just a few things

This is post 501! Thats halfway to one thousand, which seems remarkable. There have been times this year when i've thought about letting this blog quietly dies, mostly due to time constaints (having a girlfriend in America means that blog-time quickly turns into skype-time) but i still really enjoy blogging, it still helps me to think and i manage to upset some liberals now and again, and those are reasons enough for me. So on we go.

Yesterday i dived into the Christmas carol concert season at the Madjeski Academy for the south Reading churches carol service. I don't know if i'll manage to stop last years record of five (RUCU, USCU, Reading Family Church, The Community Church Bourne End and Chichester College CU) but i've got my eyes on at least a couple more. Last night Christmas made me cry and singing carols made me want to be a frontier missionary. I'm not sure thats normal. It also gave me the chance to reflect that some, if not most popular carols we really should sing all year round. Take 'joy to the world' for example. It's amazing. There's no reason in my mind why we can't sing that in May or August. I'd definately take it over the majority of the slightly wet, pop-rock contemporary worship songs.

I guess i've known for a while that my views on how the Christian relates to the law are somewhere between controversial and not exactly mainstream. (viz. that since Christ is the fulfillment of the law we who are found in Him no longer need to try to obey it. Grace motivated obedience replaces rule keeping) Studying Galatians 3 in the last few weeks has helped me think about this again, and clarify it somewhat. But something which i'd never noticed before that Lawrence helped me to see on friday was a role of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant i'd never really noticed before. Basically that, we no longer need to look at the law to find our perfect standard, because with Spirit opened eyes we can see the Lord and be changed, and we no longer need to have the law testify against us when we sin, because the Holy Spirit will testify to us and make us hate our sin. Is that right? It sounds pretty cool.