[Propertalk] FW: SermonWriter: Aug. 21 (Proper 16A - OT 21) Matthew 16:13-20

[Joe Parrish]

FOR MORE SERMONS ON THIS TEXT:

Go to http://www.lectionary.org/
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=8ytu7ycab&et=1106922115005&s=1956&e=0019JlhId
bzJLcpW4WP0oJ0OQ4M4qTfGEXkr0oKZzlan4SrLwKzAajpms7sH1c02WqxyN-vy1tErZ2kxMSgPH
XAoTBMbn9coTZc0Gc-vnt5KSn9bKwj-e1w2Q==> 

On the LEFT side, click on the "By Book of Bible" link under the SERMONS
heading.

Then click on the "Matthew" link in the right-hand column.

TRUE STORY:

In his book, Jesus' Claims -- Our Promises, Maxie Dunham tells a story about
Lloyd C. Douglas, the author of the best-selling book, The Robe -- when
Douglas was still a university student. 

Douglas lived in a boarding house. Downstairs, on the first floor, a retired
music teacher had an apartment. The two of them had a little ritual that
they went through when Douglas would come down the stairs each morning.
Douglas would open the old man's door and ask, "Well, what's the good news?"
The old man would bring out his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his
wheelchair, and say, "That's middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be
middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor
upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my
friend, that is middle C!"

That old man had found something dependable -- something stable -- something
he could count on yesterday, today, and forever. For Christians, that's what
Jesus is -- the one we can count on yesterday, today, and forever.

THOUGHT PROVOKERS: 

We need to forget the imaginary Christ who has been ours too long

and to rediscover the real Christ,

the Christ of the prophets and the martyrs and the confessors,

the Christ who is not only the lover of souls but also the master,

a monarch with demands to make in industry, in finance,

in education, in the arts,

in marriage, in the home.

Bernard Iddings Bell

* * * * * * * * * *

The Christian Church stands or falls with this simple proposition:

that Jesus is nothing less than God's self-communication to man,

and the only certain source of our knowledge of God.

W.A. Visser 't Hooft

* * * * * * * * * *

If Jesus of Nazareth is not God,

how is it that, without any help,

this sacrilegious Seducer has prevailed against the laws of his country,

against wise men,

against the whole universe in opposition to him,

against the powers of heaven and hell,

in fine, against God Himself,

even so far as to make himself equal to God,

to receive honors due only to Divinity,

and to fulfill with an infinite success, in spite of difficulties,

and the contradictions generated by long centuries,

all the prophecies.

Jerome Savonarola

* * * * * * * * * *

Jesus does not merely have the Word, 

He is the Word. 

His teaching reveals God's secret.

Emil Brunner

* * * * * * * * * *

If Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? 

If he is not true man, how could he help us?

DietrichBonhoeffer

 

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