Merciful Lord, we beseech Thee to cast the bright beams of Thy light upon Thy Church; that it, being instructed by the doctrines of Thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may attain to the light of everlasting life; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigheth with Thee and the Holy Ghost; ever one God, world without end.  Amen.

SDG

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stoned them which are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, enven as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Grant, O Lord, that  in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of Thy truth we may stedfastly look up to heaven and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors by the example of Thy first martyr, Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to Thee, O blessed Jesus, who standed at the right hand of God to succor all those that suffer for The, our only Mediator and Advocate, who livest and reighnest with the Father and the Holy Ghost; ever one God, world without end. Amen.

SDG

Conundrum:

Micah 7:6

For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

Matthew 10:36

‘…a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

1 Timothy 3:4

He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.

Pray…Meditate….Suffer…

SDG

 Over at Dalrock, Cail Corishev makes the following observation:

 “When did Christians start believing that God is a happiness vending machine, where you put the right behaviors in the slot and out pops the good life? Is my Bible the only one with the book of Job in it? If that book doesn’t scream loud and clear that God owes you nothing and you can’t expect to be rewarded in this life for living right, you really weren’t paying attention.”

SDG

Back in 2013, The Outlaw Monk posted:

Get over yourself! Realize that Christ’s mission was to save the whole world, not just you. As a follower of Christ your commission is to help the poor and feed the needy, not to go around telling people how great your life is because of Jesus. Instead of preaching your personal testimony, preach the Gospels and the good things that Christ did for all of us—that is the definition of evangelism.

SDG

Bill Bonner writes:

“Yes, dear reader, we have a Celtic temperament. We have periods of happiness and contentment, but we count on our deep sense of cynicism and gloom to get us through them.?”

Indeed.

SDG

Isaiah’s job was written by Albert J. Nock some years ago, but the prophet’s work always needs to be picked up and carried on.  This is a never ending task.  It is always an immediate task when one considers that we have gone from a melting pot, to a salad bowl and finally to a toilet bowl (HT: Vox Popoli commenter Chris Mallory).

Pray for the remnant.

SDG

One should always remember that the current schooling system is functioning perfectly.  What is demonstrated here is not to be taken as a failure on the part of the school.  In fact it is exactly what the school is designed, managed and operated to accomplish.

First, a local example:

Medina Independent School District ADOPTED A TAX RATE THAT WILL RAISE MORE TAXES FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS THAN LAST YEARS’S TAX RATE.*

*Please note that the punctuation form used in this announcement is accurately reproduced here to demonstrate the level of quality provided by the previous tax rate and will most certainly improve with the increased tax rate.

If you can come to terms with this local example then I would suggest reading what Thomas Fleming has written in his essay, Thinking Outside the Boxes.

To quote Amos Bronson Alcott: “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

So it goes….

SDG

H. L. Mencken wrote:

“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

One might ask whether these united States may have arrived at a ‘more perfect’ democracy.  Although I am certain that Mr. Mencken was far too rough on people.  As Mr. Nock noted, if one takes modern men and women for what they are, then one is not surprised or shocked or dismayed by their actions.  Since it remains true that psychically-anthropoids vastly out number psychically-humans, the resulting chaos is what is to be expected.

SDG

3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 3:11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.  3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  3:17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.  3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.  3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”  3:20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”  3:21 So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours,  3:22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future–all belong to you,  3:23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Grace and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

• Our epistle reading is an example of a literary unit that is broken apart at interesting places.
• We can only ask what does the epistle say; what does it mean; and what does it do?
• Here we have Paul continuing to admonish good Christians that are full of pride, license, jealousy, selfishness and … well you know…
  • Just like us!
• But Paul knows that appealing to the Corinthians to be moral is not the solution to their problems.
• No, the evangelical solution is forgiveness in the Gospel.
• He (and we) begin today by being reminded that the foundation of life is
  • “…the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8)
  • that foundation is Jesus Christ.(3:11)And upon this foundation, God in His mercy has created little temples to Himself….that is you and I.
• He puts Himself in these little temples as
  • ‘…God’s Spirit dwells in…’ them (3:16)
• God also posts a warning sign outside of these temples
• Anyone that destroys this temple will also be destroyed.
  • By the way, this is a warning to others as well as ourselves.
  • Do not destroy yourself with by following false teachers & false leaders.
• We, of course, are smarter and more clever than these poor wretched Corinthians.
• We have two-thousand years of information to make us wise beyond any first century cretin.
• God laughs at our craftiness and you will too!
• Listen to these absurdities, you hear them all the time;
  • “Everyone is a winner!”
  • “All the men are handsome and all the women are beautiful!”
  • “All the children are above average!”
  • Perhaps funniest of all; “Hope has returned!”
  • Oh yes, ‘there’s a new dawn a’ coming’ and
  • Utopia, the promised land, is just around the corner.
• In my neck of the woods, there are two towns; Tarpley and Utopia.
  • Tarpley advertises itself as “Not Quite Utopia”
  • Tarpley would be St. Paul’s kind of place.
• Don’t listen to that stuff!
  • The snow job of the ‘wise’ is to get you to believe what they say…
  • They are liars and murderers because they are the children of devil.
  • God says, “…that they are futile.” (3:20)
• Forget what the wise leaders say, it doesn’t matter….
• Quit fussing over the little things, because,
  • “…all things are yours…”(3:21)
• Now let’s not strip our gears
• Paul shifted the whole focus of his words
  • Stay with us……
• All things are yours because;
  • He was with God in the beginning.
  • Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
  • In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.(John 1:2-4)
• AND…
  • “…he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Eph. 1:4)
• As baptized children of God…
• Jesus Christ has taken you for His own
• You can’t escape!
• You little temples…you….
• Jesus Christ has taken you for His own; and
  • “Christ belongs to God.” (3:23)
• As such, today you will receive all things…
• the body and blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
• because you are His.  Amen

SDG