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This year have your yard sale with us! Join us for our four annual neighborhood yard sale on June 6, 2015 from 8 am – 12 pm. Anyone from the area can reserve a space – it’s free! Just call 410-255-0003 or e-mail yardsale@pasadena-ep.org.  The yard sale will take place in the Pasadena EP church parking lot at 7975 Tick Neck Road, Pasadena, MD.  If you don’t want to reserve a space, just come out to shop and get to know some neighbors!  We’ll also have free refreshments for all comers.

Tomorrow in Sunday School we’ll be watching episode 6 of Dispatches from the Front: The Power of His Rising.  This episode will show us some of the mighty work that God is doing in South Asia.  Here is a preview . . . see you at 9:30.

Last week the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) held the 41st General Assembly in Greenville, South Carolina.  The PCA’s online magazine byFaith posted several articles summarizing the activity (click on the links to the overtures if you want all the details).

• Home Page for the General Assembly
• Summary of overtures
• Summary of Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan’s seminar on Total Truthfulness

This Sunday we’ll start a new Sunday School series called Why We Trust the Bible.  Each week we’ll watch a lecture by Stephen Nichols and then Pastor Tom will lead a short discussion.  Pastor Tom attended a seminar on this topic at General Assembly last week and found it to be “excellent” (more info here).  Here are the six lectures:

• Revelation: Where Would We Be Without It?
• The Authority of Scripture, Part 1: The Doctrine of Inspiration
• The Authority of Scripture, Part 2: The Doctrine of Inerrancy
• Why Sixty-Six Books? The Development of the Canon
• Why So Many Interpretations?  The Clarity of Scripture & Interpretation
• Scripture for Life: The Sufficiency of Scripture

Come join us at 9:30 am this Sunday!

Linked EP is a group focused on prayer, encouragement and networking for the unemployed, underemployed, struggling business owners, and others in our EP community experiencing or anticipating financial hardships.  Please note that this is not a “support group” where you will have to share your personal struggles but instead an opportunity to connect with folks from our EP family of churches. [Note that “EP family of churches” refers to a particular community of churches in the Annapolis area, of which Pasadena EP is one]. If you are experiencing this challenge or have the interest or ability to come alongside others in this place, we would love to have you participate.

The first meeting is Tuesday April 30 at 7:00pm in Room 121A at Annapolis EP Church. If you are on either side of this struggle please attend this meeting. This is about the church community helping the church community. Information is available on Sundays in the Fellowship Hall on April 21st and 28th. You can also reach Linked EP via email at LinkedEP@gmail.com.

Our Good Friday service included three meditations on Christ’s atonement.  Specifically, they addressed expiation, propitiation, and reconciliation.  If you look closely at the hymns we regularly sing, you’ll find that these three themes are woven into many of them.  Kevin DeYoung points this out in his post What You Can’t Sing Without Penal Substitution.  He lists some key passages that justify our view of substitutionary atonement.  Then he lists some favorite hymns that are laden with this idea, before concluding “Without penal substitution there is no salvation. And there isn’t nearly as much to sing about.”  Here is a sampling of these hymns:

Man of Sorrows! What a Name
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned he stood,
Sealed my pardon with his blood:
Hallelujah! what a Savior!

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
What thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinner’s gain:
Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! Tis I deserve thy place;
Look on me with they favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.

Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended
Who was the guilty who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:
I crucified thee.

Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed
Was it for crimes that I had done he groaned upon the tree!
Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!

Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted
Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, was there every grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning, foes insulting his distres;
Many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that Justice gave.

Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load;
’tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.

What Wondrous Love is This
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

Many of these excellent hymns have been put to new music by Indelible Grace.  If you’ve never heard of Indelible Grace, here is a quick intro:

Pastor Tom is preaching through 1 Peter 3, which includes instructions for husbands and wives.  Several years ago, Wayne Grudem and Jon Piper edited a book entitled: Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  Ligon Duncan, D.A. Carson, Elisabeth Elliot and many others contributed articles.  Grudem and Piper have also released an excellent book (also much shorter . . . and free!) on the same topic.  It presents the material in question and answer form.  You can download the book from Desiring God.  Here are is a quote from the first question:

1. Why do you regard the issue of male and female roles as so important?

. . . God’s gift of complementary manhood and womanhood was exhilarating from the beginning (Genesis 2:23). It is precious beyond estimation. But today it is esteemed lightly and is vanishing like the rain forests we need but don’t love. We believe that what is at stake in human sexuality is the very fabric of life as God wills it to be for the holiness of His people and for their saving mission to the world.

And here are two questions relevant to this week’s sermon regarding the way in which husbands should love their wives:

4. What about marriage? What did you mean (in question 1) by “marriage patterns that do not portray the relationship between Christ and the church”?

We believe the Bible teaches that God means the relationship between husband and wife to portray the relationship between Christ and His church. The husband is to model the loving, sacrificial leadership of Christ, and the wife is to model the glad submission offered freely by the church.

12. Isn’t your stress on leadership in the church and headship in the home contrary to the emphasis of Christ in Luke 22:26, “. . . the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves”?

No. We are trying to hold precisely these two things in Biblical balance, namely, leadership and servanthood. It would be contrary to Christ if we said that servanthood cancels out leadership. Jesus is not dismantling leadership, He is defining it. The very word He uses for “leader” in Luke 22:26 is used in Hebrews 13:17, which says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as ones who will have to give an account.” Leaders are to be servants in sacrificially caring for the souls of the people. But this does not make them less than leaders, as we see in the words obey and submit. Jesus was no less leader of the disciples when He was on His knees washing their feet than when He was giving them the Great Commission.