Surely He Has Borne Our Griefs

Isaiah 53

Who has believed what he has heard from us?

     And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

My Heart is Filled With Thankfulness

Was looking for music to sing in church and came upon this.  Beautiful.  Have so appreciated Stuart Townend and the Gettys -  very solid music, with wonderful Biblical lyrics.




My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who bore my pain;
Who plumbed the depths of my disgrace
And gave me life again;
Who crushed my curse of sinfulness
And clothed me in His light
And wrote His law of righteousness
With pow'r upon my heart.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside;
Who floods my weaknesses with strength
And causes fears to fly;
Whose ev'ry promise is enough
For ev'ry step I take,
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace.

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To him who reigns above,
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace,
Whose ev'ry thought is love.
For ev'ry day I have on earth
Is given by the King;
So I will give my life, my all,
To love and follow him.

"My Heart Is Filled with Thankfulness"
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2003 Thankyou Music

Now who's violating copyright?

This just gave me a chuckle, after all the times he threatened to sue people for copyright infringement just for quoting him accurately under fair use law.

Yes, yes, that's our old friend Mr Abanes.  What irony!

It's All About Relationships

In a post at the CRN.info (now called Prophets, Priests, and Poets) site in April 2009, entitled Of Integrity, Discernment, Pirates and SEALs (Updated) several questions were raised about the way Chris handled his ministry expenses as his business went into bankruptcy. I wasn't impressed with how Chris addressed his former employee in the comments on this thread; he didn't seem to show a particularly managerial attitude or understanding of people, for someone who touts his MBA and managerial experience quite often as an appeal to authority. In fact, the way he has continued to bully people currently, despite his comment there (#94) about how Luke 7:1-10 "broke" him in a way he hasn't been broken before, only shows me he hasn't really changed anything except the target of his often desultory attacks.  The meditation he wrote, was essentially Gospel-focused, but he embellished his explanation of the passage rhapsodizingly and emotionally with information that isn't warranted from the text.  I read it and was mostly puzzled by his sudden urge to eisegete Scripture when he makes a career out of roasting people for the same thing on his show.  Still, I remained thankful for the gospel that was there.  Perhaps I'm overlooking something...again.

I am sad to say I think I probably excused his tendency to attack with poor argumentation before, because I agreed with him about who he was attacking. I say this to my own shame. When I felt his reasoning was poor, Jason and I would try to draw his attention to it, but I do remember often deliberately overlooking bad argumentation and faulty exegesis and shrugging it off.  I did this because I thought his main point was on track. I hoped he would grow into his chosen role wherein he has tried to educate people about the issues facing the church today.  I hoped he would sharpen his argumentation skills (i.e. logic) but that hasn't happened. In fact the opposite seems to have occurred, and the comment thread at Prophets Priest and Poets really seems to shed a little light on how that has happened.  I am reminded of a quote I read by John W. Robbins over at (not Ole Anthony's) Trinity Foundation last week:  "Bad epistemology drives out good theology."  You can have the right conclusions, but if you do not support them properly, eventually that problematic reasoning, if not corrected, will undermine your understanding of Scripture.

(ASIDE/UPDATE 3-19-2012)  While I have appreciated Robbins' and Hugh McCann's concern over Horton's footsying with Rick Warren, I don't share TrinityFoundation.org's concerns over Horton's (and others such as Tullian Tchividjian) focus on grace sanctification). I'm not sure how McCann views the gospel sanctification idea.  /END ASIDE)