Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

• Philippians 3:1-21

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Philippians 3:2 ‘dogs’: “During the first century, dogs roamed the streets and were essentially wild scavengers. Because dogs were such filthy animals, the Jews loved to refer to Gentiles as dogs. Yet here Paul refers to Jews, specifically the Judaizers, as dogs to describe their sinful, vicious, and uncontrolled character. For more on those who taught that circumcision was necessary for salvation, see Introduction to Galatians: Background and Setting; see … Acts 15:1; Gal. 2:3. evil workers. The Judaizers prided themselves on being workers of righteousness. Yet Paul described their works as evil, since any attempt to please God by one’s own efforts and draw attention away from Christ’s accomplished redemption is the worst kind of wickedness. mutilation. In contrast to the Gr. word for ‘circumcision,’ which means ‘to cut around,’ this term means ‘to cut down (off).’ Like the prophets of Baal (1 Kin. 18:28) and pagans who mutilated their bodies in their frenzied rituals, which were forbidden in the OT (Lev. 19:28; 21:5; Deut. 14:1; Is. 15:2; Hos. 7:14), the Judaizers’ circumcision was, ironically, no spiritual symbol; it was merely physical mutilation.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Philippians 3:4-6 ‘discovering the power within’: ”The power of Christ, who is our confidence, stands in stark contrast to the power of the self-in which most of us place our confidence. Authentic Christians, says Paul, are those ‘who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh’ (3:3). Contrast that definition against all the bestselling books and late-night infomercials that try to get us to discover ‘the power within’ and promise to increase our own confidence in our human power and flesh.
“If anyone had the right to take pride in his own accomplishments, to derive confidence from his own human flesh, it was Paul.“

• Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring Through the Bible

Philippians 3:6 ‘zeal, persecuting the church’: “To the Jew, ‘zeal’ was the highest single virtue of religion. It combines love and hate; because Paul loved Judaism, he hated whatever might threaten it (see … Acts 8:3;9:1).’the righteousness which is in the law. The standard of righteous living advocated by God’s law. Paul outwardly kept this, so that no one could accuse him of violation. Obviously his heart was sinful and self-righteous. He was not an OT believer, but a proud and lost legalist.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Philippians 3:7 ‘Paul had the proper credentials’: ”Paul had the right ancestry, the perfect ritual and religious observance, the perfect religious zeal and morality and the perfect performance in the strictest sect of the Hebrew religion. He had it all. Yet, despite all these reasons for human pride, Paul counted them as worthless next to the confidence that Jesus Christ gives.“

• Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring Through the Bible

Philippians 3:8-9 ‘Screwtape and Wormwood’: “Most Americans my age know the significance of November 22, 1963, in our country’s history, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But across the ocean at The Kilns in Oxford, another influential man also died. C. S. Lewis, recently retired as professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge, died from renal failure. During his life and even today, however, he was more than noticed because of the timeless nature of his works, including Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters.
“I have read The Screwtape Letters more than once. This series of fictional letters written by an elder devil, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood, is classic mentoring (of the evil kind), as Screwtape encourages the younger devil to be even ‘worse’ than he is. Through Lewis’s skillful hand, Screwtape touches on some of the ways that Wormwood can pull his human charge away from growing in a relationship with Christ by touching on all-too-common aspects of human nature.
“For instance, he tells Wormwood to prevent his charge from looking inward to evaluate how he can be a better person. Rather, Wormwood must get his human target to concentrate on the hypocrisy that he can see in the person seated just down the pew from him every Sunday morning, forgetting that he is just as dependent on God’s grace as the ‘hypocrite’ is. From there, Wormwood’s charge could easily fall into faulty comparisons of ‘I’m not as bad as he is’ or ‘at least I haven’t done that,’ rather than comparing himself to the gold standard of Christ, before whom we all fall short.
“One point that especially struck me is when Lewis writes about the numbing of passion. He understands that the Christian life is not something to ease into but rather something that God wants us to jump headlong into. That idea causes the elder devil to instruct his nephew to ‘talk to him [his charge] about “moderation in all things.” If you can once get him to the point of thinking that “religion is all very well up to a point,” you can feel quite happy about his soul.’
“Are you committed to following Christ as passionately as Paul did, discarding the things that might hinder your faith and relationship with Jesus from growing? It might be a good practice to pick up and reread The Screwtape Letters once a year as a reminder of how easily it can happen.”

