September 21, 2012

Day fifty-five, fifteen remaining. Wednesday I was intent on blogging every day until and through our trip to Vlad. But as the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, we lost our internet yesterday. However, this morning it was restored - so here I am again.

We received the good news today from my travel agent in New York that she is confident of having my visa in her hands "by the end of the month." :) I am thankful for how our God works out even the smallest details of our lives. I hope I remember this reality three or four weeks from now when I am struggling with some detail or irritation many miles away from my home country in a land with a people whose language I cannot understand well. Prayer: "Lord, give me the grace to accept that my times are in your hands, and that you design every trial for my sanctification to find ultimate satisfaction only in you." May I remember this during the month of October.

More on teaching Christology or the doctrine Christ: John mentions near the end of his Gospel (John 20:30; 21:25) that Jesus "did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book" and ""Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." John grasped the enormity of his subject. Jesus Christ would not be exhaustively displayed in a 21 chapter Gospel effort. I am convinced that we must not lose the wonder of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ while we admit at the same time that we will never know Him fully this side of heaven. That's an emphasis I hope to bring when I teach this class in Vlad. Paul described the Lord Jesus as the one "...in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). I find that statement interesting in view of the fact that we have stated with truth the relationship between the two testaments - "the new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed." Yet Paul describes Christ in Colossians 2 as one involved in divine concealment...it points to the reality that promise leads to fulfillment, but it is still an incomplete fulfillment of all of God's redemptive purposes.

Essentially we admit that we do not know all that we do not know of God's redemptive plan or purposes; this is the language of mystery. Woe to the teacher who seeks to eradicate the mystery of redemption and godliness where even God retains it. Prayer: "Redeemer Jesus, help me teach about you with a humble sense that I understand so little. Grow my understanding of you, your person, your works, your sufferings, your purpose as the Son of God who gave Himself to have a people for His own possession."

Tomorrow: Thoughts from a veteran...