How to read the Bible

I'm currently reading, "How to read the Bible for all it's worth", and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I think all Christians who are serious about their Bible study, should get a copy.

The Supremacy of the Son of God

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1: 15-20, TNIV).

Playstation 3 Resource Centre

Came across another great PS3 site. Lots of information, pics, videos and so forth. Check it out...

Microsoft Office System 2007

I've been using Office 2007 (Beta 2) for a while now and I love it. The new user interface (UI) is new much more intuitive. I spend most of my time in Word and you can get a lot more done, more quickly because of the new UI. I can't wait until the final build is available.

Microsoft confirms 'Zune'

Whilst I don't think there is such a thing as an 'iPod killer', there are certainly some good alternatives to Apple's player out there. Microsoft has officially confirmed their alternative: Zune. Check out the teaser website and the Zune Insider Blog.

A brief reflection on music

It was Boethius who said: “Music is a part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behaviour”. Next time you listen to a song, think about how that quote applies to what you are listening to.

Stem cell alternatives being ignored

The Weekly Standard has an excellent editorial, based on this moral principle: "There are some things we should never do, even in the name of progress. The moral history of mankind, as Paul Ramsey once said, is more important than its medical history." It is with this in mind that I wonder why more press attention is being given to President Bush’s plan to veto the bill funding embryonic stem cell research as opposed to the other (neglected) bills in the US Senate that would fund stem cell research that doesn't destroy embryos. Why are the majority of politicians in the US House and Senate, and their counter-parts in Europe (albeit to a lesser extent), so bent on destroying human embryos when alternatives are available?

Primer on Hezbollah

Hezbollah, the group at the heart of the Lebanese conflict, is the spearhead of Iran’s ambitions to be a superpower, says Iranian commentator Amir Taheri. Read full article here...

7 blunders

Mohandas Gandhi compiled a list he called “The Seven Blunders of the World”. Now granted, the seventh item on the list is pretty universal; but I think we are heading down the wrong road because too many of the other items on this list are also true of our country today:

1. Wealth without work.

2. Pleasure with conscience.

3. Knowledge without character.

4. Commerce without morality.

5. Science without humanity.

6. Worship without sacrifice.

7. Politics without principle.

Playstation 3 blurb

The Playstation 3 will "change the nature of gaming and entertainment forever". It will also drain your pockets. With a price tag of USD$499 (20GB model) or USD$599 (60GB model); and games for around USD$60 a pop. But it's not just a console anymore, it's actually a computer. With specs like these, this machine is not a toy.

My current favourite song...

"Stained Glass Masquerade"

Is there anyone that fails
Is there anyone that falls
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation's open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who's been there
Are there any hands to raise
Am I the only one who's traded
In the altar for a stage

The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart

But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be
Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins (article link)

You want to have gay sex? Be a female bishop? Change God's name to Sophia? Go ahead. The just-elected Episcopal presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a one-woman combination of all these things, having voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the Columbus convention and invited former Newark, N.J., bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ's divinity, to address her priests. Read full article here...

God's perfect timing - Romans 5:6-11

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

The absolute moral law

English essayist and critic, Samuel Butler once commented that, ‘the only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.’ This is often the cry of the secular humanist who thinks that if we would only abandon the old Victorian ideas in light of science, technology and all that goes with it, then all will be well in the garden. What these people cannot stand is the truth that there is an eternal, changeless moral law which is binding on all of mankind, regardless of location, time, colour, class or creed.

C. S. Lewis in his essay, “The Poison of Subjectivism”, had this to say: “To infer that whatever stands too long must be unwholesome is to be a victim of metaphor. Space does not sink because it has preserved its three dimensions from the beginning. Love is not dishonoured by constancy. Does a permanent unchanging moral code preclude progress? On the contrary, except on the presupposition of a changeless standard, progress is impossible. If absolute good is a fixed point, it is at least possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it, but if the terminal is as mobile as the train, how can the train progress towards it? Our ideas of ‘the good’ may change, but they cannot change either for the better or for the worse if there is no absolute and immutable good to which they can approximate or from which they can recede. We can go on getting a sum more and more nearly right only If one perfectly right answer is ‘stagnant’.”

Samaritan's Purse

Samaritan's Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan's Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Click and donate...

...to any of the following worthwhile charaties/organizations:

Gospel for Asia

Wellspring International

The Global Fund

Remenber that...

“The Dead Sea is the dead sea because it continually receives and never gives.” — Anonymous

Read more giving quotations here...

"The Trouble with 'X'"... by C.S. Lewis

I SUPPOSE I may assume that seven out of ten of those who read these lines are in some kind of difficulty about some other human being. Either at work or at home, either the people who employ you or those whom you employ, either those who share your house or those whose house you share, either your in-laws or parents or children, your wife or husband, are making life harder for you that it need be even in these days. It is to be hoped that we do not often mention these difficulties (especially the domestic ones) to outsiders. But sometimes we do. An outside friend asks us why we are looking so glum, and the truth comes out.

