Deus Misereatur

I remember taking an Introduction to the New Testament class while I was in the Air Force. It was from a local college that met on the Air Base where I was stationed. I'd already been in the military 7 years and was a young Christian, having been converted while stationed in Turkey a few years earlier. The class was taught by a local pastor from a "mainline" denomination. Besides the questionable curriculum we had to read, there was a huge disjuncture between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Now, many decades later, and after Seminary and my doctoral studies, I was delighted to see a new 560-page textbook that introduces the New Testament by couching "every major passage within the broad history of redemption," and that strives to "make sense of the New Testament in light of the Old" (XI). G. K. Beale, the J. Gresham Machen Chair of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, has teamed up with Benjamin L. Gladd, associate professor ...

Lord, you once asked this question, and then replied to it: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me” (Isaiah 49:15-16) . To think that you have inscribed us onto your hands with the ink of indelible grace, never to forget us or lose us! Amazing pity, grace unknown and love beyond degree! “ When all your mercies, O my God, my rising soul surveys, transported with the view I’m lost, in wonder, love, and praise ” (Trinity Hymnal #56.1). Give ear, O Lord, as we implore your mercy and care for your one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, this congregation, and Linwood UMC, Luther UMC, Mary Lee Clark Memorial Church, and Mayfair Heights UMC . Take notice of where your church has been bloodied; give relief where she is depleted; provide correction where she was tumbled off the path; ra...