Switchpod, which hosts my podcasts for free, seems to have signed off for good. That means many of the podcasts I’ve posted on this blog are gone, so don’t be surprised when you find many broken links while clicking on a song or sermon of mine. Anyway, I still have some of my songs and sermons on the following websites: attycortessongs.tumblr.com and attycortessermons.tumblr.com.
Archive for May, 2009
My Time Has Not Yet Come (Audio)
The audio of my sermon entitled My Time Has Not Yet Come (Lessons from the Silent Years) is now online. Click here for the manuscript.
Manton on the Angels
The subject of angels is a mysterious one, but one thing we know: Scripture teaches that they are charged with the care of God’s people: “The angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear him.” (Ps. 34:7). Here’s a summary of what Thomas Manton, a 17th century puritan, has to say about the role of angels in caring for God’s people in his Commentary on Jude:
1. It is certain that the angels had a great care about the people of God in ancient times.
2. The ministry of angels is not wholly ceased.
3. The proper object of their ministry and care are the children of God.
4. The ministry of angels is over all the children of God, without exception.
5. No angels are excepted from being employed in the ministry of caring for God’s children.
6. Every single believer has his proper and alloted angel to attend him from his birth to his death – although this is disputable.
7. There is an assurance of a guardianship and tutelage from angels (Ps. 91:11).
8. This tutelage is from their first conception in the womb till the translation of body and soul into glory.
9. This tutelage is ever administered according to God’s pleasure … their employment is to attend us, and serve us, according to the Lord’s direction.
The Need for Apologetics
words deceiving
world dissolving
wicked acid rain
buildings crumbling
bridges falling
badly bleeding brain
vision fading
darkness growing
dim the Holy Sun
Christ is weeping
turning leaving
faith is on the run
numbness spreading
night expanding
feet on sinking sand
storm is raging
waves are rising
where is safe dry land
This article was written in springnote.
Work and Spirituality (2)
In the previous post we had a Trappist monk’s perspective on work and spirituality. Now here is a 17th century puritan’s take on the subject, but with a slight twist, as his concern is more on remaining in one’s calling:
Devote yourself to performing your duty in the place and calling God has given you. The very power of godliness lies in such consecration.
(William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, vol 1.)
This is actually one of my favorite quotes, as it reminds me of the importance of remaining in my calling and not to think that activities such as preaching, etc. are more spiritual than lawyering. Gurnall goes on to say:
We are to tend with all diligence everything that comes within the scope of our particular calling; beyond this, we are tilling someone else’s field … You cannot expect to honor God by leaving the work He assigns you and doing something of your own choosing instead, no matter how worthwile it may seem.
This is a timely reminder for Christians engaged in “secular” jobs not to disparage their calling.
Work and Spirituality
Many Christians would not consider their daily work as “spiritual”; what is spiritual, they think, are preaching, praying, and the like. Thomas Merton in Life and Holiness thinks differently:
… one’s daily work is an all important element in the spiritual life, and that for work to be truly sanctifying the Christian must not only offer it to God in a mental and subjective effort of will, but must strive to integrate it in the whole pattern of Christian striving for order and peace in the world. The work of each Christian must be not only honest and decent, it must not only be productive, but it should contribute a positive service to human society. It should have a part in the general striving of all men for a peaceful and well-ordered civilization in this world, for in that way it best helps us prepare for the next world.
Faith is Grace and Duty
Is faith a gift of God or a duty of man? It is both, as Hugh Martin explains in one of his sermons (see Christ for us):
Grace on his part, faith on your part: your faith in the sense that it comes from your believing heart, but his faith in that it is wrought by his Spirit there and prompted by his Word there.
I’m reminded by what a certain man once said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” So, on the one hand, faith is a responsibility we ourselves exercise; on the other hand, we acknowledge that Jesus is the source and sustainer of our faith, i.e., the author and finisher of our faith.
To Be Little
To be little, to be nothing, to rejoice in your imperfections, to be glad that you are not worthy of attention, that you are of no account in the universe. This is the only liberation. The only way to true solitude.
– Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Culture: Its Theological Justification
Colin Gunton in The One, the Three and the Many offers this theological justification for culture:
The distinctive feature of created persons is their mediating function in the achievement of perfection by the rest of creation. They are called to the forms of action, in science, ethics and art – in a word, to culture – which enable to take place the sacrifice of praise, which is the free offering of all things, perfected, to their creator. Theologically put: the created world becomes truly itself – moves towards its completion – when through Christ, and the Spirit, it is presented perfect before the throne of the Father. The sacrifice of praise which is the due human response to both creation and redemption that takes the form of that culture which enables both personal and non-personal worlds to realize their true being.
To my mind, the foregoing is at the end of the day simply an exposition – albeit a brilliant one – of Ephesians 2:10:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