On such occasions the outside friends usually says, ‘But why don’t you tell them? Why don’t you go to your wife (or husband, or father, or daughter, or boss or land-lady, or lodger) and have it all out? People are usually reasonable. All you’ve got to do is to make them see things in the right light. Explain it to them in a reasonable, quiet, friendly way.’ And we, whatever we say outwardly, think sadly to ourselves, ‘He doesn’t know “X”.’ We do. We know how utterly hopeless it is to make ‘X’ see reason. Either we’ve never tried it over and over again – tried it until we are sick of trying it – or else we’ve never tried because we saw from the beginning how useless it would be. We know that if we attempt to ‘have it all out with “X”’ there will either be a ‘scene’ or else ‘X’ will stare at us in blank amazement and say ‘I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about’; or else (which is perhaps worse of all) ‘X’ will quite agree with us and promise to turn over a new leaf and put everything on new footing – and then, twenty-four hours later, will be exactly the same as ‘X’ has always been.

You know, in fact, that any attempt to talk things over with ‘X’ will shipwreck on the old, fatal flaw in ‘X’s’ character. And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw – on ‘X’s’ incurable jealously, laziness, or touchiness, or muddle headedness, or bossiness, or ill temper, or changeableness. Up to a certain age you have perhaps had the illusion that some external stroke of good fortune – an improvement in health, a raise of salary, the end of the way – would solve your difficulty. But you know better now. The war is over, and you realize that even if you became a millionaire, your husband would still be a bully, or your wife would still nag or your son would still drink, or you’d still have your mother-in-law to live with you.

It is a great step forward to realize that this is so; to face the fact that even if all external things went right, real happiness would still depend on the character of the people you have to live with – and that you can’t alter their characters. And now comes the point. When you have seen this you have, for the first time, had a glimpse of what it must be like for God. For, of course, this is (in one way) just what God Himself is up against. He has provided a rich, beautiful world for people to live in. He has given them intelligence to show them how it can be used, and conscience to show them how it ought to be used. He has contrived that the things they need for their biological life (food, drink, rest, sleep, exercise) should be positively delightful to them. And, having done all this, He then sees all His plans spoiled – just as our little plans are spoiled – by the crookedness of the people themselves. All the things He has given them to be happy they turn into occasions for quarrelling and jealousy, and excess and hoarding, and tomfoolery.

You may say that it is very different for God because He could, if He pleased, alter people’s characters, and we can’t. But this difference doesn’t go quite as deep as we may at first think. God has made it a rule for Himself that He won’t alter people’s character by force. He can and will alter them – but only if the people will let Him. In that way He has really and truly limited His power. Sometimes we wonder why He has done so, or even wish that He hadn’t. But apparently He thinks it worth doing. He would rather have a world of free beings, with all its risks, than a world of people who did right like machines because they couldn’t do anything else. The more we succeed in imagining what a world of perfect automatic beings would be like, the more, I think, we shall see His wisdom.

I said that when we see how all our plans shipwreck on the characters of the people we have to deal with, we are ‘in one way’ seeing what it must be like for God. But only one way. There are two respects in which God’s view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward of difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind – the one you never see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you are also just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as ‘Of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what the advertisements call ‘halitosis’, which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t ‘take it’. Perhaps a good deal of what you call their ‘nagging’ or ‘bad temper’ or ‘queerness’ are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, ‘I admit I lost my tempter last night’; but the others know you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, ‘I admit I drank too much last Saturday’; but every one else knows that you are an habitual drunkard.

That is one way in which God’s view must differ from mine. He sees all the characters: I see all except my own. But the second difference is this. He loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on loving, He does not let go. Don’t say, ‘It’s all very well for Him; He hasn’t got to live with them.’ He has. He is inside them as well as outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely and incessantly that we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and ours), every moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed and self-conceit comes right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His spirit more than it grieves ours.

The moment we can imitate God in both these respects, the more progress we shall make. We must love ‘X’ more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the same kind. Some people say it is morbid to be always thinking of one’s own faults. That would be all very well if most of us could stop thinking of our own without soon beginning to think about those of other people. For unfortunately we enjoy thinking about other people’s faults: and in the proper sense of the word ‘morbid’, that is the most morbid pleasure in the world.

We don’t like rationing which is imposed on us, but I suggest one form of rationing which we ought to impose on ourselves. Abstain from all thinking about other people’s faults, unless your duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them. Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one’s mind, why not simply shove them away? And think of one’s own faults instead? For there with God’s help, one can do something. Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much. That is the practical end at which to begin. And really, we’d better. The job has to be tackled some day and every day we put it off will make it harder to begin.

What, after all, is the alternative? You see clearly enough that nothing, not even God with all His power, can make ‘X’ really happy as long as ‘X’ remains envious, self-centered, and spiteful. Be sure that there is something inside you which, unless it is altered, will put it out of God’s power to prevent your bring eternally miserable. While that something remains there can be no Heaven for you, just as there can be no sweet smells for a man with a cold in the nose, and no music for a man who is deaf. It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at once – this very day, this hour.

Highly recommended

I recently received (and listened to) the following resources from RZIM: CD403 - Finding Water in the Desert, CD214 - The Lord Is My Light and CD168 - The Revelation of God Through Us: Apologetics with a Touch. I would highly recommend all of them. The highlight for me was the message Amazing Grace and the Gospel of Reconciliation by Stuart McAllister from Finding Water in the Desert. Do yourself a favour and get these resources...

The greatest conversation ever

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."