Monthly Archive for May, 2010

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Are you ready for Sunday?

Published on May 21, 2010 in Church and Preaching. 3 Comments

Why not spend some time on Friday and Saturday plowing the ground in your life in preparation for Sunday?

We are told men ought not to preach without preparation.  Granted.  But we add, men ought not to hear without preparation.  Which, do you think needs the most preparation, the sower or the ground?  I would have the sower come with clean hands, but I would have the ground well-plowed and harrowed, well-turned over, and the clods broken before the seed comes in.  It seems to me that there is more preparation needed by the ground, than by the sower, more by the hearer than by the preacher.  Charles Spurgeon.

Quoted in the recommended, Expository Listening, by Ken Ramey.

Justin Taylor: Steve Jobs, Iphones, and Porn

Published on May 20, 2010 in Pornography. 1 Comment

Justin Taylor (quoting Pete from Grace City):

Pete from Grace City has a post about Steve Jobs, Apple, and porn. An excerpt:

“Jobs has argued that he wants his portable computer devices to not sell or stock pornography.

When a critic emailed him to say that this infringed his freedoms, Jobs emailed back and told him to buy a different type of computer.

Steve Jobs is a fan of Bob Dylan. So one customer emailed him to ask how Dylan would feel about Jobs’ restrictions of customers’ freedoms.

The CEO of Apple replied to say that he values:

‘Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’ and some traditional PC folks feel their world is slipping away. It is.’

The interlocuter replied:

“I don’t want ‘freedom from porn’. Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree.”

In the most revealing line, Steve Jobs dismissed the critic thus:

“You might care more about porn when you have kids.”

Pause for a moment and consider what the above emails represent.

The CEO of one of the wealthiest, most successful international companies, responds to the email of a customer. Business prospers on the mantra ‘The customer is always right.’ Business wants the customers’ money.

But in this case, over the moral issue of pornography, Jobs is happy to tell customers to buy a different product. He argues that children and innocence ought to be preserved—and that trumps the dollar.

Google (with their motto ‘Don’t be evil’) rake in billions through pornography. Ranks of employees spend their time categorising and arranging advertising for pornography. (I know, I spent some time discussing the difficulties posed to a Christian who worked in their UK HQ.) Pornography is huge business, yet here is the CEO of Apple telling the pornography businesses to take their dollars elsewhere.”

Good for Jobs.

The rest here.

Let’s multiply our talents with this sort of ingenuity . . .

Published on May 19, 2010 in Missions. 0 Comments

The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) encourages us to multiply what has been entrusted to us – - rather than playing it safe.  To multiply talents requires hard work, risk, and creativity. 

Examples like the one below (of how the Allies helped POW’s escape in WWII), remind me that human beings faced with desperate circumstances and a clear goal can be amazingly creative.  Read the below example and consider the challenge to multiply what has been entrusted to you with this sort of resourcefulness. 

The board game Monopoly served allied prisoners as a real-life tool to get out of jail during World War II, says Brian McMahon in Mental Floss, a magazine devoted to intellectual esoterica.

monopoly dogIn 1941, the British Secret Service asked the game’s British licensee John Waddington Ltd. to add secret extras to some sets, which had become standard elements of the aid packages that the Red Cross delivered to allied prisoners of war. Along with the usual dog, top hat and and thimble, the sets had a metal file, compass, and silk maps of safe houses (silk, because it folds into small spaces and unfolds silently). Even better, real French, German and Italian currency was hidden underneath the game’s fake money. Departing allied soldiers and pilots were told that if they were captured they should look out for the special editions, identified by a red dot in the Free Parking space.

The rest here.

HT: Challies

A Chris Brauns Forgiveness Webinar at Peacemakers

Published on May 18, 2010 in Forgiveness. 1 Comment

On May 25th I will be doing a free online webinar on forgiveness.  Space is limited. 

Chris Brauns, a keynote speaker  for our 2010 Peacemaker Conference and pastor of The Red Brick Church in Stillman Valley, IL will be doing a live webinar on Tuesday, May 25th starting at 9:00am Mountain Time. Chris is visiting our staff as part of our staff retreat, and  it is our privilege to have him available for a webinar.

