Conference yukon::christian_v7

	Right dear, O God, are thy friends unto me, and held in
	highest honor: their rule and governance is exceeding
	steadfast.

	O Lord, thou hast searched me out and known me:
	Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising.

	Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
	As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
	    world without end.  Amen.

	Right dear, O God, are thy friends unto me, and held in
	highest honor: their rule and governance is exceeding
	steadfast.

   Almighty God, who didst inspire thy servant Luke the physician
   to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of thy
   Son: Graciously continue in thy Church the like love and power
   to heal, to the praise and glory of thy Name; through the same
   thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with
   thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for
   ever.  Amen.

   Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which
   ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him.
   For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour
   of the king.
   The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight
   of great men he shall be in admiration.
   The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise
   will not abhor them.
   And he hath given men skill, that he might be honoured in his
   marvellous works.
   With such doth he heal men, and taketh away their pains.
   Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of his works there
   is no end; and from him is peace over all the earth.
   My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and
   he will make thee whole.
   Leave off from sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thy
   heart from all wickedness.
   Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let
   him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.
   There is a time when in their hands there is good success.
   For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that,
   which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life.

   O praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God;
      yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.
   The Lord doth build up Jerusalem,
      and gather together the outcasts of Israel.
   He healeth those that are broken in heart,
      and giveth medicine to heal their sickness.
   He telleth the number of the stars,
      and calleth them all by their names.
   Great is our Lord, and great is his power;
      yea, and his wisdom is infinite.
   The Lord setteth up the meek,
      and bringeth the ungodly down to the ground.
   O sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving;
      sing praises upon the harp unto our God.

   Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
   As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
      world without end.  Amen.

   As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an
   evangelist, fulfil your ministry.

   For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my
   departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished
   the race, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for
   me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
   will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all
   who have loved his appearing.

   Do your best to come to me soon.  For Demas, in love with this
   present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens
   has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.  Luke alone is with me.
   Get Mark and bring him with you; for he is very useful in serving
   me.  Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus.  When you come, bring the
   cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books and above
   all the parchments.

   Their sound is gone out into all lands: and their words unto the
   ends of the world.

   The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his
   handiwork.

   Alleluia.  Alleluia!

   I have chosen you out of the world: that ye should go and bring
   fruit, and that your fruit should remain.

   Alleluia!

   Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to
   Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding
   country.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by
   everyone.

   When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went
   to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood
   up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.
   He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

       "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   	because he has anointed me
   	  to bring good news to the poor.
   	He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   	  and recovery of sight to the blind,
   	  to let the oppressed go free,
   	to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

   And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and
   sat down.  The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
   Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been
   fulfilled in your hearing."

		Hearken to the anthem glorious
		Of the martyrs robed in white;
		They, like Christ, in death victorious
		Dwell for ever in the light.

Living, they proclaimed salvation       Christ for cruel traitors pleading,
Heaven-endowed with grace and power;    Triumphed in his parting breath
And they died in imitation              O'er all miracles preceding
Of their Saviour's final hour.          His inestimable death.

		Take from him what ye will give him
		Of his fullness grace for grace;
		Strive to think him, speak him, live him,
		Till you find him face to face.

Almost all that we know about Luke comes from the New Testament.
He was a physician (Col 4:14), a companion of Paul on some of his
missionary journeys (Acts 16:10ff; 20:5ff; 27-28).  Material found
in his Gospel and not elsewhere includes much of the account of
Our Lord's birth and infancy and boyhood, some of the most moving
parables, such as that of the Good Samaritan and that of the
Prodigal Son, and three of the sayings of Christ on the Cross:
"Father, forgive them," "Thou shalt be with me in Paradise," and
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Luke is commonly thought to be the only non-Jewish New Testament
writer.  His writings place the life of Christ and the development
of the early Church in the larger context of the Roman Empire and
society.  On the other hand, his writings are focused on Jerusalem
and on the Temple.  His Gospel begins and ends in the Temple, and
chapters nine through nineteen portray Jesus as journeying from
Galilee to Jerusalem.  Similarly, the Book of Acts describes the
Church in Jerusalem (and worshipping in the Temple) and then
describes the missionary journeys of Paul as excursions from and
returns to Jerusalem.

