Minor Thoughts from me to you

Soli Deo Gloria means "God's Glory Alone". When Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the rest of the Reformers tried to reform the Catholic church, they summarized their teachings under five main statements: Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone), Soli Deo Gloria (God's Glory Alone), Solus Christus (Christ Alone), Sola Gratia (Grace Alone), and Sola Fide (Faith Alone). At some point I'll probably talk about all five of these ideas. Right now, I just want to touch on Soli Deo Gloria.

Soli Deo Gloria is the idea that everything on earth happens for a reason. What reason is that? Everything happens to make people recognize the greatness of God. This is one of the main themes running throughout the Bible. God eventually works everything out in a way that will bring Him glory. This has a lot of implications. Some of them are nice to think about and some of them are a little bit scary scary to think about.

I'm not going to talk about that tonight. Tonight, I'm going to share a Bible passage that illustrate this principle. This is a poem, written by a man named Asaph. His nation, Israel, has been conquered and decimated by foreign enemies. But notice the focus of his poetry: he is ultimately concerned for God's repuation and God's glory. He wants his nation restored. But he doesn't want his nation restored because of his national pride. He wants his nation restored so that other nations will know that God is real and is powerful.

[esvbible reference="Psalm 79" header="on" format="block"]Psalm 79[/esvbible]