Sunday's Hymn: Speak, O Lord

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us 
All Your purposes for Your glory.

Teach us, Lord, full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of pow’r that can never fail—
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds;
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us—
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we’ll stand on Your promises,
And by faith we’ll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, till Your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory.

Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• And Can It Be at By Grace Alone
• When I Survey the Wonderful Cross at Gospel Grace
• Abide With Me at The Happy Wonderer
• Voices From the Past #10 at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 10, 2013 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Gold rush!
• The Lord’s Day Prayer at Theology for Girls

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

We Are Free and We Are Slaves

I posted at Out of the Ordinary this morning, the last post in the series on redemption. 

As redeemed people we are both freedmen and slaves—Christ’s slaves. We are bought with a price, so we should remain free; we are bought with a price, so we belong to God and should serve him.

Read all of Redemption: How Does Redemption Change Things for Us?

Round the Sphere Again: Scripture

On the Canon
Michael J. Kruger (Canon Fodder) teases out the implications of this fact about the New Testament: “Some NT writers quote other NT writers as scripture.” From 2 Peter 3:15-16 and 1 Tim 5:18 we can conclude that:

• There were already collections of Paul’s letters that both Peter and his audience knew about.
• Peter would probably have expected his own letters to be received as Scripture.
• Apostolic letters had a scriptural status in early Christianity.
• The New Testament canon “was not a later ecclesiastical development, but something early and innate to the early Christian faith.”

On Application
John Piper says our goal in reading the Bible is to be amazed by God, not to come away with a list of things to do (Ask Pastor John).