Chris will be taking the audience through a “forgiveness quiz” and will expound upon some common misconceptions about forgiveness. This thought-provoking webinar will help you dig deeper on the topic of forgiveness (and help you prepare for the 2010 Peacemaker Conference on forgiveness).

Visit Peacemakers for more information.

Yeh on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

Published on May 17, 2010 in Pictures. 0 Comments

Vincent Van Gogh (just “Vincent” to his friends and to art appreciators who are familiar with him) established a “Studio of the South” in the town of Arles, France, in the French Riviera. He hoped for this studio to be a place where his friends could come stay, paint, collaborate, and be inspired. He painted seven “Sunflowers” paintings and hung one in each bedroom of the house. The color yellow was Vincent’s favorite, and it also symbolized friendship.

The MOMA in New York may have his “Starry Night,” and the Getty in L.A. his “Irises,” but nothing has captured the public’s imagination like his “Sunflowers” paintings.

Unlike what most people think, “Sunflowers” is not just one painting.

The rest here.

The obvious place to begin in improving the health of a local church

Published on May 16, 2010 in Preaching and Quotes. 2 Comments

Mark Dever:

If a healthy church is a congregation that increasingly displays the character of God as his character has been revealed in his Word, the most obvious place to begin building a healthy church is to call Christians to listen to God’s Word. God’s Word is the source of all life and health. It’s what feeds, develops, and preserves a church’s understanding of the Gospel itself.

Don’t Try and Revive the Opossums

Published on May 15, 2010 in Stupid Stuff. 1 Comment

While Christians are called to love and tend God’s creation, I would suggest that you not feel obligated to try and revive creatures you see wounded along the road.

HT: Spurgeon

Doug Moo on the definition of justification

Published on May 15, 2010 in Soteriology. 0 Comments

The Bible pictures all human beings as defendants in a courtroom: a courtroom in which God is the judge and our sins constitute the evidence against us. The judge weighs the evidence and finds every single one of us guilty of sin and announces that we, therefore, must be condemned. The marvellous news of justification is that God has himself provided for us the means of escaping that condemnation: by responding to his gracious initiative in faith, we become joined with Christ, who died for us and was raised for us. We become joined to Christ, who takes on himself the penalty for our sin and covers us with the ‘righteousness’ that we need to reverse the verdict of condemnation and receive the verdict of ‘justified’, ‘right’ with God. And because we have been joined to Christ, the holy one, and have in that union received the gift of God’s powerful holy Spirit, we, who have been justified, also find our lives transformed so that we love God and neighbour.

HT: JT

Are bitterness and unforgiveness the same thing?

Published on May 14, 2010 in Forgiveness. 1 Comment

I am looking forward to being part of Peacemaker’s National Conference in the Fall.  Anticipating the focus of the conference, Ken Sande reflects about the relationship between bitterness and forgiveness.

I was asked recently whether bitterness and unforgiveness were, in essence, the same thing.

It’s a good question, and here’s where I come down:  Although they are closely connected, I don’t think they are the same thing.

Unforgiveness is a choice to withhold forgiveness. This choice is often driven by or overflows as bitterness, but unforgiveness can aggravate or trigger other sinful and negative emotions and actions as well, such as anger, hatred, revenge, slander, etc.

In most biblical texts, bitterness is typically associated with grief, disappointment, hate and anger. It often conveys the spite that harbors resentment and keeps a score of wrongs.

The rest here.

NY Times: AIDS War is falling apart

Published on May 13, 2010 in Missions. 0 Comments

The New York Times:

On the grounds of Uganda’s biggest AIDS clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps.

Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with family, she rode a bus four hours to the hospital where her cousin Allen Bamurekye, born infected, both works and gets the drugs that keep her alive.

But there are no drugs for Ms. Kamukama. As is happening in other clinics in Kampala, all new patients go on a waiting list. A slot opens when a patient dies.

“So many people are being supported by America,” Ms. Kamukama, 28, says mournfully. “Can they not help me as well?”

The answer increasingly is no. Uganda is the first and most obvious example of how the war on global AIDS is falling apart.

Read the rest. 

HT: Z