Sunday, April 26, 2009

Gregory Parsons

"Job's words in 27:5-6, where he insists that he would cling to integrity and maintain righteousness till death despite the allegations of his friends, bears ironic resemblance to the Lord's analysis of Job in 2:3. The irony that results from the use of the word 'integrity' causes the reader to wonder of the Lord would still describe Job in the same way after Job's long and blasphemous attacks on God. The usage of this literary device causes the reader to desire (and anticipate) the voice of God from the 'whirlwind.'"
--Gregory Parsons Literary Features of the Book of Job p217

T.S. Eliot

"To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtuous life here one will continue to exist in the best-possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without: it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now."
--T.S. Eliot

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Evanescence

"My Immortal"

I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus:]
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus]

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

[Chorus]

Friday, April 10, 2009

"12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But eagerly desire the greater gifts.
And now I will show you the most excellent way."

1 Corinthians 12:12-31
"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." --James 1:27

"Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?" --James 2:5

"Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a newmoon or Sabbath day- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God."--Col 2:16-19

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Charles Wesley

Jesus, thine all victorious love shed in my heart abroad;
Then shall my feet no longer rove, rooted and fixed in God.
Refining fire, go through my heart, illuminate my soul;
Scatter thy life through every part, and sanctify the whole.
No longer then my heart shall mourn, while, purified by grace,
I only for his glory burn, and always see his face.

-Charles Wesley, untitled hymn text