Lockdown and interstate travel bans mean attending the Denominational annual meeting from home via Zoom. With my iPad set up for voting. And my MacBook set up to keep the minutes for the meeting.
Simple really. At least the chair is very comfortable, coffee is good, and I don’t have to wear a mask. And getting to bed takes about 45 seconds.
Today I learned about the pasta type Strozzapreti, which translated to English means ‘priest choker or strangler.’
If someone serves me these I might take it personally.
If I decide to make them for myself it may be a plea for help.
Let It Be So With Your Church has just been released by Caroline Cobb.
It may not be a song that every church could sing, but it represents a lyric that every church should live out.
The lyrics
1
As our Jesus in love touched the leper
Offered grace when they’d cast a stone
As he ate with the outcasts and sinners
With His church let it be so
2
As He preached the good news of the kingdom
As He healed them both body and soul
As He gave up His life for God’s children
With His church let it be so
Chorus
Let it be so with Your church oh God
We are Your hands and feet
As Jesus bent low to serve in love
So with us let it be
So with us let it be
3
Let us go with our Lord to the margins
To the broken the poor and the lost
By His Spirit we’ll push back the darkness
Let His church take up her cross
Bridge
Come help us Lord Jesus to love as You loved
Oh let it be so
We remember Your gospel how You first loved us
Oh let it be so
To seek justice love mercy and care for the weak
Oh let it be so
To live now in light of the kingdom we seek
Oh let it be so
Words and Music: Caroline Cobb Smith
© 2021 Sing the Story Music
Westminster Larger Catechism – Lord’s Day 30
Q & A 115
Q Which is the fourth commandment?
A The fourth commandment is, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Q & A 116
Q What is required in the fourth commandment?
A The fourth commandment requires of all men the sanctifying or keeping holy to God such set times as he has appointed in his Word, expressly one whole day in seven; which was the seventh from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, and the first day of the week ever since, and so to continue to the end of the world; which is the Christian sabbath, and in the New Testament called the Lord’s day.
Q & A 117
Q How is the sabbath or the Lord’s day to be sanctified?
A The sabbath or Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to betaken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship: and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day.
Q & A 118
Q Why is the charge of keeping the sabbath more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors?
A The charge of keeping the sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge; and because they are prone ofttimes to hinder them by employments of their own.
Q & A 119
Q What are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?
A The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations.
Q & A 120
Q What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, the more to enforce it?
A The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, the more to enforce it, are taken from the equity of it, God allowing us six days of seven for our own affairs, and reserving but one for himself, in these words, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work”: from God’s challenging a special propriety in that day, “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God”: from the example of God, who in six days made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: and from that blessing which God put upon that day, not only in sanctifying it to be a day for his service, but in ordaining it to be a means of blessing to us in our sanctifying it; “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy”.
Q & A 121
Q Why is the word Remember set in the beginning of the fourth commandment?
A The word Remember is set in the beginning of the fourth commandment, partly, because of the great benefit of remembering it, we being thereby helped in our preparation to keep it, and, in keeping it, better to keep all the rest of the commandments, and to continue a thankful remembrance of the two great benefits of creation and redemption, which contain a short abridgment of religion; and partly, because we are very ready to forget it, for that there is less light of nature for it, and yet it restrains our natural liberty in things at other times lawful; that it comes but once in seven days, and many worldly businesses come between, and too often take off our minds from thinking of it, either to prepare for it, or to sanctify it;and that Satan with his instruments much labor to blot out the glory, and even the memory of it, to bring in all irreligion and impiety.
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