Just so's you know, cvbbs.com is having a 10% off sale Wednesday and Thursday. And with Christmas in sight.

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I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great time with both sides of the family and I got the chance to read a couple novels, including a dragon story called Eragon. It is a pretty remarkable book, if only because its author was 19 when it was published. It follows the pretty typical fantasy/adventure story line, but it's still a whole lot of fun.

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We're using Sinclair Ferguson's Let's Study Ephesians in our mid-week Bible study this semester. It is a really great study guide.

He has some great notes on this passage:

Ephesians 4:17-19 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

Ferguson lines out Paul's analysis of sin like this:

Hardness of heart leads to
Ignorance which involves being
Alienated from the life of God which leads to our being
Callous and
Given up to sensuality and thus
Greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

This is a great summary of the power of sin, its parasitic and progressive nature, how it twists and winds itself into various poisons and pollutions...and what are we do to do? Should such a realization set us to make new New Year's resolutions? Should a new understanding of sin simply make us fight harder and smarter? Or should it lead us back to Jesus Christ, rejoicing in the total salvation He has won. This is the best thing about getting a glimpse of the power and complexity of sin: we get a glimpse of the power and complexity of the salvation that is able to overcome sin! (And then we fight harder and smarter...)