Psalm 31:15

"My times are in Your hand" (Psalm 31:15).

Gordon B. Hinckley (June 23, 1910 – January 27, 2008)

Gordon B. Hinckley, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died about two hours ago. He was 97.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew so sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 17-21 ESV)

Martin Luther King Day

May God continue to spur His people to fight injustice, stand firm against oppression, and continue to bring to light that which is evil so as to transform the world.

The New York Times published an interesting article today about the accelerating rate of international investment in America. I was most surprised by this tidbit of information. According to Thomson International “Canada still spends the most money buying stakes in American companies — more than $65 billion in 2007”

Fascinating!

Source: Peter Goodman, Louise Story, “Foreigners Buy Stakes in the U.S. at a Record Pace.” The New York Times. 20 Jan. 2008 Available:

Dever on the Gospel Story

“The good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in His image to know Him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from Him. In His great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law Himself and taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in Him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God.”

Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Wheaton: Crossway, 2007, p. 43.

Early Missionary Movement

"Looking back, Christianity might have shared the same demise as the empire, symbolized best by the famous sacking of Rome by the Goths in 410. Remarkably, however, Christianity
found new vitality outside the empire, among new people groups moving westward
into Ireland and Scotland and eastward into Arabia, Persia, and beyond. Many of
the invading Germanic peoples were also brought to faith in Jesus Christ. In a matter
of a few decades the church was facing another new cultural shock with the entrance
of Visigoths (Spain), Ostrogoths (Italy), Franks (Northern Gaul), Burgundians
(Southern Gaul), Vandals (North Africa), and Angles and Saxons (Britain) all entering
the church in significant numbers."

Source: Tennent, Timothy C. Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think About and Discuss Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007.