• Tony Dungy, Uncommon Life – Daily Challenge (excerpt from devotion for 18 November)

Philippians 3:8 ‘gaining the crown’: “The very high value that the apostle Paul set on the Savior is most palpable when he speaks of gaining him. This shows that the Savior held the same place in Paul’s esteem as the crown did in the esteem of the runner at the Olympic games. To gain that crown, the competitor strained every nerve and sinew, feeling as though he were content to dropdown dead at the goal in order to win it. Paul felt that if he were to run with all his might, straining soul and body to gain Christ, it would be well worth the effort. Christ would be well worth dying to gain.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Philippians 3:8 ‘knowledge of God is necessary’: “The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Paul was anything but an advocate of the once-done, automatic school of Christianity. He devoted his whole life to the art of knowing Christ.
” ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I haye suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.   That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3:8, 10, 14).
“Progress in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of the Triune God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God. God can be known satisfactorily only as we de­ vote time to Him. Without meaning to do it we have written our serious fault into our book titles and gospel songs. ‘A little talk with Jesus,’ we sing, and call our books God’s Minute, or something else as revealing. The Christian who is satisfied to give God His ‘minute’ and to ‘have a little talk with Jesus’ is the same one who shows up, at the evangelistic service weeping over his retarded spiritual growth and begging the evangelist to show him the way out of his difficulty.”

• A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous

Philippians 3:10-11 ‘Victory over death’: “Jesus saw people enslaved by their fear of death. He explained that the river of death was nothing to fear. The people wouldn’t believe him. He touched a boy and called him back to life. The followers were still unconvinced. He whispered life into the dead body of a girl. The people were still cynical. He let a dead man spend four days in a grave and then called him out. ls that enough? Apparently not. For it was necessary for him to enter the river, to submerge himself in the water of death before people would believe that death had been conquered.
“But after he did, after he came out on the other side of death’s river, it was time to sing … it was time to celebrate.“

• Max Lucado, Ten Hours on a Friday

Philippians 3:10 ‘to be in Christ and have Christ in us’: ”Everywhere we look we see books, tapes, and seminars offering us a motivational boost, advertising that they can build our confidence so we can achieve our goals. If we truly understood what it means to be in Christ and to have Christ in us, we would possess all the confidence and motivation we need to achieve any godly goal. What greater motivation could we possess than to know that Jesus is on our side, and that with Him as our encourager and our coach, there’s no way we can lose.
All that is lacking in us is the true knowledge of what we already possess in Christ.“

• Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring Through the Bible

Philippians 3:11-14 ‘Attaining to the Resurrection from the Dead’: “Believers in Christ have been given the righteousness of Christ, not through the law, but through the exercise of faith (Philippians 3:9), with the goal of knowing Him ‘and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings’(verse 10). The ultimate purpose, as Paul says, is to ‘attain to the resurrection from the dead’ (verse 11). Though all believers have been justified by Christ, they have not yet experienced the benefit of Christ’s resurrection, nor have they ‘already become perfect’ or ‘complete’ (Greek, teleioō), though they are still pressing on, finally and completely, with the resurrection, to be ‘laid hold of by Christ Jesus’ (verse 12). Vine states that the Greek word ‘katalambano properly means to lay hold of, and then to do this so as to appropriate a thing to oneself, possess as one’s own (cp. 1 Cor. 9:24, ‘attain’)’ (The Collective Writings of W.E. Vine, 2:315).
“Paul’s thought, in terms of his final redemption, is that it is ‘not as though I were now perfected,’ or that he has arrived on the other side of the bodily resurrection (Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians, p. 152). Ultimately, when that day arrives, Paul and all believers can say, ‘I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3:13-14). The imagery Paul uses is of a runner who keeps his eyes fixed on the finish line. He leans forward and runs a straight course ‘and will not allow himself to be distracted or turned aside’ (O’Brien, Commentary on Philippians, p. 430). Paul’s goal is to finish his course in this life, and to be resurrected. He waits for the final ‘victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Corinthians 15:57). Because of the absolute certainty of the future resurrection, he urges believers to live ‘steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord’ (verse 58).”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Philippians 3:12 ‘a work in progress’: “He had not yet reached his own ideal of what a Christian might be. He had not yet obtained from Christ all that he expected to obtain. He was not sitting down to rest and be thankful, but he was still hurrying on, reaching after something that was yet beyond him. He could not say, ‘Soul, take your ease, you have much goods laid up for many years,’ but he still felt his own spiritual poverty; and he cried, ‘Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect,’ and he continued reaching.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Philippians 3:12 ‘a perfect model’: “Paul makes it clear that the goal we pursue-here on earth and in the hereafter-is Jesus Himself. He is the example we are to follow, the person we were meant to be like. We won’t reach perfection until we see Him face-to-face, but we are called always to be moving in that direction. In His strength, we press on toward that goal one day at a time. He can make us who we need to be if we focus on Him and allow Him to work through us. The same Christ who went around making somebodies out of nobodies is still at work in our lives.
God has a purpose in shaping us to be like Jesus. We become His influence-His hands and heart-for everyone around us. Wherever we find ourselves, we can influence people for His glory. That begins at home in our families, but it extends to every other area: our friends, coworkers, neighbors, fellow church members, fellow students, teammates-everyone we come in contact with. God doesn’t just glorify Himself by sending Jesus into this world. If we will let Him, He glorifies Himself by sending Jesus into this world through us.”

