Monday, May 27, 2013 at 2:34PM 
Questions about the Word, the Church and the Ordinances
134. Q. What does the bread [of the Lord’s Supper] represent?
A. The bread represents the body of Christ, broken for our sins.
(Click through to read scriptural proofs.)
Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 9:28PM A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
A wonderful Savior to me;
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,
Where rivers of pleasure I see.Refrain
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
He taketh my burden away;
He holdeth me up, and I shall not be moved,
He giveth me strength as my day.With numberless blessings each moment He crowns,
And filled with His fullness divine,
I sing in my rapture, oh, glory to God
For such a Redeemer as mine!When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise
To meet Him in clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love
I’ll shout with the millions on high.—Fanny Crosby
Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:
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.
Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 5:35PM 
The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance
As church librarian, I do a monthly review of a book found in our church library for the church newsletter. Can you believe that even though I’ve recommended this book over and over, I’ve never done a proper review of it? So here you go, a draft version June’s review. Want to help me proofread/edit it before I sent it off to the newsletter editor? This is the edited version, about 50 words shorter than what I originally posted.
Leon Morris was an Australian New Testament scholar and author most noted for The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, his scholarly work examining the biblical words related to the cross of Christ and defending the historical doctrine of the atonement from the testimony of Scripture. It is considered by many to be a classic, but it’s also a technical book, written by a scholar for other scholars, and not accessible to the layperson.
The Atonement was put together from the material in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, but presented in a simpler, less technical form. We might think of it as the average Christian’s version of Apostolic Preaching. It’s a biblical study of the terms associated with the atonement—“the great words,” to quote the introduction, “used to bring out the meaning of the cross.”
Morris shows us the multifaceted nature of the cross work of Christ as described through biblical words—justification, sacrifice, propitiation, redemption, and reconciliation, to list a few. Christ’s death can be viewed through many lenses: as payment in exchange for freedom (redemption), as the turning of enemies into friends (reconciliation), or the turning away of wrath (propitiation), and more. Each perspective on this gracious act at the center of Christianity adds to our understanding of its significance.
What’s more, even though it was written in the 1980s drawing from research done in the 1950s, many of the arguments in The Atonement, especially those found in the chapter on propitiation, are applicable to current debates about the nature of the atonement.
The Atonement is on a very short list of basic theology books I’d recommend to any believer. It’s of classic quality, but not difficult to read—and short enough for those who do a page count first and eliminate anything over 200 pages. And what’s more important than understanding what Christ accomplished for us on the cross?