Upon His Holy Mountain

Of all the days to consider the words of Isaiah chapter 11, this may seem the most ridiculous. On this day exactly a hundred years ago, young men from Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand battled the Turks in what became known as the Gallipoli campaign. A failure from the Allied perspective, this battle cost between 470,000 to 503,000 (Turkish records are not terribly precise) young men, some with wives and children and some who did not yet have either of these blessings. So often we read these types of statistics and don't really think about what it means. One death is tragic. 500,000 deaths are staggeringly horrific or, at least, it should be. And it was all for nothing- petty rivalries, greed and everything else that is part of human depravity and wickedness. All for nothing. So why on this day of all days do I want to bring to our attention this prophecy? Because on this day of all days, the promise is sweeter than ever. The prophecy reads: "The wolf sha

Alright, time for the next part of this series on Individualism or "Lone Ranger Christianity" (LRC). In this post, I'll look briefly at the ancient creeds, namely the Apostles and Nicene Creed. Now, the Apostles Creed has two phrases on the subject within a larger sentence, so I'll quote the whole line: "And I/we believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen." The Nicene Creed says: "And I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." Let's break this down, first considering the Church and then "communion of Saints" One The Church is one. Not institutionally or organizationally but in the eyes of Her Beloved, Ecclessia is one united body with "One Lord (Christ), one faith (Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended and Christ returning), one birth (regeneration by the power of the Spiri