My heart gives thanks for the morning
Far brighter than the sun of any day
The brightness of Your love forever shining
Giving substance to the unseen footsteps of Your way.

Your eyes beheld me and filled with heartfelt pity
You drew me to Yourself in love's deep song
Delighting me with signs and wonders
Loosening my tongue to praise Your name.

I sing with eyes filled to overflowing
Of the glory of Your love poured out each day
To sing with heart felt wonder
That You love and keep me in Your way.

In the quiet gathering in of night
I thought.
In between the waves of tiredness
I dwelt upon the history
of ideas
of human thought
Stretched out like effervescent waves
fading out of sight.
All of them
with one tired sweep
would dissipate!
Their going having scant impact
on how I lived my life.

Now I know
A thousand voices in shrill chorus
will erupt
In defense of human history
And the wealth of human thought.
And yes I know the very language
with which I labour to express
is honed upon experience
The fruits of conquests and distress.
And I can hear the arguments
That one can't help but be exposed
To the transmutating powers
of the fruits of modern life.
But think!

The next thing I would add on the subject of Scripture is that every time Scripture is mentioned in the New Testament the writer is referring to the Old Testament. If the New Testament, as Scripture, was essential for salvation then no one in the early Church could have been saved!

The absorption of the Church in the writings that have been labelled Scripture, and defined as being a closed book, has resulted in a Church rich in theology, argument and schism, but poor in spiritual authority and, more importantly, the love of God. Paul writing to the Corinthians had this to say, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of hearts of flesh”

The Church’s teaching that Scripture is now closed is wrong. When the 3^rd Century Church met and decided which of their inherited writings were to be declared canonical and final, on what authority did they make this stand? Has God Himself declared it so? By making this claim the Church has pre-empted God and declared it impossible that He might raise up for Himself a prophet to speak words of admonishment to the Church, a prophet whose words carried all of the authority that the Church has decided can only reside in the books which they have declared Canonical.

One of the most misunderstood scriptures in the New Testament is Romans chapter 7. It does not matter what brand of Christian you are talking to, if the subject of holiness arises and with it the commands to walk in the image of Christ, free from sin, the automatic retort is to fire off a few choice verses of Romans chapter 7. Poor old Paul, it seems, just couldn't help himself, “The good that I wish, I do not do, but I commit the very evil that I do not wish” and the church delights in his imagined frailty - to their collective ruin. For in this, as in much of their understanding of scripture, they fulfill Peter's statement concerning Paul, “in his letters… are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do all the scriptures, to their own destruction.”

From the church's understanding of scripture Paul is a tragic figure stumbling in all of his ways (just as they the church do), a hypocrite not living what he preached; but this is not what Paul is revealing in this chapter. As is so often the case, people take a text out of context to justify their own crooked walk. To get to the heart of what Paul is talking about we have to go back to the previous chapter. In Chapter 6 Paul says, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be! How shall we who died still live in it?” Then he explains how we have been baptized into Christ's death that “we too might walk in newness of life.” For “our old man was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” Paul continues by saying, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,”… “for sin shall not be master over you for you are not under law but under grace.” From such a beginning it seems inconceivable that Paul is now saying, in the very next chapter, “but hey don't worry about it, none of us are perfect!” But this is exactly what the church believes that he is saying!