     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****

From off the net:

What writer wrote more pages of the New Testament than anyone else?
If you say Paul, try again.  In my pocket Bible, Acts and the Gospel
of Luke occupy a total of sixty pages, while all the letters of Paul
(not counting Hebrews) total fifty-six.

The writer of the Third Gospel and the Book of Acts does not give
his name in his writings.  (Except for Nehemiah, no Biblical writer
of a narrative book does.)  He does claim to be a traveling companion
of Paul, and his interests and vocabulary suggest that he is a
physician.  Since Paul tells us that he had a companion named Luke
who was a physician, the conclusion that Luke is the writer we are
looking for is reasonable.

Was the two-volume work Luke-Acts in fact written by a companion of
Paul?  Scholars are not agreed on the answer.

By and large, most German writers favor a negative answer.
Their reasons are that (1) the chronology of Paul's life found in
the Book of Acts presents certain apparent conflicts with that found
in Paul's letter to the Galatians, and that (2) the writer seems
unfamiliar with the geography of Israel.

On the other hand, most English scholars favor an affirmative
answer.  Their reasons are that the "We" sections in Acts (the
sections in which the author explicitly claims to have been present
at the events he describes) contain a wealth of circumstantial detail
that make invention extremely unlikely.  (Thus, for example, Mr.
James Smith of Jordan Hill, FRS, having sailed a vessel over the
same route described in Acts 27-28, argues in his book, THE VOYAGE
AND SHIPWRECK OF SAINT PAUL, that the account must have been written
by someone who had sailed that route.  It used to be a popular theory
that the writer had somehow gotten his hands on a travel diary of
the real "Luke" and incorporated it into his work.  However, a
detailed analysis of the writing style of various sections of the
work shows none of the differences that would be expected of this
theory.  Scholars on the affirmative side generally answer the
negative objections mentioned above by supposing that (1) the
conferences mentioned in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 are not the same
conference, and that (2) Luke uses the word "Judea" sometimes to
mean the southern portion of the land of Israel, and sometimes to
mean the whole land.  For some comments on the historical reliability
of the opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke, send the message GET
INFANCY PART1 to [email protected].

   Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way:
      and walk in the law of the Lord.

   Right dear are thy friends unto me, O God, and held in highest
      honour:
      their rule and governance is exceeding steadfast.

		Now, my tongue, the mystery telling
		Of the glorious Body sing,
		And the Blood all price excelling
		Which the Gentiles' Lord and King,
		Once on earth among us dwelling
		Shed for this world's ransoming.

		Given for us, and condescending
		To be born for us below,
		He with us in converse blending
		Dwelt, the seed of truth to sow,
		Till he closed with wondrous ending
		His most patient life of woe.

		That last night at supper lying
		Mid the twelve, his chosen band,
		Jesus, with the Law complying,
		Keeps the feast its rites demand;
		Then, more precious food supplying,
		Gives himself with his own hand.

		Word made flesh, the bread he taketh,
		By his word his Flesh to be;
		Wine his sacred Blood he maketh,
		Though the senses fail to see;
		Faith alone the true heart waketh
		To behold the mystery.

		Therefore we, before him bending,
		This great Sacrament revere;
		Types and shadows have their ending,
		For the newer rite is here;
		Faith our outward sense befriending,
		Makes our inward vision clear.

		Glory let us give and blessing
		To the Father and the Son,
		Honor, thanks and praise addressing,
		While eternal ages run;
		Ever too his love confessing
		Who from both with both is One.

   Ye which have followed me shall sit upon twelve thrones:
   judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

		The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,
		preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting
		life.

		Amen.

		Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gifts.

		Christ for the world we sing!
		The world to Christ we bring
		With loving zeal;
		The poor, and them that mourn,
		The faint and overborne,
		Sin-sick and sorrow-worn,
		Whom Christ doth heal.

		Christ for the world we sing!
		The world to Christ we bring
		With fervent prayer;
		The wayward and the lost,
		By restless passions tossed,
		Redeemed at countless cost
		From dark despair.

		Christ for the world we sing!
		The world to Christ we bring
		With one accord;
		With us the work to share,
		With us reproach to dare,
		With us the cross to bear,
		For Christ our Lord.

		Christ for the world we sing!
		The world to Christ we bring
		With joyful song;
		The newborn souls whose days,
		Reclaimed from error's ways,
		Inspired with hope and praise,
		To Christ belong.