Ave atque vale – The Rev. Dustin Salter
April 9, 2007
The Sweet Dropper loves Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America. And we love and pray for those men who are called to serve as campus ministers. Thus, an ‘ave atque vale’ for The Rev. Dustin Salter, who was called from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant on 19 March, after suffering severe head injuries in a wreck while cycling last November. Dustin was RUF campus minister at Furman University and had previously started the work at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Glenn Lucke wrote this tribute for Common Grounds Online. We remember Dustin’s family and students in our prayers.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Rev. 21: 1-7)
All ye that pass by
April 4, 2007
Chip Stam, Director of the Institute for Christian Worship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has a weekly “Worship Quote of the Week” you can receive as a free email (click here for more info). This week’s is a Charles Wesley poem about the atoning death of Christ. The opening line is based on Lamentations 1:12:
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me,
which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
ALL YE THAT PASS BY
All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh:
To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?
Your ransom and peace, Your surety He is:
Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.
For what you have done His blood must atone:
The Father hath punished for you His dear Son.
The Lord, in the day of His anger, did lay
Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away.
He answered for all: O come at His call,
And low at His cross with astonishment fall!
But lift up your eyes at Jesus’ cries:
Impassive, He suffers; immortal, He dies.
He dies to atone for sins not His own;
Your debt He hath paid, and your work He hath done.
Ye all may receive the peace He did leave,
Who made intercession, “My Father, forgive!”
For you and for me He prayed on the tree:
The prayer is accepted, the sinner is free.
That sinner am I, who on Jesus rely,
And come for the pardon God cannot deny.
My pardon I claim; for a sinner I am,
A sinner believing in Jesus’ Name.
He purchased the grace which now I embrace:
O Father, Thou know’st He hath died in my place.
His death is my plea; my Advocate see,
And hear the blood speak that hath answered for me.
My ransom He was when He bled on the cross;
And losing His life He hath carried my cause.
—Charles Wesley, 1707-1788, from METHODIST HYMNS, 1779.
Take me out to the ball game
April 2, 2007
Major League Baseball opened the 2007 season last night, with the New York Metropolitans defeating last year’s World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-1. With baseball season underway (and college baseball, which I follow more closely, has been swinging since February), it’s worth musing on the most familiar, popular baseball song of all time, Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Did you know that neither lyricist Jack Norworth nor composer Albert Von Tilzer had never been ‘taken out’ to a ball game at all? Mark Steyn has written an informative and entertaining piece on the history of the 7th-inning-stretch sing-along classic.
Bonus question: Think about the oom-pa-pa tune. Aren’t there some hymns from the turn of the 20th century that sound eerily similar? Bonus points if you can name some…
Bible software for your PDA
April 2, 2007
Olive Tree Bible Software of Spokane, Washington offers an impressive variety of Bibles and other study and devotional materials for PDA’s. Some products are free, but all are resonably priced. I have been using their reader and the ESV text on my Palm device for more than a year now, and am a satisfied customer (ESV download is $16.75). Their product line includes a few Reformed writers (some works by John MacArthur and John Piper come to mind), but they market to a very broad audience, so you ought to go with names you trust already. If you carry a PDA or one of them fancy-schmancy, high-fallutin’ cell phones, you ought to have the Bible on it, don’t you think?
