Thankful Thursday

I’m thankful for the lessons I’ve been taught from experience. I’m a wiser person than I used to be (at least in a few ways) and it’s because God has taught me through my circumstances, trials, and mistakes over the years. 

I’m thankful that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. 

I’m thankful for the lives of faithful servants of Jesus, and for one man’s life in particular. I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to sing with my church choir at his memorial service on Saturday. 

I’m thankful for good books I can order inexpensively. I’ve got several I’m reading and a couple in the mail.

I’m thankful that so many of the seeds in the garden have sprouted. I’m thankful my garden vegies are one of the ways God provides for me.

Throughout this year I’m planning to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving each Thursday along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.

Round the Sphere Again: Adam and Christ Times Two

Naked and Full of Shame
From Nancy Guthrie:

Adam lost for us the beautiful ‘naked and not ashamed’ of the garden. But at the cross, Christ hung naked and full of shame. It wasn’t his own shame. It was your shame and my shame. He ‘endured the cross, despising the shame’ (Heb. 12:2) so that ‘everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame’ (Rom. 10:11). 

Read the whole quote at Of First Importance.

All His Kinfolk
From Neil Shay at The NEW Calvinist Gadfly:

Of Adam—

All of his kinfolk die, died, and will die, even if they accomplish the unachievable, and do not sin. And they are dead forever, in every way that a person can be dead. Even while they live, they are dead.

Of Christ— 

All of his kinfolk die, died, but will live, because He accomplished the inconceivable, and did not sin. And they will live forever, in every way that a person can be alive. Even when they die, they live.

Read it all.

Theological Term of the Week

vocation, doctrine of
The teaching that all labor is a divine calling and a means by which God works his providential care for creation, so that all work has meaning as service to Christ; the teaching that all of life submitted to God is sacred and all honest work is holy.

• From scripture: 

  Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

  27 So God created man in his own image,
  in the image of God he created him;
  male and female he created them.

  28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” … 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-28, 31 ESV).

• From Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke:1 

  Reformed teachings regarding work can be summarized in the following points: 
  
  

  1. God works, and we are called to bear His image.
  2. God derives satisfaction from His work.
  3. God provides for us through our work. 
  4. God has commanded man to work, and to work within the framework of His commands.
  5. God holds us accountable for our work and expects to be acknowledged through it. 
  6. God provides particular gifts designed to meet particular needs in the advancement of His kingdom.
  7. The fall radically affected our work. Work becomes toil; thorns and thistles frustrate our efforts; fallen man seeks to glorify himself rather than his Creator through work.
  8. Work is an individual as well as a social activity.
  9. God takes pleasure in beauty, and the Scriptures do not focus simply on the functional and utilitarian aspects of work.
  10. Christ worked as part of His active obedience, and the believer’s work through Christ is part of obedience.

Learn more:

1. Gene Edward Veith: The Doctrine of Vocation
2. Gene Edward Veith: Our Calling and God’s Glory
3. Aaron Armstrong: Your Work Is Your Calling
4. Tim Keller: Vocation: Discerning Your Calling
5. Stan Reeves: The Spirituality of Work
6. Jerram Barrs: Work: A Holy Calling 
7. J. I. Packer: 3 Short Videos on Vocation
8. Dr. Robert S. Rayburn: Theology of Work Sermons (transcripts and mp3s)

Related terms:

• image of God
• providence

Filed under Anthropology.

1The chapter from which this is taken is written by Ray Pennings.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.