I Asked The Lord by John Newton

I Asked The Lord

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He I trust has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest

Instead of this He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part

Yea more with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, laid me low

Lord why is this, I trembling cried
Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?
“Tis in this way” The Lord replied
“I answer prayer for grace and faith”

“These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me,
That thou mayest seek thy all in me.”

HT: TC

A Case for Intelligent Design

Romans 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools…

The Intelligent Design Movement has its limitations in that it does not proport to stand on the testimony of Scripture but through logic, reason and the gathering of factual data, seeks to make the case for the existence of design in the Universe. It is very keen to state that it has no religious orientation whatsoever, and herein lies its weakness. However, having said that, for those of us who embrace Scripture, we certainly would agree that the data around us provides a compelling case for the God who made heaven and earth.

Justin Taylor writes, “In November 2011 Dr. Stephen Meyer gave the inaugural lecture for The Centre for Intelligent Design (c4id) before a distinguished group of British political, cultural, and intellectual leaders in London. The theme was on his book, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2009). He explains the problem of the origin of life and shows how the existence of biological information gives scientific evidence for intelligent design (ID). The last 10 minutes or so contains some Q & A.”

Signature in the Cell: A Scientific Case for Intelligent Design

The New NA28 and the Preservation of Scripture

Eberhard Nestle

From wikipedia: The first edition published by Eberhard Nestle in 1898 combined the readings of the editions of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort and Weymouth, placing the majority reading of these in the text and the third reading in the apparatus. In 1901, he replaced the Weymouth New Testament with Bernhard Weiss’s text. In later editions, Nestle began noting the attestation of certain important manuscripts in his apparatus.

Eberhard’s son Erwin Nestle took over after his father’s death and issued the 13th edition in 1927. This edition introduced a separate critical apparatus and began to abandon the majority reading principle.

Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland became the associate editor of the 21st edition in 1952. At Erwin Nestle’s request, he reviewed and expanded the critical apparatus, adding many more manuscripts. This eventually led to the 25th edition of 1963. The great manuscript discoveries of the 20th century had also made a revision of the text necessary and, with Nestle’s permission, Aland set out to revise the text of Novum Testamentum Graece. Aland submitted his work on NA to the editorial committee of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament (of which he was also a member) and it became the basic text of their third edition (UBS3) in 1975, four years before it was published as the 26th edition of Nestle-Aland.

The NA27 edition was published in 1993, and now Dr. James White explains why the newly published edition of the Greek New Testament (the Nestle Aland 28th Edition) is a VERY good thing:

For those interested, the new edition is available to purchase here.