Is this it?

Wow.

1.5 million dollars.

and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?

Tender God and Master,

It was you, Father, who provided safe passage for your own across the swelling waves of the ocean.  You displayed compassion and tender mercies to a people most pitiful.   Our father was an Amorite and our mother an Hittite.  We belonged to pagan ways.  We were by nature, children of wrath.  But you initiated a relationship with us.  When we were polluted, unloved, and discarded by the world, you set your love upon us by washing us with the blood of your Son.  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for being our Rescuer through the most heroic act known to mankind.  You covered yourself in our stench and filth.  And in turn, we were bathed and dressed in your beauty and glory.  You were plunged into darkness and hell so that we could be engulfed with the light of heaven.  Through the Spirit’s sanctification, we smelled like wild roses.  Our garments of fine silk and fur dazzled others.   The Spirit made us sparkle from head to toe.  No more wounds and bruises and putrifying sores.  We were a people growing higher and outward.

What more could we ask?  Triune God of splendor and glory, we were your trophies of grace.  We had everything.  But sadly, we in America are intoxicated with our Americanization more than we are with you.  We have slipped from our trust in you to the sickening fixation on our own beauty.  We love our clothes, our music, our poetry, and our arts more than we do you.  In our dullness, your Being has become uninspiring in contrast to the human heroes whom we elevate.  Your words evoke yawns (we struggle for any measure of concentration), while our words are captivating and motivational.  We easily find time to talk with people throughout the week, but we can hardly muster up fifteen minutes of conversation a day with you.  Have we lost our awe of you?  All of us need surgery on our eyes, Tender God and Master.  We place ourselves on the operating table.  In our sickness, we call for the needed Physician.  It is an urgent cry.  In Gospel power, your Spirit must remove the opaque film from our eyes so that we can see you.  And enjoy you.

Lord God Almighty, we have forgotten your works in this country.  And when we do reminisce on the past, we are filled with divisive anger and paralyzing fears as we question, “Why were the former days better than these?” (Ecc. 7:10).  We have trouble realizing that power does not come from our personal abilities or collective strength.  God, help us to experientially know that it is your Spirit who can break through both the opposition of the wicked on the outside and the apathy that abounds within.   Forgive us for when we fear the gods of others, more than you, the one true God of all. We have no wisdom, no wisdom at all, if we do not fear you.  Please capture our thinking so that we might regain our overwhelming wonder of your great works – and the center of that work being your all sufficient gospel.

Tender God and Master, for us in America, may we in you, and you alone, be most satisfied.

Old Testament and New Testament together in Greek under one cover?

It came in public print yesterday from Andree Seu. (HT: SharperIron)

She is one of my favorite authors for World magazine.  And I am not too surprised by her post and the warm response to Beck.  (Hey, though my own precious momma detests Mormonism, she loves the testimonial words that come out of Beck’s mouth).

It would all be telling for me if this man ended up on a turbulent trajectory path like Martin Luther with his organized, universal Church.  Beck does have a full decade within a Church he seems to fully appreciate.  And unfortunately, I don’t see him moving religiously anytime soon.  For a passionate, patriotic American conservative in these latter days, the LDS Church is the ideal home.  Right?  What more could you want?

Well, for starters, I hunger for a place where there is  gospel grace refuge.  I was not at just one time in the past – desperate.  I am daily desperate for grace which I don’t deserve.  I am that needy.  Secondly, this grace is so amazing because of its source – the holy, transcendent God – the One who is wholly other.  Search the LDS Kingdoms far and wide – all three levels – and you don’t see Him revealed as such.

Of course, to protest the theological underpinnings of the well-established Authorities dominating the American I-15 Corridor is no small Christian matter.  Who has the courage to probe deeply and lovingly confront one’s religious family? 

Only one who has a heart gripped by the Gospel.

In 1534, William Tyndale had published his translation.  For the first time in English, in a translation directly from the Greek, Tyndale writes in I Corinthians 3,

What is Paul?  What thing is Apollos?  Only ministers . . .  

In the margin, Tyndale then explains, “The apostles and prelates are servants to preach Christ unto which doctrine only ought all obedience to be given.”

When the hierarchical status is emphasized and doctrine is downplayed, we have problems.  The external unity becomes a farce.

Bryan of afa wrote an interesting post, today.  To my LDS friends, what do you think of his simplistic LDS summary of what you believe?

To be transparent in my disagreement, I have never been excited about the illustration in Bryan’s post about Billy Graham joining with liberals on the same platform.  It was not a good precedent for Christianity in our country.  Conservative evangelicals have been wrong in not standing firmly on this heart issue.

I am the evangelical concerned more about the fundamentals of the Triune God and Gospel public presentation to our nation in its dire, spiritual need.

But concerning Glenn Beck, he is the #1 point man in America for this evangelical/Mormon  movement.  It is not an evangelical leading the God and Country movement as we have observed in the past.  There has been a popularity shift.

Craig Blomberg wrote in his Corinthians commentary (I am studying I Corinthians 3):

As one of my students once put it, much conservative Christianity reminded him of an exclusive country club trying to attract a broader clientele.  The club, therefore, advertised that membership for the first year would be absolutely free.  But after that, you paid through the nose!

This morning, my little third grade boy was telling me while on the way to school about one of his discussions with one of his buddies.  He said,

Daddy, my friend explained it to me this way.  If you are really, really good, you get to hang out with God the Father some day in the highest place.  If you are pretty good, you get to hang out with Jesus in a second place.  If you really don’t do anything good, you get to be with the Holy Spirit.  And if you are really bad, you are stuck with the devil.

Important Gospel heart issues, eh?

First of all, let me emphatically state that it is folly for our Southeastern Idaho religious culture to assign different chunks of heavenly real estate to the Trinity. 

Secondly, as John B. Polhill aptly puts it, “Rewards are difficult to square with a doctrine of salvation by grace and can easily become the back door for a theology of works.”  For those of you who are immersing yourselves in the Americanized Christianity of the day, get back to the gospel of grace.  The gospel set me free.

You all know the answer.

He is doing way better than any American evangelical televangelist.

He is the most favored, contemporary religious “preacher” in our country.

He is the “Billy Graham” of America, today.

Among all the LDS General Authorities, there has risen one outside their hierarchical ranks – the country’s new, mega-revivalist.

Hold on to your seats everyone.  The altar-call is coming.

It is all very interesting to see how the American religious culture is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Are evangelicals and latter-day saints able to make the same claim?

Which group is psychikos?  Which group is pneumatikos?