The A-Z of Christian Living
Slipped into the jacket of an old NAS Bible of my wife’s she found a crisp piece of paper that was given to her by her uncle. On the paper, he had written the A-Z of Christian living. I thought I’d share it here as it’s quite clever:
A
Believer
Can
Devote
Every
Faculty
Given
Him
In
Justice
Kindness
Love and
Mercy,
Never
Omitting
Prayer,
Quietly
Preaching
Scripture,
Taking
Up
Valuable
Works
Xhibiting
unYieldingness in
Zeal… Continue reading ...
Excerpt: Abstinence arouses displeasure Down-under and State-side
[The following is an excerpt of an article I published on The Aristophrenium. As indicated in my two-year anniversary post, I will be writing both here at thoughts out !oud and The Aristophrenium.]
“One thing that hasn’t been abstaining from the news in the past fortnight is culture’s attitude towards sex. There are two counts in particular that caught my interest: one was State-side, aroused by curious questions from Oprah Winfrey on her namesake’s show; the other was a reactive orgasm from Australia’s media and some members of it’s Federal Government (including the Deputy Prime Minister, no less) towards remarks made by the Opposition Leader.
Both instances concerned the topic of sexual abstinence and, while both were… Continue reading ...
Celebrating two years online … now there’s a thought
Today marks the 2nd year anniversary of thoughts out !oud.
It really doesn’t seem all that long ago when I first figured out how to install Wordpress, chose an appalling Wordpress theme (I dunno what it was … some garishly bright yellow and orange sun-thing), cobbled together my first post and delved right on into the blogosphere. The two years have gone quick, have been an interesting journey – full of lessons and growth – and during the time there are many people I’ve come to know and to whom I’ve been grateful for along the way.
Following are just some of the highlights, reflections and learnings for me over the last two years.
Small beginnings
How to spark revival in your church
If your church is wanning in the Spirit and is in need of a rejuvenation, all your congregation may need is the blessing of a squirrel-lead revival.
Praise God!
(Enjoy.)
[youtube]K16fG1sDagU[/youtube]
(H/Tip to Dennis G Hurst, via Facebook.)… Continue reading ...
Quote: the necessity of biblical preaching and reading in church worship
Far from being an alien intrusion into worship, the reading and preaching of the Word are actually indispensable to it. The two cannot be divorced. Indeed, it is their unnatural divorce which accounts for the low levels of so much contemporary worship. Our worship is poor because our knowledge of God is poor. And our knowledge of God is poor because our preaching is poor. But when the word of God is expounded in its fulness and the congregation begins to glimpse the glory of the living God, they bow down in solemn awe and joyful wonder before his throne. And it is preaching which accomplishes this. The proclamation of the Word of God in the power of the Spirit… Continue reading ...
School orders psychological assessment for 8yo who drew a crucifix in class
Here’s one for the No Shortage of Crazy basket: an 8 year old boy who, on having been instructed to draw something that reminded him of Christmas, drew a picture of a crucifix with a stick figure of Jesus. On showing the picture to his teacher he was sent to see the Principle who in turn sent him home with his parents, not to return until the boy’s mental health could be assessed.
Apparently, the drawing – shown below – was deemed ‘violent’, or portrayed ‘violent’ tendencies.
The report from Breitbart.com says the boy was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation before being allowed to return to school:
The boy was cleared to return to school on… Continue reading ...
Quote: the sorry goal of relativism
Having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled today as fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching’ looks like the only attitude [acceptable] to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.
~ Pope Benedict XVI… Continue reading ...
Quote: people who don’t understand a social institution should be last to advocate its change
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I… Continue reading ...
Senator X takes Church of Scientology to task
South Australian Independent Senator, Nick Xenophon, brought Scientology back to Australian political and public headlines last Tuesday (17th Nov), by accusing the Church of Scientology of being a deceptive, malicious commercial enterprise, masquerading as a religion for protection.
And … he’s right. In the very words of Scientology founder, Ron L Hubbard, the organisation exists to “Make money. Make more money. Make others produce so as to make money . . . However you get them in or why, just do it.”. There is no religious function at all, really. The practices of the organisation as a whole is nothing short of being just a spectacular rort.
Rather than Senator Xenophon’s address regarding the evils of Scientology being taken… Continue reading ...
Classic Hymns: All to Jesus I surrender
A young man, wealthy, honoured and respected amongst his peers for his scriptural knowledge and commitment to the teachings of Jewish law, approached Jesus and asked him the words: “Good Teacher – what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus replied. “None are good except for God.”
And then, in direct response to the young man’s initial question, Jesus states: “You know your commandments: Do not murder; do not steal; do not commit adultery; honour your father and mother. You keep all these things but there is yet one thing further that you must do: go, sell everything that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in… Continue reading ...
Quote: On facing up to and persisting against temptation
I know about the despair of overcoming chronic temptation. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc. don’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of his presence.
~ CS Lewis, from Letters of CS Lewis
(HT to Ryft for the reference)… Continue reading ...
One for your calendar: International Blasphemy Day, 30 Sept 2009
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 will mark the inaugural International Blasphemy Day, a day on which the people are called to, well, blaspheme anything religious through whatever show of irreverence they can conjure. Organised by the Center for Inquiry International, an organisation dedicated to fostering “a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values”, claims that the day has been set aside “to encourage free expression” the world over and are even running a contest to mark the date.
Says the Center for Inquiry: “How can we come to our own conclusions about religion if we can’t freely examine and discuss it?” Apparently, in order to do so, you need to have a t-shirt, which 5 lucky… Continue reading ...
Contradiction? No. Misunderstanding? Yes.
Lately I have been working my way through CS Lewis’s classic, The Problem of Pain. In it there is one line that I lifted out of its pages and plugged into my Twitter timeline – and after that there started some dialogue with a fellow (we’ll call him Pete) who believed that the statement was contradictory and who subsequently mocked it as such.
Well, either this Pete is a very intelligent man and CS Lewis was an idiotic fool or, quite probably, the quote I twittered was most likely misunderstood.
Speaking on the necessity of God’s love for us and of the characteristic of God’s love for us, Lewis wrote “[that it is because God] already loves us… Continue reading ...
Quote: God’s omniscience and man’s freewill
What we call ‘tomorrow’ is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call ‘today’. All the days are ‘Now’ for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday, he simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not ‘foresee’ you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing.
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
Church attendee != a Christian
[This is a repost, word for word, of an earlier article. I've deleted the original because, over the last several weeks, it has consistently attracted several spam comments per day ... and I've had enough of clearing them from my auto-spam queue. Needless to say, going by the links the spammers want you to visit, there's a lot of sick puppies out there! Why they chose this one post and none others is beyond me. Hopefully, they don't start tagging other articles!]
In computer science the relational expression != is code for not equal to. So the meaning of the title of this post essentially reads: church attendee is not equal to being a Christian. In more layman’s language, just because you religiously attend church does not mean that… Continue reading ...
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