John Milton's use of 'writ large'

Peter Townshend wrote some pretty incredible lyrics :-)

Back a few years ago when cultural issues infiltrated my church, I began to ask what appeared to be questions too hard for church leaders to answer. There were many days when I felt a bit like Martin Luther pushing back on the Catholic church, even though the Reformers claim to hold to the same line of thinking against church traditions as what led the Protestants away from Rome. Please believe me when I say that the magisterium is still alive and well in the Protestant church today. We don't call our leaders priests any more, but they often perform the same purpose in Protestantism. They are the gatekeepers to God, not the under-shepherds that the New Testament tells us they should be

I have often been accused of not respecting the authority of the church. In response, I would often try to avoid that label as a way to not be considered a trouble maker. But today, I fully embrace that characterization. I saw this because I can't find the idea of "elder run" churches anywhere in the Bible. When read in context and in the Greek, passages like Heb 13:17 do not describe an alternate authority which sits between God and man. Instead, the authority is Christ, and the word Πείθεσθε is to be translated as "be pursuaded by" instead of "obey" as the "new bosses" would have you believe. Our obedience is to God, not the system which seeks to replace Him

I have found great joy in relying on the Holy Spirit to guide my path, even though I still struggle with sin. Now, however, the struggle seems much greater. It's not that I'm any more of a sinner than before, but that I am more **aware** of the depth of my sin and the effects of it. When I played by the rules of church, I always had an "out" with God. After all, if I'm just following the rules then I'm not in trouble with God if the church doesn't tell me that I am. Perhaps my biggest sin struggle is with lust, yet when was the last time you heard a sermon on Matt 5:27-28 where Jesus equates lust to adultery? By this standard, there is as much sexual immorality inside the church as outside of it

I have recently come to realize that church as we know exists to curb the power of the Holy Spirit, not build up each other in faith. Yet despite the best efforts of church leaders, the power of Jesus' suffering and death on the cross cannot be contained. He died for our sins. He stood in our place. It is **His** righteousness that covers us. I literally had a church elder tell me once that if I obeyed his teachings and they were wrong then God would judge him and not me. I can't think of anything more Catholic and nonsensical than that

So, my dear family of God, what a blessing it is to receive this message from our brother David. My prayer for all of God's people, whether inside the institutional church or outside of it, is that we always keep the Resurrection at the forefront of our minds, much as God commanded Israel to write the Law as "frontlets between your eyes" (Deuteronomy 6:6–8)

"And [the angel] showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever." - Rev 22:1-5