Government should first do no harm!

He does speak a lot of sense that Hannan.

A Politician saying that Politicians don't have the power to create jobs - refreshing. 

Free Sex - Who Pays?

Some cuddly thoughts for Valentine's Day here! A report by the Jubilee Centre (you can find it direct here) about the financial fallout of sexual sin would not be news to the writer of Proverbs: 

20 My son, keep your father’s command
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 

21 Bind them always on your heart; 

fasten them around your neck.

22 When you walk, they will guide you; 

when you sleep, they will watch over you; 

when you awake, they will speak to you. 

23 For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, 

and correction and instruction are the way to life, 

24 keeping you from your neighbor’s wife, 

from the smooth talk of a wayward woman. 

25 Do not lust in your heart after her beauty 

or let her captivate you with her eyes.

26 For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread, 

but another man’s wife preys on your very life.

27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?

28 Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? 

29 So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; 

no one who touches her will go unpunished. 

30 People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving. 

31 Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, 

though it costs him all the wealth of his house. 

32 But a man who commits adultery has no sense; 

whoever does so destroys himself. 

33 Blows and disgrace are his lot,

and his shame will never be wiped away. 

34 For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, 

and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. 

35 He will not accept any compensation; 

he will refuse a bribe, however great it is.

Is there a cure for Foreign AIDS?

An older man to younger men

This is a very stimulating 10 mins! 

Aging & Work: The Stages of a Mans Life from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

This is Jesus ... This Week

This is Jesus. 

And Katie will be there as a college guest. 

5 Ways to make your kids hate church

Rugby Union?

You'll be able to Calcutta the atmosphere with a knife come 5 pm today. 
Big day! 

Churches Helping Churches

All of us are addicts

If anything threatens your identity you will not just be anxious but paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of someone else you will not just be resentful, but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you will hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. Only if your identity is built on God and his love can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything. . . . An identity not based on God also leads inevitably to deep forms of addiction. When we turn good things into ultimate things, we are, as it were, spiritually addicted. If we take our meaning in life from our family, our work, a cause, or some achievement other than God, they enslave us. We have to have them.

Who is this man?

He's the King of Kings,

He's the Lord of Lords,

He can heal the sick, 

He can calm the storm,

He's the Son of God, 

He can save us from sin

and He calls us to follow Him. 

Jesus met a man covered in disease, 

Knew he needed to be clean.

Jesus just touched him the disease was gone! 

(Only God could do that!)

Who is this Man?

He's the King of Kings ...

Jesus and his friends caught in a storm.
Lookin’ like they’re gonna drown.
Jesus yelled: “QUIET!” and the storm was calm. 

(Only God can do that!)
Who is this man?

He's the King of Kings ...

Jesus on a cross was crucified. 

Darkness covered all the land.
After three days Jesus rose again.
(Only God can do that!)
 Who is this man?

He's the King of Kings ...

(after final chorus)

Yes He calls us to follow Him. 

Are you gonna follow Him?

© 1998 Plainsong Music Ph: 1800 688874 www.plainsong.org.au    

He Must Be God

Lyrics to He Must be God

1. Jesus healed a paralysed man Who was brought to him.
Jesus healed him, so he could show: He forgives our sin.


How cool is that!
How cool is that!
He told the man to pick up his mat 
He must be God
If he did that,
How cool is that!


2. Jesus calmed a terrible storm While he was at sea.
Jesus calmed it, so he could say "Fear not, trust in me."


How cool is that!
How cool is that!
He spoke a word - the waves went dead flat 
He must be God
If he did that,
How cool is that!

3. Jesus fed a very big crowd Who'd no food to eat.
Jesus fed them, so he could show He's all that we need.


How cool is that!
How cool is that!
From all the bread you'd almost get fat 
He must be God
If he did that,
How cool is that!


© 2003 Words: Bryson Smith Music: Philip Percival Emu Music Australia Inc.
emu.mu • emumusic.com.au 

The sin of doing good

taken from theresurgence 

Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity apart from him. . . . Most people think of sin primarily as “breaking divine rules,” but .... the very first of the Ten Commandments is to “have no other gods before me.” So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God.