• Tony Dungy, Uncommon Life – Daily Challenge (excerpt from devotion for 3 January)

Philippians 3:13-14 ‘Willing to Stand Alone’: “It’s hard to stand alone against popular opinion. Most of us have experienced days when we seem to be on the other side of the fence from everyone else. We feel pressure to compromise, and it’s easy at such times to lose perspective on what’s important to cling to and what isn’t. Sometimes we realize we were wrong about something, sometimes we still believe we’re right but it isn’t worth fighting for, and sometimes we stand firm on what we know is true and worth fighting for. But knowing the difference can be difficult.
“Coach Noll said, ‘Stubbornness is a virtue-if you’re right!’ As a Christian, you need to be stubborn about the things God says are right. Always stand firm on essentials. Focus on the main thing, the truths that are most important and worth fighting for. Be single-minded about pursuing Christ, His Kingdom, and the things that are important to Him, and be persistent. Sometimes we have to stand alone for a long time. But be willing to compromise on nonessentials. Let go of what isn’t important, and be comfortable admitting when you’re wrong. Your convictions combined with your humility may even attract others to your viewpoint, and you won’t be standing alone for long.”

• Tony Dungy, Uncommon Life – Daily Challenge (excerpt from devotion for 15 August)

Philippians 3:13-14 ‘The secret of celebrating life’: “The enemy of our souls loves to taunt us with past failures, wrongs, disappointments, disasters, and calamities.  And if we let him continue doing this, our life becomes a long and dark tunnel, with very little light at the end.
“Fortunately, God has given us a magnificent solution that can make a difference. I call these fourteen words the secret of celebrating life.”

• Charles R. Swindoll, Bedside Blessings

Philippians 3:13 ‘Breaking Free from our Past’: “… Paul recognized, we’re just not going to change the past.
“And that’s why Paul makes the only rational decision he can make and offers the same to us, as well: he forgets the past and presses ahead. If there’s anyone who could have clung to the past-the decisions he’d made, the people who’d wronged him-it would have been Paul. After Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, he became hunted and persecuted with the same zeal with which he hunted and persecuted Christ’s followers. Now Paul followed Christ and served the believers called by Christ to touch the world. Time and again Paul was wrongfully imprisoned or beaten nearly to death for his new life, witness, and uncompromising testimony for Christ.
“Where are you today in your journey with Christ? Are you stuck in the past, holding on to regrets, remorse, or feelings of guilt for things you should have done or people you should have spent more time with? Are you still holding on to grudges against someone else for something they did to you, which they have long ago forgotten?
“Forget it, and press on to reach the heavenly prize of a continuing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ”

• Tony Dungy, Uncommon Life – Daily Challenge (excerpt from devotion for 9 July)

