“High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, O ruler of all”
—Be Thou My Vision
Awe Inspiring Mercy & Justice (Ezekiel 10-11)
“Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light”
God Pronounces Judgement on Idolatry (Ezekiel 8:1-6)
God Pronounces Judgement Through Ezekiel's Acts and Speech (Ezekiel 7:1-4)
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
— Isaiah
Ezekiel's Call (Ezekiel 2:1-10, 3:1-15)
“The Bible, all of it, is livable; it is the text for living our lives. It reveals a God-created, God-ordered, God-blessed world in which we find ourselves at home and whole.”
— Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
The Presence of the Lord (Ezekiel 1:1-5a, 26-28)
“Religion is sin when it makes God into something which we can handle.”
— John Webster
We Know Rightly When We Love (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)
“The aim of Christian ethics is not Stoic self-sufficiency, which requires proper knowledge; rather its aim is the benefit and advantage of a sister or a brother.”
— Gordon Fee, Commentary on First Corinthians
Living the Life You Are Called To (1 Corinthians 7:17-24)
“Vocation is the place at which one responds to the call of Christ and thus lives responsibly. The task given to me by my vocation is thus limited; but my responsibility to the call of Jesus Christ knows no bounds.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Gift of Marriage (1 Corinthians 7:10-17)
“Our salvation is ‘from outside ourselves’ (extra nos). I find salvation, not in my life story, but only in the story of Jesus Christ. What we call our life, our troubles, and our guilt is by no means the whole of reality; our life, our need, our guilt, and our deliverance are there in the Scriptures.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In Every Stage - Wait on the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:1-17)
“Marriage and family are temporary for this age; the church is forever. I am declaring the radical biblical truth that being in a human family is no sign of eternal blessing, but being in God’s family means being eternally blessed. Relationships based on family are temporary. Relationships based on union with Christ are eternal. Marriage is a temporary institution, but what it stands for lasts forever.”
—John Piper