Parables in the Old Testament

The evidence from the Old Testament indicates that parables are reserved for times of judgement. The singer of Psalm 78 says that he will speak a parable or dark saying (Psalm 78:2) and then he goes on to speak of Israel's sins and judgements that fell on her because of them. Nathan tells David a parable because of David's sin and God's looming judgement on him (2 Samuel 12:1). Gideon's son Jotham told a parable to the men of Shechem because they had chosen the mass-murderer Ambimelech to be their King, and he was prophesying that they would come under judgement for killing all of his brothers (Judges 9:1-21). Ezekiel tells the parables of judgment against Israel (Ezekiel 17, 24). Corresponding to this, Jesus tells his disciples that he is speaking in parables because Israel is again in a time of judgment. He appeals to the prophecy of Isaiah and the impending judgment in his time to explain the situation (Isaiah 6:9-12) (p87-88 The Victory According to Mark)

ears to hear

...by preaching in parables, Jesus is issuing a new sort of calling. He called Simon, Andrew, James and John by the sea [Mark 1:6-20] and then Levi [Mark 1:13-17] and then chose the twelve [Mark 3:13-19]. Now that those callings have been issued, He is teaching by the seashore, issuing a general call for those with ears to hear. (p86 The Victory According to Mark).

Social Media and the Christian

Some thoughts from Doug Wilson:

Vocabulary of LOL from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Or John Piper's perspective: “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.” 

It smacks of ...

Smacking is in the news again this side of the pond thanks to Corrie. 
On the other side of the pond it seems that smacking is also taking a good hiding in Christianity Today. This is in the wake of some high profile cases where children have been murdered by their parents.
This blog post, in response, is one of the best I have read in a while on the smacking debate. All 'Evangelical' Christians should read it!
It begins: 

Knives are necessary to cut meat and bread. Every once in a while, knives are used to kill people. Can we all agree knives aren't the problem? Please? Pretty please?
The abuse of a thing does not invalidate its proper use.

It all puts me in mind of Goldie Lookin Chain's immortal song: 'Guns don't kill people, rappers do; I saw it in a documentary on Radio 2'. 
Anyway ... they are right. The Bayly Brothers not Goldie Lookin Chain. We in the UK need to hear what they are saying and seek God's help to act faithfully. 


HT Steve Jeffrey via Facebook. 

Are you using the Now Individual Version?

Instead of seeing Scripture as a most holy collection of the Church's covenant documents, we tend to see it as a grab-bag of inspirational quotes for personal victorious living.  

p 33 A Primer on Worship and Reformation: Recovering the High Church Puritan

Holiness in the Ozone Layer

Our holiness is our primary environmental contribution - for was it not when sin entered that environment corrupted. 

p37 Isaiah By The Day

too glad to be true!

Aim to be more Puritanical this week!

“Relief and buoyancy are the characteristic notes . . . It follows that nearly every association which now clings to the word puritan has to be eliminated when we are thinking of the early Protestants. Whatever they were, they were not sour, gloomy, or severe; nor did their enemies bring any such charge against them . . . Fore More, a Protestant was one ‘dronke of the new must of lewd lightnes of minde and vayne gladness of harte’ . . . Protestantism was not too grim, but too glad, to be true . . . Protestants are not ascetics but sensualists.”

English Literature In The Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama. First Edition : 1954 - Hardback In Jacket

The first day

BUT SUNDAY IS THE DAY ON WHICH WE ALL HOLD our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.

Justin Martyr

(taken from Credenda Agenda Vol 12 No. 2)

Sabbath Keeping

What Jesus was doing on the Sabbath was certainly in conflict with the Jewish interpretation of the law, even as we find it in the so-called halacha. . . . But Jesus’ actions were not in conflict with the law itself. On the contrary, what He did on the Sabbath and what He said about the Sabbath corresponded completely to that joy and restoration characterizing the Sabbath day prescribed in the Old Testament.

J. Douma

[taken from Credenda Agenda Vol 12 No. 2]