowship with me; fellowship real, and not merely nominal, with me and with my Son Jesus Christ;–fellowship with us in our plan and purpose of saving mercy,–in all its grace and all its glory;–a fellowship in it with us, of insight, confidence, partnership, sympathy, joy.  If it is to be real fellowship, it must be fellowship of light.  I cannot modify, I cannot alter, that condition of fellowship, any more that I can cease to be what I am–“light.”  But I do what is far better.  I make provision for the removal of every obstacle which your guilt and corruption might interpose in the way of your walking in the light as I am in the light.  I give you the assurance that the blood of Jesus Christ my Son cleanseth from all sin.”
Hallelujah!  There is no greater message than this for one to hear.

Beheadings

Sitting in the Dixon Dental office downtown this morning, I read World magazine (October 4, 2014), which they had displayed on one of the tables.  It’s a fascinating magazine.

Here is a quote from a short article by Andree Seu Peterson:

“Who would have thought that after centuries of modernity, beheading would once again be a means of persecuting the people of God?  Does it not send a chill up your spine to read about it in Revelation 20:4 even as we hear about it on CNN?  “Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.  Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus.”

The Father and His Son

“Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” – I John 1:3

Some say that the Father and His Son are one Person.

Others say that the Father and His Son are two separate deities, which logically leads to teaching that you can be in the presence of one and not the other.

Yet I love what Robert Candlish wrote in the 1800s.  This is the heart of my Christianity:

The object of this fellowship is the Father and the Son.  I say the object, for there is but one.  No doubt the Father and the Son may be considered separately, as two distinct persons with whom you may have fellowship.  And in some views and for some ends it may be quite warrantable, and even necessary, to distinguish the fellowship which you have with the Father from that which you have with his Son Jesus Christ.  As Christ is the way, the true and living way, to the Father, so fellowship with him as such must evidently be preparatory to fellowship with the Father.  But it is not thus that Christ is here represented.  He is not put before the Father as the way to the Father, fellowship with whom is the means, leading to fellowship with the Father as the end.  He is associated with the Father.  Together, in their mutual relation to one another and their mutual mind or heart to one another, they constitute the one object of this fellowship.

The Father and his Son Jesus Christ; not each apart, but the two–both of them–together; with whatever the Spirit of the Father and the Son may be commissioned to show, and your spirits may be enabled to take in, of the counsel of peace that is between them both; that is what is presented to you as the object of your fellowship.

It is a great idea.  Who can grasp it?

The City’s Magna Carta

When my family visited Washington D.C. this summer, we saw the original 1297 Magna Carta in the National Archives, on display courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.

The Book of Galatians is the Magna Carta of Religious Liberty in Idaho Falls for all Disciple-makers of Jesus Christ! It stretches back to almost 2000 years ago.

Paul writes in Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And then he exhorts us in Galatians 5:1 (which is from today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible),

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

So let us proclaim spiritual freedom in Idaho Falls for those who trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ.