A very interesting read….
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece
An atheist’s thoughts on what Africa needs
Reply
Category Archives: Jesus
The Shack
I have just finished reading a book much spoken about and reviewed – The Shack.
As I was thinking about what to say in my own review of it I discovered a friend who had expressed perfectly how I felt about it but done it much more elegantly than I could.
Click here to read what he says.
Thank God your here!
What a brilliant day I had with my family today!
I hope you all had equally as good days celebrating the birth of our wonderful Lord and Saviour, Jesus!
Merry Christmas!
Today in the town of David a saviour is born to you; he is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11
What put the fear of God into these kids????
I went to lunch today with a friend of mine and she told me about an article that she had read in a magazine. The article is titled ‘What put the fear of God into these kids?’ and tells of churches in the US who, each year in the lead up to Halloween, run what is known as a hell house or judgement houses. Inside these ‘houses’ which are usually demountable classrooms set up to look like an old haunted house, actors (usually members of the church) reenact scenes of a school massacre, abortion, date rape, suicide, child molestation, drink driving accidents and in previous years a scene of a gay man dying of AIDS. The scenes are acted several times a night for group of up to 20 children, often as young as 11. All these scenes are narrated by ‘the devil’ – who wears a mask and a black cloak and hood, much like the grim reaper. The final scene ends with a message from a pastor of the church – “There’s only one way to heaven and thats if you have a relationship with Jesus. You must make your choice.”
The article showed pictures of a number of these scenes – these pictures being what stunned my friend the most. She was horrified. Her thoughts are that sending kids to see this amounts to child abuse and that if she didn’t know me she would think that all Christians were like this and she would never have anything to do with them. She also, wisely, said “there are bad things in this world and sometimes they happen to good people. Surely being a Christian doesn’t mean you will never be the victim of child molestation or date rape, so isn’t it just a lie to say that you make the choice of one or the other??”
I praise God for the conversation I was able to have with her because of this.
I’d be interesting in other people’s thoughts on these hell houses.
I am second
Want to hear some amazing stories??
I recommend starting with Brian Welch.
Confirmation
I have been thinking a lot lately about confirmation and baptism and trying to come to some solid conclusion about what I think of it all. This has been sparked by my own baptism (last year) and confirmation (in a few hours). I’ll be standing tonight with 6 teenagers who are doing something pretty great. To stand in front of family and friends and declare that they love Jesus and want to continue loving him forever is special and shouldn’t be taken for granted. But tonight is something different for me. The issue is really what purpose confirmation serves when someone has been baptised as an adult. I have already made those promises for myself quite recently. I feel a little like tonight is special for those I’ll be standing with but almost obligatory for me. So you may be asking why I’m doing it. The honest answer is that I couldn’t think of a reason not to. Standing and declaring that I turn to Christ is a great thing and I think we should all say it as often as possible.
I would love to hear other thoughts on this???
Shout-out to our church fathers!
So I have spent the last few days studying for exams and yesterday was a day of Church History study.
While I am still trying to ‘connect the dots’ of knowledge into a solid picture of the 1st – 4th Century Christian church I do know that we owe a lot of thanks to the men and woman would fought so hard for the truth.
Take for example the great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria in the 4th century. He spent 42 years fighting his cause, 17 of them in exile – he was exiled 5 times! His cause was something that caused great instability in the East of the Roman Empire. And it basically boils down to something we take for granted – that God the father and God the son are consubstantial.
Athanasius was eventually vindicated in 381AD with the adoption of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is a creed we still say in our churches today. Sadly this happened 8 years after Athanasius died.
So I guess my point is this – praise God for our fathers who did great things!
The Niceno-Constantinopolitian Creed (aka Nicene Creed)
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came into being, who because of us men and because of our salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and ascended to the heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end;
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and together glorified, who spoke through the prophets; in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins; we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen.
A new look at Jonah
One of the great things about choosing not to study Hebrew this year (apart from not having to learn Hebrew) is the subject us non-hebrew student do instead called Biblical Exegesis and Exposition. Its a long name for a great subject. This term Bill Salier has been taking us through the great Old Testament book of Jonah.
I have been loving looking in detail at a story that I thought was familiar – turns out while I knew some of the content I had little appreciation for the amazing way this narrative shows so clearly the compassion of God for his people.
God’s compassion then stands next to the un-compassion (is that a word??) of Jonah. When God showed compassion on Jonah he praises God and declares ‘salvation comes from the Lord’! But he does not want Nineveh to share in this salvation. When he sees God’s compassion for the Ninevites he says he is angry enough to die!
The book ends with the unanswered question from God – ‘should I not care about the great city of Nineveh??’
This amazing book poses 2 questions to us – Am I like Jonah?? and Who are my Ninevites??
The Resurrection Body
‘I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that the flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, in the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself will the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, the the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, ans the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.’
1 Corinthians 15:50 – 58
The Screwtape Letters
I have recently started reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis. If you have not read it, I definitely recommend it. It is a series of letters written from the devil Screwtape to his newphew Wormwood, in which Screwtape is coaching his nephew in how to successfully lure his ‘patients’ (mankind) away from the Enemy (God).
I am about half way through and came across a paragraph which, in a strange way, is a beautiful description of God’s love for us and our true selves in him.
‘Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always, that he really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When he talks of their losing their selves, he only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, he really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly his they will be more themselves than ever.’
Amen
a girl who speaks 