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"The earth is a mere segment of G'd's universe, just an atom and perhaps one of the smallest of His planets."
This is a snapshot from my great-grandfather's sermon notes.
We close this series with one of Pastor Boone's reminders of the importance of the kingdom of heaven and the need to not love things of the earth too much.
"All virtues we have on earth had their origin in Heaven." Also, "All the affections of love + kindness + joy devotions + faithfulness + trueness had their origin in heaven."
Pretty Augustiney.
"So many people live + act as if they thought God + heaven were products of the earth." That's the right sort of reorientation a pastor should call for: Don't buy the materialistic philosophy that says we just dreamed up these ideas based on worldly experiences, and don't buy the materialistic lifestyle that acts like the materialistic philosophy is correct!
Could I wish there were more emphasis on heaven and earth overlapping? Sure. N. T. Wright is correct that heaven is G-d's place, and that it overlaps with the earth sometimes. Jacob dreams of angels going up and down between the two. The Tabernacle housed an overlapping region in the Holy of Holies. Jesus says in the Gospel of John that we will see angels descend and ascend on him; he is the new Jacob's Ladder, the bread that came down from heaven.
Still--it's at least a good start from my great-grandfather.
Discussion (6)
CONTRIBUTOR • CHARTER MEMBER
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This has been an illuminating series! Your great-grandfather was a remarkably thoughtful man. Thanks for doing the work it had to have taken to decipher the handwriting and relate the sermons to us.
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Segment? Like an orange. Mmm, chocolate oranges. One of my favorite Christmastide treats.
Oh, wait.
Oh, yeah. Never mind.
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There's love, and then there's love too much.
"For everything created by G-d is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the Word of G-d and prayer."
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Amen.
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There was also an idea much more popular in the first half of the last century than it is now that we were in fact building a heaven on earth. The communists obviously thought so, but it was a real theme of progressivism generally.
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