Round the Sphere Again: Putting Food By

Too Many Cukes
Miss Cellania makes pickles.

[I]n this day and time, you don’t can your own garden produce just to save money. The food itself is high quality from a lovingly-produced family garden, instead of a commercial farm thousands of miles away. You also have the satisfaction of knowing you were responsible for the end product. And while a jar of store-bought pickles would be too weird to give as a gift, home-canned pickles are a perfectly thoughtful gift.

(mental_floss Blog)

Preserving Peaches
These are two of my favorite ways to use up the fresh peaches that are in the produce department during August.

• Canning Peaches in 16 Steps. Home canned peaches are so much better and so much cheaper (at least for us) than the canned peaches in the supermarket.
• Peach-Raspberry Jam. Conveniently, my garden raspberries ripen in August, too. I make jam from the linked recipe, but I strain the seeds from only about half of the crushed raspberries because I think a few seeds make the jam prettier. 

Sunday's Hymn: Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim

Ye servants of God, your master proclaim,
And publish abroad His wonderful name;
The name all victorious of Jesus extol,
His kingdom is glorious and rules over all.

The waves of the sea have lift up their voice,
Sore troubled that we in Jesus rejoice;
The floods they are roaring, but Jesus is here;
While we are adoring, He always is near.

When devils engage, the billows arise,
And horribly rage, and threaten the skies:
Their fury shall never our steadfastness shock,
The weakest believer is built on a rock.

God ruleth on high, almighty to save,
And still He is nigh, His presence we have;
The great congregation His triumph shall sing,
Ascribing salvation to Jesus, our king.

Salvation to God, who sits on the throne
Let all cry aloud and honor the Son;
The praises of Jesus the angels proclaim,
Fall down on their faces and worship the Lamb.

Then let us adore and give Him His right,
All glory and power, all wisdom and might;
All honor and blessing with angels above,
And thanks never ceasing and infinite love.

—Charles Wesley

Sung by a men’s ensemble:

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

• I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath at Whatever Things
• In the Cross of Christ I Glory at Jam and Books
• O Jesus, We Adore Thee at Hiraeth
• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah at Rosemary at Home
• None Other Lamb, None Other Name at Fieldstone Cottage
• Now I Have Found the Ground Wherein at Tried With Fire
• Lord’s Day 32, 2011 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Voices From the Past - August 7, 2011 at The Upward Call
• Update: Your weekly dose of Spurgeon at Pyromanics: The Sin of Longing for Egypt

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.

Not Literally Binding

From 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law, by Thomas R. Schreiner, on what is commonly called the third use of the law, the use of the law as a rule for life for Christians:

Strictly speaking, the idea that believers are under the third use of the law is mistaken, for we have seen that the entire law is abolished for believers. Still, the notion is not entirely wrong since Paul’s teaching is filled with exhortations that call upon believers to live in a way that pleases God. As we saw in the previous question, some of the commands are from the Old Testament law, and surely they function as a standard for the lives of believers today. Still, derivation from the Old Testament does not make them authoritative. They are God’s will for human beings because they represent God’s character. Even though the Old Testament law is not literally binding upon believers, we see principles and patterns and moral norms that still apply to us today since the Old Testament is the word of God.

What do you think?