We finished up with our study of Colossians 3:10-19 talking about what it is that the New Man is to “Put On” as he seeks to walk in the manner that God desires to walk. To view the video just click on the link below:
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Early Christianity developed several “centers of gravity”. The first was Rome, home of what we know as Roman Catholic Christianity (and eventually emerging from it, Protestantism). Another came to be in Constantinople, source of the Eastern or Orthodox branches of the church. Constantinople was born in 324 when Emperor Constantine, believing the future lay in the East rather than the West, decided to move his capital from Rome to Byzantium, a site on the eastern flank of Europe, astride the Bosporus, near to modern Turkey. He led his aides, engineers, and priests on a march around its harbor and hills, tracing the boundaries of his envisioned capital. He imported thousands of workers and artisans to build its walls, buildings, palaces, squares, streets, and porticoes. He placed sculptures in the parks and fountains in the forums. Before long there was a fabulous hippodrome, a prized university, five imperial palaces, nine palaces for dignitaries, 4,388 mansions, 322 streets, 1,000 shops, 100 places of amusement, splendid baths, magnificent churches, and a swelling population. It was a city that shimmered in the sunshine. The New Rome was dedicated as capital of the Eastern Empire on May 11, 330. Paganism was officially ended, Christianity was embraced, and the bishop (or patriarch) of Constantinople rivaled the bishop of Rome. Here the world’s most beautiful church was built called the “Hagia Sophia” - the Church of Holy Wisdom, St. Sophia. For 1,000 years, Constantinople served to preserved the Eastern Roman Empire (also called the Byzantine Empire). Christianity moved along parallel tracks, Catholic and Orthodox. The pope and the patriarch rivaled each other, then rejected each other. The greatest division in Christianity was not the Reformation in 1517, splitting Catholics from Protestants, but what came to be called “The Great Schism” in 1054, splitting apart the Eastern and Western branches of Roman Christianity. From Constantinople came great Eastern Orthodox families of the church, such as the Russian and Greek Orthodox traditions. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. The Church of St. Sophia was converted to a mosque, then to a museum. Constantinople is now called Istanbul, and Turkey, once the bastion of Christianity, is pretty much the largest “unreached” nation on earth. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of you nations, come praise the Lord! Let everyone praise him. His love for us is wonderful; His faithfulness never ends. Shout praises to the Lord! (Psalm 117:1,2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ We finished up with our study of Colossians 3:10-19 talking about what it is that the New Man is to “Put On” as he seeks to walk in the manner that God desires to walk. To view the video just click the link below:
A common theme of Psalms 46 and 47 is the sovereign authority of God over all the nations. He is not some mere tribal deity. He is the Most High (46:4). Nations may be in an uproar; kingdoms rise and fall. But God needs only to lift his voice, and the earth itself melts away (46:6). By his authority desolation works its catastrophic judgment; by his authority wars cease (46:8–9). The Lord Most High is “the great King over all the earth” (47:2, 7). “God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne” (47:8).
This ensures the security of the covenant community. The surrounding pagan nations may threaten, but if God is in charge, the covenant people of God can testify, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (46:7). “He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet” (47:3). Indeed, as for Jerusalem, the “place where the Most High dwells”: “God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day” (46:4–5). The psalmist sees at least two further entailments. First, sooner or later God “will be exalted among the nations” (46:10). “For God is the King of all the earth” (47:7). These last two references could be understood as a threat rather than a promise of blessing: God will be exalted among these pagan nations in exactly the same way he was exalted by destroying the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. But in the light of Psalm 47:9 we would probably be unwise to insist on so negative a reading: “The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham, for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted.” In other words, one of the entailments of monotheism is that God is the God of all, whether acknowledged as such or not. And one day he will be acknowledged by all; in many cases such acknowledgment will be accompanied by worship and adoration, as the nobles of the nations assemble before God exactly as do the people of the God of Abraham. To use Paul’s categories, here is the inclusion of Gentiles as Abraham’s sons (cf. Rom. 4:11; Gal. 3:7–9). “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (46:10). The second entailment is praise. “Come and see the works of the Lord” (Ps. 46:8). “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!” (47:1–2). “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises” (47:6). We got the sermon from Sunday Posted up for y'all to take a look at - click the link below:
 In 1 Samuel 1:10, 11, Hannah vowed in “bitterness of soul” to give the Lord her son in return for God’s favor in giving her that son. She prayed as a “maidservant”—a humble, submissive way of referring to herself in the presence of her superior, sovereign God. “Remember me,” she requested, asking for special attention and care from the Lord. She would give the child to the Lord “all the days of his life,” which was in contrast to the normal Nazirite vow, which was only for a specified period of time (see Num. 6:4, 5, 8).
In contrast to the prayer that came from her bitterness, Hannah prayed from joy in 2:1–10. The prominent idea in Hannah’s prayer is that the Lord is a righteous Judge. He had brought down the proud (Peninnah) and exalted the humble (Hannah). The prayer has four sections: 1) Hannah prayed to the Lord for His salvation (vv. 1, 2); 2) Hannah warned the proud of the Lord’s humbling (vv. 3–8d); 3) Hannah affirmed the Lord’s faithful care for His saints (vv. 8e–9b); 4) Hannah petitioned the Lord to judge the world and to prosper His anointed king (vv. 10d—e). This prayer has a number of striking verbal similarities with David’s song of 2 Samuel 22:2–51: “horn” (2:1; 22:3), “rock” (2:2; 22:2, 3), salvation/deliverance (2:1, 2; 22:2, 3), grave/Sheol (2:6; 22:6), “thunder” (2:10; 22:14), “king” (2:10; 22:51), and “anointed” (2:10; 22:51). |
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