Tulips and Hyacinths
A Prayer for Lent link
Loving Father,
So many times I turn away from you
and always you welcome me back.
Your mercy and love gives me confidence
Thank you for the invitation to share, fast and pray
so that you can form a new heart within me.
Your powerful compassion for my weaknesses
leads me to ask for mercy
and await with great hope the Easter joy you share with us.
Amen
A Prayer for Lent link
Loving and merciful God,
I am so aware of my sins and weaknesses.
But as painfully aware of my faults as I am,
Let me also remember your tender love,
your gentle and limitless forgiveness.
I come before you filled with pain and guilt
but look into your eyes and see the forgiving love
I so long for in my life.
Help me to forgive the same way.
Teach me to love as you love
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Benediction: The Aaronic Blessing- Numbers 6:22-27 NIV
The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
Amen
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Thank you, Dee. That was very interesting and well presented. Sat under his brother’s teaching for many years. Loved the songs and prayers as well.
FreshGrace,
Thannk you.
Dee,
Beautiful picture at the top of the post. 🙂
Thanks Dee, again very helpful.
@ 40: Genesis 1:1 as “heading”,
This undermines a great deal of the Bible/science creation apologetics, from all perspectives, that dominated many US churches in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Perhaps one could argue that ‘insisting that the ancient texts speak directly to our modern questions is a form of post-modernism’.
Perhaps it’s a bit cranky of me to note that the way authoritarian churches use the biblical texts to control their people is also an example of a post-modern approach to the ancient texts. Meaning, intended by the author and received by the original readers, doesn’t matter; what matters is how the texts can be used to serve the purposes of the present-day people who are using them.
Walton’s “cosmic temple” arguments have really influenced NTW and others.
Funny to think that in our day, thousands of years after the writing of the texts, we are still scratching our heads, trying to understand them. Perhaps a corresponding humility is appropriate with respect to the rest of the Book, too.
I suspect, or at least hope, that Prof Walton’s work is real progress in this direction.
Thanks again.
Fairly modern fundamentalist thinking took the Word of God’literally’ in their own time and their own understanding, and so they have
lost the context of the ancient ways people had of writing ‘origin stories’ to explain ‘how things came to be’.
And yet somehow, in those primitive origin stories, there lies an attempt to explain that SOMETHING HAPPENED that changed everything and that decisions were made and actions taken that had profound consequences for the human race. Indeed, the ancient authors of the Book of Genesis managed to get ‘The Story’ out within the context of their own ‘origin’ story, and that may be to us the sign of how these writers were truly inspired, although people have since much disagreed on the substance of the consequences of ‘what happened’.
Thank you for posting the Lord’s prayer. In these crazy times (in which we are SO close to Christ’s return in my opinion) it’s more important than ever to stay as close to the Lord as possible. I wish you all a beautiful day/night. 🙂
expreacherman.com
Listening to the last few minutes again, the thought occurs that the idea that “the universe is sacred space” has significant implications for how humans think about their purpose and function within the world.
The way we use the material creation, and the way we at times treat each other, … one might say that we are defiling the Creator’s cosmic temple.
Good thought.
My question is, “What purpose does young earth creationism serve in an authoritarian church?” I get how patriarchy and unaccountable authority are doctrines that serve the leaders, but young earth creationism?
Perhaps it’s a way of instilling a new “map of reality” (as Steven Hassan puts it). YEC is such a fantasy world (see The Ark Encounter in which dinosaurs are depicted living with humans) that if a leader can get his followers to buy into that fantasy, it may be easier to make them buy into “lesser” fantasies (that the leader should be at the top of the hierarchy and unaccountable).
I’m sure there are plenty of sincere believers in YEC with absolutely no sinister motives, but YEC is a weird world.
‘Fantasy world’ is a good expression . . .
sometimes people join into that which they KNOW is ‘fantasy’,
but in doing so, they willingly commit themselves to ‘join’ the group that spouts it as ‘truth’
an example: the QANON controversies
it is said that 25 % if ‘modern’ evangelical-fundamentalists also buy into elements of the QANON conspiracies, particularly the popular ones connected to the political extremes,
so there is some ‘evidence’ that the power to get people to ‘declare’ for something that they know is untrue is REQUIRED to join a certain subset of a particularly controlling cult that demands ‘loyalty’ to be ‘proven’ at all costs . . .
we see this phenomenon frequently these days and it overlaps religious cults, conspiracy groups, and some quasi-political institutions
no need to mention names – people get it
them dinosaurs Adam and Eve rode? they haven’t got anything on the special ‘rays’ that came from aliens that started the California wildfires – got this from the folks that confirm the existence of ‘the lizard people’ doncha-know
just ‘sayin 🙂