Sunday's Hymn

A hymn by poet Christina Rosetti:

None Other Lamb

None other Lamb, none other Name,
None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea,
None other hiding place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee!

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart’s desire cries out in me
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead;
Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be:
Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee.

Other hymns by poets:

• William Cowper
• John Donne
• George Herbert
• Alfred Tennyson
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• John Milton
• Thomas Moore

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

• Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty at Conjubilant with Song
• Lord’s Day 30, 2009, at The Thirsty Theologian
• Sun of my Soul at The Happy Wonderer
• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross at Fieldstone Cottage
• Spiritual Growth from The Valley of Vision at The Upward Call
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: On the Folly of Constantly Seeking “New Truth”
• Thee We Adore, Eternal God at Hiraeth
• My Song Is Love Unknown at Tapestry of Graces
• Sermon notes at Lux Venit

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Adoption is Gospel and Mission

From Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches:

Whenever I told people I was working on a book on adoption, they’d often say something along the lines of, “Great. So, is the book about the doctrine of adoption or, you know, real adoption?” That’s a hard question to answer because you can’t talk about the one without talking about the other. Also, it is not as though we master one aspect and then move to the other—from the vertical to the horizontal or the other way around. That’s not the picture God has embedded in his creation work.

The Bible tells us that human families are reflective of an eternal fatherhood (Eph. 3:14-15). We know, then what human fatherhood ought to look like on the basis of how or Father God behaves toward us. But the reverse is also true. We see something of the way our God is fatherly toward us through our relationships with human fathers. And so Jesus tells us that in our human father’s provision and discipline we get a glimpse of God’s active love for us (Matt. 7:9-11; cf. Heb. 12:5-17) The same truth is at work in adoption.

Adoption is, on the one hand, gospel. In this, adoption tells us who we are as children of the Father. Adoption as gospel tells us about our identity, our inheritance, and our mission as sons of God. Adoption is also defined as mission, In this, adoption tells us our purpose in this age as the people of Christ. Missional adoption spurs us to join Chris in advocating for the helpless and the abandoned.

As soon as you peer into the truth of the one aspect, you fall headlong into the truth of the other, and vice versa. That’s because it’s the way the gospel is. Jesus reconciles us to God and to each other. As we love our God, we love our neighbor; as we love our neighbor, we love our God. We believe Jesus in heavenly things—our adoption in Christ; so we follow him in earthly things—the adoption of children. Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor.

I’ll be reviewing this book soon.

My Desktop Photo 67

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click on photo for larger view)