Philippians 3:15-16 ‘Honoring Commitment’: “My friend Wade Phillips has been integrally involved in One Heart, a campaign and movie concept dedicated to getting people involved with youth, specifically at-risk and incarcerated youth, to help them stay out of trouble and become productive members of society.
“But on the day of a fund-raising event for One Heart, word came that Coach Phillips had been fired.
“No one at One Heart expected him to show up for the benefit. It was perfectly understandable. And then Wade walked through the door…
“Wade Phillips believed in One Heart. He believed in keeping his word. He believed that his life, and what he can do with his days in building a legacy, was bigger than him.
“He was able to use his platform for good, just hours after receiving that devastating news about his job. I know firsthand how difficult a day that was for him.  It wouldn’t have been wrong if he hadn’t honored that particular commitment to One Heart. In the end, though, his choice to attend the charity event demonstrated how spiritually mature he was and made an even bigger impact.”

• Tony Dungy, Uncommon Life – Daily Challenge (excerpt from devotion for 10 November)

Philippians 3:17 ‘my example’: “Lit. ‘be imitators of me.’ Since all believers are imperfect, they need examples of less imperfect people who know how to deal with imperfection and who can model the process of pursuing the goal of Christlikeness. Paul was that model (1 Cor. 11:1; 1 Thess. 1:6). note those who so walk. The Philippian believers were to focus on other godly examples, such as Timothy and Epaphroditus (2:19, 20), and see how they conducted themselves in service to Christ.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Philippians 3:18-19 ‘The Final Destiny of the Lost’: “The apostle is moved emotionally when he thinks about the lost and those who live as enemies of the cross (Philippians 3:18). He confessed to the Philippians that is hurt him to the point of ‘weeping’.  Their final end is ‘destruction’ and their god is their appetite (verse 19).  The Greek text here literally reads, ‘whose god the stomach’ (he koilia), or ‘intestines.’ ”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Philippians 3:20-21 ‘your life interwoven with Christ’: “How intimately is the whole of our life interwoven with the life of Christ! His first coming has been to us salvation, and we are delivered from the wrath of God through him; we live because he lives, and never is our life more joyous than when we look most steadily to him. The completion of our salvation in the deliverance of our body from the bondage of corruption, in the raising of our dust to a glorious immortality, that is also wrapped up with the personal resurrection and quickening power of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Philippians 3:20-21 ‘Our Heavenly Citizenship’: “In contrast to the lost, who are doomed for destruction (Philippians 3:19), the believer looks forward to his heavenly ‘citizenship’ (verse20).1heword ‘citizenship’ in the Greek text is politeuma, a word related to the English politics. The Greek word polis means city. This citizenship is in the heavens, and it is from heaven that believers ‘eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ’ (verse 20). The expression ‘eagerly wait’ is a verb made up by the apostle Paul that contains the prepositions ftom (Greek, apo) and out (Greek, ek), along with the verb to receive (Greek, dechomai). ‘We’ refers to believers who may be alive, including Paul, when this may happen, though no apostle knew the specific time when the rapture of the church might take place. This ‘verb stresses an earnest longing, an eager expectation, and an anxious waiting. It connotes an imminent coming, a possibility in one’s own lifetime’ (Gromacki, Books of Philippians and Colossians, p. 98).”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Philippians 3:20 ‘earthlings, with citizenship elsewhere’: “The Christian is a weird sort, let’s face it. We are earthlings, yet the Bible says we are citizens of heaven. This world may not be our home, but it is our residence. Furthermore, we are to live in the world, but we are not to be of the world. And since joy is one of our distinctives, laughter is appropriate even though we are surrounded by all manner of wrong and wickedness. It can get a little confusing.”

• Charles R. Swindoll, Bedside Blessings

Philippians 3 ‘Reflections’: “God made only you in His image and you’re stuck with it, sinner and Christian both. You’re made in the image of God, and nothing short of God will satisfy you. And even if you happen to be one of those ‘nickel-in-the-slot, get saved, escape hell and take heaven’ Christians (that poor little kindergarten view of heaven), remember one thing-even you will find over the years that you are not content with ‘things plus God.’ You’ll have to have God minus all things.
“You may ask me, ‘Don’t you have things?’ Sure I do. God knows that I don’t have much, only a lot of books. I have a wife and some children and grandchildren and friends-I have all that.
“But as soon as I set my hopes and comforts upon things and people I’ll lose something out of my heart. It dare not be things and God, it dare not be people and God: it must be God and nothing else. Then whatever else God gives us, we can hold at arm’s length and hold it dear for Jesus’ sake. And we can love it for His sake, but it is not necessary to our happiness. If there’s anything necessary to your eternal happiness but God, you’re not yet the kind of Christian that you ought to be. For only God is the true rest.”

