Life on Planet Earth on Enslaved

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Author

Stanley Hauerwas

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:5, John 8:34, 2 Peter 2:19, 1 Timothy 6:9-10, Romans 6:16

Nothing enslaves more than that which we think we cannot live without.

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Until the Snake Has No Head: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

My grandad told me a story once and that story became a light. A light that unlocks the dark and releases you into the land of a thousand suns. Apparently, so the story went, there had been a tropical...

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Author

J. R. R. Tolkein

Keywords

“One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.”

liturgy

Adapted from Psalm 10 & Romans 7:21-25

Author

Hughes Oliphant Old

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 7:21-25, Psalm 10:null

Arise, 0 LORD; 0 God, lift up your hand. Forget not the afflicted. We call to you in our sorrow and frustration, Lord God, eternal, everlasting God. Why do you stand so far off? Why do you hide y...

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The Ring of Desire

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

The central plot device of The Lord of the Rings is the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power, which corrupts anyone who tries to use it, however good his or her intentions. The Ring is what Professor To...

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Author

Charles Dickens

Keywords

“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it...

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Author

Robert Herrick

Keywords

Who covets more, is evermore a slave.

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Gracious and loving God, you know the

Author

M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

Keywords

Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours. You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than...

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Adapted from Deuteronomy 7:6-11

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 7:6-11

Pastor: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was no...

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Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

Keywords

Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation of saint and sinner, Draw near and forgive us. Forgive us for clinging to law more than grace. Forgive us for choosing slavery when you offer us adoption. Forgi...

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Loving God, You created us to be Your

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Loving God, You created us to be Your people, made in Your image, and set apart for Your glory. But we have chosen to disobey You, and have determined that our way is better than Your way. We have bec...

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Addictions Attach Desire

Author

Gerald G. May

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 7:15-20, John 8:34, Exodus 20:3-5, Matthew 6:24, 1 John 2:15-16, Psalm 115:4-8

For generations, psychologists thought that virtually all self-defeating behavior was caused by repression. I have now come to believe that addiction is a separate and even more self-defeating force t...

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Inspired by Deuteronomy 29

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 29:null

Pastor: God our Redeemer, you have saved your people through Jesus Christ, your Son. You have delivered your people out of slavery to sin and have freed us into new life. Yet, we still wander through ...

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Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emot...

Quote

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 44:20, Luke 16:13, Jeremiah 2:13, 1 John 5:21, Matthew 6:21

Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever...

liturgy

Adapted from Ezra 9:6-15

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Ezra 9:6-15

Pastor: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. All: From the days of our f...

Quote

Author

Blaise Pascal

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9, Genesis 6:5, Psalm 51:5, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:10-12, Romans 7:18-23, Ephesians 2:1-5

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.

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Dear Christ, hasten to me. Release me

Author

Aelred of Rievaulx

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 46:1, Philippians 4:19, James 4:8, Hebrews 4:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 34:18, 1 John 1:9

Dear Christ, hasten to me. Release me from my sins. Free my arms from the chains of evil, that I may embrace you. Lift the scales of ignorance from my eyes, that I may see you. Why do you delay? What ...

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Adapted from Romans 7:18-25

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 7:18-25

Pastor: For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. All: For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the...

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Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the grave, You shattered the power of sin and death. We celebrate Him! But we confess we remain captive to doubt and fear, bound by ways that lead to death. We come...

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Merciful and Holy God, We bow before

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Merciful and Holy God, We bow before You in heartfelt confession, acknowledging that we are a broken people, living in a broken world. This world is dark with the stain of sin. Your design for creatio...

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Total Depravity Explained: Humanity's Devolution

Author

T.C. Hammond

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:9-18, Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 19:25-26, Ephesians 2:5

Some skeptics today speak about “evolving” from a primitive condition, but the Bible (Romans 1:18-32) sadly portrays a descent rather than an ascent. The result has been given the theological term “...

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We pray to You our Lord, our Savior,

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 4:16, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 1:7, Psalm 103:12

We pray to You our Lord, our Savior, our Merciful God, that all our sins may be forgiven. Our sins are like a straight jacket, binding us, and keeping us from relationship with You. Although we know w...

illustration

Modern-day Slaves

Author

Andy Crouch

Keywords

Perhaps no statistic reminds us more graphically of the distortion of power in our world than this: there are twenty-one million slaves in the world today. They labor as brick makers, coffee harvester...

illustration

For years, Bible scholars have danced around

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 21:16 , Deuteronomy 15:12-15, Isaiah 58:6, Philemon 1:8-16 , Galatians 3:28, Psalm 146:7

For years, Bible scholars have danced around the matter by saying slavery in Rome was far different from slavery in the first few centuries of American history. No doubt their observations carry a mea...

illustration

Seared into Her Conscience

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Keywords

Slavery

Sarah Grimke, the daughter of a slaveholder and judge in Charleston, South Carolina, was five years old in 1797 when the sight of an enslaved person being whipped seared her conscience. Like many whit...

illustration

An Account of Modern-Day Slavery

Author

Eric Mason

Keywords

In his excellent book, Woke Church , Eric Mason shares a personal account of watching people being sold into slavery in real-time with his family: “CNN released an exclusive report in October 201...

illustration

The Most Popular Argument for Slavery

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Keywords

Slavery

I read that Thornton Stringfellow, pastor of the Stevensburg Baptist Church in Virginia, had made one of the most popular arguments for slavery when Baptists in the mid-nineteenth century were decidin...

illustration

The Gospel Torn in Two

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Keywords

Slavery

A few weeks after our Christmas at the DPAC, I visited Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church, a quaint chapel one town over from Durham in Hillsborough, North Carolina. This place was never a megachurch, b...

illustration

Spirituals and Suffering

Author

Luke A. Powery

Keywords

There is no lack of pain and suffering in the world. Look around. Read the newspaper. Click on the Internet. Scroll Facebook or read a tweet. Suffering is always present like the paparazzi. It seems t...

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