Hi class! Coming to grips with getting this blog up and running and updated has been more challenging than I anticipated. I am sure that my aging mind has contributed at least to some of the frustration. Nevertheless, I do think that we have at least a working blog so we can move forward. I would like it if you would register and post a comment or two along with any suggestions or improvements that you would like to see. Comments need not be lengthy, but if you have much to say feel free to write away.
In addition, if you have any questions concerning the material we are presently covering in the class you are more than welcome to ask them here. Thanks for your help in getting this going. I have greatly enjoyed meeting with you all each Sunday and hope that this might be an instrument that we can use together to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Great work on getting the blog set up; it looks good!!!
The blog looks great,nice job.
I have questions regarding the book we are reading in class. It seems that Piper gives imperatives that we must achieve for our salvation. How does this fit in with
the imputed rightouseness of Jesus Christ?
The blog site really looks great! Nice job!
I had some of the same feelings Dave. As I was reading over some of the book on the road this week I struck by the number of times the word ‘demand’ (or others like it) appears. For a book that promotes joy this seemed out of order. It appeared more burdensome than joyful. Piper does reconcile this somewhat toward the end of the book.
Paul, beginning the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, implores us to ‘walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.’ The chapter begins with ‘Therefore’, thus this admonition is a conclusion to the to the teaching of the previous chapters. In this teaching Paul lays out before us our standing in Christ according to the grace and election afforded us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Piper, I believe, follows the same pattern. It is in the reality of our salvation, settled in
Christ, that we are encouraged strive for that joy that has been won for us. The joy which love of the world can so readily quench.
We can address this more thoroughly in class Sunday. Indeed, it is probably the key point on which our having this joy rests.
‘.., work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.’ -Philippians 2:12,13
Thanks for setting this up it looks great!