• A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man

My Thoughts

I think Philippians 3 makes a great outline for a personal testimony.  Who was Paul before he met Jesus?  He was a Pharisee among Pharisees.  He was born into the tribe of Benjamin.  He was circumcised at the proper time.  He persecuted Christians because he felt they were going against the law.  He was great at following the law.  But in meeting Jesus, he counts all that as loss.  Everything boils down to faith in Christ, and not in any status, membership, or especially works.  But has Paul arrived as this shining reflection of Jesus Christ, whom we should all model ourselves after?  Heavens to Betsy, no.  He had a long way to go, but forget the past.  Strain toward Jesus.  Try to be more like Jesus every day.  Live up to what you have already obtained.  In other words, quit slipping down the hill, starting over at the bottom.  “Oh, it’s you, again!  If you would keep your eyes on Jesus, you would not slide all the way to the bottom of the hill next time.  … Just a thought!”

But Paul finishes and ends with warnings.  We are not to be drawn away from the path to being Christlike, by the dogs of this world.  And dogs are those unbelievers.  The Jews may have considered Gentiles to be dogs, but there were Gentiles among the believers in Philippi.  And some of the worst dogs were among the Jews that rejected the Gospel.

And then at the end, Paul warns us to not follow those that live by their stomachs.  I do not think the last paragraph has anything to do with body shaming.  Some people who are obese love their food.  Some are gluttons.  But some have medical issues.  Paul is focusing the idea on the stomach as a metaphor of the things of this world.  Whether rich or poor, slave or free, powerful or weak, we all have to eat.  That is a given in this world.  We have to obtain nourishment.  During a diet-crazed search for healthier foods a couple of decades ago, I found out quickly that you had to be rich to eat healthier.  Had the prices of the healthier selections in the grocery store gone up in price because of the health craze, or was Satan just out to ruin my day?

But because everyone has to eat, the metaphor is more universal than saying the secular progressives are committed in heart, spirit, body, and soul with wind power.  That would have been misunderstood by everyone in the first century.  Focusing one’s life on leaks in the roof means nothing to the homeless person.  Ranting about the price of gasoline means nothing to the guy who walks to the grocery store, and there may have been a farmer’s market, but forget grocery stores in the first century.  I took a group of highly-educated engineers from India to a grocery store.  They went crazy!  I looked at the guy who was with me, to help herd the crowd.  I said, “What is going to happen when we go to the wholesale warehouse store tomorrow?”  He replied that instead of him coming along to help them, I needed an EMT.  Seeing all that stuff under one roof, they might have a heart attack.  No heart attack the next day, but it was overwhelming.

What Paul is saying is that we all have our weaknesses.  When that weakness says, “Come join me, and forget about God, just for a moment…”, then we are not living as one whose citizenship is in Heaven.

And Paul says in this chapter that we will suffer like Christ, if we live the life Christ lived.  And we should praise God for it.  That is, if the suffering is due to our faith in Christ.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Philippians 3:1-11 No Confidence in the Flesh 1. How much merit would you assign to each ‘confidence in the flesh’: Good looks? Good works? Reputation? Religious traditions?
“2. From 3:1-11, how can a person know he/she is ‘found in Christ’?
Philippians 3:12-4:1 Pressing on toward the goal 1. Comparing your spiritual life to a race, are you sitting it out due to lack of practice, an injury, or no warm-up? Are you at the starting blocks? Going full-tilt? Ready to give up? Why? What ‘hurdles’ seem especially high to jump?
“2. How do you see the opposition of verses 18-19 at work today? How would you ‘stand firm’ against them?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Philippians 3 is divided into two sets of questions as shown. The second including the first verse of Philippians 4.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.