Today I filled in for the pastor of our little church here in Homosassa, as he and his wife went up north camping for three weeks. I was very pleased to be "back in the saddle" so to speak. For the next three weeks, I'm going to be bringing some messages that cover the same material I'm doing in a slightly different format on podcasts and video clips, titled "Saved From What." On the website, I'm breaking it up and only covering one subject at a time, but here at the church, since I only have three opportunities, I'm going to combine two or three things each week.
This week I talked about how we're saved from the guilt of our sin, which sees sin as a crime against God, the Supreme Judge. This is a forensic view of sin and salvation. I also showed how salvation has to be life from the dead, which is what the Eastern Church, Orthodox believers tended to emphasize. I also touched on what's called the Christus Victor view of salvation, which emphasizes how Christ delivers us from our archenemy, Satan, and all his minions. Because of time constraints, I could barely touch on the last point, so maybe I'll go over it a bit next week. But after preparing my message, I found something online that was really good, something I wish I'd read before preaching. It's an essay by pastor Greg Boyd on the Christus Victor view. I highly recommend it to you. It can be found here:
http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-christus-victor-view-of-the-atonement/
Or just type Christus Victor into Google and look for Greg Boyd. Also, I just turned in a paper on Islam. Stay tuned, because I may either post that here or do some podcasts on it. And there was another paper I wrote for a previous course which I want to share. That has to do with the human element of Christian life. In other words, God does things we can't do, but He also gives us responsibilities, a part to play in salvation which He won't do for us. Stay tuned, because hopefully I can put that up soon. This next week I get to take a break from study, so I hope to make these podcasts or post these articles. There's so much to study and learn, so much we can talk about!
Till next time, I pray God blesses each of you richly!
Warren (and Lynn, who, by the way, is leaving for Germany this coming Thursday. Pray for her to have save travels, and for me to survive here all alone for eight weeks!)