http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/11992619.htm

IL Senator Barack Obama says that he has trouble with the idea of Lincoln being the great emancipator. This is interesting - I was taught in High School to be cautious of idolizing Lincoln. In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln only freed the slaves in the states that rebelled. This is critical, because there were actually three states that did not secede that owned slaves: Maryland, and I think the other two were WV and PA. (it was 11 years ago, ok!)

Anyway, if Lincoln really believed in freeing all the slaves, he would have freed the ones in the states that were part of the union. This would have been disastrous, though, possibly causing those states to secede as well. So Lincoln just freed the slaves in the states that he had no power over, at the time. Obama is correct when he says that Lincoln was really just using the Emancipation Proclamation as a call to arms to beef up the army.

Share This

I don’t really have anything new to report on here. I’m waiting for someone to send me the code for the busted old application so I can see if it will be able to sit on top of BizTalk.

I guess I didn’t need to put this in a LJCut, but oh well.

Share This

raegan wants me to study. she’s cajoling me. “please study.” so sweet. cannot deny.

going to get my book.

Share This

I’ve seen these questions before, and they are good points. I have asked these questions many times: What does the Law have to do with a Christian’s life? What’s the point? Are we allowed to eat bacon, or not? Do I have to circumcise my kids? Should I throw away all my cotton/poly blend t-shirts? I bet some of you may even remember me asking these questions at some of our Bible studies over the past 10 years, especially when Dan was teaching us Romans.

First of all, let’s talk about why God gave us the Law (The first 5 books of the OT, the Pentateuch, the Torah, henceforth referred to as the Law). The Law served a specific purpose: to show us that we can’t save ourselves.

Jesus came to die on the cross as a perfect sacrifice; a perfect atonement for our sins. He did not do away with the Law, He simply fulfilled it. Now we are saved by grace, through faith, not by works, lest anyone should boast. It’s really good stuff. All our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus.

We have a choice now. We can choose to be under the law, or under grace. The only way to get to Heaven under the Law is to keep *all* the commandments in the Law. There are a lot of those. And it just takes one slip and the whole shooting match is gone. Think Dominos. No, not the pizza. The game. *grumble*

Our second option is grace. Since Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, He gave us a way to the Father. Galatians 4 uses two Old Testament women as an analogy. The first woman, Hagar, is a slave. All of her children are slaves. The second woman, Sarah, is a free woman. All of her children are free. Just so you know I’m not misinterpreting this, I will include the entire passage that explains this analogy.

Galatians 4:
21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.
23 His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.
24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.
25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.
27 For it is written: “Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
29 At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.
30 But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”
31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

[emphasis added]
This is a lead-in to a big discussion in chapter 5 on living as a free person. This means not going back to the Law and saying “Ok, now I gotta get these feast days right, and make sure I wear my clothes correctly, and oh ya, I have to remember how the sacrifices work… is it 1 dove or two?…” We don’t have to mess with all that stuff. Yay! We get to be free! We get to do whatever we want! w00t! Erm… wait a sec… Galatians 5:13 says that we were called to be free, but we should not use our freedom to indulge in sinful nature. Whoa. Well, that puts a damper on things. What is “sinful nature”? How do we use our freedom then? We’re not supposed to follow everything in the Law, because Galatians 5:1 says it’s a yoke of slavery. And we’re not supposed to indulge our sinful nature. Ok, so there must be a way to find out what is sinful, and what isn’t. If only we had some instructions, a list or something.

Oh hey! What’s this? Galatians 5:19-21 says, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Ohmigosh! It’s, like, a list! Stuff we shouldn’t do! And hey, that kinda makes sense. I mean, pretty much all of that stuff is stuff mothers don’t want their kids to do. I know I got grounded by my parents when I slammed the door in a fit of rage. Jesus said that if you hate someone you have already committed murder in your heart.

Ok, cool. So as Christians, we are covered by the blood of Jesus. We are to live holy lives, but we don’t have to worry about how many steps we walked on Sunday (or is it Saturday?). It’s as though God has written His commandments on our heart, so that we won’t sin against Him. The Law was like a school teacher. It showed us the right way to go, preparing us for something bigger. The Law was showing us holiness, and showing us that we could never achieve it on our own. So Jesus came and fulfilled the Law and made a way for us to live by faith.

That’s pretty good stuff, if you ask me.

Share This

We’re having a Bible Study at my house on Thursday. 8:15 pm - 9:15pm. There should be a good group of people there. Let me know if you can make it. Drop me an email if you can make it. If you know of anyone that’s looking for some good fellowship, send them our way.

This is the first meeting, and we’ll pray and discuss our purpose. There is going to be some teaching, some exhortation, some worship, some intercession, and some loving on Jesus. Grace Fellowship has been described as a hospital for the spiritually wounded. I see our group coming out of that focus. Jesus said He came to set the captives free, to bind up the brokenhearted. I think that describes us all at some point or another, and I think this group will kinda center around that. So we got some good body ministry coming up, replacing broken cisterns with streams of living water.

I’m looking forward to this. I know I’ve been trying to patch up my rusty cisterns with chewing gum and Shoe Goo, doing my best to keep the water in there. It’s not working.

ps - bring an instrument if you want. Anyone have bongos? Or a flute? Maybe a xylophone? Or a tuba?

Share This