Fall leaves

The Church's One Foundation

1.     The Church's one foundation

is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is His new creation

by water and the Word.

From heaven He came and sought her

to be His holy bride;

With His own blood He bought her,

And for her life He died.

2.     Elect from every nation,

Yet one o'er all the earth;

Her charter of salvation,

One Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy name she blesses,

Partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses,

With every grace endued.

3.     Though with a scornful wonder

We see her sore oppressed,

By schisms rent asunder,

By heresies distressed,

Yet saints their watch are keeping;

                  Their cry goes up, "How long?"

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song.

4.     Mid toil and tribulation,

And tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation

of peace forevermore;

Till, with the vision glorious,

Her longing eyes are blest,

And the great Church victorious

Shall be the Church at rest.

5.     Yet she on earth hath union

With God the Three in One,

And mystic sweet communion

With those whose rest is won.

O happy ones and holy!

Lord, give us grace that we

Like them, the meek and lowly,

On high may dwell with Thee.

~Samuel John Stone

Windsor on the Thames with

its royal castle, is one of England’s

most popular tourist attractions.

 Samuel Stone’s ministry was located here,

 among the poorer people

at the outskirts of town.

Samuel Stone was a fighter.

He stood up for what

he believed, and if local

“toughs” threatened the neighborhood,

 he was not afraid to take them on.

  In the Church of England,

 Stone was regarded

as a fundamentalist,

 opposing the liberal theological

 tendencies of his day.

When he was twenty-seven, he wrote

 a collections of hymns based

on the Apostles’ Creed.

This hymn, taken from

 that collection,

 is based on the article in

 the Creed regarding the

 Church as the Body of Christ.

Samuel John Stone

(1839 – 1900)

One of the big and ongoing problems of the new Christian Church as it spread through Asia Minor and southern Europe was one of compatibility. It was made up of Messianic Jews and pagan Gentiles. As the church spread and grew the latter became increasingly the majority.

Here Paul deals with this ongoing problem with his friends in Ephesus. We are one in Christ. He makes a simple and convincing case for the "oneship" of Christians whatever their ethnicity.

This lesson is a case for "oneship" for Christians whatever their denomination.

Paul sees God's people as a house built on the foundation of 'the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the Chief Cornerstone.' So founded this house becomes a holy temple.

The inter and intra denominational behavior of many "in the church" is such that the temple Paul envisions is fast becoming like the one in Jerusalem, not much of it left but a wailing wall.

Paul reminds us that we 'too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.' Let it be so that the holy temple stands as a place of "oneness" in the love of Christ.

Windsor on the Thames:

http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/info/thames.html

Comfort Of Life:

http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/comfortoflife

Inspiringsong:

https://www.angelfire.com/music5/inspiringsong/index.html

Visit my Guestbook

The Christian Counter